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:

....

DISTRIBUTION - OST

WHAT I ENDED UP APPLYING:

• I created a fictional identity of the musician behind the soundtrack of my film, James Riley,  who was an Indie romantic artist, which fitted an outside teenager looking for love, similar to how Alex Turner from the Arctic Monkeys recorded and sung the soundtrack behind Warp's Submarine

It is not always the case, but most films will have a number of tracks.

Even if their isn't an official soundtrack made for the film, you will find playlists on the two main music streaming sites Spotify and YouTube, in the case of Baby Driver there was already a playlist on Spotify created.

For my film opening I have chosen the tracks I Want Candy and I Keep Forgetting.

While these are not mainstream songs and are also covers, they still carry with them some pop identiy.

When I played the I Want Candy track to a girl above in my year, she reacted by saying: "Of course, who doesn't know that song"

However big hit films will feature songs from the top charts, which is included in the trailer

https://www.bustle.com/articles/169688-the-song-in-bridget-joness-baby-trailer-is-absolutely-perfect-for-the-movie

It can be that the personality/image of the singer will correlate with the genre  themes of the film, like for Suicide Squad which deals with a bunch of misfits, you have artists who have all been hedonistic and/or damaged to some extent

 for Bridget Jones's Baby you have romantic Ed Sheeran. 

STUDIO SUBSIDIARY EG: Working Title

Turn this into a slide share and apply. Comment on which genres are more commercially/critically appealing.

Key findings:

- Rom-com is a very commercially appealing genre.

• 1985 - First film released, My Beautiful Laundrette, on Channel 4, US box office of $2m 
• 1987 - Wish You Were Here. US box office of $3m
• 1989 - The Tall Guy, first collaboration with Richard Curtis. First time US actor playing main character, but not A-List material.
• 1991 - Office in LA opened
• 1994 - Four Weddings And A Funeral, breakthrough hit on a budget of $2.5m
• 1999 - Notting Hill, company's trend for rom-coms with US A-List star continues 
• 2000 - Billy Elliot, surprise hit with its social realist genre centring on working class characters, however it has a feelgood ending, which goes down well with US audiences 
• 2001 - Bridget Jones's Diary - Intellectual Property of Helen Fielding's bestseller books with casting of Renee Zellweger
• 2003 - Love Actually, Working Title's landmark feelgood film, however not for the whole family, 15 rating
• 2004 - Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason.
• 2004 - First entry in the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy, Shaun Of The Dead, Zom Rom-Com
• 2007 - Hot Fuzz, second Cornetto film, plays well on the popularity of the cop buddy genre in the USA
• 2010 - Green Zone, prime example of the risk of the tentpole strategy and how purely relying on an A-List star doesn't always work. Flop due to concentrating, and also maybe unpopular due to the narrative of the Iraq War, and it missed out on the under 15 (mainly male) audience interested in war films. Just like with Warp's '71 flop, giving it a PG-13/12 rating might have lowered verisimilitude. (although was that the case with the 12-rated Bourne franchise?)
• 2013 - About Time. Rom-com written by Richard Curtis. Hybrid-hybrid, adding sci-fi time travel to the typical rom-com set-up with an American (female) A-Lister. However not as financially successful as other rom-coms, was Rachel McAdams. but stay still came in on budget. The extra time-traveling twist made evident in the trailer, playing on relatable audience experience of wanting to change stuff having gone wrong in past potential relationships plays well, supergenre 
• 2013 - Les Miserables, mix of IP, high-profile stage musical, and an ensemble A-List cast Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway,plus supporting B-Listers like Helena Bombay Carter
• 2013 - World's End, final entry in the Cornetto Trilogy. Sci-Fi is making a comeback but maybe just missed it before Gravity coming out followed   Interstellar, The Martian and the return of Star Wars to the big screen. But mainly, it's Genre was made unclear in the marketing, and the British pub culture which was given huge exposition in the trailer might well have been too alien for international especially US audiences, something Working Title usually tries to avoid in contrast to Warp.
• 2014 - The Theory Of Everything, Stephen Hawking like Queen Elizabeth and Victoria are huge "British" (do the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish like the Royal Family?) historical images, like Churchill in Darkest Hour.
• 2015 - The Danish Girl, a rare financially successful film about transgender films. However, like Brokeback Mountain, The Imitation Game, Freeheld, it's based in real-life events that lead to the death of te LGBT+ protagonist, representing them as members of society who are destined to die and 
• 2016 - Hail, Caesar. Main factor A-List cast including George Clooney, 
• 2016 - The Program. Example that Working Title don't always go for a full A-List cast and IP (can't always afford to) don't go full Blockbuster Strategy (Anita Elberse)
• 2016 - Bridget Jones franchise returns, Bridget Jones's Baby, $212m box office, but not as high as last two films due to lack of Hugh Grant and the cast being older, especially not dying Colin Firth's greying hair.
• Films for 2017: Baby Driver, Cornetto Trilogy director Edgar Wright directs a romance/action/car chase/music thriller flick, original storyline. No real A-List stars, banking on rising teenage star from The Fault In Our Stars. However with We Are Your Friends the casting of Zac Effron due to his High School Musical fame was proven misplaced, even though he had been the lead star, though their the comedy side of the rom-com was able, as well as the gross-out moments, dirty humour 






RESUBMISSION HINDSIGHT
• 2017 - Baby Driver, massive financial and critical success for original plot, overtakes Bridget Jones's Baby. Edgar Wright's first film set in the USA, if it had been set in the U.K. with British characters would it have been as successful?

ADULT ROM-COM EG2 - About A Boy

WHAT I ENDED UP APPLYING

• The character of Will influenced the antagonist of my film opening, a great deal, including the voiceovers

POSSIBLE POINTS OF INFLUENCE:

• The voice-overs

About A Boy

Chris Weisz + Paul Weitz, 2002

BBFC 12 rating, MPAA PG-13

Running length of opening:  4'00

LEAD ACTORS: Hugh Grant
                                 Nicholas Hoult

                                 Rachel Weisz

GENRE: (Romantic) comedy

PRODUCTION COs: StudioCanal
                                         TriBeCa Productions
                                         Working Title Films

DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures

BUDGET: $27m

BOX OFFICE: $24.3m (UK), $40.8m (US), 
                            $130.5m (worldwide)

CRITICAL KUDOS:

ROTTEN TOMATOES:  Critics 93%, Audience 54%        IMDb: 7.1/10

From wiki: 

The film received critical acclaim, with a 94% 'Certified Fresh' rating on Rotten Tomatoes.^[5] The film, with a budget of US$30 million, grossed a worldwide total of US$130,549,455.^[2] In December 2002, the film was chosen by the American Film Institute as one of the ten best movies of the year. The film received a B+ CinemaScore from American audiences.^[6] Almost universally praised, with an Academy Award-nominated screenplay, About a Boy was determined by the Washington Post to be "that rare romantic comedy that dares to choose messiness over closure, prickly independence over fetishised coupledom, and honesty over typical Hollywood endings."^[7] Rolling Stone wrote, "The acid comedy of Grant's performance carries the film [and he] gives this pleasing heartbreaker the touch of gravity it needs".^[8]

Roger Ebert observed that "the Cary Grant department is understaffed, and Hugh Grant shows here that he is more than a star, he is a resource."^[9] The film earned Grant his third Golden-Globe nomination, while the London Film Critics Circle named Grant its Best British Actor and GQ honoured him as one of the magazine's men of the year 2006.^[10] "His performance can only be described as revelatory," wrote critic Ann Hornaday, adding that "Grant lends the shoals layer upon layer of desire, terror, ambivalence and self-awareness."^[7]

The New York Observer concluded: "[The film] gets most of its laughs from the evolved expertise of Hugh Grant in playing characters that audiences enjoy seeing taken down a peg or two as a punishment for philandering and womanising and simply being too handsome for words-and with an English accent besides. In the end, the film comes over as a messy delight, thanks to the skill, generosity and good-sport, punching-bag panache of Mr. Grant's performance."^[11] About a Boy also marked a notable change in Grant's boyish look. Now 41, he had lost weight and also abandoned his trademark floppy hair. Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman took note of Grant's maturation in his review, saying he looked noticeably older and that it "looked good on him."^[12]He added that Grant's "pillowy cheeks are flatter and a bit drawn, and the eyes that used to peer with 'love me' cuteness now betray a shark's casual cunning. Everything about him is leaner and spikier (including his hair, which has been shorn and moussed into a Eurochic bed-head mess), but it's not just his surface that's more virile; the nervousness is gone, too. Hugh Grant has grown up, holding on to his lightness and witty cynicism but losing the stuttering sherry-club mannerisms that were once his signature. In doing so, he has blossomed into the rare actor who can play a silver-tongued sleaze with a hidden inner decency."^[12]

TRAILER:

IDENTS:

Universal ident  and  StudioCanal, the first lasting 25 secs and the second 15 secs, connotes the primary superior status of Universal as the distributor. Both have their signature sounds.

The third ident, Working Title, has an audio bridge. This connotes their status as a subsidiary.

TITLES:

The actor's name appears over the
character he is playing

The letters are all lower-case, is this a subtle signifier of the theme of childhood?

THE OPENING SHOT:

High angle and tracking shot of the protagonist.

NARRATIVE, EXPOSITION:

We get introduced to the two ventral characters, we have a binary opposition of age and also of wealth.

MISE-EN-SCENE:

The table signifies his wealth and intellectual capital, with a big book, and his shady character elements are hinted at with an ashtray, they are not anchoring him as a smoker because it might spoil the romantic image.

EDITING:

long takes. 

GENRE SIGNIFIERS:

The romance side of the film isn't signified, other than that we have a carefree male who rejects long-term romantic commitments in favour of short-term flings, which is anchored through the fact he ignores the calls of his liaisons.
This equilibrium will be disrupted as he will eventually find a woman he has real emotional feelings for.

REPRESENTATION:

NORMATIVE OR COUNTER-HEGEMONIC?

This is quite a stereotypical and narrow reperesentaion of the UK, focusing mainly on English, RP people as the normal characters, pandering to an International and especially US audience, typical for Working Title.

SOUNDTRACK:

Incidental music, more typical for adult rom-coms than teen rom-coms where we have a soundtrack of a song with lyrics?.

TRANSITION TO MAIN FILM:

At 3'30 as the incidental music bridges into the next scene, and the relationship between Will and Marcus is foreshadowed with the baby.

Opening EG8/Teen EG2 - Wild Child

UPDATE:

This was originally part of my general film openings research, before I settled on the teen (high-school) and rom-com genres, so it is both part of my general conventions and genre research, just like Bridget Jones's Baby and Submarine.

WHAT I ENDED UP APPLYING

• The zooming into the protagonist's room
• The fading in, the zooming in

POSSIBLE POINTS OF INFLUENCE

• The protagonist getting out of bed, and rushing because they are late
• The fading in from the ident to the opening shot (an extreme long shot)

Wild Child

Nick Moore (2008)

BBFC 12 rating, MPAA PG-13 rating

03:50 minutes

Lead actors: Emma Roberts, Kimberley Nixon 

Genre: Teen (romantic) comedy

PRODUCTION COs: Working Title

LINKS: Box Office Mojo; The Numbers;  RottenTomatoes; IMDb; Wiki; Facebook

CRITICAL KUDOS:

From wiki:

Wild Child has a 42% "rotten" rating at Rotten Tomatoes, based on 21 reviews with the consensus that "More mild than wild. This tween comedy mess falls flat on its face due to poor characters, poor direction and poor jokes".^[5] The Sun Online gave the film 2/5 saying "WILD? More like mild, unless you think short skirts and “horse face” put-downs are outrageous." Though Urban Cinefile gave Wild Child a much more favourable review stating "The film has an energy and honesty about it: it's lively, funny and smart and the characters are appealing."

IDENTS

Two idents, the Universal Studios and Working Title.

The Working Title ident fades into the establishing shot, an extreme longshot of a lightblue sea. The beauty of the sea connotes perfection, so it signifies the paradise-like life whoever lives here has.

The titles start with Universal. The idents are non-serif, white, with company big and verb/prep

TITLES:

All upper-case, name is bigger than the role. They are spread across lines.

UNIVERSAL PICTURES PRESENTS
A WORKING TITLE PRODUCTION
IN ASSOCIATION WITH STUDIOCANAL

The final title, yellow and violet 

NARRATIVE, EXPOSITION:

We are introduced to the protagonist, it is her we follow out of the room and throughout the rest of the film. The sea fades into a medium longshot/longshot of the protagonist's room , with two further titles "Working Title" and "Studiocanal" appearing before the room fully appears. The colours of pink and light blue attribute female gender stereotypes to the protagonist, the first of many throughout the narrative.

 

 

 

 ...

Medium shot of as the protagonist springs into action, disruption of her equilibrium (see post on media language for Todorov's five stages of narrative). 

A longshot of the protagonist home, this alarmed and frantic behaviour will be recurrent througout the narrative, so it sets up her character. . She breaks through the title, possibly signifying her rebellious and even destructive tendencies that are going to emerge later and .

Opening EG5 - The Danish Girl

WHAT I ENDED UP APPLYING

POSSIBLE POINTS OF INFLUENCE

The Danish Girl

Tom Hopper (2015)

BBFC 15, MPAA R

Running time of the opening sequence: 4:00 mins 

Lead actors: Eddie Redmayne, Alicia Vikander

Genre: Period drama

Budget: $m
UK/US/World Box Office: £k, $k, £k. 

Production co's:  
Production financing:   
UK, US theatrical distributors: Universal 
 
LINKS: IMDB; RottenTomatoes  BoxOfficeMojo; The-  Numbers; Wiki; Official site/page; Facebook; Twitter

TRAILER

IDENTS:

Two idents: Universal and vertically integrated subsidiary Working Title, as is always the case for Working Title their ident is dubbed over with diegetic sound, however in this case Universal also have been dubbed (has been done, as I saw in Shaun Of The Dead for example, and has been done in early examples such as The Breakfast Club). Pretty Pictures along with other companies's idents are not present. 

A landscape/extreme longshot

....

The rule of thirds is applied, background is in shallow focus. This anchors her as an important character, and without any foreknowledge of the film, one could immediately connote that she is the protagonist, the Danish Girl. 

The time and location is given through a white caption in white upper-case letters. Again reflection, connoting the theme of artistic expressionism.

...
ONE OR TWO PROTAGONISTS?
From the editing it appears that we are following a couple. It is not quite clear, for we follow the two home together, we see them in bed together. Following the husband eventually signifies that he is the main character overall of the narrative.
The actress Alicia Vikander was nominated for and won (ceremony) the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, there was some controversy that she hadn't been nominated for the Best Actress category.

SOUNDTRACK:
The diegetic sound of water and rushing wind is soon added to the incidental non-diegetic sound.

This, like Psycho, only consists of incidental music, unlike historical films of more recent times like This Is England ,there is no music of the time to play alongside the film. The classical-like soundtrack fits the melancholic atmosphere of the film.