ADULT ROM-COM EG4 - Manhattan

WHAT I ENDED UP APPLYING:

• Diegetic titles (though here they really are part of the world)
• Voice-over of the protagonist 
• In the end the character of my protagonist changed from what I planned, and also someone I had in my mind who had a similar look to Woody Allan didn't have time, so the look and character attributes weren't applied, although some went over to the character of Rachel
• I also referenced Woody Allan in one of the sketches as part of my intertextual references to past classic romantic comedies and teen films

POSSIBLE POINTS OF INFLUENCE:

• The look of Woody Allan might be quite fitting as template for my outsider protagonist
• To have someone who is very l'art pour l'art like Isaac and Woody Allan in real life could also be fitting

Manhattan

Woody Allan, 1979

BBFC 12A/15 rating

Opening length: 

LEAD ACTORS: Woody Allan

                                 Diana Keaton

                                 Michael Murray

                                 Meryl Streep

GENRE: Romantic comedy (adult)

PRODUCTION COMPANY: Jack Rollins & 

Charles H.Joffe Productions

DISTRIBUTOR: United Artists (US)

BUDGET: N/A

BOX OFFICE: $40m (US)

TRAILER:



The opening scene here in high quality, missing the first few seconds of sound, , you can find a lower-quality version with that beginning here.

IDENTS:

Two idents, both with their signature sounds.

TITLES:
Only one diegetic title, that of the lighting scene of Manhattan.

NARRATIVE, EXPOSITION:
We get a sense of the character of the protagonist Isaac, however we don't see him, that being narrative enigma, the audience is invited to imagine how he looks like from the sound of his voice and what he says.
He is shown to have a very dramatic, verbal and l'art pour l'art personality.

GENRE:
The romantic atmosphere of a great city, and the voice-over talking about love for this city, is a more subtle and arthouse way of signifying the theme of love rather than showing characters who are going to go on the journey of falling and out of romance.

EDITING:
Black and white filter, this shows that already in 1979 there was nostalgia for this former medium of cinema, which recent films like The Artist still prove today.
We get a mixture of long and short takes, though there is no real change of pace in editing.

SOUND:
One non-diegetic track playing throughout the opening sequence, starting with a jazz riff.

TRANSITION TO MAIN FILM:
Black fade in after the non-diegetic music is over, and then we fade out to the four central characters of the film, and we have diegetic music of streets and of a busy restaurant.

Institutions + Audiences Terminology

*After Media Language A-Z, carries on from Box Office, the Big 6 and the Gant Rule*

GENERAL

Ownership

Subsidiary

Mainstream

Commercial

Niche

Independent “Indie”

Genre
Franchise

(Film) Cycle: Production, Distribution, Exhibition, Consumption/Exchange/Retail

Production/Marketing Strategy

Vertical Integration

Horizontal Integration

Digitisation

Marketing

Promotion

Synergy

Tie-In

Proliferation

Disruption

Piracy

Cross-Media Convergence

Technological Convergence

Prosumer

Social Media

 - Facebook

 - Twitter

 - Instagram

 - Snapchat
 - WhatsApp

 - Tumblr

 - Pinterest
 - Reddit
 - Flickr

 Audience/Consumers

Intellectual Property

Feelgood Narrative

Media Product

Age Rating

Fandom

Nostalgia

Critical Kudos 

Reviews

Interview

UGC (User Generated Content)
VoD (Video-On-Demand)
Star Theory

FILM-SPECIFIC

Box Office

Box Office Flop

Box Office Hit

Tentpole

Prequel

Sequel

Remake

Reboot

Renewal

Short Film

Actor

A-List star

Casting

OST (Official SoundTrack)

Auteur

Director

Producer

Cinematographer

Editor

Release Window

Big 6

BBFC

MPAA

Trailer

 - Teaser Trailer

 - International Trailer

 - British Trailer

 - Final Trailer

DVD Sales

Film Poster

Film Festival

Limited Release

Wide Release

From this post off the British Cinema blog:

Budget See production budget and Prints and Advertising (P&A) Budget. 

Domestic Box Office Total money spent on tickets by moviegoers in the United States and Canada.   

Fanboy Effect Certain films have a very loyal following, usually due to their source material. These people will flock to the film as soon as it opens, either over the opening weekend or, more likely, opening night. This inflates these numbers, reducing both the Internal Multiplier and the overall Multiplier.  

Home Market The Home Market refers to revenue derived from people viewing movies at home. It is broken down into three sections: rentals, sales and TV rights. Combined these bring in more than double the domestic box office and can turn a film that was a mid-level hit to a monster hit, or lift a film that struggled at the box office to one that shows a considerable profit. And to think, just a couple of decades ago studios were suing VCR manufacturers and Video Rental stores claiming they would kill the industry! Of course now DVD is king, representing more than 80% of rentals and nearly all of the sales.  

The Hulk Effect Back in 2003 when Hulk came out, the studio bowed to incredible pressure from fans and released early footage of the special effects. The plan was to get the fans talking and build up the word-of-mouth. However, the special effects were in the early stages and were so bad that the buzz it generated killed any chance the film had. More recently the same happened to Catwoman with the early look at Halle Berry's outfit. Just goes to show you, sometimes there is such thing as bad publicity.  

Internal Multiplier A film's weekend box office divided by its Friday number. It's basically a measure of the film's word-of-mouth, with 3.0 being the best most films can get these day while 2.3 is generally the bottom rung. Certain films have an inherent advantage (like those aimed kids), while the Fanboy Effect can shrink the number as the hardcore fans flock to the movie on Friday.  

International box office Total box office from all nations outside United States and Canada.  

Legs Legs is a term used to refer to how long a film lasts in theaters.  

Multiplier A film's total box office divided by its opening weekend box office. Another measure of the film's word-of-mouth but with a much wider range of possibilities. Films with below 2.0 are not unheard of, while 6.0 or more are a possibility. Just as a side note, not too long ago films with a multiplier of 10 or more were quite common, but the economics have changed and a big opening weekend is too important to the studios and the home market shortens a film's legs.  

Prints and Advertising (P+A) Budget Prints are the actual physical film that are shown in theaters and are quite expensive to make and distribute, costing about $2,000 per print. Each theater needs at least one print and possibly more depending on how many screens the film is playing on. The advertising part of the budget is the amount spent on just that, advertising. Most of the money is spent on TV, but radio, newspapers and magazines, the Internet and in theater advertising are also very important. The average film spends $34.4 million on P&A, while some films have spent more than $100 million.  

Production Budget The amount of money it cost make the movie including pre-production, film and post-production, but excluding distribution costs. The average cost of a wide release is about $65 million, with the most expensive films topping $200 million.  

Screens + Screen Count The actual screen the movie is projected on. Most Theaters have multiple screens, with largest having two dozen screens or more. Screen Count is simply the number of screens a film is playing on, but this is rarely used domestically, but internationally it is used to measure how wide a release is.  

The Sequel Effect, a.k.a. Sequelitis Think of this as a sub-species of the Fanboy Effect specific to sequels. Such films have a built in audience due to the original movie (as otherwise making the sequel is pointless).   

Theaters + Theater Count  A theater is any place a movie is showing from the smallest cinema on the art house circuit to the largest megaplex. A film's Theater Count is simply the number of theaters a film is playing in at a given time. Domestically Theater Count is used to measure how wide a release is. 

Worldwide box office Domestic Box Office plus the International Box Office. 

GENRE RESEARCH - Teen box office history

IN SUMMARY

• For a successful teen film, romantic comedy isn't the best choice of genre, as recent times have shown like many other genres such as superhero and horror, the franchise model is now being used for young adult fiction as well.
• Next to that intellectual property has been the source for a number of big hits, which another general growing trend in the film industry, who want to rely on an inbuilt audience, which also includes teenagers who might not have read the book(s) but are convinced by word of mouth that it is high in quality, and also thereby give in to peer pressure.

THE BIGGEST HITTERS
Big hits with teen films now are in adaptations of bestselling books, mainly being hybrids with fantasy, horror, science-fiction and dystopia like, these all being book series they are also franchises (and note the trend to have adapted for the final book in two parts, of course not a strategy to make more money. If they really were interested in having more time to adapt the source material faithfully then they might have for example fulfilled JK Rowling's wish to adapt the fifth and sixth book into to films as well)

• Harry Potter, total box office of 8 films:                                                         $7.7b

• Twilight, total box office of 5 films:                                                                      $3.3b

• The Hunger Games, total box office of 4 films:                               $2.97b

• Divergent, total box office of 3 out of 4 films released so far:          $765.4m

• The Maze Runner, total box office of 2 films out of 3 released so far: $660.6m

So if we look at this trend, all the other franchises are attempting to come as close to the financial success, and the other conglomerates want to compete with the success of Warner Bros..

So teen romance, teen comedy and teen drama isn't enough, the intellectual property and hybridity with other genres. 

There are some exceptions of recent years, which include two adaptations of the author John Green's The Fault In Our Stars and Paper Towns, coming in with a worldwide box office of $307.2m and $85.5m.

Teen romance and coming of age films in the past, box office successes when looking at their budgets but still not having come close to the 21st century franchises.

Pretty In Pink, domestic box office: $40.5m
The Breakfast Club, $51.5m
10 Things I Hate About You, $53.5m

RECENT PURE TEEN FILMS
The Edge Of Seventeen, worldwide $18.8m

GENRE RESEARCH - The teen film

This Guardian article  by Killian Fox, describes this as the origin of teen films:

The teen movie came of age in 50s America, not long after the concept of the teenager was born. The idea of an intermediate stage between childhood and adulthood, with its own peculiar characteristics, was still new when Marlon Brando donned his biker jacket in The Wild One (1953) and answered "What are you rebelling against?" with "What've you got?"Changing social attitudes and a booming postwar economy fed into the emergence of teenagers. Middle-class parents who had weathered the Depression and the war wanted their children to have full educations, uninterrupted by work or military service. As a result, young people found themselves with larger allowances and more free time. The dramatic possibilities of this stage of life, marked by rebellion, angst and young love, quickly became evident to movie-makers.

The protagonist as the other, so all the other teenagers in films who are represented as the Other are a simulacra of the James Dean archetype. 

James Dean will forever be considered the quintessential symbol of teen angst... Rebel Without A Cause is known for looking at the chaos, confusion and loneliness that comes with being a teenager.People are still trying to emulate Dean's pool persona.

WatchMojo named it the greatest teen film of all time:

It's the theme of teenagers of wanting to bond and finding their place in a society that shuns them that makes it our Number One film.

Killian Fox giving a short history of teen films:

Rock'n'roll, the sound that defined 50s adolescence, figured strongly in the early teen movies. Rock Around the Clock (1956) was one of the first films to be marketed at teenagers to the exclusion of their elders. Its success induced Hollywood to exploit this new demographic.
The Gidget movies and Beach Party (1963) developed a sure-fire formula in tune with the mood of the 60s, uniting music, comedy and romance with surf, Californian sun and skimpy bikinis. Much of the success of the teen movie lies in the fact that it crosses over so fluidly with other genres, and in the 70s, teens were subjected to horror (Carrie, 1976), romance (Love Story, 1970), comedy (National Lampoon's Animal House, 1978) and John Travolta musicals - Saturday Night Fever (1977) and Grease (1978).
High-school comedies featuring the so-called Brat Pack were huge in the 80s - a prime example being The Breakfast Club (1985). None of these films would be complete without the high-school holy trinity: the bitchy cheerleader, the uber-jock footballer and the bespectacled nerd.
Self-referentiality entered the classroom in the Nineties: the students in Scream (1996) knew the rules of teen slasher flicks but got slashed nonetheless. Classic texts were rejuvenated in Clueless (1996), an update of Jane Austen's Emma, Romeo + Juliet (1996), and 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), based on The Taming of the Shrew.
Today, the teen movie remains in good health - witness the success of the High School Musical series and Superbad (2007).

SWEDE1/Opening EG10 - Tyrannosaur

This is the final film opening I am looking at for my general research but also to prepare for my Tyrannosaur swede, the final practice exercise. 

Tyrannosaur

Paddy Considine (2011)

BBFC 18, MPAA unrated

Running time of the opening sequence: 2:57 mins 

Lead actors: Peter Mullan, 

                           Olivia Coleman, 

                           Eddie Marsan
Genre: Social realism

Budget: £750k
UK/US/World Box Office: £243k, $22k, £400k.

Production co's:  Warp X, Inflammable Films
Production financing:   Film4;UK Film Council; Screen Yorkshire; EM Media; Optimum Releasing.
UK, US theatrical distributors: StudioCanal, Strand.
 
LINKS: IMDB; RottenTomatoes (Users 83%, Critics 85%); BoxOfficeMojo; The-Numbers; Wiki; Official site/page; Facebook.

TRAILER 

CRITICAL KUDOS: (wiki)

Tyrannosaur received positive reviews and currently has a "certified Fresh" score of 83% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 75 reviews, with an average rating of 7.3 out of 10. The critical consensus states: "Tyrannosaur is a brutal, frank, and ultimately rewarding story of violent men seeking far-off redemption."^[6] The film also has a score of 65 out of 100 based on 18 critics on Metacritic, indicating "Generally favourable reviews".^[7]Stuart McGurk of GQ magazine called Tyrannosaur "The best British film of the year", whilst Empire said it was "Riveting, uncompromising, brilliant" and gave it 4/5 stars, as did Total Film, The Guardian, Sunday Mirror, and Evening Standard. The Daily Star Sunday and LoveFilm gave the film 5/5 stars and The Sunday Telegraph dubbed it "One of the most powerful films of 2011."
The American film critic and blogger Jeffrey Wells was so taken by Tyrannosaur after seeing it at the Los Angeles Film Festival that he started 'Hollywood Elsewhere's Tyrannosaur fundraising campaign' with the idea of raising $2,000 to cover the rental of a screening room so that the film could be shown in Hollywood with the hope of gaining recognition. Wells claimed this was the first screening financed by a critic.^[8]Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4, calling Peter Mullan's performance muscular and unrelenting. He also remarked: "This isn't the kind of movie that even has hope enough to contain a message. There is no message, only the reality of these wounded personalities."^[9]Mark Kermode of BBC Radio 5 Live, hailed the film as one of the 11 Best Films of 2011.^[10] Kermode went on to award Olivia Colman Best Actress in his own Annual Kermode Awards. She tied with Tilda Swinton for We Need to Talk About Kevin.
By 18 December 2011, the film had won 21 awards from 28 nominations worldwide.
When the BAFTA Award nominations were announced on 17 January 2012, the omission of Olivia Colman in the Best Actress category led to global trending of both Olivia Colman and Tyrannosaur on Twitter.^[11]

IDENTS:

N/A, no idents, just like with Le Donk & This Is England.

TITLES:

Are non-serif and white, lower-case apart from capital letters like names are usually spelt.

The roles are smaller and, unconventionally, upper-case in contrast to names in lower-case.

1. Film4 AND The UK Film Council IN ASSOCIATION WITH Screen Yorkshire,                              EM MEDIA AND OPTIMUM RELEASING PRESENT
2. A Warp X/Inflammable Films PRODUCTION
3. A FILM BY Paddy Considine

On action, as the music begins, switching between left and right near the screen edge.

1. Peter Mullan
2. Olivia Colman
3. Ned Dennehy
4. Samuel Bottomley
5. Paul Popplewell
6. Sally Carman
7. Sian Breckin

MISE-EN-SCÈNE:

Urban location, not glamorised, 

NARRATIVE, GENRE, EXPOSITION:

We are introduced to the main character, and we already have the binary opposition within his own character/personality shown.

The other protagonist of the story, is still to be introduced.

THE PROTAGONIST:

My teacher asked me as the vulgar swearing started whether we were going to feel sympathy for the protagonist. I said definitely not in the opening sequence. I as an audience member was proven wrong.

The music and close-ups of the dog's paws are used to create sympathy for the protagonist.

ADULT ROM-COM EG3: Love Actually

WHAT I ENDED UP APPLYING:

• The voice-overs, however I also showed the characters both while they were on and off-screen while the sound was playing 

POSSIBLE POINTS OF INFLUENCES

• The voice-over is again another convention I have seen especially in rom-coms and teen films

Love Actually

Richard Curtis, 2003

BBFC 15 rating, MPAA R rating

Length: 2'49/7'00

LEAD ACTORS: Ensemble cast 
(but arguably Hugh Grant has the biggest star power here)
GENRE: Romantic comedy 
                  (adult, Christmas-themed)

PRODUCTION COMPANIES: Working Title
                                                           

DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures

BUDGET: $40m
BOX OFFICE: $62.7m (UK), $59.7m (US)
                               $247m (worldwide)
(The Grant Rule, despite this being a big hit, doesn't apply 
here, this is quite a gem for British cinema, and maybe a touch too alien with its Britishness, and taking the mickey out of the USA)

TRAILER:



NARRATIVE, EXPOSITION:

We get the love is all around, we are at a high, we are at Todorov's equilibrium of love being all around, the love will be challenged throughout the film and the characters we follow will find it again. At the end every character has a new equilibrium.

We are at the same location the film will end on, so that is also further symbolising the equilibrium.

GENRE:

Unconventional not to have the main characters who are in love, but it fits due to the ensemble cast, we are not following one couple or love triangle.

SOUNDTRACK:

Voice-over narration. His status as Prime Minister in the film is signified, as well
Non-diegetic incidental music is also added.

REPRESENTATION:

Are people living in poverty going to be in that airport, the victims of war as in the bad state Hugh Grant's prime minister describes.

ADULT ROM-COM EG1: Four Weddings And A Funeral

WHAT I ENDED UP APPLYING

• The protagonist being and getting out of bed 
• Added more narrative enigma rather than having them being in the first shot already

POSSIBLE POINTS OF INFLUENCE:

• The protagonist getting out of bed after realising they're late

Four Weddings 

And A Funeral

Mike Newell, 1994

BBFC 15 rating, MPPA R rating

Opening length:

LEAD ACTORS: Hugh Grant
                                 Andie McDowell

GENRE: Romantic comedy (adult)

PRODUCTION C0s: Working Title
                                         Channel 4 Films
                                         PolyGram

DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures

BUDGET: $4.5m = £2.8m

BOX OFFICE: N/A (UK), $52.7m (US), $245.7m (worldwide)

CRITICAL KUDOS:

ROTTEN TOMATOES:  Critics 95%, Audience 74%        IMDb: 8.0/10

From wiki: 

The film was very well received with critics, currently holding a 95% "Certified Fresh" approval on reviews aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, with the site's consensus stating, "While frothy to a fault, Four Weddings and a Funeral features irresistibly breezy humor, and winsome performances from Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell."^[6] Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four, calling it "delightful and sly", and directed with "light-hearted enchantment" by Newell. He praised Grant's performance, describing it as a kind of "endearing awkwardness".^[7]The film had its detractors. Writing for the Chicago Reader, Jonathan Rosenbaum called the film "generic" and "standard issue", stating that the audience shouldn't "expect to remember it ten minutes later".^[8] Time magazine writer Richard Corliss was less scathing, but agreed that it was forgettable, saying that people would "forget all about [the movie] by the time they leave the multiplex," even joking at the end of his review that he had forgotten the film's name.^[9] The character of Carrie was voted one of the most annoying film characters of all time in a British online poll.^[10]

TRAILER:

IDENTS:

Polygram Filmed Entertainment being the most superior here.

TITLES:

Inter-Titles, one on black and one on a cake

Polygram Filmed  Entertainment and Channel Four are the distributors of the film. Working Title is the production company. White serif font on black background. A flower-like emblem. "invite you to" is breaking the convention of neutral writing, and signifies the comedic and absurd nature of the film. The emblem signifies romance. The  of a serious background can be seen as the serious, romantic element of the narrative.

Followed by titles on live action.

THE OPENING SHOT:

...

NARRATIVE, EXPOSITION:

...

MISE-EN-SCENE:

...

EDITING:

...

GENRE SIGNIFIERS:

...

REPRESENTATION:

GENDER: ...

ETHNICITY: ...

SEXUALITY: ...

AGE: ....

CLASS/STATUS: ...

ABILITY/DISABILITY: ....

REGIONAL IDENTITY: ...

NORMATIVE OR COUNTER-HEGEMONIC?

...

SOUNDTRACK:

....

TRANSITION TO MAIN FILM:

....