2. Man Up (2015)
Director: Ben Palmer
Writer: Tess Morris
Producer: Nira Park, James Biddle, Ratchel Prior
Cinematographer: Andrew Dunn
Composer: Dickon Hinchliffe
Production Company: Big Talk Productions
Distributor StudioCannal
3. Synopsis
• A 34 year old single woman, Nancy, hung-over again, exhausted by
the endless fruitless set ups by her friends, traveling up to London to
toast another 10 years of her parent's successful happy magical
marriage runs in with a 40 year old divorcee, Jack, who mistakes her
for his 24 year old blind date. Nancy, deciding to go with it, happens
to hop on the most chaotic yet hilarious journey of her life which
neither of them will ever forget.
4. Trailer
• The bits they show you in the start of the trailer summarise the main character’s insecurities which come
into play in the actual film. They do this by showing you a scene where the central protagonist is staring at
her mirror before going out on a supposed date with a man. It shows her talking to herself saying that “you
can do this” before putting makeup on. The trailer cuts to a short version of her date and how badly it went
by her trying to be funny but failing tremendously. The first 11 seconds you now have a idea on the person
you will be watching and how much she messes up at dating and relationships. Now its going to show you
the story it will set her on. They do this by only showing expositional dialogue that’s relevant to the conflict
of the film. The first thing you see after 11 seconds is the girl she meets on the train and her talking about
her plan to meet her blind date and how This is then leads to Nancy (the main character) making a quip in
her usual behavioural manner, thus putting the further emphasis on the comedy aspect in order to appeal to
that audience of people who want to see a film to have a laugh that’s present in the film. This leads to a
convention usually found in comedy based trailers where the up beat music stops to let the joke/punchline
be said. The trailer then shows what happens and how she meets the love interest only with cuts that
happen every 5-10 seconds following it up with a montage of the couple bonding and having a good time
before playful and upbeat music stops to reveal the conflict that will indelibly come into play in the third act.
This then continues with a montage of the characters either bickering while still showing them having fun
along with some wacky bits of comedy. With this I feel the trailer is balancing out the comedy and drama
aspects so there is something for the group of people who love comedy, and for the people who are prefer
comedy’s to have a serious element to them and not be constant shtick. The music choices mainly consist of
popular songs but they are there to give a eutrophic and uplifting feeling to sort of mimic what feeling you
will have if you watched it.
5. Poster
• The poster has the characters you see in the film in a picture booth holding a
board with text written on it that says Right Time, Right place, Wrong date. In
those three sentences the public is given a decent summary of the plot without
even watching the trailer. You just need those 3 simple words and it helps the
public fill in the blanks of how the occurrences might play out in the actual film.
The faces the actors make when holding the cardboard with the text written
summarise the emotions felt when you hear those words. With them looking
happy when holding out right time and right place but the faces instantly show
awkward expressions when holding out the wrong date sign. The rest of the
images you see on the poster are just the actors making funny faces to give of the
playful nature of the film that’s more apparent in the trailer. You also have the
actors faces placed in throughout the entire poster as to show that these two
people are the selling point of the film and people will likely see it because there
faces are all over the poster. It almost feels desperate to have there faces
covering the poster but that is how the film is being sold.
6. Interview
• The people interviewing Lake Bell in this video are a YouTube channel called HeyUGuys which
cover premieres of popular upcoming films and interviews and considering they have a youtube
channel and the people who host these interviews they appear to be aimed towards millennials
who are considered to be the target audience for romantic comedy's or films that are made with
the purpose being escapist fun. Lake Bell is considered to be an expert in accents and this
interview goes in depth about Bell’s love for accents. Because Bell is an American and in Man Up
she plays a British woman in the interview she talks about how she had to adapt to playing a
similar type of character that you would see with a rom-com with a New York setting but with a
different dialect. This part of the conversation will likely either appeal to fans of her work who
admire the skill she puts in but accents but also providing people who a curious about what it
takes for an American to put play a British person as its something that isn’t very common in films
so it will interesting to people who want to see how a American playing a British person is
accomplished. The second half is dedicated to Simon Pegg’s involvement. This may appeal to
people who love Pegg’s work and are seeing it because he is in it. Pegg is one of the bigger selling
points of the film cause it is partly aimed at a British market mainly because of the setting and the
fact that it’s a British production and Pegg is very popular in the UK. So even though the
marketing is also aiming for American market with Bell being the main star of the film. So as well
as appealing to fans of Pegg and the British market it is important to mention the co star of the
film.
