Basic Synopsis

Below are the final ideas for the opening of our film...

The opening that we have in mind for our film is one of where the main character (female) is a stereotypical “geek”, who doesn’t really fit in with what others in her high school are like. She has her own small group of one or two friends, but they aren’t popular either. The opening will show her everyday morning routines around her house, followed by her routine to school. It will be light-hearted, funny and will have an element of romance, as the main character will be in love with a good-looking character of the opposite gender. There will be an introduction into the life led by the main character, and will show how she obsesses over her‘perfect’ boy. We will use some comedy to show the relationship between the geek and the good-looking character, and how they live two completely different lives.

Genre Research Summary

Now we've done some detailed analysis of two films in our genre, we needed to sum up our findings and explain how our research will influence our own work. We answered the questions below to help us with our investigations.

1. What do the titles tend to look like? Fonts, transitions, pace, contents?
The titles used in these film genres tend to come across as being quite funky and colourful, something you would expect to appeal to teenages. These titles also seem to have a meaning as to why they are as they are, much like the 'Mean Girls' titles. These titles were used how they were to reflect the words themselves.
The titles are used to introduce the characters and producers/directors of the film and the pace of these are medium-fast pace. I would say this as they're not as slow as a horror, but not as quick as an action packed movie. The pace should suit this type of genre as it reflects normality, a normal pace for a normal day.

2. What kind of music and/or other non-diegetic sounds are used?
The types of music used in these films are those that come across as being quite cheerful and upbeat songs. They tend to be like this to reflect the mood of the film, which in these cases are how the mood of films are. The creators of the music used also have a big part in the film as it is their backgrounds and ways of thinking that have perhaps led them to appearing in this type of film. For instance, the band 'The Prodigy' were used in 'Kick-Ass', perhaps as their journey seemed to reflect that of the main character's.
As well as the main title music, there is some non-diegetic music added in to this genre to help liven up the atmosphere of the film, much like the actions of teenagers.

3. What types of character do we see in the opening sequences? How are their characters established through technical features (e.g costume, make-up, setting, cinematography, sound, editing...)

In the opening sequences of these type of film genres, we are usually introduced to the main character, who is usually portrayed as being a bit of a geek and they're also struggling with their feelings, whether it be trying to fit in to their new school/college or trying to fight off their strong feelings for somebody special to them. We know this by the way shot, reverse, shots are used to connote their feelings and the atmosphere of the people around them. We also know they are perhaps a bit of a geek from the way they are dressed too. The reason we know the main character is of a teenage age is by the settings used, that being a school or college. Sometimes in these opening sequences, we also get a glismp of the main character's best friends and the girl/boy of their dreams.

4. What kinds of mise en scene dominate? What are typical features of setting, lighting, props?

The type of setting that usually dominants this type of genre is that of a high school/college and perhaps that of the main character's house. This is because these are the places a young teenager spends most of their time at this age. Any props that are used are usually those that are related to teenagers, such as school bag/rucksack, electronic devices, bike etc.

5. What narrative codes are employed and how? For example, are lots of tight close ups used to create an enigma? Is tense music and fast editing used to create an action code?
Coming of age/chick flick comedies often use Tzvetan Todorov's 5 stage theory code by which the film starts of with an equilibrium of the main character's day to day life. The viewer learns how the main character is a loser and the opening sets up their relationships, such as their best friend and the boy/girl of their dreams. They also get to see the emotions of the character, such as whether they're feeling happy, sad etc. Examples used to demostrate this are shot, reverse, shots and close ups as they focus in on the character and their emotions. The music used is usually that of a happy, feel good song to reflect the mood of the type of genre.

6. Is there a particular form of cinematography or editing that is specific to the genre you're working in?

Usually you would find shot reverse shots, medium-close ups, long shots and low angled camera shots in these types of genres as they help to establish the main character's feelings.

Audience Research Focus Group Meeting Analysis & Moodboard Analysis

After swapping and discussing ideas with our focus group, we decided to change some aspects of our original ideas for our film.

Firstly, after talking with our focus group, we thought it would be best to have a female main character, rather than a male as from our research, it seemed the most popular of audiences would be teenage girls and on the whole, they seem to mostly enjoy films where they can somehow relate to the goings on in it.
Another aspect we changed was the basic storyline. We were going to start off the opening showing the main character's life around college, but after asking our focus group about this, they thought that this wouldn't really introduce the character very well. We thought long and hard about how we could introduce this character better and that's when we came up with this idea of introducing her by describing her everyday movements and what makes her who she is, i.e her morning routine. The feedback from this idea was very positive and they really think it will help to introduce the genre of the film well.


We also got our focus group to give us feedback on our moodboard. Below shows an image of what we posted on Facebook to our group and one of the responses we received.

From this response, we can see that our target audience understands what our mood board is saying about the type of genre we are doing, this being a 'Chick Flick'. This proves to us that we have succeeded in portraying our film to our audience by giving them ideas as to what our film is about.

Audience Research Focus Group

To find our audience, we set up a focus group on the social networking 'Facebook' and asked people for their views and opinions on our ideas. The following people are who we considered to be the most valuable people to have in our focus group and perhaps those who we believe to fit into our target audience.

We asked these people for their permission to use the image of them, and we also asked them for some information about themselves that would help to give us an idea into what they like. The reason for this being it will help us when making our film titles as we need to be aware of their interests so to make our titles interesting for them and something they can perhaps relate to.

Ellie

This is Ellie. Her favourite kinds of films are romantic comedies, but she likes a bit of mystery and watches the odd coming of age film too. Her favourite character would be a hunky goodlooking guy. She likes to listen to the Black-Eyed Peas.

Steph

This is Steph and she's 16 years old. Her favourite types of film are Romcoms and Chick Flicks. She listens to a lot of R'n'B music and enjoys shopping and socialising.

Tom

This is Tom and he's 16 years old. He enjoys watching zombie horror style films. He listens mostly to Rock music, but also likes to listen to anything in the Indie genre. He likes to go out with his friends and watches films at the cinema at least once a week.

Imogen

This is Imogen and she's 13 years old. She likes to watch Comedies and Chick Flicks and loves to listen to a lot of Pop, R'n'B and Indie music. Her hobbies include bowling, swimming, going to the cinema and spending time with friends and family.

 

 Fran

This is Fran and she's aged 16-17 years. She watches mostly films that have a chick flick genre to them and her favourite music is anything in the charts. When not working, she likes to spend time shopping with her friends.

Target Audience

We thought long and hard about who our target audience would be and in the end decided our film would be aimed at teenagers aged 13-19, mostly females as it will contain many chick-flick features. However, we think our film might stretch our target audience to males of this age too as they may watch it with their girlfriends.

We believe this audience would enjoy these coming of age films as it reflects their lives at this point and problems that perhaps they can relate to. Also, it brings some form of fantasy to the film, something all teenage girls wish could happen, eventhough they know never will. It's the thrill of hoping something 'magical' will happen that attracts this type of audience to watch this type of film genre. Adding an aspect of comedy to our film also helps to keep the chick-flick at bay and focus more on the coming of age. By doing this, it also helps to attract the other audiences of teenage boys as they are more likely to enjoy a comedy.

If we were to use the JICNAR scale to target our audience, I would say they would fall under the C1/C2 category. Although most of the viewers will be students, who are either not working, or may have part time jobs, they will hopefully progress on to bigger and better jobs with their qualifications. When looking at the psychographic segmentation, I would say our viewers could be either hedonists or mainstreamers as the viewers at this age are people who just want to have a good time and perhaps people who don't like to be different, they want to watch/see what everyone else sees. They are however conventional in their tastes and aspirations. Both these groups I believe represent how teenagers are.

Below is a small and simple presentation of which Megan and I created with the help of the technology software 'Prezi'. We thought it would be a great way to portray who our target audience is as it shows clearly and in a fun way what sort of things they are interested in. 

Film Openings:Genre Specific Analysis

Once we had chosen our genre, we needed some specific research into the opening titles of films from that genre. To do this, we chose two films, 'Mean Girls' and 'Kick-Ass'.

Analysis On 'Mean Girls'
From watching the opening sequence, it is clear this film is a coming of age / high school drama genre with an aspect of comedy, much like the beginning of the film I would like to create. The genre of this film is established in different ways. For example, this film is set on site of a college/high school, a specific location for this type of genre, as the main characters who are the 'coming of age' in these films, moving on in life and experiencing different problems everyday, are usually aged between 13-20, the age where college is the main highlight of their day, whether it be for the better or worse. To help the audience understand where the film is set, pan shots are used to show Cady's surroundings. Some of these films tend to have features from chick flicks in with them and this film is a prime example because the main character is a teenage girl, who comes across as being unpopular, therefore leading to her feeling uncomfortable in herself. This results in people laughing at her and creates a horrid atmosphere throughout her college life, which is usually the specific feature in a chick flick. This feature found in the film helps us to establish the genre.
The image below helps us establish where the film is taking place, i.e. at and around college.

The above two images show the pan shot used to inform the audience of where this is filmed.

This image shows us who the main character is, 'Cady', a typical teenage girl, on her way to college for the first time.

Another way the audience becomes established with what the film is about is through the narrative techniques and theories used. This film uses Tzvetan Todorov's stage theory where the movie starts with an equilibrium of her day to day life. The audience learns how the main character is a loser and the opening sets up her relationships, or lack of them. Another feature that is quite specific to the genre, 'coming of age', is the use of 'Exposition'. This is where a character, usually the main character, provides some background information to inform the readers about the plot or theme of the film. In the case it is 'Cady' who speaks and informs the audience of why and how she came to be at this point in the film. Alongside this feature, there is the use of 'Restricted Narration' which is when the narrative is tied to one character and the audience only sees or knows what they know. In this film, the audience knows and sees what 'Cady' does as she is the one who is telling the story. This feature is quite popular in these kinds of films as this genre normally has someone who comes across as a 'geek' or being unpopular and how they find their inner self, which is what this film is beginning to reflect.

The use of narrative theories and narrative techniques help to reveal insights into the development of the characters to the audience. By using 'Exposition', the audience get an understanding of what background 'Cady' has come from and shows that she is someone who is not used to the 'normal' routine of going to college and therefore doesn't have many friends. As well as this, the use of 'Restricted Narration' helps the audience understand how this character is feeling. We see we 'Cady' feeling very nervous, vulnerable and quite unhappy as she is starting this new college, without having any experience of what it is like, as well as having no friends.

These techniques also contribute to the tone of the genre and are used show 'Cady's' feelings and also help establish the un-easy tone to the film. Because we see how nervous and vulnerable 'Cady' is, it creates this un-easy tone and we as the audience aren't sure how 'Cady' is going to react to people laughing at her. It makes the audience feel sympathy towards her and the are intrigued how she will react.

This image below shows the other students laughing at 'Cady'.

Editing

Throughout this title sequence, certain editing techniques and camera positioning are used to connote to the audience what genre this film is. It commences with Cady and her parents discussing her day ahead at college and the camera positioned at a low angle looking up towards her parents. This connotes the message that although Cady is sixteen years old, she is being portrayed as being smaller and younger. Perhaps this is reflecting how she feels when her parents are talking to her and we as the audience are immediately filled with sympathy towards her. This is quite commonly found in these type of genres as the main character is sympathised at the beginning of the film so we can see them growing up from this child and experiencing difficulties along the path to eventually becoming a mature adult. This low angle camera positioning and over the shoulder shots is found further on through this title sequence when we are given shots of Cady's teachers and fellow students. Again the camera is positioned to make the teacher and other students look more dominant with Cady portrayed as being the weakest. Again it states what this genre will be about as this feature is commonly found in coming of age films to emphasise the journey the character has made.

These images show the low angle positioning of the camera that connotes how Cady is feeling at this point - young and weak.

This image shows an over the shoulder shot, which portrays Cady to be the smaller and weaker one out of the two students.

Another way camera techniques help us establish the genre is by the use of shot reverse. This is used to portray Cady's state of mind and is something found quite often in coming of age films. Thus the audience understands the character, who they are and how much of a journey they have made by the end of the film.

The images above show the use of shot reverse shot to connote to the audience how the character is feeling, quite often found in these genres.

Another feature found in this film is the use of long shots, followed by medium close up shots. These are used quite often in coming of age films to show how excluded and small the character feels compared to the rest of the characters. Again it develops the story to show how she will overcome this, fight back and become a better person for it. These images below show the different shots.

With regard to the titles, they are shown in a certain way to reflect the story and genre of the film. With the 'Mean' in the main title, it is portrayed in white bold font which reflects the meaning of as being a powerful and more dominant word than 'girls'. The word 'girls' is portrayed as slightly different. It comes across as being a slimmer and rather pink word, which I believe reflects how a woman is usually stereotypically portrayed. By creating the title this way, it is showing there are two sides to this story, the strong and the weak, which again reflects this type of genre, travelling through life, changing and becoming something better.
The other opening credit titles are portrayed the same, one word being bold and the other slim. Again this reflects the storyline and genre.

The main music is a song called 'Rip her to shreds' which listening to the title suggests a sense of strength and power. I believe this is done to reflect the journey the main character is taking and some of the emotions she needs to have to tackle this journey. This is something quite often used in this genre where people are growing up and finding their strengths and weaknesses. The band who performed it, 'Boomkat', are known for their music in other chick flicks/coming of age films such as 'Crossroads'. The two members at the time were in their early twenties, the age after the teenager years where you find out who you really are. I believe their music is used for this type of genre as maybe they have been thorough the same experiences and wish to portray their feelings about it through music.

Analysis On 'Kick-Ass'

From watching the opening sequence of this film, it is clear to see that this genre is also a coming of age/comedy, much like the film 'Mean Girls' and the opening of a film I would like to create. In this film. One common feature found in coming of age films is the specific location and theme, which is usually that of a high school/college in America and occassionaly some scenes shot in the main character's house. This is to reflect the character's journey. They start this journey as a child and progress into a mature and grown up person, something found in all coming of age films.

The following images show the location shots, one set at a college and the other at 'Kick-Ass's' house.

Another feature that helps establish the genre of this film are the characters used. The main character, 'Kich-Ass', is portrayed as a bit of a geek, someone not popular in his school and definitely somebody who doesn't have much luck with girls. This is a prime example of the type of character in this genre as the story is based around how this character comes out of themselves and becomes popular. Supporting the main character, you also get his best friends who are also usually portrayed as geeks, and the 'popular' girl, the one the geek can never seem to get, as shown in this film too.

The following images show some of the characters in the film, especially the main character, 'Kick-Ass', found in the middle of his mates in the image below.

We also understand what type of genre this film is from the use of narrative techniques and theories used. A theory that nearly always seems to be found in these types of films is the Tzvetan Todorov's five stage theory. The movie starts with an equilibrium of his day to day life and from this the audience learns how the main character is a loser and the opening sets up his relationships and who his friends are. This is much like the set up for 'Mean Girls'.

Another technique used is 'Restricted Narration'. This technique is when the narrative is tied to one character and helps the audience understand how this character is feeling. In this case, we understand 'Kick-Ass' to be feeling unpopular and wanting to be a better person and feel wanted by others.

Something else found in this film is the use of an ellipsis. This is seen in the shot where Kick-Ass and his family are sat around the breakfast table. We see his mum suddenly dying and then the shot is focused in on the breakfast cereal box containing a bee. The following shot shows the same box and all the characters, apart from his mother, in the same postion. It emphasises that nothing new has happened, nothing exciting in his life, everything is the same. This use of ellipsis also links to another feature, 'Exposition'. This is where there is some narration that provides background information to the audience, much like Ellipsis does. This is quite common in this genre as we learn how this character came to be how he is and why he is so unpopular. It is also to create this mood of sympathy towards him. Like most of these coming of age films this so the audience can feel for the character and want him to change to a better life, especially as his mother has died.

The following images shows the use of an ellipsis.

Editing

Throughout this title sequence, there are certain editing techniques and camera positioning used to connote to the audience what genre this film is. The use of 'shot reverse shot' shows 'Kick-Ass' looking at the 'girl of his dreams' and a following shot of her actually looking at her best friend. This is followed by another shot of her reaction to 'Kick-Ass' and it's one of disgust. This is usually how the relationships between girls and boys are in coming of age films as the main character has to win the guy/girl of their dreams over to show how they've found their innerself.

The following images show the use of 'shot reverse shots'.

With regard to the titles, they are edited as though a superhero is flying through the sky and they appear as titles in the cloud. This is done to reflect the childish side of this genre. The other titles and time titles appear as being quite funky and chunky, something that you would expect to see from a comic book and this also reflects the superhero idea.

The music used in this sequence, 'Stand Up',  seems jolly and cheerful, and the creators are a band known as 'The Prodigy'. They started out as a normal band, practicing in an attic, but wanted more in their lives and did all they could to become something better. This is much like 'Kick-Ass' wanting to achieve bigger and better things in his life.

The video clip below is the music clip used in this film.