Audience profile research questionnaire-Comedy

The survey below is a questionnaire that will help us with research for our chosen genre, Comedy.
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Hangover opening scene analysis

http://youtu.be/BAc_Z442voA 

Directed by:  Todd Phillips               Release Date: June 5th 2009

The opening sequence consists of four men on the outskirts of Las Vegas phoning a woman and explaining that they managed to loose her fiance in Vegas the night before at the stag do. It then cuts to two days before the situation that you originally see occurs and you are quickly introduced to four main characters Dough, Phil, Alan and Stu. You then see that they are leaving to go to Vegas for Dough's Engagement party.

One main genre convention that you see in the opening sequence of The Hangover is the occurrence of a problem. This problem is the main plot to the film but it is revealed within the

SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis

Initial Idea for comedy plot

Title:  The dirty business

• A guy is unemployed and his best friend is the manger of a successful business
• The friend gets the guy a job.
• The former unemployed guy progresses through the ranks of the business untill he  is  vice chairman.
• The boss becomes ill and his friend takes over the business and changes it.
• The boss then recovers and wonders why the business has changed.
• The two friends argue and go there sperate ways and contiune with their respective businesses.
• The businesses start to fail so they put their differences aside and start the old business up.
• They then become lifelong friends.

Will and Paul have been Friends since year 7, Paul went on to become the manager of a prank company that ships products worldwide. Will has been unemployed since he got kicked out of school in year 10 because he urinated on a teacher who told him he would never amount to anything. Paul decides to give Will a job as an office assistant for the lowest ranking sector of the business and gets fed up of being treated badly so injures the head of the department in a hope that he is promoted. Will gets promoted and slowly works his way up the company ladder untill he is vice chairman and Paul falls ill. Will takes charge of the company and changes it to a joke pornographic film company. Paul returns a year later to find out what has happened to the company and Will and Paul argue and split there own ways with their own companies. Both companies begin to fail so the two partner back up and create both companies that gain worldwide critical acclaim.

Peer Assessment

My idea for a gangster film is that there are two gangs in the 1960's that occupy an industrial town. The two gangs are constantly fighting with each other because of their different ethnicities one gang is Italian and the other is Russian. Halfway through the plot the police start to attempt to eliminate the gangs, The gangs then decide to join forces when both of their "King pin's" are killed. The gangs then proceed to defend their territory against the police and once they do that successfully the gang decides to unite once and for all.

My group decided that my idea was good because it keeps to the key conventions of the gangster genre. Also it changes one key convention in the story, when the two gangs unite which is a rare site in the genre.

Gangster Movie homework

An idea I have for a gangster film that is based on one of the openings we watched is a rival between to gangs in the 1960's based in America. The rivalry is taking place between two foreign gangs the Italians and the Soviet Russians. The film will involve a lot of offensive language to show the classic gang culture, both gangs will also have american/Italian or Russian accents this is to show the gangs background. The city the two gangs occupy will be mainly industrial and both gangs will be importing workers from their own home countries. Half way through the film the gangs will unite and try to fight of the police who are trying to drive both gangs out of the city. Finally the gangs declare a truce and become one bog gang after the two "king pins" are eliminated by the police.

Five things I need to do to keep this genre similar to classic gangster films are;

1. I will keep the typical offensive slang language to represent the violence of gang culture.
2. There will be violence in the film which shows the difference in class between the gangs and citizens of the city.
3. I intend to keep the element of fear within the film to show why gangs are able to get to where they are.
4. I want to keep the title screens the same to keep to the classic genre e.g. the white writing on the black background.
5. The last element I will include that keeps to the classic genre are the tragic stories of the people in the gangs for example it is always shown that people in gangs had a bad life so thats why they ended up where they are.

The one thing I will change that would make this concept different from other films is the unification of gangs to prevent the destruction of both of them.

Prelim Task evaluation

As a team I think we worked well and everyone had strengths in different areas. For example I wrote the script and Dean and Damien created the camera plan, which demonstrates where the camera is facing and at what angle. This system worked well because it allowed all the planning to be done in a fast and effective way. However even though we got all the planning done quickly we didn't start filming until the next lesson because we were unable to get a location to film on and someone to film with. Next lesson we filmed all the parts we needed in about an hour and a half, Damien and I filmed the majority of parts and we both got a second opinion off of Josh and Dean so to make sure everyone was happy with the work.

After all the footage was filmed we entered the editing process and the 

first thing we did was arrange all the clips into the correct order. After we got the film in the right order we inserted the sound, I chose I believe in miracles by Hot Chocolate and Dean chose the song Bump and Grind by R Kelly.  After these were inserted and cut down by Josh we inserted the transitions and effects, one effect we used was called "romantic" on iMovie.

We met the majority of the brief we were given, the key points of the brief were;
The film should be 30 seconds,
There should be elements of dialogue,
A door needs to be shown being opened,
180 degree rule needs to be in place,
Shot reverse shot needs to be used,
Finally match on action needs to be encorporated.
As a group we met all of these apart from the time of the task, Our footage ran over the time limit by 45seconds. (As demonstrated below)

An example of match on action.

We managed to get the 180 degree rule by recording a conversation between the two characters twice but from different angles. E.g. over the sholder of "George" and over the sholder of "Mary". Match on action was more difficult to film as it required more coordination between the acter and the cameraman this is because we had to experiment the filming from different angles to see what was the best angle to shoot at. However once we had done this we were pleased with the result.

The one major thing that I would change if we were to do this again is meeting all the requirements of the brief. This means that we would make our work shorter. Another thing I would change is the amount of time everybody had at doing different things for example Damien and I had more time filming compared to Josh, but he had more time editing than everyone else.

Prelim Task when Mary met George

Preliminary update 1/11/11

Today we wrote the script and created a plan for the camera, where it's going to be and the types of shots going to be used. We made sure that we included the 180 degree rule, shot/ reverse shot and match on action in our plans. On Thursday we plan on filming all the footage and start the process of editing.

Preliminary task script

Guy: Hi you must be May?

Girl: And you must be George?

Guy: So where did you grow up?

Girl: In Dagenham, my parents split up when i was born though. What about you?

Guy: Weird, that happened to me as well.

Girl: We've got a lot in common.

Guy: Its uncanny.

Girl: I know, It's almost as if we're brother and sister.

Guy: Whats your last name so I can save it to my phone book?

Girl: Adams.

Guy: That's mine too.

Girl: If we got married no one would have to change their last name.

(George and Mary laugh together)