Notting Hill Seasons

I am analysing this scene Notting Hill because it shows the time passing in a set period. The film Notting Hill was made 1999 as a British romantic comedy set in Notting Hill, London. The film stars Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts which are two very famous and respected actors. The film was directed by Roger Michell and produced by Duncan Kenworthy. The screenplay was by Richard Curtis who has also written Four Weddings And A Funeral. The film was well received by critics, and became the highest grossing British film released that year. The film won a BAFTA, and was nominated in two other categories. Notting Hill won other awards, including a British Comedy Award and a Brit Award for the soundtrack.

The scene starts with a man walking out a house onto a street which looks like an old street market set in the 90s. I can tell this was set in the early 90s because of the music which is a song by Bill Withers called 'Ain't No Sunshine' released in June 1971. This is used to make the scene feel older than what it actually is. Also the picture above shows the start of the scene of the character walking through the market, you can see there is a sign to the far right which says 'peaches 5 for a £1'. This is how i could tell that this cut is set in a market. The two other characters next to the main character (woman and man) in the picture above, the woman is the main character's sister and the other male character looks to be her boyfriend. Later towards to the end of the scene, we see this woman breaking up with her boyfriend. This is to emphasise the passing of time because they wouldn't break up on the same day. 

We soon realise in the scene that the camera is following the man keeping him in the centre. This signifies that he is the main feature in this scene and is the main character by keeping him centred the whole time. The weather then changes from being bright, colourful and sunny to it raining and everyone putting up their umbrellas. The camera switches to a medium-close up shot of the character during the raining cut, this is to let the audience know he is still sad and has been during the seasons of the year so far. He then ducks under something then raises his head and the wind blows heavily as his hair moves and face cringes. This wind is to emphasise the fact that the rain is there and to signify its the season has changed to Autumn, the dull colours also help signify this. 

The scene's weather then changes to it snowing, signifying the season Winter. We now get the feeling that the seasons are all now changing and flicking through. Then it goes from Winter to Spring again and in this scene, the colours get brighter and more vibrant to let the audience know the season has changed yet again. 

Above is a screenshot of the scene where we see a baby and a mum, and at the start of the scene we saw a pregnant woman. This is used to show the passing of time by her having the baby and lets the audience know that the time has passed over a year. We also see in the background the main character with him carrying his jacket, this prop is used to also let the audience know what season it is. 

Idea For Our Project

Kevin is not your stereotypical man, you can tell this by his attitude to things. He isn't clever and you can tell he isn't reliable. In our project, you see the main character who is called Kevin, you see his love life set over the time period of 5 years. Kevin isn't good with women and in our scene we see Kevin get dumped by 3 of his ex-girlfriends in the same place over and over again.

Editing to build tension

I have chosen to analyse another scene from the film Friends With Benefits. This scene is not the opening scene, this scene is about mid way through the film but features something i like, this is a transition were it shows the passing of time and flicks fast through different shots.

This scene starts off with Dylan (Justin Timberlake) jumping up and start walking somewhere inside a house. The shot shows this by following Dylan showing him from the front then switches to an over the shoulder shot but still following him, this feels like your walking with him into a place in the house. Then it shows that Jamie (Mila Kunis) is there with him and says 'I do have a thing for jerks' meaning it in a joking way then switches to Dylan's face as a close up shot to show his facial expression. The facial expression given across by Dylan is that he knows she is joking but the joke just isn't funny. A song in the background is playing which is Hey Soul Sister by Train, this song is a mellow good feeling song which is related to the scene because its supposed to be a happy/funny scene. Both characters in this scene then start listing the things they like about each other. Jamie says 'your lips, yeah thought you might be a good kisser' and then switches to a medium-close up shot of Dylan's face to show his facial expression when he says 'i am'. This shot shows that Dylan thinks good of himself and knows he is a good kisser, feeling proud of himself. Then Dylan says 'your breasts' and Jamie immediately replies with 'what about them?'. Jamie's voice completely changes to a serious defensive tone because Dylan didn't say a good or bad thing about her breasts so she gets defensive. Then it shows both of the characters listing things they like about each other flicking quickly through each close up shot to build tension. It gets quicker and quicker then Jamie says 'you already said that' then Dylan says 'i meant it'. This is supposed to be a more romantic scene and most people would say its 'cute'. It then goes quiet and shows both characters staring at each other which doesn't feel like an awkward scene. This could be be because of the tone they were using, the warm colours used in the scene, or the way they were looking at each other. This scene justifies that the film is a romantic comedy because it features both romantic and comedy parts in this scene such as when Dylan describes himself as a good kisser is supposed to be funny, and when Jamie and Dylan both stare at each other looking intrigued, described by people as being 'cute'.

Friends With Benefits

I have chosen to analyse the opening scene of Friends with Benefits. Friends with Benefits is an 2011 American romantic comedy film directed by Will Gluckand starring Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis. The plot is about Dylan (played by Justin Timberlake) and Jamie (played by Mila Kunis) who meet in New York City as friends, then decide that adding sex to their friendship will not lead to any complications. Overtime they start to get feelings for eachother which they deny every time they are together.

In the first part of this scene, the man dating Jamie asks her 'are you sure this was prepared in a nut free facility?' and Jamie replies 'yes i'm fully aware of your alergies'. The man had to ask her this, which could mean that they might not know eachother well yet as they might not of been dating long.

Then it changes to Dylan meeting up with a girl shown in the picture above played by Emma Stone. Also both of the men in this scene have been late so it gives across a stereotype of all men being late. The red haired girl meeting up with Dylan says 'next time instead of being late, just shit on my face' then it switches to show Dylan's facial expressions. He looks confused as to how what she said is relevant to anything and inappropriate.   

Mr and Mrs Smith

I have chosen to analyse the opening scene of Mr and Mrs Smith. I have analysed the first three minutes of the film Mr and Mrs Smith from the start of this clip all the way up to where the setting changes to Columbia. This film was first released in 2008 and is an American romantic comedy film. The film was written by Simon Kinberg and directed by Doug Liman. The film features two well known actors which are Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie who are introduced as an old fashioned couple who have nothing interesting in their lives. They then both learn that they both are hired assassins hired to kill each other.

The film begins with a still camera shot showing two characters talking to a character which is not shown on screen. The two characters are answering questions about their marriage and are also sitting far away from each other with a closed body stance, which could imply that their is problems in their marriage as they don't seem close to each other. This first scene features funny lines such as when Brad Pitt's character says they have been married for 5 years and then his wife (Angelina Jolie's character) corrects him and says they have been married for 6 years. This shows that the wife cares more about the relationship than the husband.

The mise-en-scene in this scene seems to be realistic as they are both in a therapy session which shows that they are not of the lower class. Another factor which suggests that they are not of the lower class is that they are both wearing smart casual clothes which cost more money than clothes of the lower class people.

After i watched the first few minutes of this film, it made me want to go and watch it. It gives the impression that the film is going to be a romantic film, but then we see soldiers in a helicopter after the first scene which gives the impression that this film also features action. This made me intrigued about the film and makes me want to watch more.

Preliminary Task

Above is our preliminary task we did at Knole Academy. The scenes features a corridor and the Sixth Form Common Room. The man walking down the corridors at the start is Josh Sandford and the man sitting down already in the Common Room is me (Connor Mcallister).

In our scene we broke the 180degree rule, this is because we already knew the surroundings and we didn't seem to think about the rules when filming this task. This is relevant because we already knew what was behind the 180degree mark whereas the audience doesn't and we did not think this. This is likely to confuse the audience as we broke the 180degree rule and the audience is able to see a part of the room they haven't seen before. We also had bad continuity with Josh sitting down in different positions in different takes, we realised this after we edited the film together and we will improve on this by making sure that characters in our productions know what body language and stance they used in the previous takes. We had good match on action in our scene because at the start where Josh was walking down the corridor and opened the door into the Common Room, this part of the task flowed very well together which looked good and professional.

When we looked back and reflected on our preliminary task, we decided that our scene should have started around 12 seconds. This is because it takes too long to get inside the room and it looks repetitive. Starting it sooner would also get the audience interested quicker because no one would find someone walking down a corridor mildly interesting. 

Introduction

This is my AS media coursework blog by Connor Mcallister. We have been assigned to create a blog showing all our thoughts and planning into making a final piece for an opening scene for a film. I will be posting all my planning into making my final piece such as analysing other opening titles of films and shot and props lists.