Costume

Lead Female Character - Olivia Olsen

Although this image doesn't mirror the exact style of clothing we want our lead character to wear, it portrays her attitudes towards fashion and lack of interest when deciding what to wear.
Whilst our lead character is seen not to follow trends, her clothes still present her as stylishly unique.
Below we have created an outfit that replicates the type of outfit our lead character will wear:

Above we have chosen some bleached skinny jeans, a baggy high school jumper and a leather jacket. We have also chosen a long chain with a vintage pendant and some casual "lived-in" pumps. The oufit is seen as quite "cool" but also represents the characters careless attitude towards fashion and how she just "throws" her outfits together.

Lead "Plastic"/Cheerleader Character

We have chosen a costume example from the popular teenage chick-flick Clueless.
The girls are shown to reveal a lot of skin, an example being their short skirts and strappy dresses. This represents their confidence in themselves and indicates why they might be popular with the guys in their high school. They are all wearing high heels, and expensive/designer looking outfits.
Below we have created an outfit that replicates the type of outfit this character will wear:

We have chosen a denim mini-skirt (probably Abercrombie&Fitch) as this item shows the characters legs and also shows how she likes designer fashion labels. We have then chosen a pink knitted "designer" jumper and bright pink heels. Pink is a colour that is typically related to this type of popular girl character. The character also has a tiffany's bracelet in her outfit as this is quite an expensive piece of jewellery.

Feedback

Positives
-Good Ident.
-Looked at characters,titles,font etc. in a lot of detail.
-Like the test footage, looks professional.
-Very neat and impressive. Easy to read and understand.
-Lots of images.
-Lots of detailed notes.
-Very detailed.
-Amazing detail.

Areas for improvement
-2 Analysis posts of Mean Girls, should be made into one post.
-Could have put more detail into some of the lists of conventions.
-Lack of information for call sheet.
-Not enough pictures.

How will we respond to this feedback?
-Our Mean Girls analysis blogs will stay seperate as they are analysing different aspects of the film.
-We will expand the detail on our chosen genre, and provide evidence of costume, location and soundtrack conventions.
-If we do decide to include filming we will expand on the call sheet blog.
-Within the costume and location blogs we will include lots of images/evidence.

How does this blog compare to our thriller blog?
Jonny - "this blog is presented in a lot more detail than my previos one. also it is presented clearer and a is genuinely a better blog"
Alex and Rachel - "Although our thriller blog got blog of the week so was therefore very detailed, our current blog is showing clearer evidence of film preparation and includes more in-depth analysis using the micr0-elements"

Pitch Feedback

We received the following feedback for each of the following areas in our pitch:

Synopsis

-The Synopsis gave a good insight into the details of the film and how they relate to the genre.

-The characters were carefully described and linked to characters in previous teen romantic comedys.

-It is a unique idea and concept, that is simple but interesting.

Moodboard

-The moodboard was a good representative of what the final sequence could possibly look like.

-Images were carefully selected to represent characters, hobbies and emotions.

-Nicely edited, good composition.

-Images used from well-known films to represent the similiarity between our own characters and ones within well known films.

2x Film Analysis

-We selected films that were closely linked to our genre/film idea and were therefore easy to analyse.

-We looked at elements within each film that related to the genre and would also be useful in our own film.

Font Ideas

I begun to consider different fonts that we could use for the text in our film opening.

I chose this font as an example because the joined up style makes it look fairly girly and the italic element reflects an informal type of writing that would possibly be used in a diary.

I chose this font as an example because the quite childish rounded style is a reflection of the style many teenage girls write in.

I chose this font as an example because the messy style makes it look very handwritten and mirrors a font that would perhaps be used in a diary. However, the scruffy and uneven letters could sway the audience into believing the writing has been done by a male character.

I chose this font as an example because similar to the second font it has a rounded informal element. The heart above the letter "I" also indicates that the person writing in the diary is young and female.

I chose this font as an example because it is an easy to read hand-written font that looks similar to the style of writing often seen in a diary.

MoodBoard

In our mood board we have included images that highlight the typical conventions of a teenage romantic comedy.

The first image is a Polaroid of a girl who represents our main character. She is shown to be wearing quite plain colours, which indicates how she possibly goes unnoticed in her high school, typical of the main role in a teenage romantic comedy. Her image contrasts to the bright colours in the rest of the diary, showing she is perhaps different to the other people her age. We have used an image of an acoustic guitar and some guitar music to reveal further deatails about the kind of person our main character will be.

For our second image we have used a picture of Zac Efron, who is a typical teenage 'heartthrob', to represent the popular boy in our film. This follows conventions as the lead male character in most teenage romantic comedys is seen as typically 'fit'. The hearts and kisses around the image show the main character's desire for him. We have also used an image of an american football jacket, as the popular boy is very often captain of the football team in teenage romantic comedy.

We have next used an image from the well known film Mean Girls. It is typical of teenage romantic comedys to have three popular girls who while being the girlyest girls in the school, are also the most feared. Around them we have used a picture of pompoms, as the popular girls are almost always cheerleaders.

Opening Sequence Analysis

Ratcatcher (1999)
Social realism combined with surreal element (poetic realism)

-Initial sounds are haunting and surreal.
-Echoing sounds of children laughing outside are used within the initial shots of the sequence to provoke tension within the audience.
-The spinning motion of the boy suggests a possible mental illness and also creates a repetitive and disturbing image.
-Lack of non-diagetic sound emphasizes the reality of the situation and film.
-Natural lighting is used to support the use of diagetic sounds and create a realistic and natural image.

Killer of Sheep (1977)
Social Realism. Student Film (UCLA)

-The use of everyday people and no professional actors highlights the realistic elements within the genre.
-Borrows techniques from documentary films (e.g hand held camera angles and use of natural sound)

American Splender (2004)
Drama with elements of comedy.

-Titles were animated in a comic strip style.
-Comic style music and text
-Animated pictures used within comic strip to add film elements.
-Draws attention to the making of the the film by discussing it within the film itself.

Hello :)

The members of our group our:
Rachel Monaghan
Alexandra Efford
Michael Flynn
Jonny Womack

and we have decided to make the opening sequence for a teenage romantic comedy :)

Our production company is: Black Star Productions