Suppliers of costumes and props.

A colour coded list of the individuals supplying each piece of costume or props for a certain character.

Ideally, the majority of props and costumes should come from either the location we are shooting in or from the actor using them.

OLIVIA
ZENIA
EMILY
ARIANNA

LAUREN needed for Shoots 1 and 3
Costume:
Skirt- Olivia
Blouse- Olivia
Belt- Olivia
Tights- Olivia
Shoes- Olivia
Jacket- Olivia
Pajamas- Olivia

Props:
Satchel- Olivia
Diary- Zenia
Make up- Olivia
Hairdryer- Olivia
Alarm clock- Olivia
Toothbrush- Olivia
Everyday setting props (for bedroom)- Olivia

SCARLETT needed for Shoots 2 and 3
Costume:
Shirt- Zenia
Skirt- Zenia
Socks (stripey)- Emily
Socks (black)- Emily
Shoes- Zenia
Hoodie- Olivia
Pajamas- Zenia

Props:
Paul's Boutique bag- Emily
Cigarettes and packets- Emily, Arianna and others.
Lighter- Emily
Lipstick- Emily
Blackberry- Arianna
Toothbrush- Zenia
School brochures- Emily
Postcards- Emily and Arianna
Clothes and other general room clutter- Emily

FRIENDS Needed for Shoots 1 and 3
(Emily)
Costume:
Shirt- Emily
Skirt- Arianna
Tights- Olivia
Shoes- Olivia
Jacket- Olivia

Props:
Bag- Emily

(Arianna)
Shirt- Olivia
Skirt- Arianna
Tights- Arianna
Shoes- Olivia
Jacket- Arianna

Props:
Bag- Arianna

Split Screen

We initially decided that we wanted to incorporate split-screens into our opening sequence because it would really emphasise the contrasting characteristics in Lauren and Scarlett. I researched films of our genre that used split screens effectively, and tried to find some inspiration for our group.

Although it wasn't particularly relevant to our morning sequence idea, the phone scene in Mean Girls uses four-way split screening to show all the girls in their own homes. It allows us to see them all constantly and usefully enables us to see their individual reactions to what goes on.

In my research, I also came across a film called The Rules of Attraction, a British Film made in 2002, rated 18, Although it is considered a dramatic rom-com, the IMDb film synopsis described it as a film about a love triangle between a drug dealer, a virgin and a bisexual classmate - making it a lot grittier than our girly chick flick. However, different as it may be, the opening sequence uses a constant split screen to introduce and highlight the differences in what could be two potential protagonists.

When choosing which shots we wanted to split-screen, we thought about what we wanted to contrast, and what would look good as a shot. We also wanted to split-screen with varying shot types.
We decided on using six:

• Shot 3 ECU- Alarm Clock/Mobile Phone
• Shot 14 MCU- Hairdrying
• Shot 17 CU/MS - Pulling up skirts
• Shot 21 CU- Applying Mascara
• Shot 23 ECU - Applying Lipstick
• Shot 25 CU - Opening Drawer

Split Screen Filming Techniques

In film and video production, split screen filming is used to show complimentry or contrasting events taking places alongside one another, this could be detailing events taking place in different times, locations, or to different characters. The screen is split (usually down the middle, but a variety of arrangements can be used), with the alternate clips playing alongside each other.

Prior to the 1990s, before advances in digital technologies, a split screen was created using an optical printer using two video clips filmed seperately, which were copied onto the same negative, called the composite.

 
NOTABLE USES OF SPLIT SCREEN

Life of an American Fireman	1903
Suspense	1913
Napoléon	1927
Pillow Talk	1959
To Be Alive!	1964
Chelsea Girls	1966
Grand Prix	1966
A Place to Stand	1967
In the Labyrinth	1967
Charly	1968
The Thomas Crown Affair	1968
The Boston Strangler	1968
Airport	1970
Dionysus in '69	1970
Multiple Sidosis	1970
Woodstock	1970
Sisters	1973
Wicked, Wicked	1973
Phantom of the Paradise	1974
Carrie	1976
Dressed to Kill	1980
Blow Out	1981
Sammy and Rosie Get Laid	1987
Wall Street	1987
The Bonfire of the Vanities	1990
Boogie Nights	1997
Jackie Brown	1997
"Closing Time"	1998
Snake Eyes	1998
"Triangle"	1998
The Virgin Suicides	1999
Requiem for a Dream	2000
Snatch	2000
Timecode	2000
24	2001-2010
Femme Fatale	2002
The Rules of Attraction	2002
Kill Bill	2003
Hulk	2003
Sexual Dependency	2003
Sideways	2004
Conversations with Other Women	2005
The Tracey Fragments	2007
(500) Days of Summer	2009
127 Hours	2010

Meeting 4

KEY FOCUS

• Reinforcing USP
• further research into British chick flicks
• location search

BCF
As our USP is the 'Britishness' of the film we decided to further research British chick-flicks. This week we focused on one of the most famous BCF-St.Trinains
From this we established that we need to have added focus of :

USP
Settings- British iconography
Fashion- London trends
British slang
Reference to Britsih themes and conventions

Location Search
In our opening sequence we are introduced to two constrasting charcters. In order to show this we decided we needed to exaggerate the style, rooms and character identites.

LAUREN-Lauren's room needs to be:

• clean
• neat
• tidy
• pink
• photos of bf
• pictures of friends
• bright
• girly

SCARLETT-Scarlett's room needs to be:

• Red
• old
• messy
• dirty
• new school leaflets
• no pictures
• london iconography

Theories

From our previous media studies we have learnt about many theories and so for this project, we drew upon a few to help us plan and decide on our narrative structure, our films' themes and the opening sequence's appeal to an audience (enigma codes).

Todorov's Narrative Theory

Equilibrium: (shown through our opening sequence) Lauren goes about her normal life, she gets ready and leaves for school, as does Scarlett. 

Disruption: Scarlett arrives at school. She purposely targets Lauren and strategically 'ruins her life' by making up lies to turn her friends against her, flirting with her boyfriend and eventually stealing him, and by spilling secrets to her parents which get her into trouble. 

New Equilibrium: Both girls move to university and never see each other again. They have made their peace and Lauren realises she is much better off without her boyfriend. Scarlett on the other hand settles down with her new life and boyfriend and is much more happy and content within herself (possible flash forward to this).

Levi Strauss' Binary Opposites

Good vs. Bad- Lauren vs. Scarlett

Male vs. Female- Lauren's boyfriend vs. Lauren and Scarlett

New vs. Old- Scarlett vs. Lauren 

Barthe's Enigma Codes

For our opening sequence we want to convey our genre and film idea clearly, but also leave some questions unanswered in order to interest our viewers and attract them to 'keep watching'

• Who is the protagonist?
• What is the relationship between the two girls?
• Why has this girl changed schools?

Character conventions

TYPICAL CHARACTERS OF A CHICK FLICK

Protagonist: The hero of the film, the storyline is based around her and an event or events in her life, she is usually strong and independant, and overcomes obstacles set in her way.
Antagonist: The enemy of the hero, this enemy can be from a long-lasting dislike or rivalry, or someone newly aquainted.
Friend/s: Since the protagonist is an aspirational type character, she usually has one or two close friends, one of which may be male (this could later turn into a love interest).
Parents of protagonist: Strict, usually funny or embarrassing. A stronger bond is usualy attained between the protgaonist and parents towards the end of the film/

All characters usually wear highly fashionable clothes and are well presented, unless the way they look is part of a storyline. They also always have up to date technology (phones, laptops, tablets, etc.) and this can feature highly if social networking and communications are relevant to the narrative.

Examples of protagonists:
Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon)- Legally Blonde
Danielle  DeBarbarac (Drew Barrymore)- Ever After
Georgia Nicholson (Georgia Groome)- Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging
Lizzie McGuire (Hilary Duff)- Lizzie McGuire Movie



Narratives follow the protagonist, and some kind of disruption, or problem occurring in their life. The antagonist either cause or contribute to this problem, and a rivalry is formed between the two characters, while the loyal friends of the protagonist usually remain supportive towards our hero. However, fights may ensue between the protagonist and her best friends, and this would eventually be resolved in either a reconciliation and reunion, or a realisation that the friend was not all they once seemed. A key role in every chick flick is the presence of a 'crush', a highly attractive male, who our protagonist is unable to obtain, and hence the narrative follows her pursuit of this love interest, with the film concluding with their blossoming romance.

Institutional Research

We wanted ideas as to which institution might be suitable to produce and distribute our film.We decided to research the production company and distributor for 'St Trinians', 'Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging' and 'Wild Child' as they are typical, girly, British films and appeal to the same audience as we intend to attract.

St Trinians

Production Companies:

·         Ealing Studios

·         Entertainment Film Distributors

·         Fragile Films

·         UK Film Council

Distributors:

·         Entertainment Film Distributors (2008) (UK) (theatrical)

·         NeoClassics Films (2009) (USA) (theatrical)

·         Sony Pictures (2008) (Australia) (theatrical)

·         Sony Pictures (2008) (New Zealand) (theatrical)

·         Central Partnership (2008) (Russia) (all media)

·         Entertainment in Video (2008) (UK) (DVD)

·         Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (2010) (USA) (DVD)

Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging

Production Companies:

·         Goldcrest Pictures (in association with)

·         Internationale Filmproduktion Stella-del-Süd

·         Nickelodeon Movies

·         Paramount Pictures

Distributors:

·         Paramount Japan (2008) (Japan) (theatrical) (as Paramount Pictures Japan)

·         Paramount Pictures International (2008) (non-USA) (theatrical)

·         Paramount Pictures (2008) (UK) (theatrical)

·         United International Pictures (UIP) (2008) (Singapore) (theatrical)

·         Universal Pictures International (UPI) (2008) (Netherlands) (theatrical)

·         Paramount Home Entertainment (2009) (USA/Germany/Netherlands/Brazil) (DVD)

Wild Child

Production Companies:

·         Universal Pictures (presents)

·         Studio Canal (in association with)

·         Relativity Media (in association with)

·         Working Title Films

Distributors:

·         Universal Studios (2008) (worldwide) (all media)

·         Universal Pictures International (UPI) (2008) (UK/Australia/Netherlands/Germany) (theatrical)

·         United International Pictures (UIP) (2008) (Norway/Singapore) (theatrical)

·         Universal Pictures (2009) (USA) (theatrical)

·         Universal Studios Home Entertainment (2009) (USA) (DVD)

·         Walt Disney Pictures (2009) (USA) (all media) (in association with)

We decided to focus our research towards the 'St Trinians' institutions as has the closest similarity to our film idea.


Entertainment Film Distributors

Entertainment is the UK's leading independent distributor. The company was founded in 1978 and has showed continuing growth and success since that time distributing a wide range of product and building a significant film library. Highlights for the company have been the release of The Lord of the Ring Trilogy. Since the millennium, the company's releases have totaled a remarkable 38 Oscar wins and 22 BAFTAs. Entertainment has had further success with big box office hits such as Hairspray, Sex and the City and 17 Again and British films such as Stormbreaker, Run Fat Boy Run and St Trinian's. Entertainment Film Distributors operates both in the UK and the Republic of Ireland and distributes in theatrical, DVD rental and retail films as well as licensing a substancial catalogue in both Pay-TV and Free0TV sectors.

UK Film Council

Our Film Fund is a new unified production and development fund dedicated to British filmmaking.
We will support filmmakers in the UK who are emerging or world-class and are capable of creating distinctive and entertaining work. We have £15 million a year to invest across the development, production and completion of feature films. Being supported by the BFI means more than just being given funding. It means that your project can be assisted at every step of the journey by our team, who can offer advice and practical help with many aspects of developing and producing your film.
We welcome applications for all kinds of film - from commercial mainstream to experimental, from genre movies to personal stories, from documentaries to animation to live-action fiction.


FINAL DECISIONS

We decided our film should be a co-production as it is very national. The Lottery Funding from the UK Film Council would be a likely source of funding for our film. We thought that Entertainment Film Distributors would also be a good production company as well as distributor for our film. We then had to decide on a final company to add to our co-producers list. From a rather large selection, we narrowed it down to our top 10, from which we came down to these 4:
- Ealing Studios (Dorian Gray, St Trinians)
- PeaPie Films (Stardust, Harry Brown, Kick-ass)
- Ruby Films (Jane Eyre, Tamara Drewe, The Other Boleyn Girl)
- Working Title ( Atonement, Hot Fuzz, Nanny McPhee, Bridget Jones' Diary)

We concluded that Ruby Films specialised in very girly and British films, which would be perfect for us. They have not, however, done anything too similar to our film so it would be a new branch-out for them, yet still staying true to their style.

Target Audience Research

 I carried out research on our target audience of females aged 16-24 to try and decide wether this was infact an appropriate target audience for our film. Also to learn more about their lifestyle and consumer habits to gain an idea of how we could attract and address them in our sequence.

Data from cinemauk.org.uk, researched carried out by the UK Film Council:

UK cinema- audience by age and gender

What we learnt from this data

From this data we can see that the age group which visits the cinema most often is 15 to 24 year olds. It only makes sense therefore to target this market as our core audience, and since we ourselves are a part of this age bracket we felt we would be better at attracting this market effectively. Close behind on figures are the age ranges of 7-14 and 25-34, which our audience could easily spill over onto. 

The table also shows males visit the cinema more than females, however the difference is only very slight and since we are all females within the group we have decided to target them as our main audience. We will have a greater knowledge on the audience and can apply this when planning and shooting our opening sequence, instead of us running the risk of getting it all wrong and not targeting the male audience correctly. 

Research carried out by Film3Sixty:

UK CONSUMER TYPES

10% - Blockbuster Only

• 10% of survey
• 56% female
• Average age 39.2 years — youngest group
• Own games consoles —have all the tech gadgets
• Prefer comedy/rom-coms
• Most likely to pirate movies
• Most likely to think the cinema is expensive
• Watch a lot of TV

59% - Blockbuster Mainly

• 59% of survey — biggest group and truest picture of mainstream film consumer
• 53% female
• Average age 39.6 years — though most likely aged 16-24
• Own games consoles — have all the tech gadgets
• Prefer comedy/rom-coms
• Buy the most home-entertainment product
• Heaviest Facebook and YouTube users

29% - Indie Mainly

• 29% of survey — second biggest group
• 52% male
• Average age 44.5 years — younger than Indie Only
• Heaviest cinema-goers
• Heaviest consumers of film on DVD
• Most likely to online stream
• Most likely to watch a film on a laptop or PC
• Heaviest users of Twitter

2% - Indie Only

• 2% of survey — smallest group
• 55% male
• Average age 54.2 years — oldest group
• Prefer drama and foreign-language titles
• Lightest consumers of DVDs
• Least likely to pirate
• Lightest users of Facebook

What we learnt from this data

This data shows clearly that blockbuster films are viewed more than indie films. In response to this we have decided to create a film that is high concept and therefore can attract a larger audience. The blockbuster film viewers are also mainly female, which fits which our chosen audience and this type of consumer is also said to be 'most likely 16-24' which fits too. 

Research Conclusion

The main target audience for our film is females aged 16-24. Our secondary audiences consist of females younger and elder to this age group, along with males of the same age range.

Our film is of the 'Chick flick' genre and therefore our target audience will be attracted to this the most. Our sequence will include characters which are females of a similar age so as to allow our audience to relate to them, we will also include males to represent our secondary audience, and ensure there is something to appeal to them. 

Core Target Audience Profile

Age: 16-24

Gender: Female (typically 'girly' females) 

Class: Middle Class, British

Interests: Clothes/fashion, watching films, socialising with friends, shopping, social networking sites, boys 

Cinema viewing: Visits local cinema once a month or more, Cineworld, Vue, Odeon etc. 

Main media useage: Social networking sites, magazines and radio.  

Secondary Target Audience Profile

Age: 16-24

Gender: Male

Class: Middle Class, British

Interests: Sports, watchig films, socialising with friends, soical networking sites, girls. 

Cinema Viewing: Visits local cinema once a month or more, Cineworld, Vue, Odeon etc. 

Main media useage: Social networking sites and TV. 

Chick Flick Conventions

• Usually deal with themes of love, dating and romance
• Target a largely female audience
• Often released around Valentine's Day
• These films are generally held in popular culture as having formulaic, paint-by-numbers plot lines and characters
• Use a female protagonist
• Feature the colour pink
• Contain female related issues, which the female audience will obviously be able to associate with

One of the earliest examples of a chick flick is 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' in 1961 due to the elements of loneliness, fashion and of course has a happy ending.

Molly Haskell has suggested that chick flicks are very different from the women's films of the 1940s and '50s in that they now "sing a different tune." She feels that they are "more defiant and upbeat, post-modern and post-feminist."

In the 1980s in the US more modern and unique chick flicks were released, these dealt with newer issues such as teenage pregnancy and abortion.

Can be based on fairytales such as 'A Cinderella Story', 'Pretty Woman' and 'Ever After', or based on Shakespeare plays, as in the cases of '10 Things I Hate About You' and 'She's The Man'. Chick flicks have also been made based on books, such as 'Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging', and 'The Princess Diaries', even some more classic books have been turned into films, for example, 'Little Women'. In the case of 'Sex and the City', the characters and relationships were taken from the TV series.

Settings are usually well known, such as New York or London cities or suburbs, and often feature high schools in chick flicks with a schoolgirl teenage protagonist. Storylines usually follow a main character, dealing with issues such as popularity, looks, sex, relationships, friendships and family. A nemisis or arch enemy character is another recognisable trait, as this character behaviour usually hinders our protgonist within the issues she is trying to resolve, and sometimes causes problems for her. Most chick flick storylines conclude with a resolution to all the protagonist's previous problems, and the affections of the love interest are usually gained, often concluding with a romantic 'first kiss' scene, which is a moment of triumph and success for the protagonist.

EXAMPLES:
Love Story- 1970
Sixteen Candles- 1984
Dirty Dancing- 1987
Earth Girls Are Easy- 1988
Working Girl- 1988
When Harry Met Sally- 1989
Pretty Woman- 1990
Ghost- 1990
Thelma and Louise- 1991
Sleepless in Seattle- 1993
My Best Friend's Wedding- 1997
Titanic- 1997
Legally Blonde- 2001
The Princess Diaries- 2001
Bridget Jones Diary- 2001
Down With Love- 2003
The Notebook- 2004
The Devil Wears Prada- 2006
Enchanted- 2007
27 Dresses- 2007
Sex and the City- 2008
Definitely, Maybe- 2008
Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging- 2008
Twilight- 2008
The Proposal- 2009
Confessions of a Shopaholic- 2009