My best friends wedding analysis

My best friends wedding analysis

Genre-

The genre for this film is romance, the whole opening links to love and weddings. This is shown through the mise en scene in the opening. The main protagonist is wearing a wedding dress and the other three characters a wearing what looks like bridesmaid’s dresses, they are all matching and therefore they could be representing a bride and her bridesmaids. In terms of props bouquets of flowers and an engagement ring have been used.

Narrative-

The narrative for the film is quite clearly linked to a wedding, the characters within the opening seem to be involved with the wedding (bride and bridesmaids).

Character-

Within the film it is likely that there will be a bride and some bridesmaids, the characters in the opening could be the characters in the whole film or they could be a representation of the characters.

Atmosphere-

The mood of the film will more than likely be upbeat and quite happy, I can tell because the characters are very happy in the way that they are dancing and through their facial expressions.

Themes-

The film has themes of love and marriage. The whole opening is about love and ‘how to get a man’. The wedding theme is shown through the mise en scene within the opening.

Setting-

The opening Is set in a pink room; the room is quite bland which makes you notice the other hints such as the wedding dress etc. The fact that the room is pink has connotations of love and romance.

Sound-

The sound within the film opening is a non diegetic soundtrack, the song is very upbeat. It is all about ‘how to get a man’ and gives the whole opening a happy, romantic tone.

Titles-

The font of the titles in the opening look like the font that would be used on wedding invitations. This links back to the wedding theme.

preliminary task evaluation

I think that our piece of film demonstrates continuity reasonably well, in terms of mise en scene I think that the costume was quite well thought out. Lauren's face paint matched the narrative and added to our characterisation  For props we used School folders to put emphasis that it was set in school. Even though the setting was a school and we filmed it in a school, I don’t think that the set was quite right. To make it more effective I think that we could have used different lighting as I feel the lighting we used was too naturalistic. We used tracking in our piece when Franchesca is walking down the corridor, I think that this was effective because again it matched the narrative and it also added a bit of suspense.

We have demonstrated match on action, shot reverse shot and the 180-degree rule in our film clip. These editing techniques are helpful because they kept every thing in the clip clear and orientated.

If we didn’t include match on action, the scene when Franchesca walked into the room would have looked very basic as we would have just ended up tracking her into the room, if we had tracked her into the room, it could have looked more like a point of view shot.

Shot reverse shot was helpful because it gave a clear indication that there was a conversation going on. It also put emphasis on the more dominant character by giving them the last shot.

 

The 180- degree rule helped as it allows the viewer to keep their bearings of what thy are looking at so that they don’t get disorientated and confused.

Using all three of these editing techniques was useful to us because it gave us an opportunity to practice using them and it made us think about where we would use them and why.

If feel that our group worked well together because we gave ideas that joined together to make one big idea. We all thought of details that worked well together, however, if they were used individually they may not have been as effective.

I think that if we were to film this again we could improve on our mise en scene. Even though we used face paint and school folders to build on our characterisation, we could have used a better setting that fit the narrative a lot better. I also think that we could have made the sound a bit more original as we used the same soundtrack that we used on another piece that we had created prior to this piece.

I think that we planned our film reasonably well. I think to improve it we could have thought up a whole narrative as that would have made us have a clearer understanding of what we need to incorporate in the clip that we created.

We didn’t use transition in our piece, if we had I think that a fade to black could have effective as it would have been effective because it would have given a bit of suspense to the clip, rather that it moving on so quickly.

Whilst doing this exercise it has helped me develop my editing skills. Even though I had used iMovie before, I still wasn’t that up to scratch with how to use the it. I now know how to include sound into a project and I have improved a lot when lining shots up and cutting them to a certain time.

Whilst constructing this film, I now have a much bigger understanding of the effect a dolly has on the quality of filming. I got the chance to use a different camera to what I have used previously and therefore I had to learn about how to use it effectively (getting it to focus).

preliminary task shot list

Making a shot list helped us when editing our piece as it helped us line up each piece of footage perfectly to make the correct time that we had already decided on. It also helped when we were filming our piece because it was a guide to tell us how long each shot had to be.

preliminary task script

Preliminary Task

Franchesca

Lauren

Preliminary Task: The script

Franchesca

(Walking down a corridor)

                                Camera pans out to see Lauren following her.

(Franchesca turns around and everyone has gone)

(She hears laughing)

(She is now running)

(She runs to a door and is still looking behind. She goes in)

(Lauren is sitting on a chair staring at her, looking smug)

What are you doing here, what do you want?

                                                        What do you think I want?

Francesca stares at the floor looking sad/ annoyed 

You know I could never do that! Nothing you say will change my mind

Well then, I guess I’m just gonna have to follow you until you do it, I’ll always be there, when you sleep… eat…. When you’re happy… When you’re sad.

Francesca sits down opposite Lauren

You can’t do that to me! I’ll tell someone! I’ll tell them what you doing!

Yeah? And who’s going to believe you?

Francesca looks down, frustrated

Exactly  

Fine… I’ll do it.

Good, I’m glad to see you’re being cooperative.

But please, promise me, you will leave me alone afterwards 

Of course. You won’t be seeing for a long time afterwards.

preliminary task story board

The storyboard helped us when making our preliminary task because it gave us a clear understanding of what our film should have looked like before we had made it. We were able to refer back to this whist constructing our piece as a reminder of what we were producing.