After doing some research into comedy distribution I found out the following things. Similarly themed school/teen comedies were very popular with audiences. BoxOfficeMojo.com (a website that deals with how much money movies make) was a useful tool to gauge the popularity of the genre.
I found the following worldwide financial figures and distribution for similar comedies:
American Pie: $235,483,004 Universal
Superbad: $169,871,719 Sony
Mean Girls: $129,042,871 Paramount
Bring it on: $90,449,929 Universal
She's all that: $103,166,989 Miramax
Clueless: $56,631,572 (Domestic Gross only) Paramount
This showed me that the genre itself is very popular with audiences (when done successfully). The top 30 high school comedies on the website earned more than £17 million dollars. Given the relative cheap production costs of a high school comedy (given the lack of special effects or costly shooting locations), there is a high cost to profit ratio. As such, the distribution of the genre is popular with a lot of studios.
It was obvious there was no dominant distributor of the genre so I had to do a little bit more investigation to find the best fit of studio. My movie has a traditional comedy storyline so it was obvious that a more independently minded distribution company wouldn't fit. It would have to be one of the larger companies and probably one of the ones from the six films listed above.
Out of the companies listed above, I think Paramount seems to be the best fit. Mean Girls is the closest comedy to the one that we developed. It also deals with high school social groups and the comedy is mined from the collision of these groups, which is, again, very similar to ours. As well as their previous record for developing successful mainstream teen comedy, they have a large comedy output on their own channel Paramount comedy. No other distributor seems as dedicated to the art of comedy like Paramount so it would be the best fit.
Wednesday, 18 March 2009
Friday, 13 March 2009
Example evaluation
Below is the start of an example evaluation that starts to deal with the questions:
• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
• How does your media product represent particular social groups?
We decided to start our piece with a sardonic talk-over from the main character of the piece, Jon. It was felt that this would set out who the main character was, what their personality was like and it would reflect ironically on the action that was happening on screen.
This kind of narration usually happens in comedies. One that springs to mind is Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. He narrates the start of the movie, explaining how to fake illness to fool his parents into giving him the day off school. You understand that he is intelligent, quick-witted and able to play on his parents’ obvious sympathy. As it is delivered in a dead-pan style, you get the impression that the main character is savvy and cynical.
We use the narration to anchor the movie, which is nominally about Jon and his adventures and mishaps in and around school. The mise en scene was bright, taking place in sunny school corridors and classrooms. It was felt that the lighting needed to be as bright as possible in order for the connotations of comedy and happiness to shine through. Obviously the iconography of a school was strongly visible, including desks, whiteboards, and schoolbags. This again, gives the audience a heads up to the nature of the genre, or more realistically the sub-genre. We could exploit prior knowledge of codes and conventions of a school comedy and use this to good effect. The opening two minutes clearly establishes Jon as the typical high-school jock, only interested in two things: women and sport! This character type appears again and again in this type of genre, though rarely as a main character. It could be argued that we were pushing a relatively minor character (usually a side-kick in these movies) centre-stage. A nice idea to explore another aspect of school life.
As mentioned, we really wanted to focus on the jock or jocks in school, play on their image as tough guys obsessed with sport, who mistreat their girlfriends and dominate the school social hierarchy.
The other questions that you need to address are:
• What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
• Who would be the audience for your media product?
• How did you attract/address your audience?
• What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
• Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
• How does your media product represent particular social groups?
We decided to start our piece with a sardonic talk-over from the main character of the piece, Jon. It was felt that this would set out who the main character was, what their personality was like and it would reflect ironically on the action that was happening on screen.
This kind of narration usually happens in comedies. One that springs to mind is Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. He narrates the start of the movie, explaining how to fake illness to fool his parents into giving him the day off school. You understand that he is intelligent, quick-witted and able to play on his parents’ obvious sympathy. As it is delivered in a dead-pan style, you get the impression that the main character is savvy and cynical.
We use the narration to anchor the movie, which is nominally about Jon and his adventures and mishaps in and around school. The mise en scene was bright, taking place in sunny school corridors and classrooms. It was felt that the lighting needed to be as bright as possible in order for the connotations of comedy and happiness to shine through. Obviously the iconography of a school was strongly visible, including desks, whiteboards, and schoolbags. This again, gives the audience a heads up to the nature of the genre, or more realistically the sub-genre. We could exploit prior knowledge of codes and conventions of a school comedy and use this to good effect. The opening two minutes clearly establishes Jon as the typical high-school jock, only interested in two things: women and sport! This character type appears again and again in this type of genre, though rarely as a main character. It could be argued that we were pushing a relatively minor character (usually a side-kick in these movies) centre-stage. A nice idea to explore another aspect of school life.
As mentioned, we really wanted to focus on the jock or jocks in school, play on their image as tough guys obsessed with sport, who mistreat their girlfriends and dominate the school social hierarchy.
The other questions that you need to address are:
• What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
• Who would be the audience for your media product?
• How did you attract/address your audience?
• What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
• Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
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