Script, Role, Production and Filming

Script

In regards to our script, we had set idea's for conversations and things we wished to be said within the production, such as the joke about 'Revals' that Amar expresses through nicknames of his 'girls'. Most of the digetic script we wanted to be improvised on ad lib. But the non diegetic sound- voiceover of Aaron was very much scripted and recorded for the feature.

Role

As stated in the opening credits, I was in charge of directing the film and Elisha was the Camera Person. Elisha was also incharge of casting and recruited all our actor's. The scenary in which our film was set was chosen by myself. Elisha chose the music and I edited the film whilst constructing the design and film credit titles.

Filming/Production Skedule

The production skedule was run by Elisha, her organisation of the actors, times and location was more than creditable and ability to re-arrange actors or recruit different ones when we faced issues was brilliant. Alot of the skedule was based around our acessability to technologies i.e Mini DV. This helped me direct and get the look that we desired for the film.

Editing

Our production was edited to fit the OCR Requirement of over 3minutes for our opening sequence. Our recording log, we were set to record on a big filming day that covered the highstreet sequence, Statue sequence, shop scene- as all these were in various locations. Then we took it to the editing suit, later followed by the 'pimp' scene and voice over recording. In our filming we allowed for Pre-Role and Post-Role which created the editing process to be more easy.

Composing Characters/ Casting

http://prezi.com/3segrdyyb1xu/media-film/

This is what we devised we wanted our actor's to be and how we would like them to look. For example the character Amar, who was played by Amar Noor. We wanted him to be a good-looking asian male, preferbly in his late teen's as he would play one of our movie figure hearthrob's, the pimp of Aaron's local area, who all the girls love and can come across rather arrogant as he uses females like props.

Aaron, the geek and main character of our film, played by Aaron Khera, had to be an average male, the same age as his rival Amar, rather slender and awkward within his presents on screen in comparison to the pimp, in-order for it to be clear to the audience that our main character was worlds apart from being extremely popular in a boyfriend sense with the ladies. Aaron would be a character that would never leave the friends zone with the females but also isn't that confident in conversing with girls either.

Preliminary Task

This 180 degree rule, helps orient the viewer and enables characters within the scene to be established. The rule states that when characters of a medium shot in relation to each other- i.e a women on the right and a man on the left, when close ups are shown or SRS are edited in the movie that it should always show the male on the left and female on the right, in relation to one another. In terms of camera movements the camera can titlt, pan, zoom, turn etc anywhere aslong as it keeps within the 180 degree line on one side. If the camera were to film from one side of 180 degree line of the female and then on the other side of the male it would look as though they are on the same side. This can lead to disorentation of the audience as the actors eyelines will not coincide with one another. To cross this line it must be shown as a cross within the camera movement and included in the edit of the scene.

180 DEGREE RULE VIDEO http://www.youtube.com/

Evaluation of Foundation Portfolio

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Within our media product we used non diegetic sound in our opening sequence, the music was by Jaz Dhami, a bollywood up beat song that had a context that fit to our audience, a teen/young-adult vibe, as it include a mix of traditional bolly music with a feature artist who rap's over the top. Our titles were all carefully constructed in Photoshop which was one of our unique features that not alot of people took too. They were all crafted by myself with design idea's also from Elisha. Our look for the titles were bright bollywood style colours also including indian flowers and elephants throughout. These titles came in the conventional running order of : Film Company Logo,  An Elisha & Sarah Film, Starring (Actor's), Film Title 'GEEK.LOVE.PRAY', Written By, Camera Person, Music by, Produced By, Directed By. Our Rom-Com has challenged the Genre as it doesn't include the normal 'Pink, Red, Fluffy' sort of theme that tends to run within this genre, instead we used colourful titles to signify, bollywood and happiness is ahead. Our Film developes the genre by having both the Romantic genre combined with the Comedy genre, which then impliments conventions from both of these genre's.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The narrative is of the main character Aaron, a teenage asian boy, which obviously the race is common to bollywood but not in all main stream Romantic Comedies, also being a teen Aaron challenged the run of the mil Rom-Com main starring role. The start of the film represents teenlife today and gives the audience a 'realistic' view of such a storyline. Example: Amar- there is always a 'pretty boy' or a male that gets all the girls. The realism comes into it from the outlook and feelings of Aaron and how our young geeky teen analyses his situation within the narrative.

 3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Most films are distributed by 20th Century Fox, Warner Bro.s or Paramount but I believe our product would be convientional to be distributed by a local british or india distribtor. Most of this genre are from the production company 'Touchstone Pictures' i.e-PrettyWomen or even 'WorkingTitleFilms'. So UTV Motion Pictures, a Mumbai based media production company, produce films for 20th Century Fox, they produce countless of Bollywood movies. 

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

I think our product has a fresh, new vibe that not only challenges the genre but is also breaking boundaries because it is a teen bollywood, rom-com producing a newer audience taste. Our audience would consist of teen-adult viewers, a classifcation rating of 12A, due to comedy content and some romantic scenes. It would be able to bring a better more positive view of 'teenagers' to an adult audience also and represent young races well- curbing some social boundary divides and encouraging a mixture of an audience, as East is East got.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

We attracted our audience by using a storyline 'looking for love- boyfriend,girlfriend' every teenager experiences. Using characters of similar teenage- young adult to represent our plot better, also the actors conducted for this film were ages that matched our storyline. The music used like mentioned had a cool, rap input to traditional bollywood style music- to address our audience. Our titles were bright and colourful, setting the mood of the film and inticing said audience. In terms of marketing and advertising our production within the cinema enviroment, posters and life size cut-outs would be in production of the main characters and the bright-vibe run throughout of our bollywood production- would insist on having 'GEEK.LOVE.PRAY' in capitals above the characters, with below its release date and underneath 'An Elisha Sahota & Sarah-Jane Page Film'. Also accessing marketing by soft drink containers and popcorn containers being specialised with our film title and characters, also creating deals with the cinema for a 'special combo deal' on selected food & drink concessionary items to be avaliable upon purchase of any cinema ticket- inticing viewers of other films to take an interest.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

In terms of using technologies in the process of constructing this product, we learn't that the Mini DV sound quality is very sensitive and picks up background sound quite distinctively - i.e the russle of the package in the shop, caused a stir within the editing process. Using Final Cut Pro, once learn't was rather straight forward, cropping and changing our footage was simple and the programme was extremely useful in the editing process. Photoshop was one of our unique features, I personally learn't alot about the programme and it enabled me to process the film titles with a rather good quality- although this process was rather time consuming. Using Blogger.com was simple and easy to post upon the blog although i faced technical difficulties a few times accessing my blog on the site.

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Although we learn't the 180 degree rule and took on board all aspects of film shots i.e SRS, match on action, close up's, bird's eye view etc. (Applying the knowledge) I believe we didn't use the range of what we knew to our best possible potential, this was mainly due to how much time we had with technologies- i.e Mini DV and there acessibility. Working as a group upon the Preliminary Task enabled us to understand the rule more and the process and position of the camera and how the audience view what is being filmed. In the filming sequence like mentioned, i don't believe the 180 degree rule apart from within the shop scene was used to its full potential.

STORYBOARD

This is the second strip of the story board we devised at http://www.toondoo.com/

FINAL PITCH

http://prezi.com/ajwgqj_w3-qp/media-film/

In this section is the devising of our Final Pitch, which wraps up the main characters, age's, gender's and their role within the film. It also includes the look in which we wanted our film to take on. Including the purpose for making the film and the desired affect we wished the audience would have from viewing this feature and what they also would take from watching it. By pressing the link above you can see these in more detail.

STORYBOARD

This is the first story board devised, http://www.toondoo.com/

Below is another Prezi, that shows three idea's myself and my co-partner of 'Hearthrob Production's' Elisha Sahota had devised before going further with one and developing it.

http://prezi.com/pv-on6mmsyzs/media-film/

Through research done, it is known that the asian bollywood style romantic comedy isn't exposed to a teen - adult audience very much. Hearthrob Production's see this as an oportunity to devise a film within this genre and sector of film. One of the films already produced in this sector, very popular and did very well is, 'East is East' by Damien O'Donnell (1999). Also another one is 'Bend it like Beckham' directed by Gurinder Chadha
(2002)

Ideas:

1. A spin off of 'Bend it like Beckham'.
Where a male of teenage, mother/family
presures him to find love, but will he ever?

2. Asian young male, leave's the 'nest'
and travels the world, as a journalist
he is trying to write about the wounder's
of the world but after leaving home and a 'playboy'
image, little does he know he'll find a wounder of his
own.

3. Geek to Chic, a 'geeky' asian
male has a rather defeated outlook
on life. After from primary years past
highschool, he could never find a girl
who was really interested in him, his tired
of been reminded of 'arranged marriages',
he still hasn't gave up hope for true love but
his family are soon to be arranging something
for him.

Mind Map- Research for (Task 4) Plot

http://prezi.com/vqfof1vbhetz/media-film/

Above is an interactive presentation mind-map i have devised on http://www.prezi.com/, it allows thoughts to be compared and research and idea's to flow from one another. Following the link enables you to be interactive, enjoying trailer's from Romantic-Comedy movie trailer's courtesy of  http://www.youtube.com/.

Codes & Conventions of a Thriller

Some of the codes and conventions for

the Thriller genre within film include: Tension within

a psychological twist/vibe. Some include murders

or kidnapping, the police and spies are more often

than not a factor too. A conspiracy based genre also has

a content of secrets and revenge. The main conclusion

to the plot is 'who did it?'





Codes & Conventions of a Romantic Comedy

Some of the codes and conventions that are within a Romantic-Comedy

movie are on totally the oposite end of the scale in comparison to Horror or Thriller, in filsm like this there a stories are Love and laughter, often love lost  within the first 3rd of the film and the climax is often the 'guy gets the girl' or a sudden suprise aspect of the two main characters that the movie has followed, cross paths. Alot of humour is included often shared between the main protagonist and their friends. It is often set in the city, love scenes are shared with alot of affection. Some include the storyline not only around relationships but also marriage. 

Codes & Conventions of Horror Movie's

Horror movie's are mean't to un-nerve its audience, creating an unsettling atmosphere

to the whole movie in general. It is also mean't to captivate its audience whilst causing

a frightened and panicing vibe within them. It often has a plot which concludes

to a shocking/terrifying ending. There is always a lead character that often survives in

the film, there is a virtual certainty of a 'villian/monsterous' character who is normally

the murderer. It always carries the concept of 'Good Vs Evil' with often the good

guy defeating the evil source or escaping its traps.

Key Conventions  include: Blood, Death, Victims, weapons or

some estranged killing technique. Haunted houses, mysterious,

creepy, weird settings.

Shadows and low key lighting are often the aspects in which

create such an erie mood and vibe within the piece. Iconic

pieces within the 'Horror' Genre are films such as 'Psycho',

'Dracula', 'The exorcist' and more recent such as 'Incidious'

Whilst invoking the audience's worst fears and toying with their emotions, most horrors deal with nightmares or primal nature etc. The genre consentrates on the darker side to life and generally has its setting in day to day enviroments to creep its audience even more so, as these are familiar enviroments to that of their own. Some narrative devices have already been mentioned but there is also 'The Hero' & 'The Helper'- whom normally gets killed whilst trying to be of assistance.

Analysing Genre & Audience

Also taking into account results from the Questionaire.

This is a table from http://sy10.ukfilmcouncil.ry.com/4.1.1.asp of the Films released in the UK, by Genre and how they are ranked by Gross Box Office.

It is clear to analyze from the table that comedy had the most releases and gross box office out of every genre. Horror was seventh in the list with 35 releases, at 9th was Romance with only 10 releases and abit below that was Thriller which had more releases that Romance but Gross'd alot less.

Taking into account my Questionaire and results I have found, it is obvious to conclude that 'Comedy' is the most achieving genre, whilst romance is mid-table. Referring back to the summary of the questionaire, it is clear now why it is important to boost the Romantic genre to a 'Rom-Com'- inforcing a high profit genre such as comendy to Romance mean's it is more likely to Gross more at the Boxoffice as the table above shows, that both genre's are strong-moderate contender's in creating a good production of a film.

Romantic Comedy Movie Research Collage

This collage represents some of the films i have viewed and analysed whilst researching this genre.

Below I have conducted a Questionaire in order to devise some potential guidance in regards to making our 'Romantic-Comedy', 'Thriller', 'Horror' genred film. The context of this questionaire should result into crucial evidence of what the current market of these type's of films audiences are, there age & gender prefered. Also it should give some guidance to what people expect a Romantic Comedy, Thriller & Horror to consist of.


(This is the Questionaire that i devised to find such information.)


MOVIE QUESTIONAIRE
(Tick the appropriate answer, that applies for you.)


1) Which age category are you?


0-12years / 13-17years / 18-25years / 26-35years / 36-45 years/ 45 - over


2)  Are you male or female?


Male / Female


3) Which one of the options below best fits you? (only chose one)


School Student / College-University Student / Part-time worker / Full-time worker/ Professional within a field of work / Retired / Non of the above


4) How many movies do you watch?


1-2 a month / 1 or more a week / 1 - 10 a year / Rare but the odd occasion


5) Which of these are Romantic- Comedy films?


1-2 / 2-6 / 7- 10 / 10 or more
6) Which of these are Thriller films?


1-2 / 2-6 / 7- 10 / 10 or more


7) Which of these are Horror films?


1-2 / 2-6 / 7- 10 / 10 or more


8) Who do you tend to watch these films with if you do?


Alone / with my girlfriend/boyfriend-partner / with my wife/husband / with my friends / with niece's/nephew's/daughter's/son's / with a pet/ parents


9) How many times do you attend the cinema?


1-2 a month / 1 or more a week / 1 - 10 a year / Rare but the odd occasion


10) What do you like to see in a Romantic-Comedy movie? (mark up to 4)


A good-looking male                   A gripping/ intense moment
A good-looking female                An awkward moment
A comedian                                A full cast of star's/well known actors
A famous face                             Unknown actors
Good on-screen chemistry           A city setting
A few love scenes                       A country setting
A lot of love scenes                     A beach/ seaside setting
Set in Europe                              Set in America
Set in Canada/Alaska                  Set in Australia/New Zealand
Set in Africa                                Set in Asia




11) What do you like to see in a Thriller movie? (mark up to 4)


A strange-looking male                     A gripping/ intense moment
A female in distress                          An awkward moment
A helpless character                                   A full cast of star's/well known actors
A famous face                                Unknown actors
An unusual plot in the movie              A city setting
A few crime scenes                         A country setting
A lot of psychology based scenes    An abandoned setting
Set in Europe                                   Set in America
Set in Canada/Alaska                      Set in Australia/New Zealand
Set in Africa                                    Set in Asia




12) What do you like to see in a Horror movie? (mark up to 4)


A Villian/Scary Male                    A gripping/ intense moment
A  female in need of help                An awkward moment
Strong Characters                          Weak Characters
Struggle between Good&Evil       A full cast of star's/well known actors
A famous face                              Unknown actors
Divide between types of people    A city setting
Survival Instinct scenes                A country setting
A lot of love scenes                     An estranged warehouse setting
Set in Europe                              Set in America
Set in Canada/Alaska                  Set in Australia/New Zealand
Set in Africa                                Set in Asia


13) Which of these do you prefer to see in film?


A United Kingdom produced film / An American produced film/ Bollywood produced film / other


14)  Are you more likely to see a new film ...?


At the Cinema from release / Rent on DVD / Purchase on DVD / Purchase on Blu-ray / Blu-ray 3D




Questionaire Summary:


After this Questionaire was taken, we found various results to help us decide what genre of film we should chose to put into production. The majority of student's aged between 13 right through to early 20's, seemed to view movie's of all the genre's fairly, watching them mainly on DVD, with the odd cinema visit, with friends or girlfriend/boyfriends. Also the results showed the older generation, late 20's to 40's watched mainly DVD/Blu-ray with a range of family members and we found alot in that age group, mainly women who went to the cinema were taking son's or daughter's. A vast majority showed that the male gender watched more Horror and Thriller films than the females. The females watched more Romantic-Comedies but suprisingly more males than thought, watched Rom-Com's but mainly with their girlfriends/wife's or friends.
Overall more people rent or buy the movie on DVD than view it on release at the cinema. The majority of audiences prefered American produced films, then United Kingdom produced, then Bollywood and other. On average between 1-2 movies are viewed per week and most watched out of the three genre's is Romantic Comedy. On this outlook, it was viewed deeper into what aspects are important to our audience within Romantic-Comedy films. This suggested that well-known actor's are included, that are good looking and have good on-screen chemistry, there a few love scene's and mainly set within a city location. Also rather important it contained a comedian of some sort.
 Concluding these results, it was decided there was a gap in the market for 'Bollywood' style teen, romantic-comedy movie, that 'Heartrhob Productions' could fill and it could be enjoyed by all generations whilst including age/classification 12A and upwards. With some known faces but also introducing unknown actors- to set them on their way into the lime light and more opportunities, encouraging younger/student viewers into such a career as TV& Film.

This table above, taken from http://sy10.ukfilmcouncil.ry.com/14.4.asp shows that teenagers enjoy Comedy film's but there doesn't seem to be much romance within the top 20 UK films picked for this age group, therefore emphasising why it is important to close the gap in the market and rekindle this generation with its beloved Comedy genre and with its lost Romance for a new Romantic-Comedy Film.

You've Got Mail

Directed by Nora Ephron, this 1998 movie is truely one of the ultimate classic Romantic Comedies. You've Got Mail, star's two of the most recognised actor's within the Hollywood Film industry in the past two centuries, Tom Hanks- well known for many roles, such as (Toy Story's voice of 'Woody', Apollo 13 and also The Da Vinci Code & Forrest Gump- just to name a few.) Meg Ryan who co-stars with Hanks, well known roles such as (Sleepless in Seattle & When Harry Met Sally.) The movie had a budget of $65,000,000 and wrapped up $18,426,749, in its first weekend of realease in the United States of America and went on within a few months to gross $115,731,542, at the box office alone in America.
 Presented by Warner Bros. Pictures, the film brings back together actors who have already starred in another romantic genred movie- Sleepless in Seattle. Hanks plays a son (Joe Fox), who co-owns a huge book chain with his father, 'Fox's Books' that has a store being built, right around the corner from Ryan's (Kathleen Kelly), 'Little Shop around the corner'- a small, one off book seller. Fox's books will rival and take business from Kelly's store. Little do they know, the two rivals who dispise one another in person, are talking to each other online under IM names, which don't conceal there true identity. Yet, the two find themselves extremely fond of their growing online relationship.
 The start of the movie shows 'A Lauren Shuller Donner Production' upon a desktop of a computer screen, the non-diegetic sound that plays at the current timing of this is an internet start up connection, with click's of a mouse. The mouse clicks center page, which shows titles of the film, amongst the opening sequence aswell. The screen then expands its shot zooms and dissolves the desktop. Spinning arcitectual globes pan across the screen as they grow bigger one becomes centeral and the settting of our movie is revealed in computer form, which builds upon itself, in both colour and shapes, New York City. Whilst this is happening, 'the puppy song' by Harry Nilsson plays.
 The scene ends its computer technology and the screen once again expands and dissolves the previous scence and changes into an establishing shot of the front of Kathleen Kelly's apartment, it then dolly zoom's into her window where it pan's what seems to be a long shot of her bedroom, which is a soft-lighting, breezy space, colours of cream's and light pinks, showing a work space and then turns to face Kathleen asleep in bed.
 What is clear to the audience as either Kelly's partner, whom she is living with and he kisses her, Frank Navasky's (Kinnear) voice enters the scene before he does, waking Kathleen up. He begins conversing with Meg Ryan's character as she seems to be un-prepared for the sort of conversation he is giving, shown in the medium shot of the pair. As she ventures out of the bed we, as the audience see more of the apartment and the moderate shot of the two turns into a longer shot of Kathleen whilst still a medium shot positions Navasky. Kelly in the bathroom, Frank is getting outer-wear on and suggests to her that "You think this machine's your friend but its not!", ironically as the story un-folds the computer plays a big part of the main stage of the movie. Frank leaves and the pan of the long shot as Kelly moves across the scene, let's us see how she is checking the apartment, through a point of view shot- the door peep hole, to ensure Frank's departure, a bird's eye view from the window of her place confirms this.
 A close up from the back of her head, zoom's out to the long shot and track's Kelly back to her desk which we now can see the opposite side to, she resides within its chair and the camera takes to an extreme close-up to the computer screen showing our character's IM screen name 'Shopgirl'. A side angle of the actress flows through to an over the shoulder viewpoint of the computer screen. Once again the non-diegetic sound of the internet connection over-tones the scene as her computer screen shows her internet and messenger are loading. Within the first 5 minutes of the movie, a key feature is the non- diegetic sound that is supposidly mean't to be the computer that says "You've got mail", an extreme close up of the screen shows another IM screen name, 'NY152'- which later on we find is Hanks.
 Kathleen starts to read an email that has been sent by what she doesn't know is NY152- Joe Fox. She begins to read the email aloud and then a narrative voice of Hanks takes over reading the content of the email while the screen cross cuts into Joe Fox's world (apartment).

http://www.megavideo.com/?v=V97CZXOR

BEASTLY

Beastly is a Daniel Barnz Film that was distributed in March 2011 by CBS Films. The Horror teen movie stars some of the best up and coming stars within the teen industry, such as (High School Musical's)  Vanessa Hudgens- Lindy , (Alex Rider- Stormbreaker's) Alex Pettyfer- who play's the main role of Kyle and a well-known and loved female actress that has starred in loads of her own production's (Dualstar) tv shows and movies, Mary-Kate Olsen, who plays Kendra.

The movie was based upon the novel which was realeased by HarperTeen. Beastly was shot in Montreal and filming was underway in June 2009. The modern day take on Beauty and the Beast, had a budget of an estimated $17,000,000 and on the opening weekend in America the film brought it $9,851,102 

From the beginning of the film we are introduced to Kyle (Pettyfer), a wealthy, young, popular, beautiful character from New York City who banks on his good looks, charm and money to create people to love him and want more. His said to think his 'god's gift amongst the highschool crowd, "Beautiful people get it better, that's just the way it is"-Kyle.

 He would never change unless something or in this case someone was going to throw a spanner in the works so to speak. Enter Kendra (Olsen), who sets a curse on him, to create the 'Beast' he turns into and gives him the ultimatum, a year to find someone to love him. The curse forms into a tattoo upon his arm when she touches him it then grows and develops on his whole body, he loses his eyebrows and his hair and the Beast is no longer the Beauty in this story.

Futher on in the movie he meets a young, good-looking female, Lindy (Hudgens), "substance over style"-Lindy, who see's past the mask and she begins to develop an interest in him, he starts opening his heart to other people and builds her a green house. The plot carries on developing, do they get together and the curse is broken? Or does it all back fire and Kyle stays the Beast forever?

Beastly Movie Trailer

Curtesy of Youtube.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZmOm3Jr4f0

At the start of this movie a lot of medium shots are used aswell as close-up's and extreme close-ups as the plot develops. Pan's and camera tilts are as standard with Shot Reverse Shot during scene's that two or more character's are present, such as scenes with Kendra & Kyle, as she curses him.

 

Thriller

Momento is a 2000 film, directed by Christopher Nolan and written by Christopher and Jonathan Nolan. It follows a man, who suffers from short-term memory loss and uses tattoo's and notes with polaroids to help him try and find his wife's killer. This is a psycological based thriller, produced by 'I remember productions.' It grossed $25,530,884 in america in its first year of release.
Starring Guy Pearce as Leonard, Joe Pantoliano and (Matrix's) Carrie-Anne Moss, who is most famous for her role in The Matrix as Trinity.

The opening credits of Memento, run over what looks to be a male hand holding a developing polaroid image. However, the image is going from post development to pre-development and the picture is dissolving so we the audience can not see it anymore. The extreme close-up shot shows the mans hand shaking the polaroid for what normally would be a developing image but this is reversing- which gives an in-sight to how the movie is going to pan out. The audience then watches the polaroid image get sucked back into the camera. Now it is apparent we are watching a series of events that have panned out but we are watching them backwards.

The camera then follows on a tilt to what we can tell is the main character, due to his attire- a sand suit with a brown belt.

A close up of his face- we see he has been hurt or injured as he is bleeding on the left hand-side of his cheek. The editing of the camera shots allows an extreme close up of blood trickling back up the wall and then shots to a bullet which looks as though it is on the floor. Also of a pair of glasses- seperately these are all still prop focus shots. We are then presented with a close-up of which looks like a dark haired male, facing downwards in a pool of blood. Followed by a medium-long shot of the main character re-tracting a gun that flys back into his hand, as the camera follows the subject downwards- croaching towards the ground, we watch all the props (extreme close-ups) repeat but back track themselves from their end position. It then becomes apparent to the audience that the man lying face down is possibly in relation to the glasses and bullet. Inferring that our main character is his killer.

The male lying down is twisted around and slightly raised, as the glasses go onto the male and the diagetic sound of him screaming, the medium shot allows us to see there is conflict between these two characters,

Now an important feature to note is the first 1:45 is in colour and the film suddenly enters a black and white mode. Accompanied with a voice over of our main character- Leonard.

In this next scene, the non-diagetic voice over of Leonard explains how he doesn't remember being in the hotel room. (Which the camera pans around in medium-long shots, with an extreme close up to the room keys, when addressed in the voice over.)

Then a wide shot of the room, see's Guy Pearce's character talking to himself. The film tranships back to colour as a close up of a few dollars and polaroid of the man we saw he had shot at the begining, is on a desk. He asks a member of the hotel staff, at the front desk if he has seen him. The camera cross cuts between the diagetic sound, as they converse then enters the said man. It zooms with Leonard as he walks towards this male, (Teddy Gammell- played by Joe Pantoliano.)

The film develops with the conversation as the main character expresses to Teddy "I guess ive already told you about my condition", which is a clue for the audience into the reason why he may not remember certain places or people.

The plot develops as they both try to enter a car, which Teddy tries to tell Leonard is his car, Leonard carries pictures with him to remind him of important things- i.e what car belongs to him. "Oh your in a playful mood, its not good for you to make fun of somebodies handicape.", Leonard's dialogue suggests Teddy isn't a trustworthy character. The scenery suggests Pearce's character is staying in a small town that has his hotel/motel the 'Discovery Inn'. This carries some irony as the main plot involves Leonard discovering who killed his wife.
The two men enter his car and Teddy- dressed in a blue bomber-like jacket and glasses asks Leonard to put his window up. The cross-cutting explores the two talking but also the medium shot of seeing that the window is broke and theres glass on the bottom of where it should be. The dialogue progresses and seems that Teddy is trying to help him in his inquests to find the killer. However, he tries to divert our main character to travelling to a place he wished to visit but he doesn't remember why.
This is followed by a pan and zoom of the convertable car driving up towards a rural building. The scenery is rather dusty and has a parked, blue truck outside, coinsidently matching Teddy's jacket. Teddy says its been there for ages but our main character is still suspicious. The long shot turnes into the camera being a medium length shot on a dolly, as Leonard inspects the car and states the tracks are only a few days old.
The mixture of shots, follows and zooms to a cross cut of Leonard finding bullets layed out on the seats of the truck. The shots then reverse themselves as, he drops the bullets back into the truck and suggests they go inside the building.
Teddy stays behind but the camera follows Leonard as he walks into the building, it switches to the front of our character, where he enters the rural set-up which looks like a crime scene at face-value. Leonard is flicking through his poloaroids as the camera advances between two previously mentioned camera angels.
The plot hits a crucial break through in the first four minutes as one of the polaroids has an image of Teddy, illustrations on the back say 'Dont believe his lies, He is the one, Kill him'- this is all in an extreme close up as Pearce's character compliments the scene in commentry of what the audience can read.
Things get heated and Leonard pins Teddy to the floor at gun-point, through a diverse number of zooms, cross-cutting and various angles the two characters exchange heated words.



Definitely, Maybe

definitely, maybe

From the producers of Notting Hill and Love Actually, Universal Pictures presents 'definitely, maybe.' Starring Ryan Reynolds- an upcoming star whose well recognised face in recent years is stealing every leading male role in the Rom-Com genre films. Starring alongside Sandra Bullock in 'The Purposal.' Also in this film, actresses such as Rachael Weisz and (Wedding Crasher)'s Isla Fisher. Not forgetting the incredible young actress, Abigail Breslin who's movie's include 'Little Miss Sunshine' & 'My sister's keeper.' 

With an undoubtably great cast of young hollywood, comes a great location for this Romantic Comedy- New York City.

The main plot, follows William Hayes (Reynolds), as he talks to his daughter Maya Hayes (Breslin)-just after a sexual education day breaks an out cry at her school- about his previous lovers, in a storybook fashion, using flashbacks to his young adult years. In order for Maya to guess which out of the three women mentioned is her mother- who William at the present time is divorcing.  

We see Hayes sitting in his office, a medium shot of him sitting at his desk, with diagetic noise being sounded from a prop 'pen' as he clicks it. Opening Credits appear in white text at the bottom, right-hand corner of a black screen between the brief scenes in the first five minutes of the movie.

We see him opening a letter- in a close-up, containing which is apparent divorce papers in the extreme close-up. The actors voice-over sets up an in-sight to what is currently happening in his life, which makes the extreme close-up of the papers more understandable to the audience. " I don't think anyone on their wedding day, thinks they'll ever be apart of the 47% of people who don't live happily ever after."

On the contrary, the scene develops with contrasting news and is apparent by a female collegues diagetic conversation (a medium shot of her), that William Hayes is doing well in his working life, cross-cutting back to a close up of him.

His voice over carries on to explain what he does for a living and implicates to the audience the extent of the scenery- the high raised office bulding in which he sits in seemingly fed up. The audience can see this is a high rised building due to the buildings which surround the office, through its windows. In a medium-long shot, perched in his chair, with his hand, over his face.

It cuts to a long- shot of him putting in his blazer and then to him leaving the building and into a busy city, which is apparent to be New York City- which we later find out. The voice over is still explaing various things but at this present time, he talks about his favourite days are those that he gets out early to pick up his daughter from school.

A mixture of shots are used as the charater puts in his headphones and talks about the perfect track for that day. Close-up, of his hand putting the ear piece in each ear and the same shot for the prop which is his MP3 player. Non-diagetic sound comes into the scene, which is music that is meant to be coming from the music player into his ears.

The screen splits into various arrangments, futhering the conformation of the City that he is in, with key features behind the close-ups and medium-long shots of him, i.e yellow cabs and the chrysler building. Non-diagetic sound is still playing from the music Hayes turned on from the mp3, as he walks across the city with the opening credits applied on screen.

At 3.57 minutes the screen expands again after the last credit has played out. Hayes is seen walking into what we find out is his daughters school, where mayhem has broken loose due to the children asking their parents about sexual relations, after a lesson at school.

As a romantic comedy would, this is one of the funny scenes in the film. As we see a group of no older than 11year old boys reading a book, ingrosed in sexual reproductive system. It is put across in away that the audience can laugh and enjoy the comical value of it.

Here, his daughter-Maya, is then introduced as the second main character in the plot. A cross-cutting between the main characters, introduces her at face value with the close up on an un-impressed Maya and a cautious Will. The action is very well edited so the cuts are clean into the characters development and movement. A long-shot is used, as the pair walk through the city towards the camera.