Pitch! :D

Here is the write up of the pitch we presented on Thursday 22nd:

Our film is about a teenager (16/17) who, for his whole life, has suffered psychological abuse and bullying, and has decided once and for all to put an end to it. The film is about how more damaging attacking someone's self esteem and confidence can be rather than simple physical violence and threats. The main enigma's suggested in the opening are; who is bullying the main character and why? And what is he going to do to stop it?
The opening presents an isolation of dialogue, this gives us the literal connotation that he is quiet and not really engaging, this also creates an enigma.

The outline of our opening sequence will start with the main character waking up and getting ready to school; the credits appearing on everyday items, such as written on the side of his shoe. Then it will cut to his school locker wherein is placed a dead bird. A voice over and flashback will start giving the audience a taste of what his life has been like. It will cut back to the school and will end with the film title written on his locker door.
What makes our film unique is that, unlike many other movies, we wanted to portray the psychological effect of bullying rather than the cliché of a hormone driven scene of violence. One of the effects we thought would work was the use of a dead bird placed in a locker, which is in a moral sense is pretty disgusting.
In addition we stayed with the idea of having key moments in the flashback to create the sense of our hybrid genre of a British social realist drama/ teen movie.
For ideas relating to the main character we decided to use a white 16/17 year old male. We decided specifically on white and male because the audience isn't told why he's getting bullied and we don't want them to jump to the conclusion that it's racism or sexism. Being the white 'neutral' boy it makes him a normal person, like you, which makes the audience relate to him and sympathize with him. You can also easily tell he's the main character because a) he is in every scene, and has the most screen time. b) All the events relate to him and c) it's his voice we hear in the voice over.

Our film is both practical and viable mainly because the majority of our opening will be filmed at our school, which makes it easy to access and more realistic that our group will be able to meet up for the filming. Also having a modern teenager for the main character means we won't have to use period set or clothing, and it's easier for us to get into the mindset of the main character.

We were influenced by several different films including 'thirteen' (2003) with its gritty realism, which shows the dangers of alcohol and drug abuse. 'One Tree Hill' (series) is very similar, in that it explores teenage problems, like peer pressure and forging relationships.

We were directly influenced by 'College' (2008)'s opening, where the credits were written on different everyday items associated with teenagers. We took that concept and adapted on it, making it more relevant to our main character, rather than random items.

Post by Alex, Bayo, Sam and Shona ☺

Target audience ☻

Since our film opening is going to be a Teen film/psychological drama we were going to make the target audience teenagers, by addressing teen problems, such as bullying, and having it portrayed by a teen cast.
We originally thought a 12+ rating would be appropriate, allowing for the largest possible audience within the teen spectrum. However we discovered the psychological bullying displayed in the opening sequence would be too distressing to younger teens; so we changed the target audience to ages 15+ so we could focus on putting our point across, rather than making the psychological bullying less disturbing ( so that it would be suitable for a 12+ audience) which would dull the overall effect, and make the message less poignant.

post by Shona ☺

Sound Track and Tunes

Today we searched for possible copy right music that would be useful for our opening sequence. We used wesites such as http://www.freeplaymusic.com/ and http://www.audio.lgfl.org.uk/ These websites proved to be very helpful and have helped us move a step further in the organisation of our film opening.

In addition to this we drew a general outline of the shots that we would be using upto half way of the film. Also we watched a few films such as Black Knight by Gil Junger and College by Deb Hagan which had similar shots to the shots we have decided to use.



Post by Bayo.

Blog no. 1: Genre ☺

Teen movies are movies whose target audience are teenagers. Most of the cast, or the main members of the cast, are teenagers, and often the main crux of the story is teenage problems, revolving around peer pressure, relationships, school life and romance.

Teen movies are very open to interpretation and because of this there are many unique Teen movie opening sequences. However, most teen movies use the opening to introduce the main character and the time period, whilst the main plot and sometimes the location remain as enigmas to the audience.

Because so much can fit under the genre of ‘Teen movies’, they are often made into hybrids; the most frequent of these are teen/drama and teen/comedy.

Teen/Drama focuses heavily on teenage life, and, more often than not, explores some form of abuse associated with teenagers. This could include bullying, drug and alcohol abuse, physical/sexual abuse and prejudice/discrimination. the opening of Teen/Drama film ‘Thirteen’ (2003) is a perfect example of this, showing teenagers abusing drugs which leads to severe self destructive behaviour.
Teen/Comedy films generally parody teen life, exaggerating awkward situations and making light of the problems Teen/Dramas focus seriously on, often by using slapstick comedy. The Teen/Comedy genre centres around mocking stereotypes linked with teenagers. For Example, in this scene from ‘Superbad’ (2007) when they make fun of alcohol abuse, showing drunk police officers act in a dangerous, juvenile manner toward the main characters, though the situation isn’t taken seriously.

Post by Shona ☺