Task2: Research into existing products- Valentine's Day

Valentine’s Day

(Romantic comedy analysis)

Romantic comedies are films which explore romance through an amusing storyline. A typical rom-com follows the lives of two individuals, however Valentine’s Day focuses on break up’s, make up’s and expectations of various couples and singles on the day of Valentine’s Day. The comedy is one of the first to explore the lives of so many characters and manages to seamlessly follow each individual storyline without a hassle. Other well known rom-com’s which share this aspect are Love Actually (which was the first)and New Year’s Eve among a few others. Valentine ’s Day is an American rom-com and most of it aims to make the audience giddy and happy as they are very ‘cheesy’ and ‘corny’. This slightly differs to English rom-coms because they tend to create humour through the characters use of sarcasm.

The case for Valentine’s Day easily conveys that the movie has a romantic storyline because of the heart shape places right in the centre of the case. Most of the colour is inside of the heart portraying that the focus of the movie is on the characters inside of it. Apart from black, the use of bright colours such as the pink outlining the heart will attract a female audience which is the typical target audience of romantic comedies.

 Editing

In the movie there is a lot of seamless editing, This is because love is meant to bring people together and it is something many people can feel happy about and relate to which creates union among them. The seamless editing show this and shows that at the beginning of love, and the film, there are no trouble and everything seems perfect and flows easily. The problems are still on their way and this is why other types of editing are strictly limited at this point in the film (first 15 minutes or so). The cuts are used when switching between the characters who are being introduced at this point. There is also a use of cuts due to shot-reverse-shot editing between people who have different outlook on Valentine’s day. An example of this is between the ‘sports man’ Kelvin and his boss. Kelvin doesn’t like Valentines and goes as far as saying that it makes him feel sick. His boss however says that she needs the programme to be filled with things related to love on this day in order to gain a bigger audience. Another reason for this could be because Kelvin is a stereotypical man who rates sports over love and his boss who is a woman is the opposite. This suggests that those two characters are portrayed in a stereotypical way and the majority of the audience would expect them to behave in a certain way due to their gender. The fact that there is both seamless editing and some cuts also show that the film in not really biased towards one idea of how Valentine’s day should be and so the audience can sympathise with at least one of the characters.

Sound

Music has a very important role in films because it introduces and sets the mood of it. In Valentine’s Day the music starts playing even before the film does. In the first 10 seconds it is just gentle and instrumental and then carries on to be a little bit more upbeat and happy. This type of music is typically used in romantic comedy films because it reflects on their happy and positive nature. The music also reflects on the plot a little later on because the words ‘’I’m in the mood for love’’ are sang. The audience can connect to those lyrics also because they are watching a rom-com which suggests that this is the mood they are in.

At the very beginning of the film a voiceover introduces us to the setting. A man says that ‘’today is Valentine’s day’’ and that the location is ‘’Los Angeles’’. The voiceover is not the typical kind as it is not speaking only for the audience’s benefit but can be suggested to be diegetic & come from a radio because it is addressing the people of Los Angeles. This helps in portraying that Valentine’s day is special and different from the typical days just like the voiceover.

Camera

The film has an evident high use of two shot. In the scene on the screenshot on the left we can see Reed give a ring to Morley after proposing to her. The two shot allows the audience to see the proximity between the two characters. It also lets us observe the interactions between them. This then allows us to compare the interactions between all of the couples and then determine the relationships those couples have. For example at this moment in time the young couple is happy and in the shot they’re quite close to each other. Other couples shown later on have either a more intimate relationship which can be seen from the more obvious proximity or don’t seem to have much at all because although they interact they don’t stay close to each other as long as the others seem to. This is why two shots are so popular in romantic films and in rom-coms, because after determining what kind of relationship the characters have with each other it can be easy to see why they later act in certain ways in given situations. Although, sometimes certain behaviours may not be expected (as seen later on with Morley). Those surprise behaviours though often create the comic atmosphere because it leads on to make different characters act disorientated and often respond to the changes in a funny way.

The film also uses camera angles such as an establishing aerial shot to set the scene. The fact that the aerial shot looks down at the city of Los Angeles conveys that this unusual rom-com will follow lives of more than one couple because Los Angeles is the second largest populated city in all of US. Also the setting of romantic comedies often takes place in big, well know cities such as LA. This is because most people will be able to imagine what a big city is like even if they have never been to it and it is more believable that the events in the film will could happen if the setting is in a big place. Otherwise, there is also a high use of zoom out and in’s. This is especially evident when the camera changes from medium shots to CU’s and ECU’s on the characters faces to show their feelings.

Mise-en-scene

The mise-en-scene in this rom com is used in order to make the audience feel all happy inside. Because this is an American romantic comedy it focuses on the portrayal of happiness and joy rather than the things that go badly for the characters like a British romantic comedy would. Because the main difference is in how the humour is created there are also minor differences in mise-en-scene.

The props in this film are very light and mostly are associated with Valentine’s Day. There are heaps of flowers, smiling hearts and teddies the size of a big dog. All of the items connote the kind of happy feelings they want to feel during watching a romantic comedy- especially one titled Valentine’s Day! The lighting is very light and the shades are mostly pastel and bright because they reflect the happy atmosphere that the film will have most of the time. There will be few scenes which are dark because romantic comedies are very rarely overcomplicated and do not wish to make the audience think hard about things. Because dark scenes are often associated with mystery and suspense their use will be very limited in films such as this one. There are of course exceptions such as when the film is introduced during night time. This could have been done however because the film is about to unfold before the audience and as the day comes over LA the many situations about to come will, in a way, be exposed and unveil like a mystery. As for the costume, the characters are most likely to wear very casual, everyday clothing. Some of the characters will be much like the girl next door type and will blend in with the crowd only to be picked out by one of the male lead roles while others will stand out through wearing bright clothes or costumes sometimes even providing the comic relief e.g. Taylor and Taylor are dressed up as the king and queen looking quite silly while others, like the characters who dislike Valentine’s are wearing ordinary suits.

 In conclusion romantic comedies need to include characters that the audience can connet with (at least to some extent e.g. girl next door, divorced, single etc…), a happy and sweet atmosphere that makes the target audience happy and makes them forget about all of their worries for the time of the movie, a happy conclusion to the film and lots and lots of ‘cheesy’ situations if the comedy is American or sarcasm and light cringe if it is English. Also, in such films there is a high use of songs that compliment the action and very often at least one of the songs used will be a highly popular pop song at the time of the film’s release e.g. Valentine’s Day had a soundtrack from Taylor Swift (who is a popular singer associated with the target audience i.e. girls).