Narrative

• In a rom-com, a narrative will most likely always consist of a man and woman. We are going to stick to this as we want a typical falling in love scene, but a way of going against this convention is to add same sex couples to this, this would show the variety in the film industry and the non-judgment

• A typical plot would be a girl meets boy and falls in love circumstance, but we are going against this convention and swapping it around. We want a four best friend plot, but the main protagonist who of which is a boy, will fall in love with the girl, sending the 4 way friendship in to meltdown and ruining it, this would create both comedy and romance within the film

• There are two different types of theories applied to a rom-com; Todorov’s Equilibrium which will be explained in the following slide, and also Propp’s Character Types. In a typical rom-com the male is seen as the hero, and the girl as the princess, but in our case these roles will be swapped as we want to male to be portrayed as needing saving from the dilemma he has put himself into, and the girl being the hero and resolving the problem

Main Protagonists all

friends

Problem is solved, they all become friends but the couple

has become official

Main Protagonist

confesses his love to one of the girls he is best friends

with

Problem happens

Problem resolved

EQUILBRIUM DISEQUILIBRIUM NEW EQUILIBRIUM

Todorov’s Equilibrium

Sound

• They are also known to start off with a voiceover as dialogue from one of the protagonists, in our case we hope that it is from the main protagonist which is one of the boys we are using as an actor, this gives you their point of view so the audience can get an idea of what type of character he is

• The dialogue is also important as it tells the audience watching the film about the situation at that very moment and it may also hold the comedy factor within the sub genre, we will be sticking to this convention

• Music normally in a rom-com includes very meaningful lyrics relating to love, we will be sticking to this as we have chosen to use ‘Better Together’ by Jack Johnson

Lighting

Typically a Romantic Comedy would have lots of high-key lighting and natural light, this would reflect the mood of the characters in the situation. There is also no sad or horror scenes, so there is no need for low key lighting, the only time it could be used is if they went on a walk at night, but that would still use natural light. We are sticking to this convention as all of our scenes will be in daylight, whether it be outside or inside

Location

A rom-com like LOL or Notting Hill are set in big cosmopolitan cities like New York and London, and how they find love in the bustling city. We are going to break this convention as we are going to be filming in a characteristic English village, due to our narrative being the fact that the man and woman are already in the film and are the main protagonists, they are not going to find each other and fall in love which is what happens in most rom-coms, they have already met. We hope that the audience we are targeting understand this and hope they take on board the reason why we have chosen this sort of location

Costumes

The costumes of the characters would usually be smart and also quite sexy, as they are trying to make themselves appeal to the opposite sex and catch their attention, but in our case, due to the 4 protagonists already being friends, they don’t need to try and impress each other, so they will all be in normal everyday attire. The main protagonist doesn’t fall in love with the girl because of her style, it is because of her personality

Target Audience

We are sticking to the representative age gap of 15-25 which is what a rom-com falls into, but we are increasing the income bracket to B-E due to using a more sophisticated, English Institution and the fact that we want to portray within our opening sequence the affluent backgrounds our protagonists come from. We will also be sticking with women being our primary audience and male being our secondary audience.

The 6 categories of Romantic Comedy

A romantic comedy is among the most unoriginal of genres, with elements that consistently contribute to successful films. Among other things, a rom-com hero must pursue his love interest, a crisis which could become devastating. Within these heroes are different elements of conflict which forms the foundation of the narrative itself. These different elements fall in to six categories: 1. Secrets & Lies2. The Imposter 3. The Magic Spell 4. Peter Pan & Wendy 5. Slumming It 6. The Long Haul

Slumming It

Slumming It is the most common category of British Romantic Comedies, where the conflict frequently stems from class differences. This is the category we have chosen to place our hero from our film into, this is due to using a British Institution. Also we want our plot to be that the four friends are together, but then the main protagonist who in this case is the hero but then does fall into Propp’s character type of the villain, falls in love with one of the girls, which sends the friendship up in the air and splits them all up. However, he does manage to resolve his dilemma and by the end of the film the problems are all solved.