Moodboard Annotations

MOODBOARD ANNOTATIONS – By Leanne, Nilima, Fatma.

We created a mood board that represented the conventional elements of

Romance films, covering some of the micro elements: mise-en-scene, Camera

shots and editing as well as looking at representation and character. Our mood

board was created with the purpose of helping us to form a foundation of

ideas of which we could start to bring ideas together for our own teaser trailer.

We started research for the mood board by watching trailers of romance films

and romantic comedies, aimed at an audience between the ages of 16-21 and

had simple but intriguing concepts. ‘Love Rosie’, ‘Never Let Me Go’ and

‘Friends with Benefits’ acted as our primary sources which various screen shots

and posters that can be found on the mood board above. All three films had

narratives that involved the relationships between friends which form into

more sexualized or romantic relations; we want our narrative to have a similar

concept.


We gathered as many

images of three best

friends with two

females and one male

as we could to show

their friendship. This

partciluar image gave

us the inspiration to

have the three best

friends walking in

front of the camera in

the start of our teaser trailer. They are laughing and chatting away, this was a way to show to how

they are really close friends and was a way to introduce the characters as well. We have one of the

females dressed mostly in casual clothes to show shes comfortable type of person; this look came

from all the females of the films: Love Rosie, Friends with Benefits, Dear John and Never Let Me Go.

This was because this look works very well with females in a conventional Romance film because the

audience can relate to her more.

We was given inspiration by the opening

establishing shot in Love Rosie; it depicted a

small quiet suburban area, that could be

somewhere in London with the sun rising to

connote the beginning of the story. We

decided that we wanted a similar opening shot

of roof tops to show so that we set the scene

of our teaser trailer. With the camera in one

position to show a sense of time moving from night to day in a past face motion however we

thought it may be difficult to obtain a high position to get a similar shot. We also found that there

was continuous use of mid shots of friends in the trailers, as it is a good way to show the proxemics

of the characters and also their costumes and facial expressions.

One of our main focuses for our mood board was looking at

creative uses of editing, for example, in Sherlock the BBC

program for text messages there is a simple use of words

appearing on the screen. This method is creative but simple

as conventionally text messages are shown on phones

however, the method that Sherlock uses is clear and

effective and critics have praised it for being ‘inventive’. As

our narrative involves teenagers it would be inevitable that

we want to contain text messages to further plot and

appeal to our target audience. The use of flashback editing

is used in both trailers, this incorporates the memories of

the characters and we thought it would be a good idea to

compliment this with a voice over of one of our three main characters. The use of flashbacks brings

Screen Shot: Love Rosie

Screen Shot: Never Let Me Go


the audience closer to the characters, and

reveals more about the relationships between

the characters. In our narrative we would also

like to include flashbacks of the three friends to

when they were younger, however finding young

actors may prove difficult and a possible

obstacle. Finally we also liked the idea of

intercepting title sequences that furthered the

trailer and revealed the messages of the film as

show in the Love, Rosie trailer. The bright colours

of orange and white set the tone for the film as being happy, light and romantic. The style of font is

also quite young and suits the language being used “Best friends forever”

The use of flashback editing is used in the

trailers: Never Let Me Go and Love Rosie. This

incorporates the memories of the characters

and we thought it would be a good idea to use

this editing technique in our trailer, back to

when the characters were young children. This

was to show their friendship growing as they

grow older. The use of flashbacks brings the

audience closer to the characters, and reveals

more about the relationships between the characters. This worked and went well with the title

sequence as it made more sense. We added a voice over of one of our main characters, so that this

will engage the audience as it is in first person so it directs them.

We took lighting inspiration

from ‘Love, Rosie’, the

vibrant colours and bright

lighting really set a light and

fun mood for the trailer.

This mood ties in with the

light-hearted teenage

atmosphere. However our

film will also involve some drama and Romance, therefore we thought that we could also

incorporate some romantic lighting such Rembrandt lighting which has a more dramatic look but

also romantic. They also have dim lighting for when they are in their bedrooms, not only does this

show a chilled, calm, tranquil atmosphere, it also shows romance. While thinking about setting we

also felt that some of the trailer could reflect night life, such as the funfair setting, it would look

more effective if that was filmed at night.


SETTING:

We wanted an array of settings that reflected teenage

‘freedom’ and that could be viewed as romantic. We

thought a good example of this might be funfairs, often

used in music videos of young bands such as ‘The Vamps’

and ‘The Vaccines’. Funfairs are associated with

excitement, youth and fun, and we would really like to

include one in our trailer to sum up the teenage

atmosphere. The beach has similar connotations but also romantic ones, which could be

incorporated into our trailer either in a romantic scene or a scene with just the friends. The beach

can also be associated with darker themes, as it could also be described as desolate and isolated. In

Never Let Me Go, the scene in the screen shot is a break up of friendship after an argument. There

are several ways we can use a beach setting, however as we live in London, it may not be practical to

get a whole cast there. An essential setting for our trailer is a teenage bedroom;, it has to reflect the

character we are portraying. The bedroom is an insight into the life of our characters, can be used

for several scenes such as phone conversations, emotional break downs and completing everyday

tasks. The conventional teenage bedroom is the one setting we are certain that we shall use in our

teaser trailer because it is easily accessible.

FILM POSTERS: After looking critically at these film posters we noted that generally film posters

from the romance genre are quite simple in concept. All three of these posters involve mainly the

protagonist and a background picture that contextualizes the film. As our film involves three

protagonists similar to ‘Never Let Me Go’, our film poster could potentially share some identity with

the one displayed, with close ups of the main characters. However, we would use a different

background because our trailer is set in London opposed to a seaside town. The ‘Never Let Me Go’


poster also encompasses the drama genre as the character expressions convey emotion depicting a

more serious narrative. Whereas ‘Friends with Benefits’ has a more ’tongue in cheek’ narrative

shown through the direct mode of address, Mila Kumis looking directly into the audience smiling.

The seriousness of ‘Never Let Me Go’, is something we want to convey on our film poster, as we

have decided not to make a complete Rom-com although some elements of comedy may appear in

it. The Notebook is similar to ‘Never Let Me Go’` as the poster is evoking ideas of a more passionate,

emotional and forbidden love narrative. We have taken inspiration from this and how it’s been

marketed as an epic love story “The love story to end all love stories” – as shown on the poster.

However, as ours is more of a teenage love story it may be slightly less dramatic, leaning more

towards the ‘Never Let Me Go’ film poster.

Education

Moodboard Annotations