Stormbreaker, Woman In Black and Mean Girls

We analysed a film of our chosen genre, as well as watching other films with a similar opening and also with some difference. I watched Stormbreaker, Women in Black and Mean Girls and i have to compare each opening so I have the best possibilities for our project opening.

The opening of Stormbreaker, gives us an idea to the audience about what genre this film is, the audiences get a sense of mystery which links into action or horror, but the audience sees motor bikes and mini bombs so the audiences has the idea of action. However the very start of Stormbreaker we see a blurred image, which is where the mystery comes from. The blurred image of the opening is an enigma code and of this it draws in the audience because they want to know what is happening and what the image is of. The titles are then introduced into the film after the image becomes clear. They then use another enigma code to establish the setting and character. The scene opens with a shot of teenagers sat down in what is to be seen as a school hall, as what we see as a teacher is stood at the front talking about the students essays they have to represent. It takes a couple of minutes until the action starts. We get all the normal conventions for the action genre, which are Bombs, Guns, Motorbikes, Good guys and Bad guys, Flash Cars, calm/cool protagonist and a setting of a dangerous factory and cliff edge.

However, when we watch Women in Black we have a possitive idea of that the genre is, which is Horror. The film opens immediately with the titles based on a black screen and big, bold white letters, which is accompanied by non-diegetic music with mysterious tone being played in the background. However within the white letters it almost looks like somethings moving like water, which I interpitate as the swamp that surrounds the women in blacks house later on in the film. So this is giving a bit of a give away before the film has even begun, which draws in the audience because it creates an intense feeling of mystery. Also because the lettering represents the swamp and there is horror music playing, this is warning the audience that the swamp is not a safe place. The font used on the titles, is the traditional horror writing and it so simple and plain it sticks out in your face and makes you feel the tention of the fear that is to come, this makes the audience instantly identify that this is a horror movie. Compared with Strombreaker the opening of Women in Black seems to move faster. We have to wait to see what the genre is in Strombreaker as the image is not clear and the music is mellow. With Women in Black getting straight to the point it makes the audience feel like they know what they are watching.

Mean Girls is very similar to Woman In Black, it opens with the titles, this is similar to what is used in the Women in Black, however with this movie we are not entirely sure what the genre of the film is. Mean Girls open with colourful scattered titles representing the seperate social groups, so in similarity the titles in both Mean Girls and Woman in Black give a piece of the story away. But the bright colours used in Mean Girls connect to youth, so this does give the audience a hint to what the genre is. They then use an enigma codes to introduce the main character this is similar to Strombreaker, as the enigma code draws the audience in because they want to know what is going to happen to Cady when she goes to school. However what is different about Mean Girls, they use a voice over and a sound bridge so this tell the audience a bit about the characters and the story plot.

I think that for our film we will be using a mixture of each opening, we want to incorporate an enigma code to draw the audience in, also to introduce the characters we would use the Mean Girls opening of the voice over and setting in the normal teen comedy way, which is usually set in America. The film title of The Woman in Black starts with a bit of action then the titles come around, this makes it very atmospheric which sets the scene. We do this is our opening by showing some action first then the titles. We do this because the titles relate back to the character and gives the audience the label of what the main characters status is. Using the effect of setting the atmosphere on to the characters status and the films gender.

Teen Comedy Research

Here's an example of the opening to a Teen Comedy. As Part of the research me and my group must carry out for our project of making our own film with the genre of Teen Comedy, we watched a Teen Comedy film called Mean Girls. Mean Girls is a popular Teen Comedy and named "Teen movie of the year" in 2004 by Cosmo, when it was first realised.

The Opening Titles start at the beginning to a black background to make the writing stand out more, also the titles are all different colours which symbolises youth as young people and teenagers are attracted by colours like a child. Also the title "Mean Girls" stands out because it have a plain black background and also "Mean" is white and bold, so it stands out in a black background. It is in your face just like a bully would be, symbolising the word Mean. "Girls" is thin and pink, because all girls want to be skinny and pink is a stereotypical colour for girls. So the colours and the font represents what the words mean. The way the titles are positioned link to the characters and their social statues. The titles are separate, just like the social groups of the teenagers.

The Conventions help with the influence of what to involve in our Teen Comedy film, by giving typical scenes that teenagers can relate to, such as, school. Most teenagers are in school so it is familiar scene so it would make sense to have the plot based around school as teenagers spend most of their time there. The conventions involved in the opening of Mean Girls would help give a typical scene for a Teen Comedy, the packed lunch, the school bus, the diegetic sound of the bell, all of these elements and more give us an idea of what to involve in our production. You also have the different social groups such as, the loser, the jock, the popular ones. These characters are involve in Teen Comedy because people can relate to them, no matter what character, which makes it more funny as people would be laughing and quoting, "it's funny because its true". Because the conventions are involved in a school, a classroom would be another typical setting for a school, involving school desks, the blackboard, and the books because its something all school have. The main character always starts out as the outcast and it is no different for Mean Girls, the new girl is always the main character as they are telling their new school life to you. However, the new girl always ends up doing something embarrassing as well, in Mean Girls the new girl ends up pouring coffee down her teacher whiles trying to find a seat. Therefore, in our production we shall consider using the new character with the embarrassing in our Teen Comedy as it is a recognisable scene in Teen Comedies.

The audience plays an important part of any film. You need to know what audience you are aiming at to know what kind of comedy you need. Such as if Teenagers is the target audience, then school would be the best opinion like used in Mean Girls. Female Teenagers would watch Mean Girls because they can relate to the range of characters to themselves or other people at their school. It a story about them and what they go through in school life. Teenage males would watch it for the girls, relating to some of the characters in the film who only care about girls.

The new girl is represented as a more upper class girl, as she has had the luxury of living in Africa nearly all of her life and she is sixteen years old. She has also been home schooled, so she has never actually been to a proper school before, so technically it is her first day at school, which most people have when they are five years old. The other students around her seem more confident as they all have their social group, their own gang of friends and she has no one. The new girl is normally shy and timid as people keep bumping into her and she just looks down. The other students are all playing and chatting to each other, they are normal American students who are more middle class.

Genre Research

Hi and welcome :)

Today me and my fellow work colleges did some research of Teen Comedies.
We found out that Teen Comdies have a wide and popular audience range.
Now I am going to be telling you about the outcome of my research and I hope you enjoy:


Narratives
Losing virginity before leaving high school/ having sex
Finding a date to the prom
Road trips

Settings
High school
Parents house
Pub/ Clubs
Motorway stations
Cars

Stock characters
Geeky annoying one/ annoying blond popular character
Jock/ Cheerleader
Chav / Goth/ Emo
Loner/ loser

Iconography
The school bell
Booze
Mobile phones
Cars
Sex
Computers/ TV / video games

Box Office Earnings
American Pie: $102,561,004
Superbad: $121,463,226
Juno: $143,495,265
Mean Girls: $86,058,055

Editing techniques
Cut
Fade
180°c rule
Match on action

This information that we have collected will influence our movie planning because comedy has a popular audience demand and it can be for anyone at any age. It will also help by telling us what to include in the storyboard of our film. It gives us ideas on what angles of the camera have a good comical effect, what story lines are most popular and also what people find funny and what they don't. It gives us a stereotype to comedy.

Hope you gained a lot of knowledge from this Blog entry

In a Bit :)

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