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ROMANTIC COMEDY:
In my short film 'Follow Me', I didn’t necessarily challenge conventions within the genre or the way I filmed/edited. I kept my film within the romantic comedy genre, with a little bit of an independent indie film vibe, which is pretty conventional in this day and age.
A definition of romantic comedy: a light and humorous movie, play, etc., whose central plot is a happy love story.
I took this definition and my research on romantic comedies, and altered my screenplay so that my film would stand out compared to other romantic comedies. My film centers around a strange love story, where two weird teenagers find companionship in a strange way. I tried really hard to incorporate comedy into this through May's strong personality and witty lines, along with Artie's awkwardness. Bringing these two unlikely characters together is how my short film is different from other romantic comedies. The journey of how they meet is unusual and is a risky choice, however it serves a cute way to evoke interest and involvement from my audience. I also purposefully left the ending unsure of what happens, so that it leaves my audience thinking and people can interprete the ending differently, which is unusual for romantic comedies. I wanted to take the existing ideas of the romantic comedy genre, and put my own twist on it.
Within my film, my main characters represent pre-conceived ideas of teenagers. My two characters fall into archetypes of the ‘geek’ and the ‘hippie.’ Obviously I don’t think the characters are that simple that you can put them into stereotypes and that’s that. My main goal with this film was to create two characters that teenagers would be able to relate to and sympathize with. May is a quirky teenage girl who has a passion for music, and Artie is an awkward geeky kid who loves photography. I think giving each of these characters something to be passionate about is a way to resonate interest within my audience. I'm hoping that these likeable qualities May and Artie have will evoke interest from other teenagers. Artie's awkwardness will evoke sympathy from my audience, and I did this purposefully so that you root for the two of them to get together in the end.
One of the key components that helped with 'branding' all of my products was genre. My genre was romantic comedy, and this distinction helped me surround all of my products around that genre. My short film itself is memorable because it's not like usual romantic comedies. The plot twist at the end adds an edge that most romantic comedies don't have, and the unknown ending also adds a feature that will help my film stand out. These components are essential in creating a brand for my products. My short film, website, and postcard advertisement both have a common color scheme and font which creates a sense of unity within all the separate products. All of these features that I have incorporated into my products help create a sense of unity and 'branding.'
Audience:
Two of the big components of my project that engages with my audience are my characters and my ending. Both of my characters are relatable in some way or another, which is very important to engage my audience. Since my genre is romantic comedy, my audience ranges from teenagers to young adults. This generation loves to see people that they can empathize with and find some sort of connection too. I believe I succeeded in creating two characters that my audience would root for. Having main characters that the audience cheers for is very important in keeping their interest. Another factor that helped with engaging my audiences is the ending of my short film. My short film doesn't really have a defined ending. In other words, there are multiple ways the story could've ended and it's up to the audience to figure out what they think happened. One quote that I think really coincides with this concept is, "Explanation kills art." This ending leaves my audience thinking about the film, and doesn't fully explain what happens. This way my audience will be able to decide for themselves.
Filming:
My camera is a Canon EOS Rebel T3i, which had a very nice level of quality. I was able to upload all the film from my camera straight to my computer that I edited on. I also filmed using a tripod that I was able to borrow from someone. This helped me keep the shot steady for some of the scenes I filmed.
Website:
I used wix.com to create my website for my short film. This was connected to my gmail account, and I was able to pick a template and customize my own website. I displayed the YouTube video of my short straight on my website, and I uploaded pictures from my short film onto the website.
Research:
All of the research that I posted on my blog was found through online sources. I was able to watch short films for inspiration, look up tips for writing, and read articles on filming all online. Overall, the softwares that I have used along with the hardware all worked well together. Integrating all of these factors was the only way this project was completed.
Editing:
When I worked on my AS level film opening, I got very well-versed with iMovie and all of its features. This consisted of a trial and error process where I basically had to teach myself how to do more of the advanced editing that I didn't learn in class. This project went much more smoothly because I learned a lot of shortcuts, and easy ways to edit that I didn't know before. Using iMovie tied in with all of the other technologies I used, since I was able to post my video straight to YouTube from iMovie. I also used YouTube to search tutorial videos, so I could get even better at editing.
Film festivals:
One way that I would distribute my film is the traditional way at film festivals. I would start submitting the film to smaller local film festivals such as Tallahasee Film Festival, Daytona Beach Film Festival, and Central Florida Film Festivals as well as larger film festivals such as Redstone Film Festival, Raindance Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, etc . At these festivals I would advertise, sell merchandise to raise money, and overall try and gain exposure for this film in the hopes that it would get picked up by a production company.
Social Media:
Since my main audience is teenagers I would definitely start by creating social media sites for my movie to publicize it, and build up a following before the movie is released. After presenting my film at the festivals I would then put it up online using my website,, and since in this day and age it’s almost impossible to prevent pirating I would make the film available for free, but because hopefully I will already have a good amount of people following the film my gofundme page would already be booming. The gofundme page would be where people could donate money if they liked the film.
Photoshop:
I used Adobe Photoshop to create my postcard advertisement. This software worked really well to edit the photo I used, which was a still from my short film. I was able to add texts, and add the name and dates of the film festival straight from the webesite.