To show our thoughts and ideas for our G321 Film Opening and how they developed, I've created a spider diagram mapping our decisions and processes. I will explain each stage in detail using the correct media terminology.
(click image to enlarge)
We always knew we wanted to produce the opening to a comedy film. Because all of the past students chose the horror genre, and the majority of my classmates followed the same path, we chose not to follow the crowd and go in the opposite direction with a comedy.
At first, we wanted something very unique and niche, and started looking into black comedy conventions and storyline ideas. We looked into films such as Hot Fuzz (2007), In Bruges (2008) and Fargo (1996).
But after some brief research, we found that it would be difficult to distinguish a comedy opening from a black comedy opening in such a short duration of time without incorporating blood or violence. We also knew that if we used blood or violence, the genre could be mistaken for horror. For these reasons, we chose to move on from black comedy and began to research into comedy films.
After looking at film examples, such as Superbad (2007), Napoleon Dynamite (2004) and Step Brothers (2008), we knew that we could create the opening to a mainstream film that targets a mass audience while keeping a unique and original comedy style. This was great news for us as creating a mainstream film and targeting a mass audience gave us more to research and talk about in the evaluation stage.
One of the main similarities we found in all comedy title sequences was how the characters were introduced. Unlike other film openings, we found that comedies had a tendency to introduce characters more thoroughly through things like interests, habits and lifestyle. We decided to use this generic convention in our own opening sequence.
All three of the films we looked into followed this pattern. A great example of a film that introduces the character, and how the storyline began, is Step Brothers. Both of the protagonists are introduced separately, and we learn where they live, what they enjoy and what type of character they will play in the film.
After deciding on a genre, we started to look into who our target audience would be and what would make them attracted to our film. Because comedy is a major genre, we knew that our target audience would be expansive and that our film would appeal to a mass group of people.
We then turned back to research, and began looking at films such as American Pie (1999), Role Models (2008) and There's Something About Mary (1998).
The reason we chose these 3 films, and the previous 3 films, is because once we knew that we wanted to create a comedy film opening, we also knew that we wanted to use an immature/teenage comedy style. This was based on the reason that we did not want to produce an '18' film that contained frequent swearing and explicit adult content, and we did not want to produce a family film, such as a 'G', 'PG' or '12'. For this reason, we chose to certify our film as a '15', which mainly targets teenagers and young adults.
After looking into these 3 films, we found that they were all certified '15' films, and used a very similar style of comedy to the one we intended to use in our own film. This confirmed our film certification, and we then moved on into the topic of attracting our audience.
We wanted to appeal to our target audience by presenting our film as entertaining and funny. As a group, we discussed how to do this and came up with two main ideas: our audience can laugh at the film, or laugh with the film. We knew that if our audience were to laugh at the film, our style of comedy would venture down the 'parody' or 'satire' route. Because these comedy styles did not coincide with our original ideas, we knew that our other option was to create a film that our audience would laugh with, the difference being that the style of humour is inoffensive and innocent, as opposed to mockery and disrespectful comedy.
The style of comedy we chose was 'screwball', which derives its humour from bizarre and surprising situations and characters. Because we knew this would connect to our characters and themes, we began to discuss our next decision.
Applying our target audience ideas, we decided our main theme should be high school and geeks. We knew from our research that a lot of film characters' personalities matured during high school, and decided to make a film based on the typical hierarchy and personalities found in the learning and personal development stage. We also chose this theme as it went hand-in-hand with our thoughts and ideas of who our characters should be.
The last piece of the puzzle was choosing our characters, and seeing as most of our planning was finished, our characters were obvious. Inspired greatly by Superbad, we chose to have 3 protagonists. The main characters we chose to incorporate into our storyline were your stereotypical geeks, each character a social reject in the high school environment. We decided that one of the 3 geeks would be overweight, as it would enable us to mix an element of dark humour into the film.
We also needed to create an antagonist for the sake of narrative theories and creating an engaging storyline. We wanted to associated our antagonist with an unconventional twist that would only be revealed at the end of the film. We hatched up this idea to challenge generic conventions and create something even more unique.
After some careful planning and detailed research, we wound up with our final characters and advanced into the making of our G321 Film Opening project.
We always knew we wanted to produce the opening to a comedy film. Because all of the past students chose the horror genre, and the majority of my classmates followed the same path, we chose not to follow the crowd and go in the opposite direction with a comedy.
At first, we wanted something very unique and niche, and started looking into black comedy conventions and storyline ideas. We looked into films such as Hot Fuzz (2007), In Bruges (2008) and Fargo (1996).
But after some brief research, we found that it would be difficult to distinguish a comedy opening from a black comedy opening in such a short duration of time without incorporating blood or violence. We also knew that if we used blood or violence, the genre could be mistaken for horror. For these reasons, we chose to move on from black comedy and began to research into comedy films.
After looking at film examples, such as Superbad (2007), Napoleon Dynamite (2004) and Step Brothers (2008), we knew that we could create the opening to a mainstream film that targets a mass audience while keeping a unique and original comedy style. This was great news for us as creating a mainstream film and targeting a mass audience gave us more to research and talk about in the evaluation stage.One of the main similarities we found in all comedy title sequences was how the characters were introduced. Unlike other film openings, we found that comedies had a tendency to introduce characters more thoroughly through things like interests, habits and lifestyle. We decided to use this generic convention in our own opening sequence.
All three of the films we looked into followed this pattern. A great example of a film that introduces the character, and how the storyline began, is Step Brothers. Both of the protagonists are introduced separately, and we learn where they live, what they enjoy and what type of character they will play in the film.
After deciding on a genre, we started to look into who our target audience would be and what would make them attracted to our film. Because comedy is a major genre, we knew that our target audience would be expansive and that our film would appeal to a mass group of people.
We then turned back to research, and began looking at films such as American Pie (1999), Role Models (2008) and There's Something About Mary (1998).
The reason we chose these 3 films, and the previous 3 films, is because once we knew that we wanted to create a comedy film opening, we also knew that we wanted to use an immature/teenage comedy style. This was based on the reason that we did not want to produce an '18' film that contained frequent swearing and explicit adult content, and we did not want to produce a family film, such as a 'G', 'PG' or '12'. For this reason, we chose to certify our film as a '15', which mainly targets teenagers and young adults.After looking into these 3 films, we found that they were all certified '15' films, and used a very similar style of comedy to the one we intended to use in our own film. This confirmed our film certification, and we then moved on into the topic of attracting our audience.
The style of comedy we chose was 'screwball', which derives its humour from bizarre and surprising situations and characters. Because we knew this would connect to our characters and themes, we began to discuss our next decision.Applying our target audience ideas, we decided our main theme should be high school and geeks. We knew from our research that a lot of film characters' personalities matured during high school, and decided to make a film based on the typical hierarchy and personalities found in the learning and personal development stage. We also chose this theme as it went hand-in-hand with our thoughts and ideas of who our characters should be.
The last piece of the puzzle was choosing our characters, and seeing as most of our planning was finished, our characters were obvious. Inspired greatly by Superbad, we chose to have 3 protagonists. The main characters we chose to incorporate into our storyline were your stereotypical geeks, each character a social reject in the high school environment. We decided that one of the 3 geeks would be overweight, as it would enable us to mix an element of dark humour into the film.
We also needed to create an antagonist for the sake of narrative theories and creating an engaging storyline. We wanted to associated our antagonist with an unconventional twist that would only be revealed at the end of the film. We hatched up this idea to challenge generic conventions and create something even more unique.
After some careful planning and detailed research, we wound up with our final characters and advanced into the making of our G321 Film Opening project.
