Wednesday, 24 December 2014

Genre, Representation, Audience and Institution

Genre 

Comedy is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humor. These films are designed to entertain the audience through amusement, and most often work by exaggerating characteristics of real life for humorous effect. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (the black comedy being an exception). I choose to include this genre in my opening sequence as I feel that it is the most entertaining genre for the widest range of people and can be related to easily by all. 
Comedy, unlike other film genres, puts much more focus on individual stars. While many comic films are lighthearted stories with no intent other than to amuse, others contain political or social commentary. There are a number of hybrid comedy genres, including action comedy, comedy horror, sci-fi comedy and military comedy. I plan to embrace this hybrid of comedy genre into my work as it will give the film more dimension and will have more opportunity to engage the audience. 
With comedy there is no real social group as such as it relates to so many people. However, in my sequence I aim to focus the social group onto lead teen protagonist. By making teens the focal point of the film it gives my a clear focus for audience and representation, whilst still in keeping with my comedy genre.  

Representation 
 My opening sequence will include one protagonist and a small minor role. The lead protagonist in my sequence will be a 17 year old girl and the representations will heavily focus on the stereotypes of young people. This girl will be heavily made up- as she is just about to go out- and will wear clothes that connote her promiscuous party lifestyle. I also want to bring in the stereotype of underage drinking and sex. This will be done by having contraceptives lying around in her room and showing shots of the girl drinking from an alcoholic beverage. Most, if not all of the representations for the teenager will be shown in the first scene with props and the composition of shots. I really want my protagonist to be heavily stereotyped so to show the audience just how ridiculously young people are portrayed throughout the media and also to use this as the source of my comedy.

The minor role will be played by an older person, the gender for this character does not matter as their role will be to play the 'fed up old neighbour' who lives across the street from the busy party. The age of this character, however, does matter. I aim to have this character be above the age of 40 and to have them represent the grumpy, middle aged lifestyle of the modern age. They will need to be short tempered and miserable in appearance so to connote their loss of youth and freedom. 

Audience 

In order to create an engaging and successful comedy title sequence I must first understand who my target audience is and what is too be expected from a film such as mine. 

Target audience 

The genre of my film will appeal to a wide range of people of various different ages. Comedy is a very diverse genre and unlike a horror or action film it can be adapted to suit all ages and personalities.  

The target audience of a comedy film is very dependent on the content of the film. For example children’s films labelled as PG’s or U’s can have comical scenes in which would link it to the comedy genre the films would appeal to young children as well as parents as they are often family film, however the audience would be completely different for a comedy film labelled as a 12 or a 15, these films have the target audience of the certificated age given to the movie as the base, the movies are likely to appeal to people over the labelled age of film simply because comedy has a large target market appealing to larger proportion of the comedy theme market. The final age partition of the comedy target audience is 18 certificates, these film although still based around comedy are often more explicit in terms of language and scenes, making the film heavily aimed at the over 18s.  

Certificate rating for my film 


I would certificate rate my film at a 15. I have chosen to make it a 15 as I feel the elements of alcohol intake and possible language content would not be appropriate for a film that could be viewed by viewers younger than 12. This film would also not be explicit enough to need to fall under the 18 rated category as although there may be sexual references, there will be no explicit imagery or violence featured what so ever.

Institution 


After my research into title sequences of Comedy films, I have decided that for my title sequence I shall be using fox searchlight pictures. Fox Searchlight Pictures, established in 1994, is an American film distribution company within the Fox Entertainment Group, a sister company of the larger Fox studio 20th Century Fox. It specializes in US distribution of independent and British films, alongside dramedy and horror as well as non-English-language films, and is sometimes also involved in the financing of these films.

I feel that this institution will fit in well with my sequence plan as my film will be both and independent and British film therefore this would be a very suitable institution to choose.

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