Actor profile - Lyla

Actor Profile

Name: Lyla Wilson
Age: 3 (minor)
Date of Birth:  8th August 2014
Gender: Female
Hair colour:  Brown
Eye colour: Brown
Ethnicity: White British
Language: English
Previous acting experience: None 


Why Lyla is suitable:

• Not camera shy
• available at needed times
• parent is available and willing to be present at shooting
• can recite the lines provided
• happy to perform - confident
• small enough in age and height to fit the profile needed

Our final 9 frames

These are our final 9 frames which sum up and give a feel of our final film opening. The shots include some of our integrated credits and capture the essence of the horror/thriller genre and the comedy genre.  The coloration of the shots in the first 5 frames gives a more sinister feel to the opening with the atmosphere of a thriller genre. This added to the blood demonstrates some of the main conventions of the thriller genre. Then from the 6th frame it shows how our film opening subverts the audiences expectations by changing to the iconography and conventions of the comedy genre. The idea that the title is written in ketchup also highlights the comedy as it is a mockery of the traditional thriller genre (which is the basis of our film) as ketchup usually symbolizes low budget blood, and also adds humor which helps to secure the genre of our piece in the audiences mind. This is why we chose these 9 frames as they perfectly sum up the key aspects of our film opening and demonstrate the change between genres from thriller to comedy. 

Updated Storyboard

Change in Title

Due to the change in genres we thought it would be appropriate to further develop the narrative by giving the audience more hints at the tone of the rest of the film. Moreover we changed the name of our opening as before when it was 'before your very eyes' this linked with the narrative because the main character had her eyes closed throughout, and opened them at the end to reveal that her eyes were all white. However on changing the narrative we then changed the name to 'Sheeple' which is a word that refers to people being compared to being a sheep and following others easily. We thought this was appropriate as it is different and can hint to the genre. Moreover by writing it in ketchup we felt that it would be comical and ironic as it is meant to look like fake blood but obviously isn't, which almost creates a sense of taking the mickey of the previous fake blood shots. By doing this it creates a messy affect which is what we wanted as it represents more of what the rest of the film would be like. Finally by adding in the duck creating mess and landing in the writing it links back to the bathroom theme and the annoying child who creates disruption.  

9 frame analysis of 'Napoleon Dynamite'

9 Frame Analysis of 'Napoleon Dynamite'

(From Art of the Title)

This is one of the most famous and effective uses of integrated credits in a film opening. The simple methods help to give a real feel for what the rest of the film will be like without really giving any of the narrative away which helps to keep the audience interested. It addresses its target audience extremely well as it uses mementos from high school that anyone who has been to school will remember and therefore make them want to watch more to continue reminiscing. As we are changing the genre of our film opening to Comedy this is a perfect film opening for us to look at fro inspiration as it is a comedy as well as using integrated credits which can be quite rare. Although our film opening has more narrative than this one we can still use aspects of this opening such as the effective use of ketchup to write in which is used here in a very comedic way which would be very useful for us to confirm the genre of our opening. We can also just take the atmosphere of this opening and try and to incorporate it into our opening as it is an extremely well made opening and effective use of integrated credits. 

Sounds of the comedy genre

After deciding that our film opening would now be of the comedy genre we knew that we would need to include some very different music to what is already in our opening as what we already have is linked to the thriller genre. Before finding music to include in our film, as sound is very key to our piece, we decided to do some research into sounds of the comedy genre. This is what we found:

Sound is important in the comedy genre, diegetic sound needs to be clear so that the humor in the dialogue can be heard and therefore serve its purpose of creating humor. Non - Diegetic sound is also important as it can be used to emphasise certain points to create amusement and comedy.
Some sounds that are commonly associated with the comedy genre are:
- Loud Dramatic Music
- Comedic sound effects
- Upbeat Music
- Layered music
- Short moments of silence to create humor
- Music used to build up and atmosphere
- Enhanced diegetic sounds

Audience Expectations - Comedy Genre

After deciding to change the genre of our film opening we decided to research the audience expectations of the comedy genre to help make sure we comply with the codes and conventions of this drama to attract our target audience. However, there was a lot less research into the audience expectations of the comedy genre and what there was wasn't very helpful as there are so many sub genres of comedy that it is hard to find what the audience would expect of each. Along with this "comedies are light - hearted dramas, crafter to amuse, entertain, and provoke enjoyment" so that is what the audience expects and not much else. However, I did find one website that had done research into audience expectations of lots of genres and sub genres, this is what I found on comedy:

Comedy is a genre of film that uses humor as a driving force. The aim of a comedy film is to illicit laughter from the audience through entertaining stories and characters. Although the comedy film may take on some serious material, most have a happy ending. Comedy film has the tendency to become a hybrid sub-genre because humor can be incorporated into many other genres. Comedies are more likely than other films to fall back on the success and popularity of an individual star.

Horror-Comedy: combines comedy with traditional horror movie themes and characters. Because of the subject matter, Horror-Comedy films can cross over into the Black Comedy sub-genre. Horror-Comedy films aim to scare the audience, but also provide comical outlets that let the audience laugh at their fear.

Examples: Beetlejuice, Zombieland, Shaun of the Dead.

This is the website I got this information from:

https://thescriptlab.com/screenplay/genre/comedy

Audience Response

Create your own user feedback survey

After looking at our first draft of our film opening we were unsure about whether the genre of our film aligned with what was in our film opening, we thought that it actually better matched the comedy genre. So we decided to ask our target audience by creating a 'survey monkey' to see what they thought we should do to address what they would like to see in our film opening. These were the results:

The results are mainly mixed and show a range of ages in our target audience, ranging from ages 14 - 18 which gives a wide perspective reflected in our results. Fortunately almost all of the respondents enjoyed the film opening, with no negative responses, only constructive. Many of the results stated that they believed the genre of the film was actually comedy not thriller as we originally intended, just as we thought. Most of our audience suggested that it was the credits that made our opening not comply with the thriller genre, just as the comedy of using the toilet roll. This gave us an option to just re shoot all of the credits to be less comedic and therefore fit with the thriller genre, however the credits are a key part of our opening and are some of the most successful uses of camera work in our film so it may actually be a mistake to reshoot them all. Therefore we decided that the best thing for our piece was to make our piece fully comply with the genre that our target audience already believed it was, comedy. We decided to keep it as it is with the credits staying to add hints of comedy thought and then subvert the audiences expectations right at the end with a big twist so that by the end of the opening the genre is no longer ambiguous and is more certain whilst still having kept them interested with the atmosphere of suspense.