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.

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

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:

....

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 EG5 - His Girl Friday

WHAT I ENDED UP APPLYING

• The voices calling across the hall as diegetic sound.

POSSIBLE POINTS OF INFLUENCE:

• The slapstick elements

Bringing Up Baby

Howard Hawks, 1938

BBFC U rating, MPAA Not Rated

Running length of opening: 

LEAD ACTORS: Katharine Hepburn

                                 Cary Grant

GENRE: Screwball comedy 

PROD + DISTR: RKO Radio Pictures

BUDGET: $1.07m

BOX OFFICE: $1.11m

From wiki:

Despite Bringing Up Baby's reputation as a flop, it was successful in some parts of the U.S. The film premiered on February 16, 1938 at the Golden Gate Theatre in San Francisco (where it was a hit), and was also successful in Los Angeles, Portland, Denver, Cincinnati and Washington, D.C.. However, it was a financial disappointment in the Midwest, as well as most other cities in the country, including NYC; to RKO's chagrin, the film's premiere in New York on March 3, 1938 at Radio City Music Hall made only $70,000 and it was pulled after one week^[46] in favor of Jezebel with Bette Davis.^[47]During its first run, Bringing Up Baby made $715,000 in the U.S. and $394,000 in foreign markets for a total of $1,109,000;^[34] its reissue in 1940 and 1941 made an additional $95,000 in the US and $55,000 in foreign markets.^[46] Following its second run, the film made a profit of $163,000.^[34] Due to its perceived failure, Hawks was released early from his two-film contract with RKO^[34]and Gunga Din was eventually directed by George Stevens.^[48] Hawks later said the film "had a great fault and I learned an awful lot from that. There were no normal people in it. Everyone you met was a screwball and since that time I learned my lesson and don't intend ever again to make everybody crazy".^[49] The director went on to work with RKO on three films over the next decade.^[50]Long before Bringing Up Baby's release, Hepburn had been branded "box-office poison" by Harry Brandt (president of the Independent Theatre Owners of America) and thus was allowed to buy out her RKO contract for $22,000.^[51][52] However, many critics marveled at her new skill at low comedy; Life magazine called her "the surprise of the picture".^[53] Hepburn's former boyfriend Howard Hughes bought RKO in 1941, and sold it in 1959; when he sold the company, Hughes retained the copyright to six films (including Bringing Up Baby).^[50]

CRITICAL KUDOS:

ROTTEN TOMATOES:  Critics 95%, Audience 90%        IMDb: 8.0/10

From wiki: 

The film received good advance reviews; Otis Ferguson of The New Republic thought the film very funny, praising Hawks' direction.^[38] Variety praised the film, singling out Hawks' pacing and direction, calling Hepburn's performance "one of her most invigorating screen characterizations" and saying Grant "performs his role to the hilt";^[39] their only criticism was the length of the jail scene.^[40] Film Daily called it "literally a riot from beginning to end, with the laugh total heavy and the action fast."^[41] Harrison's Reports called the film "An excellent farce" with "many situations that provoke hearty laughter,"^[42] and John Mosher of The New Yorker wrote that both stars "manage to be funny" and that Hepburn had never "seemed so good-natured."^[43] However, Frank S. Nugentof the New York Times disliked the film, considering it derivative and cliché-ridden, a rehash of dozens of other screwball comedies of the period. He labeled Hepburn's performance "breathless, senseless, and terribly, terribly fatiguing",^[44] and added, "If you've never been to the movies, Bringing Up Baby will be new to you – a zany-ridden product of the goofy-farce school. But who hasn't been to the movies?"^[45]

TRAILER:



The whole film can be found on Dailymotion here.

SYNPNOSIS:
Classic screwball comedy following palaeontologist David Huxely who is engaged to the dour  and workaholic Alice. He faces a marriage trapped in hard work with little romance, who is determined that their marriage contain "no domestic entanglements of any kind."
He is about to meet a new woman in his life, Alice Swallow, a free-spirited and, possibly pre-cursor of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, who will turn his life upside down in the pursuit of a leopard that he has been sent from Brazil.
The opening sequence introduces us to the engaged couple in their place of work.

IDENTS:

One ident for one company responsible for both production and distribution, as was more common in those days, lasting for 15 seconds and then fading in and out to the titles.
It has a signature sound, that of s radio signal, appropriate for its name.

TITLES:

Separate inter-title sequence before the live action starts, which was the norm and convention back then, but can still be seen such as in films like This Is England and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, and is still seen after a live action opening sequence in the Bond franchise.

THE OPENING SHOT:

An extreme longshot, an establishing shot which we are going to close in on

NARRATIVE, EXPOSITION:

Instead of a title telling us date and setting, like we sometimes see, mise-en-scène is used to anchor the location.



We get introduced to one of the main two protagonists of the narrative.

TODOROV:
This is an equilibrium, the disruption will happen later with the introduction of 
We are at the same location that the film will end on, when the dinosaur smashes to pieces, so the dinosaur at the moment represents the old equilibrium that must be destroyed for a new one to exist.

MISE-EN-SCÈNE:
For verisimilitude their are multiple scientific objects around the room to connote that this is a place of scientific study.
Huxley is dressed in a typical white garb which a majority of people know, making it one of Barthes's cultural codes.

EDITING:

At the beginning we cross-fade into shots.

GENRE SIGNIFIERS:

Two parts of the love triangle are present here, and conflicts about different opinions on family life.

REPRESENTATION:

GENDER: The female dominant in the relationship here. However the woman is shown as the typical torment for the man.

ETHNICITY: Just Caucasians present, this is pre-Civil Rights Movement.

SEXUALITY: Represents the norm of the time, heteronormativity, homosexuality was a punishable criminal offence.

AGE: This is a film mainly focussing on young middle-aged characters, teens and children are not present in the opening sequence. The old Professor stereotypically stands for intellectuality.

CLASS/STATUS: Middle-class, Alice Swallow has delusions of grander when she reacts to Huxley using the phrase: "I'll knock him over", she responds by saying:

David, no slang, remember who and what you are.

ABILITY/DISABILITY: Able-bodied, no physical or mental disabilities, unless you count the glasses of, which are more there to connote his status as a scientist.

NORMATIVE OR COUNTER-HEGEMONIC?

All in all this is a very typical representation in US cinema of the time, however we do get a more unconventional emasculated male who throughout the film will never be the true strong, masculine action hero.

SOUNDTRACK:

Start off with the first track for the titles from the soundtrack, we then get.
For the discussion between the characters we only get their voices as diegetic sound, with them projecting across the wide space, this adds a sense of realism.

TRANSITION TO MAIN FILM:

There is no sound added, just a cross-fade into the next scene, the change of location is the main transition, the protagonist is now on his journey as Joseph Campbell would say.