We've chosen to have our film institution as Twentieth Century Fox, reason being as this is normally associated with rom-com films and is a universally known film institution, indicating that we intended our film to be a box office hit. Whereas if we chose an English film institution, such as Pathe, it would indicate that this is just a small earning British film -- and I normally associate Pathe with social realism.
As a group, we researched two film openings. We done Bridget Jones Diary and Love Actually. We chose these because we knew that both of these films are rom-coms and have a voice over in the beginning, which we've intended our project to have. The story lines of both of these films have no connections to ours, but we discovered that most rom-coms have an opening like this.
The biggest convention Bridget Jones Dairy uses is the classic 'girl unlucky in love'. They also add in the love triangle, as Bridget can't decide whether she wants to be with Mark Darcy or Daniel Cleaver. As this film is an altered re-telling of Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice', Bridget picks Darcy. This film does have a voice over throughout, whether she be writing in her diary or giving the viewer an opinion of a new character. This voice over is done by the main character, Bridget Jones, played by Renee Zellweger. The font choice for the opening titles is very minimalistic. The colouring of the text is either pink or white, giving it a romance feel. The music in the starting of the film is very dreary, especially as she starts to sing 'All By Myself' by Jamie O'Neal. You can tell that the film is going to have a comedic feel to at, as she starts miming the words into a microphone and dancing all over the place to the song.
Love Actually is very different compared to Bridget Jones and what we imagine our own production to be like. It has an assortment of characters, and none of them are the main characters, as you follow all of their lives around. They all have different dilemmas, whether it be the one a character loves getting married to their best friend or a characters other half is cheating on them with a relative. The opening to this film is yet again, another voice over; which is done by the 'prime minister' who is played by Hugh Grant. Both of these films are based over the Christmas period. This being that Christmas resembles a time when you're not supposed to be alone and you spend it with someone who you love. Whether it your significant other or just family. The opening titles for this film are quite minimalistic, too. The text colouring is red and white, as the film is based over the Christmas period. The music is quite slow, as the opening scene is at an airport, showing everyones intimate moments of meeting up with a loved one.
