Superbad Pre Title Sequence Analysis

• First sign of visuals that we see is a boy dancing in a strange fashion. It doesn’t look like it’s a dance movie as the way he’s dancing is something you might want to laugh at.
• First sign of typology that we see is plain block capitals that change colour if anything crosses it on screen, visual wise.
• The colours used suggest this will be an upbeat film as there are bright colour used which correspond with the titles on screen as the colours mix to make new colours.
• The music used is an upbeat dancing sort of music, but not music you would find at a dance contest but more at party or getting ready for a party.
• The second character we see in this pre title sequence is larger than the first character who is more slim and tall. The second character is dancing just as stupidly as the first character as if they don’t know what they are doing.
• A good technique is used within the visuals of this pre title sequence as the character has be quadrupled to give an added affect to the title sequence and make it look more funkier.
• We then see the two characters together in one shot and this time it is only one dancing whilst the other one watches on as if the guy is telling him, this is how you dance.
• The audience can clearly see that this film is about two guys who are probably good friends as they dance together and they probably do a lot of things together, we can see this as they feel comfortable dancing with each other and enjoying themselves.
• The effects are once again used well within the title sequence as the two characters are double in the visuals and this once again makes it look cooler within the title sequence.
• Towards the end of the title sequence we can once again see that these two are good friends as they almost have a good time dancing with each other in rhythm to the music and no matter how stupid they look, they still carry on.

The only indication that we as the audience get that this film belongs in the comedy genre is the way the characters dance in this pre title sequence as it makes the audience laugh in the way they attempt to look cool in dancing. The pre title sequence does communicate some light tones to the audience as you can see by the upbeat music and the bright colours that this will be a quite upbeat film with light tones about it.  

How To Write A Pitch

First - The pitch opening should be brief, one short sentence to introduce your film to the buyers.

Second - People should already understand the building block of the pitch. Such as for the film Se7en the audience understand that the building block for this is the seven deadly sins.

The pitch should also be no longer than 7-8 minutes long.

The pitch should also include; what the film is about but also the themes and messages it us trying to communicate. Furthermore it should include;

• a general outline of story
• apply Todorov's narrative theory
• consider a whole story for the pitch

These are some of the questions you should consider when writing a pitch;

• What genre is your film?
• What other films in this genre have inspired your film/is your film similar too?
• Who is the target audience for your film?
• When will the film be released (what season?)
• How much will your film cost to make?
• How much will it make?
• Who will star in the film?
• Who will direct the film?

Using the Questions above and what i have learnt from this post of how to write a pitch, i have now been given the task in my group to write a pitch for the film that we have made. Our Pitch will have to cover all apsects of what is written above in order to make it a good pitch and in order to do this my group have to create a presentaion in which we will present to the class who will give us feedback on our pitch and the film idea in general.

The Distribution Process

There are several critical things the distributor must consider in order to create a productive campaign:

Who is the target audience?
The distributor will think about the demographic and psychographic profile of the larget audience.
Demographic profile includes: gender, age, socio-eonomic class and ethnicity.
There are many measures used for identifying psychographics proflies, however that most commonly used by advertisers is Young and Rubicam's 4Cs (cross cultural consumer characterisation)

What do the target audience do?
what magazines and newspapersdo they read? where do they travel and how? what are their interests? what other films are they likely to watch?
The distributor will aim to define everything about the audience, in order to maximise profit for the film, by targeting advertising in the most appropriate places. For example, if the audience is unlikely to take public transport, but likely to purchase political magazines the distributor can avoid the tube station posters and instead buy advertising space in The Economist.
The distributor will find out about their audience through surveys and data analysis and will divide their data into three areas:
1) who the audience is
2) what they think
3) their media

Is there a wider audience this film could apeal to?
Major studio projects are so successful because they are mainly family films. Distributors will look for secondry audiences or whether a film has mass audience appeal, they may create a number of different poster campaigns for example in order to appeal to these different audiences. This means they could advertise the film in trailers and posters as action/adventure (mass appeal), then Science Fiction and Romance (secondary audience) if there are elements of these genres in the film.

What majorcast or crew are involved in the project?
The distributor will consider how to maximise the exposure of key cast and crew, measuring the successful of their most recent productions will not only allow the distributor to see what audiences particular stars attract and perhaps widen the audience appeal in the marketing campaign, but it will also allow them to see which see which stars or crew (mainly the director/producer) should feature prominently in the advertising campaign.

Film Industry - Distribution

Objectives:

• To be able to indicate how film distribution works.
• To begin to understand the difference between the US and UK film systems.

Keywords:

Producers

Distributors

Exhibitor

Studios

A film distributor is the link between the producer and the exhibitors (the cinema chains and television networks) their aim is to get as many people as possible to see the film.

The distributor markets the film and develops an appropriate advertising campaign.

To market successfully the distributor has to target the appropriate audience.

This can be easy if there is a star but harder in the case of low budget independant films.

After learning about the film industry and distribution, we were then given the task of researching a new Hollywood film on IMDB.com that hasn't been released yet and create a PowePoint on the specific distributor of the film to try and cover all aspects of the following questions;

• Who are they?
• Why are they distributing this film?
• Identify the main target audience, their interests and media use and any secondary/mass audience apeal.
• Idetify key cast/crew/pre-existing property and the film's USP.
• Identify the success of similar films by the recent director and/or key cast.

The task was optional in whether you wanted to do it in pairs or independantly. I chose to do it independantly as although it maybe a lot more simpler and less work when doing it in pairs, i feel that i would learn more about distribution if doing the PowerPoint by myself as then i would be able to answer all the aspects of this task independantly and gain more knowledge on the subject. Below this is my distrbution PowerPoint on the film Sherlock Holmes - A Game Of Shadows.

Sherlock Holmes - Warner Bros (distributor)

Lesson 7, 8, Shaun's Hw And My Own Research

In lesson 7 my group presented our groundhog day idea to the class and then watched the rest of the classes groundhog day ideas. This gave me many ideas as to what things i could do for my pre title sequence as there were many different aspects of how best to go about doing a pre title sequence for this new British version of the film.  Also the ideas that other people came up with and the different ways in which you could do the pre title sequence were intriguing as i was able to take ideas for other people's presentation of the ground hog day idea and perhaps twist them so that they could fit my film or even just use little ideas for my own pre title sequence that may make it look better or can assist it in helping me to communicate the themes of my film to the audience. This lesson also helped me with regards to my presenting skills and my confidence as i was able to present my groups piece of work to the class and see the response of what they thought of it and whether they had any comments on it that i could perhaps correct or things that the class thought went well about the idea. Also in this lesson we started to brainstorm our ideas for a new film that we would make the pre title sequence for, i thought this was good timing as i had made many notes on what i could do for my pre title sequence such as little ideas and aspects of how to go about doing it; perhaps animation or just one shot. Also the benefits of brainstorming our new film in our groups is that on my blog i had just done a few brainstorms on different ideas for different genres that we could possible do so then this helped me out a lot when it came to thinking of different ideas for our film. Having done some brainstorms on different genres i was able to suggest some ideas to my group  and see what they thought and whether they like any ideas that i had thought of.

In lesson 8 we as Paramount Vantage watched the films pitches of the other groups to see which one best suited our studio. This lesson helped me to understand many things about pitches and different studios as i was then able to understand that particular studios looks to put money into particular films depending on their budget, their genre and cast used. Also listening to the pitches to our film helped me to understand just what should be included within a pitch and just how to present a pitch as the rest of the groups demonstrated to me at the front of the class. Doing this task helped me to understand perhaps just what film studio might be linked with my film more than other film studios and when looking at the budget, cast and story line i have used, i think that one of the big 6 would be best suited for my film as i wouldn't see a film studio such as paramount vantage ever putting money in towards my film as they go for low budget drama/comedies. Also towards the end of the lesson we as the film studio presented our presentation of reasearch about our film production company to the rest of the class which gave me a boost in presenting as i got more practise at it.

I found that when doing Shaun's Hw it was very useful as i was able to get an understanding of what films, that are similar to my films, pre title sequences are like and in researching and analysing these two film i was able to get an understanding of the sort of budget, the cast, setting and director that it would need to use. This piece of homework has also helped me with ideas when thinking about my group and what we could do for our pre title sequence. Having looked and now analysed aa pre title sequence within the same genre as my groups film, we now know just what themes to communicate within the pre title sequence as well as what typology to use for the titles.

Finally when doing my own research this helped me with regards to my pitch and constructing my film idea as i have mentioned above. This has helped me as i am now able to understand what budget i will use for my film and also how much the film will make. This post has also helped me with what director, cast, setting and tag line to use as i have done research on Step Brothers and Happy Gilmore which is similar to my film and i can now give reason for my groups choices with regards to the director, cast, setting and tag line that we have all come together to think of.

Step Brothers - IMDB

Storyline

Brennan Huff and Dale Doback are both about 40 when Brennan's mom and Dale's dad marry. The sons still live with the parents so they must now share a room. Initial antipathy threatens the household's peace and the parents' relationship. Dad lays down the law: both slackers have a week to find a job. Out of the job search and their love of music comes a pact that leads to friendship but more domestic disarray compounded by the boys' sleepwalking. Hovering nearby are Brennan's successful brother and his lonely wife: the brother wants to help sell his step-father's house, the wife wants Dale's attention, and the newlyweds want to retire and sail the seven seas. Can harmony come from the discord?

Taglines: They grow up so fast.

Details

Official Sites: Sony Pictures [United States]
 
Country: USA

Language: English

Release Date: 29 August 2008 (UK)

Also Known As: Hermanastros

Filming Locations: 1987 Midwick Dr, Altadena, California, USA

Budget: $65,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend: $30,940,732 (USA) (27 July 2008) (3094 Screens)

Gross: $100,468,793 (USA) (21 September 2008)

Company Credits

Production Co: Columbia Pictures, Relativity Media, Apatow Productions

Happy Gilmore - IMDB

Storyline

A Hockey player wannabe finds out that he has the most powerful golf drive in history. He joins the P.G.A. tour to make some money to save grandma's house. The downside is that his hocky player mentality doesn't really go on the P.G.A. tour. Especially with the favorite to win the championship.

Taglines: He doesn't play golf... he destroys it.

Details

Country: USA

Language: English

Release Date: 19 July 1996 (UK)

Also Known As: Adam Sandler's Happy Gilmore

Filming Locations: Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada


Box Office
Budget: $10,000,000 (estimated)

Gross: $38,624,000 (USA)

Admissions: 400 (Netherlands) (1 January 1998)
Filming Dates: 6 July 1995 - 1 September 1995

Company Credits
Production Co: Universal Pictures, Brillstein-Grey Entertainment, Robert Simonds Productions