Pitch: Location Location Location

Angel Station

The Locations where we will be filming our opening are all in the Angel area.

Angel Square

We will have various shots of the landmarks surrounding the college to use as a background for our title sequence. As well as being a backdrop for the credits, these shots will also give the audience an idea of what the area looks like, and build around the college, therefore making it feel more realistic.

Owen's Field

For our actual, scenes we will be shooting, in Owen's Field (to illustrate our characters transport preferences) and as it is a teen film, it will be predominantly set within college walls.

Within City & Islington College Walls

Pitch: Production Schedule

Pitch: Institutional Detail

Our teen film will be produced and distributed by Summit Entertainment. This is the production company that produced/distributed Twilight, a film our teen film is heavily inspired by. This company is very well known for a variety of genres of films. Some  other teen films they have produced are Sorority Row, Step Up 3D and The Perks Of Being A Wallflower.

By having such a well known production and distributor company, it will automatically boost our teen films image setting it up for success. 

How we got Ideas for our Remake

We mainly got our supernatural theme from the film Twilight because of how the main character is a vampire and no one knows his secret except a few people.

In our remake we will have the main character who is a teenage Vampire. We will have the typical nerd, 'it girl' and the token black guy.

The small details!

• During the close up of the 'It" Girl, we could play a soft instrumental, such as the one from Let Me Know.
• During the mid shot of the Token Black Guy, there will be faint rap music playing. Possibly coming from his headphones?

Draft 1: First storyboard of our teen opening

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Planning: props & costume

Costume & Props for the 'Vampire':
-Talcum powder - to make him look pale like traditional vampires
-A long black jacket
-A white shirt
-Black jeans

Costume & Props for the 'Nerd':
-Folders
-Glasses
-Shirt

Costume and props for the 'It' Girl:
-Makeup
-Skirt and blouse

Costume & Props for the 'Token Black Guy':
-Cap

-Shirt 
-Jacket

Ideas!

Ideas:

• Romance? We could take ideas from movies such as John Tucker Must Die or 10 Things I Hate About You and make them our own? 

• 10 Things I Hate About You: We could take the idea of the popular older sister and the nerdy younger sister with the controlling father. 

• We could focus on the introductory of the characters, not so heavily on the plot. Like The Breakfast Club.
• Gritty realism? We could base our teen opening around British movies such as Kidulthood. 
• Supernatural? We could do a movie based around a supernatural teen at college who has to hide his secret from everyone. This idea is stemmed from movies such as Chronicle or Twilight. However, this sub genre can be difficult to film as we won't have the resources for special effects. 
• 21 Jump Street: we could take the idea of two young cops in school trying to bust a case. 

FINAL IDEA: Supernatural theme

Inspirations: Twilight series

A vampire teen who is a college student. Other stereotypical students, such as The Nerd, The It Girl and The Token Black Guy.

Voiceover?

Sound Research

Many teen movies have an upbeat soundtrack. It is usually played whilst the teens are getting ready in the morning, on their way to school or just arriving at school. I really think this would be a great opening soundtrack as it's catchy, classic and fun.

Grease opening soundtrack:

The soundtrack is very uplifting. It emphasises the characters getting ready for a new day. It is also a track which can be easily identified straight away as the song in the Grease opening.

The Guardian: The history of teen films

I was researching how such a huge genre of film evolved, as it wasn't always so overtly existant. I stumbled across this article on The Guardian website, which I have copied and pasted below. 

Whatever: a history of teen movies

• The Observer, Sunday 22 March 2009

The teen movie came of age in 50s America, not long after the concept of the teenager was born. The idea of an intermediate stage between childhood and adulthood, with its own peculiar characteristics, was still new when Marlon Brando donned his biker jacket in The Wild One (1953) and answered "What are you rebelling against?" with "What've you got?"

Changing social attitudes and a booming postwar economy fed into the emergence of teenagers. Middle-class parents who had weathered the Depression and the war wanted their children to have full educations, uninterrupted by work or military service. As a result, young people found themselves with larger allowances and more free time. The dramatic possibilities of this stage of life, marked by rebellion, angst and young love, quickly became evident to movie-makers.

Rock'n'roll, the sound that defined 50s adolescence, figured strongly in the early teen movies. Rock Around the Clock (1956) was one of the first films to be marketed at teenagers to the exclusion of their elders. Its success induced Hollywood to exploit this new demographic.

The Gidget movies and Beach Party (1963) developed a sure-fire formula in tune with the mood of the 60s, uniting music, comedy and romance with surf, Californian sun and skimpy bikinis. Much of the success of the teen movie lies in the fact that it crosses over so fluidly with other genres, and in the 70s, teens were subjected to horror (Carrie, 1976), romance (Love Story, 1970), comedy (National Lampoon's Animal House, 1978) and John Travolta musicals - Saturday Night Fever (1977) and Grease (1978).

High-school comedies featuring the so-called Brat Pack were huge in the 80s - a prime example being The Breakfast Club (1985). None of these films would be complete without the high-school holy trinity: the bitchy cheerleader, the uber-jock footballer and the bespectacled nerd.

Self-referentiality entered the classroom in the Nineties: the students in Scream (1996) knew the rules of teen slasher flicks but got slashed nonetheless. Classic texts were rejuvenated in Clueless (1996), an update of Jane Austen's Emma, Romeo + Juliet (1996), and 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), based on The Taming of the Shrew.

Today, the teen movie remains in good health - witness the success of the High School Musical series and Superbad (2007).

Link: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/mar/22/teen-movies-history-superbad

 

Evaluation of our Shot By Shot Remake:

Strengths:

My group and I were particuarly good with planning. We efficiently made the storyboards by screen capping images from the original The Breakfast Club opening to put into a storyboard template we made on Microsoft word. We made sure to capture all of the significant camera work we will be needing and used this as our guide when filming!We got a room readily available to film in, which was great as we could film without being disrupted by people in the background.

We also became very imaginative and creative in regards of the props we used. We obviously didn't have cars to use so we had to make use with what we had! We got a table and chairs and Fabio used his phone to get a picture of the BMW sign to put on the front of the table for the first section. It worked well. A clock was also used as an imitation "steering wheel".

Weaknesses: 

As expected, there are some differences to our Shot By Shot Remake and the original opening. For example, we have not included the small section at the very end whereby the principle enters. This is due to an underestimation of time! We did not have time to film it. The music playing at beginning title sequence is also missing. However, we will be sure to plan better - in regards to timing - on our next filming tasks. It is all a learning experience!

Our editing skills on Final Cut Pro were also a bit rusty, but I feel much more confident with them now. 

Analysis of a Teen Film

Kate (Brittany Snow) is the new girl in school. She catches John Tucker (Jesse Metcalfe) dating three different girls at once: 

Carrie - the smart girl 

Heather - the cheerleader 

Beth - the activist slut 

None of them are aware that they are not the only girl in John's heart. Kate, having been raised by a single mother, has seen the pain caused by playboys like John Tucker, and she won't stand idly by. Together with the three jilted ex-girlfriends, they hatch a plan to teach John a lesson. Things rarely go as planned, especially when Kate starts to think that she might be falling for John herself.

Shot By Shot Remake

THIS IS OUR SHOT BY REMAKE OF 'THE BREAKFAST CLUB'

Soundmix

Our task was to add background music into a video clip. 

It's important to use copyright free so that other people can share, study and modify it. 

Nearly finished our remake !

Should be up in a few minutes! Great work guys !

I found the blogger app

Now I can blog when I'm out !

Behind the scenes editing

The breakfast club intro (remake) - behind the scenes editing

 liam edditing our new work of the breakfast club remake.

Task two - 3 teen movies

TWILIGHT BREAKING DAWN PART 2:
ame>
Genre: adventure, drama, fantasy.
Appeals mostly to females.
Star appeal: Taylor Lautner
Love and forever togetherness appeals to female audience, fight scenes to male audience.


WARM BODIES: 
Genre: comedy, horror, and romance warm bodies appeals to both genders, the genres are popular among most audiences.
There is no obvious star appeal in this film.
I think the romantic storyline would appeal more to the female viewers, and the war between "corpses and boneys" with the male viewers.


CHRONICLE:
Genre:  drama, sci-fi, thriller, this film appeals mainly to a male audience.
as in warm bodies, there is no obvious star appeal in this movie.
i think the mischief and action in the film appeals more to males than females.

The Breakfast Club remake: possible transport (h/w)

Possible transport:

• Walking
• Tube
• Toy car?
• Bus
• Skateboard 

  Character analysis: what does the transport tell us about their character?

"The Princess" arrives in a BMW driven by her father. There is a close up of the logo which emphasises this fact. This shows us instantly that she is wealthy. (This is also complimented by her pretty look)
"The Brain" arrives in an average red car with his mother and younger sister. The car is very average, showing us that this character is follows suit.
"The Athlete" shows up in a big bulky Jeep driven by his father. It instantly shows the audience his masculine jock type character.
"The Criminal" is the only one to arrive on foot. He walks very fast with his head down and in shades. This lets us instantly identify him as shifty and strange.
"The Basketcase" arrives in a very average car. She gets out (dressed in dreary colours) and moves to say goodbye to the driver (whom we don't even see) but is cut short when the car pulls away. This represents her as a loner and someone who people don't really take notice off.

The Breakfast Club opening remake: digital storyboard

Shot By Shot Remake Task

Our task is to remake the opening scene from The Breakfast Club. We need to create a digital storyboard, decide on the props and costumes and film and edit.

 The Breakfast Club is about an unlikely friendship that has blossomed during an gruelling eight hour detention. To the other kids, they are just The Brain, The Princess, The Athlete, The Criminal and The Basketcase; but together they will always know each other as part of The Breakfast Club.

In the opening, we are introduced to the five main characters and we see them being dropped off by their parents. Through the matter of seconds, we get an insight into what stereotype they fit through their dialogue with their parents. Firstly, we are introduced to "The Princess" - a pretty girl with light feminine makeup. We soon learn that her father is an important man when she says "I can't believe you couldn't get me out of this." We can also infer that she is wealthy through the BMW she is dropped in and the shopping bag with a gift to make her day better.

Next we are introduced to "The Brain". Getting dropped to school by his irritated mother, we can see that he is a plain and rather nerdy looking. His mother advises him to "use his time wisely" and "find a way to study" even if they just want him to sit there. His little sister is in the average looking car whilst he is being dropped off which connotes an average American family.

"The Athlete" is dropped to school by his controlling father in a bulky masculine jeep. We can see a good looking blonde male dressed in a varsity jacket which show us the typical jock character connotations. His father is also lecturing him about his pursue of being an athlete and how this detention could jeopardise it whilst the jock looks annoyed.

"The Criminal" is introduced next. It all happens very fast and we see a mysterious young man in shades and a long jacket, walking like he does not want to be seen. He is the only student to arrive alone and has the shortest amount of introductory time.

Lastly introduced is "The Basketcase". Dressed in dark dreary attire with short black hair, she already fades into the background. There is no dialect between her and the person who drops her off, and they don't even get a cameo. We also see that as she comes out and gets ready to say goodbye to the driver, he/she drives off and leaves her standing there awkwardly. This instantly shows the unimportance of this character.



Planning:

Locations:
We are gonna film inside college for the most part. The lockers, the canteen area and displays in the corridors. We will use the area just outside the college for the entering of the characters.

Props:
Costume:
The Princess will be wearing a fur jacket, a floral shirt and will have long hair.
The Criminal will be tall, wearing a black jacket and a cap to cover his face.
The Brain will be short, wearing glasses and will have on plain clothes.

Miscellaneous:
Folders,

Sequence of title openings

This is a timeline of the order of the opening credits made on time toast.

Transport storyboard

Film sequence

Representation - Stereotypes

 Representation.

Media representations are the ways in which the media portrays particular groups, communities, experiences, ideas, or topics from a particular ideological or value perspective. I found out today that there are alot of different character stereotypes ranging from 'The popular jock' to the 'Token black guy'

Dale

Dale from 'Tucker And Dale Vs Evil' - stereotypical Hillbilly.
The Hillbilly stereotype: Hillbillies are poor, white farmers. In Movies they tend to drink excessively, drive pick up trucks and be uneducated.

Mise En Scene:  Dale wears a checkered shirt, with dungarees, which is the most popular costume used to potray the 'hillbilly' character.  His speech is informal and full of grammatical errors to emphasise that he is uneducated.

Seth

Seth from 'Superbad' - stereotypical depserate virgin/ stupid fat guy. 
Normally quite unattractive, is accompanied by a couple friends that play a part in some sort of scheme to hook up with girls.

representation.

representation

representation is the end result of a stereotype. a stereotype is a generlisation of a certain group of people. also to put people into catagories due to there apperance, race, language and so on. certain examples of representation are :

Jocks - jocks are seen to be represented by being well built teenagers, good looking, usually rich or somewhat wealthy, and very poppular. jocks usually have the same dress code so they easily are recognisable by the veiwers and stand out from the rest of the school/college, they usually all have their school/colleges football jersy on all the time. a good example of a jock is OZ from america pie.

Virgins- Virgins are usually represented by being the smallest and weiredest kids in the school/college. they are usally obssessed with girls and sex. Virgins always fall into different catagoriese in representation, such as: nerds, wannabes, weirdos and fat guys. a good example of a virgin in a teen film is Jim from american pie.

Black guy- The black guy is usally a jock or a very poppular person in teen films. they are represented by talking in an street accent, dressing ghetto or thug like, and talking with slang. they also usally have similar catch phrases in all teen films.a good example of a typical black guy in a teen film is Marlon Wayans from scary movie 2.


in teen films i dislike the slut/cheerleader stereotype due to them normally being really nasty and being extreamly bitchy. i do however like the typial black guy and jock stereotype because they are usally funny and make very stupid decisions.

Representation

Representation

Representation is how a character or a group of people are shown by their actions, costumes, location and props. Stereotypes is a generalisation of a certain group of people or to put people in categories. For example in the teen film 'John Tucker Must Die' there is a popular jock who is normally good looking, very good at sport and has most of the girls falling at his feet. In this film there are also popular girls and cheerleaders who wear revealing clothes and have attitude. They look down on the unpopular people and sometimes bully them. There is also a new girl who is a nerd and very unpopular at first and she then becomes popular because she has the same issues with the boy as the other girls who are popular.

Other films that have typical stereotypes and representations of teens are Mean Girls, She's the Man, A Cinderella Story, High School Musical, Grease, American Pie and more.

 

Representation

What is representation?

Representation is how a particular group of people are generalised through the media and how they are shown to us conveying the typical assets of a certain type of people. One of the main assets of a stereotypical character would be their dress code, usually very specific and allows the audience to spot the 'type' of character on the screen almost instantly. We put these characters into categories using our previous knowledge of stereotypes.

 However, all though producers of movies expect all consumers to perceive the stereotypical characters in the same way, our individual differences allow many different perceptions of the same character to be seen. Factors such as age, what media we regularly consume and our location can have an effect on how we see certain representations in the media. 

"The Bad Boy" - an example being Danny from Grease

Danny wears a black leather jacket, black jeans, black shoes and a white t-shirt. He has gelled hair and is introduced to the audience smoking a cigarette and speaking to a small group of girls. Instantly we can see the bad boy/ladies man stereotype emerging. He has a group of similar looking friends and we group these characters as the same "type". This is further enhanced by the group mid shots that show the audience their friendship, and later their 'clique' when we find out they have named themselves 'T-birds'. Danny, along with the rest of his friendship group, also speak in non standard dialect, regularly using slang with his hometown accent. 

"The Exchange Student" - an example being Sara from Save The Last Dance

Usually shown as an outsider and different to the rest. For Sara in Save The Last Dance, she is the only white person in a predominantly black Chicago school. She dresses relatively similar to the rest of the pupils, however when her friend Chanel takes her to a club, she has to fix up her outfit before they go in and she wasn't dressed to fit the style of the area. They often have a story behind why they moved, usually a tragic past and allows us to get to know the character better. For Sara, it was the death of her mother which resulted in Sara moving to live with her dad whom she doesn't have a very good relationship with.

The foreign student regularly becomes involved with people in their new school, however sometimes they can be alienated. In Save The Last Dance, Sara meets Derrek who she falls in love with. They are regularly shown in two shots to signify their blossoming romance and particularly when they are dancing, showing us how their love of dance has brought them together (the main narrative). However, Sara does face alienation from "The Mean Girl" Nikki who once dated Derrek and "The Bad Boy" Derrek's best friend.

"The Mean Girl, also known as the 'Queen Bee'"- an example being Regina George from Mean Girls

The Mean Girl is always seen to be wearing short skirts, tight tops, high heels, small handbags and a lot of pink. They usually have straight blonde hair and feminine make up. Regina George incorporates all of these assets into her look. She also has dated The Popular Jock, Aaron Samuels and has conflict with The Exchange Student Cady. She is shown in plenty of group shots with her clique, "The Plastics" who also have similar connotations.

The set out of the characters also connotes her "Queen Bee" status as she is always in the middle with her 'sidekicks' Gretchen and Karen on either side of her.

Stereotypical characters that I like like/dislike:

Karen: "The dumb blonde" in Mean Girls.
This character is extremely humorous unintentionally. I also feel a little bit sorry for her when she says stupid comments which spark insults from the mean girl, Regina.

Sandy: "The Exchange Student" in Grease.
She is sweet and innocent and acts how I would put in her situations.