Conventions of film openings
Typically, in any film, it any contains certain conventions. An important feature of a teen film is binary oppositions. These are normally presented through how a character, dresses, acts and the possessions they have. In a normal teen film there are clear oppositions between characters which often causes conflict and creates tension that the audience can pick upon. Also within a teen film are conventional characters. Essentially if a film is set in a school, there will be a popular girl, jock, nerd, normal kid and a rich guy. Finally, there will be locations where the film will be set. These are usually the school, home, hang out location and other locations, such as a club or café. Another conventions of a teen movie is transport. Often unpopular teenagers will arrive by car with their parents whilst popular teenagers will arrive in their own expensive car. A normal mode of transport for teenagers in the UK Is either walking or taking public transport such s the bus or train. A lot of teen films set in a place of education usually incorporate transport to show the main characters arriving to school like in The Breakfast Club.
Followed/Challenged Conventions
In our film opening, we mostly followed the conventions of a teen film. The binary oppositions we used are: love and hate, sad and happy, and male and female. Our binary oppositions aren't as evident as they are in a conventional teen film, but are established through the use of flashbacks and the actresses expressions that change depending on the scene. By doing this we could be considered challenging the conventions by making them less obvious to the audience. For characters, we did not follow the conventions of stereotypical school characters. The main character, Leah, is shown to be a normal girl throughout with no defining characteristics. We relied more on the actions of the character to define her rather then words which made her seem like an ambiguous character. For the main male character, Cain, we used darker colours to show that he is a bad person in the flashbacks. Using dark colours foreshadows that he is not a good person and will only bring Leah misery. In the flashbacks this is not evident as he acts nice towards Leah and does not commit any actions to make the audience think otherwise. It is only when we use close ups and tilt shpts to show that Leah is unhappy that it is clear that Cain is a bad character and has hurt her.
Finally, we followed the traditional teen convention of setting some of our scenes in college. We set scenes in a place of education to appeal to a teenage audience and represent the age of the characters. It could also be relatable to the audience as teenagers may also meet someone in school or college and 'fall in love'. However, for the beginning of our film opening, we set it in Trafalgar Square to show how lonely the character is and suggest that she is now an unhappy outcast. This perhaps challenges conventions as not a lot of teen films are set at landmarks. Overall, I believe that we did follow a lot of the conventions for a teen film but simultaneously challenged some such as the characters and locations. I believe that by doing so we appealed directly to our audience and made a good teen film. For transport, we showed the main character walking through Trafalgar Square to eventually sit down on a bench. As the main character is young and sad, we thought it would be best to use walking as a mode of transport rather than a car or bus as it shows how alone she is.
In our film opening, we mostly followed the conventions of a teen film. The binary oppositions we used are: love and hate, sad and happy, and male and female. Our binary oppositions aren't as evident as they are in a conventional teen film, but are established through the use of flashbacks and the actresses expressions that change depending on the scene. By doing this we could be considered challenging the conventions by making them less obvious to the audience. For characters, we did not follow the conventions of stereotypical school characters. The main character, Leah, is shown to be a normal girl throughout with no defining characteristics. We relied more on the actions of the character to define her rather then words which made her seem like an ambiguous character. For the main male character, Cain, we used darker colours to show that he is a bad person in the flashbacks. Using dark colours foreshadows that he is not a good person and will only bring Leah misery. In the flashbacks this is not evident as he acts nice towards Leah and does not commit any actions to make the audience think otherwise. It is only when we use close ups and tilt shpts to show that Leah is unhappy that it is clear that Cain is a bad character and has hurt her.
Finally, we followed the traditional teen convention of setting some of our scenes in college. We set scenes in a place of education to appeal to a teenage audience and represent the age of the characters. It could also be relatable to the audience as teenagers may also meet someone in school or college and 'fall in love'. However, for the beginning of our film opening, we set it in Trafalgar Square to show how lonely the character is and suggest that she is now an unhappy outcast. This perhaps challenges conventions as not a lot of teen films are set at landmarks. Overall, I believe that we did follow a lot of the conventions for a teen film but simultaneously challenged some such as the characters and locations. I believe that by doing so we appealed directly to our audience and made a good teen film. For transport, we showed the main character walking through Trafalgar Square to eventually sit down on a bench. As the main character is young and sad, we thought it would be best to use walking as a mode of transport rather than a car or bus as it shows how alone she is.
Title Sequence
For out title sequence, we followed Juno as that is where we got our inspiration from for our teen film. We included nearly all of the titles listed within Juno and used them in ours, however, we decided to leave some out. The ones that we felt were not necessary were:
- Music Supervisor
- Minor Actors
- Production Designer
- Director of Photography
- Executive Producer
We felt, as a group, that adding the above titles in our sequence may have made it seem too crowded. I personally think we did not need to present these roles within our title sequence as we already listed the crucial roles that the audience needed to know.
Looking at other teen films, we do follow the conventional title sequence. We list the more important roles in the beginning and the end so that they are more memorable to the audience such as the production and distribution company, the main actor/actress, the writer and the director. The order for our title sequence could be considered conventional as the least important roles are listed in the middle of the sequence. We made up names for some of the roles as using our own names repeatedly would make people question the quality of the film. Our names are allocated to the roles we played during the production of our film.
Looking at other teen films, we do follow the conventional title sequence. We list the more important roles in the beginning and the end so that they are more memorable to the audience such as the production and distribution company, the main actor/actress, the writer and the director. The order for our title sequence could be considered conventional as the least important roles are listed in the middle of the sequence. We made up names for some of the roles as using our own names repeatedly would make people question the quality of the film. Our names are allocated to the roles we played during the production of our film.
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