Virgin Media Shorts
"Ben is a keen tennis player. Barnaby is his hopeless coach. 'No Point' is a comedy about ambition, training and getting the ball over the net."
Genre: Comedy
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The sequence begins with the fade from black, handheld, close up view of a male's feet doing some sort of warm up around coloured markers (prop). Alongside this is another male's dialogue of instructing him on what to do, using language such as "...dancing with the ground" or "...dancing with the cones". Now at this very early stage of the narrative, the audience can gain an early understanding of what genre this falls into. This can determined by the male's tone of voice towards the other male character, coming across as a very keen, yet friendly individual who obviously enjoys being involved with other members of the public, as well as some of the props that have been used this early on in the film, including the multi-coloured cones, which the audience could believe to associate the male with his sexuality. During these opening couple of seconds of the film, there is also a light, upbeat non-diegetic soundtrack overlayed on top of the dialogue and close up shot of the warming up exercise. This also helps set the scene for the audience to work out the type of genre the film is and who it's trying to target (in terms of audience).
The following mid-shot then shows the audience what the male character's are wearing (costume), with one wearing a purple coloured tracksuit with a sweat band across his forehead, whilst the other wearing shorts, a t-shirt, and a grey baggy jumper and hat. It is at this point the audience discovers what the main plot of the story is, making it come across as some sort of training video in the style of a comedic value as well as potentially a documentary; a mockumentary. Due to the mise-en-scene factors in this shot, the audience also understands the video to follow a tennis type video, revealed by the tennis nets and courts in the background as well as the tennis coach looking rather familiar to famous tennis legend Boris Becker, highlighting the emphasis behind the idea of tennis.
The film then switches to a close up shot of the male character who is trying to learn how to play tennis, as he explains his coach's attributes, saying that "to call him just a tennis coach, doesn't do him justice" and that he's "more than a coach". At this particular moment the tennis coach, who we now know to named 'Barnaby' (again following the comedic value of it), is seen holding a blue plastic bag (associated with little British corner shops) filled with tennis balls whilst in the other hand, lighting a cigarette, whilst also trying to keep hold of his tennis racket with his arms. By showing this character like this, it creates the social realism that the target audience can relate to, with the idea behind the less serious aspect of teaching someone how to play sport, due to the general act of laziness, something which can be commonly associated with the lower classes in Britain, or more accurately, how the rest of Britain see these lower classes; a typical negative representation. As the close up interview progresses, he quotes Barnaby as being a 'Tennis Guru', something that is seen as misinterpreted, as the typical associations with the word 'Guru' is someone who prepares well, is calm and composed and very knowledgeable about a particular subject, however Barnaby is displayed as someone who doesn't have any of these traits; looking unprepared, scruffy and clueless about the sport. This is then highlighted in the following mid shot when Barnaby is seen holding a small tennis book in one hand, and a pasty in the other. The audience assumes that this tennis book contains basic information on how to play tennis for beginners, or something that follows those lines, and then this is shown from the way he tells Ben to "keep a straight arm and snap the wrist". Ben then explains how his relationship with his coach isn't the best, with them not being great friends and how the friendship isn't too intimate, also saying how its "only professional". By saying this alone, it creates a 'tongue-in-cheek' moment for the audience as so far in the film there is no indication that the tennis lessons are taken seriously from the coach nor the player, immediately going against the usual idea behind being a professional. The idea of their friendship being not too intimate, is also quickly juxtaposed when another mid-shot is used displaying the tennis coach massaging Ben's hair whilst he sits casually in the bath. This instantly causes this light humour as it again perhaps portrays their sexuality, but also at the same time trying to conceal it from view. Following on from this, when Ben quotes that the bath helps his muscles as it gets the stiffness out of them, asking Barnaby if he was correct to which he agrees, where the audience can subtly tell he actually just wants to see him in the bath, again adding to the typical conventions of the comedy genre, using the incongruity theory, as it displays the aspect of surprise amongst the audience.The next scene is when the two characters are back on the tennis courts, with Ben practicing his shots over the net but said at the end at how it doesn't seem to be working as he can't seem to get any balls over the net, to which Barnaby quickly responds with "don't worry about getting it over the net... leave that up to the ball", as well as also saying at how Ben's technique was perfect, causing a shy smile to grow on Ben's face. This shows at how perhaps Ben was catching onto the fact that he doesn't seem to be learning any tennis, however due to Barnaby's quick response, it instantly settles Ben, and makes him believe that he's doing everything correct, showing how gullible he is. Barnaby then goes on to say how Ben is the best talent he's ever worked with, mentioning the fact that he's going to be a star, soon to be at Wimbledon. This last comment about Wimbledon may make the audience laugh as it is very unlikely that an average man who has only just started playing tennis, will make it as far as a major tournament, however without this contextual knowledge from the audience, the joke wouldn't be funny and the humour wouldn't be seen as no-one would know what Wimbledon is, let alone that it's a major tennis tournament.
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