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.
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"
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.
Our whole opening sequence will be set around the diary of a teenage girl. Characters will be introduced throughout the opening sequence through polaroids and possibly short video clips (with in the shape of the polaroid). Credits will be written on the diary in the girl's hand writing as if they are diary entries and scribbles and drawings will show her feeling towards certian characters, for example little hearts around a picture of the boy she likes. Throughout the sequence there will be a voice over from the main character who is showing us through the diary and introducing us to the other main characters.
Although we want our main character to be represented as 'un-popular' in the film, her diary will include a lot of pink, a typical girly colour and therefore a colour for the popular girls. This shows that while she maybe envies them, she also unconciously aspires to be like them.
The camera will pan over the diary. She will firstly introduce herself, then possibly her best friend. She will then go on to introduce the boy she likes. This boy will be a typical american 'Jock' who is popular at his school, and probably the boy who all the girls like. The audience assumes that this boy is someone our main character admires from a far rather than actually has a relationsip with from the doodled hears and kiss shapes around him.
We will then go on to introduce the popular girls. This is where we want to possibly use a video clip, as we want to have some sort of dramatic introduction for them, to show they are the center of attention. We will use the typical 3 girls maybe walking through a crowd of people and everyone looking at them. The voice over will go on to describe how these are the girls she doesn't like.
We will then pan down the diary to show a picture of her best friend. Its typical in this genre for the lead female role to have a male best friend. She will speak in the voice over of how he keeps her sain.
In our mood board we haveincluded 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.
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.
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.
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.
