Analysis.

Although we have already looked at mean girls in our blog, as it is probably the most inspirational teenage romantic comedy for us I thought i should do an analysis of the micro elements. This will help us with ideas for our own opening sequence. I will break the elements down into sections and alanyse them all seperatly:

Sound

At first I found it strange and against the conventions that African tribal style music would be used in the opening of a teenage rom com, however once you continue to watch you find out that she has in fact, just moved from Africa. I also think this music could be a reference to the similarities between the safari area she has just come from and the social groups in the high school she is about to enter. Suggesting that these teenagers may act, and fight, like animals. As soon as she enters the high school, the music changes to a more up beat and modern sound. The dramatic change in these sounds shows how her life is about to equally dramatically change.

The sound aspect which is probably most relevant to us is the voice over. Its quite typical in a teenage rom com for the main character to talk directly to the audience and introduce us to their situation. We would like to use a voice over in our own opening sequence.

Mise-en-scene

The first image we see is that of the parents handing the main character a brown paper bag with her lunch in it. At 16 it could possibly be seen as embarassing or un-cool to carry and the audience immediatly feels that she could possibly be teased for this. Kady, the main character, is wearing very plain colours, her hair is very natural and she doesn't appear to be wearing any makeup, this gives us the impression that she is likely to blend in amoungst other teenagers in her school. The lighting in this scene has an gold/orange tint to it, representing her old home in Africa. The use of still images surprisingly don't show a huge difference between Africa and America, the only difference being that she looks much happier in the pictures from Africa.

When she enters the high school the groups of people are immediatly evident. Quite often the people with in the groups are all wearing similar colours, for example the 'jocks' all wearing blue and yellow, this shows us as she walks past each group that she doesn't fit in with them.

Camerawork

In the first shot we see the camera is looking up at Kady's parents, this indicates her respect for them, but also how they are treating her as a lot younger than her actual age of 16. This protectiveness of her is again shown when she stands up and we see her in between the back of her parents heads. When she enters the high school the camera follows her pace as she walks and also jumps from a front on shot, to her prespective. This makes us identify with her character as she pushes her way through the crowds.

Editing