Initial Film Treatment Ideas

2010, the height of teen imitation superheros, and four particular teeangers in Bristol are up to the challenge. Nerdman, Geekboy, Protecterrr (arr, we be from Brizzle) and Shoc-King and are a team of average nerdy teenagers who want to make a difference to the justice system - by sorting things out themsleves. However, with the combined upper-body strength of a 7 year-old girl, they face an up-hill struggle.

The film commences with the four 'heros' being called upon to settle a conflict. A gang of Chavs, cronies of the Nerds most feared bully; Chavman, have been causing havoc around the local area in Bristol, and beating up 'losers' and 'gorms' - the Nerds see this as to be very wrong, and 'undemocratic'.

Before any real conflict between the Nerds and the Chavs happens, we go back 2 months previous, to the formation of their crime-fighting group.

This would include; Nerdman and Geekboy being friends, and getting fed up with getting picked on, and also, Protecterrr and Shoc-King being friends and having similar problems, but the individual pairs dont get on well with each other at this stage.

Nerdman and Geekboy decide that they are going to create secret identities, and to fight back against their injustice, but to try to be very secretive about it - so the bullies and others dont find out who it is.

Nerdman and Geekboy make costumes and try to find a problem that they can fix, an easy one that would be easily done and get their confidence up. They go to the park, try to stop a fight between two 5 year-old boys, but Nerdman ends up getting punched in the leg and they leave the park as quickly as possible. However, on leavin the park, they encounter Protecterrr and Shoc-King. They instantly deduce who they are, and are very confused. The four of them go to Nerdman or Geekboy's house - their Headquarters. They explain all to Protecterrr and Shoc-King and invite them to join them - for the good of Nerdkind everywhere. With comedic interruptions from the mother of Nerdman or Geekboy - depending upon location - to add to humorous aspects of the situation. Protecterrr and Shoc-King agree to fight alongside Nerdman and Geekboy, for the good of Nerdkind.

We then come back to the 2 months later, back to the iminent confrontation between the Nerds and the Chavs. The costumes will be funny enough, and clearly showing the difference in social status between the two groups to hilarious effect. There is not a fight, Nerdman's lightsabre fails to work, so calls retreat of the team, and they all run off - with their identities still safe.

The group meet back at the Headquarters and assess their failed attempt at enforcing justice. Nerdman wants to quit, but its Protecterrr who comes up trumps for the group, by appealing to Nerdman's fancy for a specific girl - 'Girls dig heros', so Nerdman agrees to keep working with the group, promising that he will help the group to be stronger and that they should go out the next day, in order to patrol the streets and to make ammends for the failings of the day.

Nerdman has nightmares of the failure that may happen, and being humiliated further, therefore failing in his bid to ask out the girl that Protecterrr had used to convince him to 'continue' to fight the bullies. However, this spurs Nerdman on, to keep going and working with the team.

Their chance to prove themselves, with an audience that needed it, was coming up, the Nerds sensed it.

Protecterrr and Geekboy begin to plan up training techniques, because they think the team need more physical presence to oppose villains, whilst Nerdman and Shoc-King plan strategies of how to handle certain situations. (a montage sequence needed here, with a fade out to signify the time change to next part of the narrative)

All four boys are walking our of school at the end of the day. There are other students from the school around them, and all of a sudden, ahead of them, a gang of four 'older' students are attacking a younger one, to get his phone. Behind the Nerds, are a group of girls from the same year as the Nerds, including the one who Nerdman has an eye for. One of the girls exclaim and point out the wrong-doing. With nowhere to change, and with little time to prepare, the four Nerds exchange a series of expressions, before Nerdman makes the decision - he's going to stop this situation between the gang and the young one. With an 'OI!' and a shake of the fist (almost Boris Johnson style - referenced later on for comedic effect), Nerdman races towards the alteration. His fellow Nerds are right behind him and the gang are very confused and startled by the onrushing Nerds, so make a break for it, with the young kid's phone. Geekboy stops to help the boy and reassure him that everything will be okay, but the other three chase the gang to get the phone back.

The gang eventually start to tire, and chuck the phone in a bush. Nerdman picks up the phone and takes a deep breath, saying 'I'll get you back, one day'. They regroup with Geekboy, the boy, and the group of girls. Nerdman holds up the phone in victory, and passes it back to the kid. The group of Nerds and the group of girls walk the kid home and then go to the park.

The film ends with the Nerds having a picnic with the girls in the park, all paired up - 'Girls dig heros'.

Teen Comedy Actor - Justin Long

A likable, boyish-looking actor with thick eyebrows and a friendly smile, Justin Long is a perfect teen actor - in Dodgeball in particular, he is gormless enough to be comedically funny, but is innocent and gets the girl at the end. He is relatable to, by the target audience, and empathisable to the secondary audience. He is well know for his humorous reactions within the narrative and good comedic timing and performance.

Additional Textual Analysis

As research for our practical, we had to do a textual analysis of a film, that corresponded with the genre our group wanted to emulate. I chose Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, as it is one of my favorite teen comedies. The first thing we the audience sees, is the distribution company logo with accompanying music, for this film the Universal logo and orchestral track are parodied, being put into a retro game 8-bit styling, this tells the audience the general feel of the film, like a video game.

After the distribution logo, we hear an opening narration, with almost a transcript in bold black letters, appearing on a white background, the narration is comical as it describes Toronto, Canada as a 'mysterious land'. Following this is a tilt shot, which is a very effective transition from the transcript, the shot stops on a medium/long low angle shot of a house, which sets up the scene. We can also tell that the setting is cold, as there is snow on the roof and on a tree, there's also icicles hanging from a roof. We hear a characters voice before the shot changes, to a medium/long shot of the characters in the kitchen, this aids in the transition, because we haven't just automatically changed scene, we are intrigued by the voice, and so it lets the director change scene to show us where the voice is coming from. The medium long shot lets us establish the setting and the characters in it, we see three characters sat down at the table, who are well lit, and one stood up and darker, from this we could interpret that the character standing up is different from the others, a black sheep character, this could also be shown by the fact the other characters are looking at him. While there is a conversation between Scott (character stood up) and Kim (character sat down), an over the shoulder high angle shot is used (over Scott's shoulder), we could say this puts Kim in a weaker position, and that she is not the character we should be focused on. Low angle shots of Scott show he is that he should be the focus of our attention, and that he is important/powerful than the others. The other two characters Stephen and Neil are shown at relatively eye height, this could show the relationship between these two characters and Scott, because being guys they'd probably have similar interests, while Kim being the only girl might feel left out, so she is shown in high angle shots. There are close ups of each of the characters faces while Scott talks, showing there reaction to what he says, we could interpret this as almost a point of view shot. This then switches to an over the shoulder high angle shot of Kim, we could say that she might be jealous (the topic of conversation being about Scott's new 17 year old girlfriend Knives Chau), this may lead her to be weakened by her jealously, because she speaks in monotone and is quite expressionless, she tries to carry a 'tom boy' façade. A medium shot of the group shows that the attention is still on Scott, and shows the emotions of Kim and Stephen, but Neil is blurred in a narrow depth of focus, this could show he's not important.

When Scott answers the door for his girlfriend Knives she is shown in high angle, she is shy so this might reflect the weakness that comes from that, but this could also be a point of view from Scott as she is shorter than him, and vice-versa for Scott. When Stephen comes into the frame we are in an over the shoulder low angle shot from Knives' point of view, this most likely represents her shyness and stature. When Stephen shuts the door to talk quietly to Scott, we zoom in to a two shot close up, this probably represents that the conversation is meant to be isolated from the others, and to show the characters emotions.

As I can not get the clip uploaded as it is not online, I've linked the trailer to prove it exists:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_RrNCqCIPE

Work on Garageband

Last lesson we experimented with the Garageband software on the iMac and looked at the range of musical instruments and compiling some together to get the right sound. With our genre being comedy/action, we want a spoofy action soundtrack, and we created a decent attempt using some electric guitar, a drum beat and the use of some synth. Our track must be subtly over-the-top action-esque so that it adds to the humour as and when it happens in the scenes.

The importance of a good and accurate theme tune is that it represents the genre perfectly, and helps to build the atmosphere that is relevant to the narrative and how it needs to be recieved by the audience. The best thing about comedy as a genre is that it can use music associated with other genres can be used for the comedic effect, such as taking a real action-styled piece of music and put it to a seemingly average task, for example in Bean (The Ultimate Disaster Movie) when the loud dramatic music is played when Mr. Bean is shaving. This adds to the character image that we are building in our mind.

Mood Board of Inspiration

Further Research into Introductions to Comedy Films

In the 2004 film Starsky & Hutch (the modern film adaptation of the 1970s television series), there are some techniques that would be great to adapt into my groups film opening production task. The film actually starts off with the introduction to the villain, however that is not the approach we want to take, but from 00 : 02 : 16 (Hours : Minutes : Seconds) to 00: 04 : 22 where the main characters are introduced through their own narrations. From the Starsky & Hutch scenes, they highlight the character traits that they both have sperately, and we can see the contrast, and anticipate the comdic chemistry they must have, because, the film is named after them, we know they are important to the plot. Additionally, the actors, Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson (and Vince Vaughn) are recognised as comedic actors from the Frat Pack, and this builds up the anticipation of a good, funny film ahead. Facial expressions are very important to comedy films, and to get the right expression is key - Ben Stiller is an expert at producing serious looks with humorous aspects to them.

A Variety of Genres

The opening two minutes evaluation.

Western: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Mise-en-scene: cigarettes, unshaven, hat, horses
Camera: long shot (establishing scene), still close-ups
Editing: deep bold colours, slow transitions, not much happening (an anticipation build-up)
Sound: flute, guitar - traditional western music, an ery silence (anticipation again)
Generic Conventions: quiet, not much going on - building of tension at the start

Horror: Scream
Mise-en-scene: average house, doors and windows with no curtains - voyerism
Camera: close-ups of facial expression
Editing: slow, speeds up with introduction of bad guy presence (over the phone)
Sound: quiet - too quiet...
Generic Conventions: bad guy, attractive woman - victim, blood, knife

Romance: P.S. I Love You
Mise-en-scene: normal couple, normal appartment (high up)
Camera: over-the shoulder shots - the distance of the relationshop of the the couple at this time
Editing: production credits straight out of the way
Sound: slow, easy-listening
Generic Conventions: a couple, conflict (usually not at the start, but is at the start of this film), ongoing questions for audience to htink about before the plot unravels

Adventure: Pirates of the Caribbean
Mise-en scene: costume (accurate to set the period of time the story is set - conventionally in the past)
Camera: low angles of boat, and of Elizabeth Swan - showing the importance of them
Editing: name of film straight away, with no distracting cast names during introduction - signifying the serious plot aider at the beginning
Sound: quiet violins, gradually building up, they get more clunky, dawnting - something about to happen
Generic Conventions: mystery, starts further back in time, giving a bit of back story, then to return to main event

Sci-Fi: The Running Man
Mise-en-scene: headset - technology, uniformed costume
Camera: close-up of face - reaction shot of character recieving conflicting views
Editing: quick-pace for action aspects, the colour red forshadowing the danger, a backstory written down in rolling titles - detail about the sci-fi universe the film is set in
Sound: tense, futuristic
Generic Conventions: the backstory written down in rolling titles - the detail of the sci-fi universe film is set in, is set at a different time to present (may be future, or past)

Drama: The Persuit of Happyness
Mise-en-scene: pyjamas, soft toy = child, afro + sideburns = 1980s
Camera: low angle of the USA flag - the authority and respect of the nation
Editing: slow transition, left to right - the daily routine (ordinary), the 'y' in the title suggesting the solution (of the title question) is mathematical
Sound: delicate, violins, contrast to image on occasion
Generic Conventions: relationships, relatable, real

Comedy: Bean
Mise-en-scene: silly things in the mirror
Camera: close-ups of funny expressions
Editing: quick pace - over-exaggeration of sequence of images
Sound: over-exaggeration to whats happening, dramatic for trivial images
Generic Conventions: recognised actor(s), funny action, facial expression

British Realist: The Full Monty
Mise-en-scene: dark, bleak, REAL
Camera: up above - watching/spying
Editing: establishing setting with small screen, just a small introduction, put credits underneath it
Sound: upbeat in promotional advert, quiet in factory - dying industry
Generic Conventions: REALISM, accurate characters, accent, colloquialisms

Film Noir: Touch of Evil
Mise-en-scene: city life, nice car, smart dress
Camera: always tracking thoughout opening sequence with no cutting or altered view - almost a point of view shot
Editing: no cut, straight to action, anicipation built of bomb going to go off - when??
Sound: accurate of the time
Generic Conventions: city scene, dark, night (theme)

Action: Mission Impossible 2
Mise-en-scene: virus injection (implications) (green=toxic poison), white coats, test tubes
Camera: close-up - see the action, establishing setting - birds eye shot of Sydney
Editing: quickly transitioned
Sound: quick, calmer on plane
Generic Conventions: fast pace = action, russian character brings mystery