The Lonely Life of a Teenager script

THE LONELY LIFE OF A TEENAGER SCRIPT

(Fade from black, for this segment audio is muffled)

MR ANDERSON: (talking about *interesting* history stuff for roughly 5 seconds)

MR ANDERSON: Max.

MR ANDERSON: MAX!

(Audio fades in, Max wakes up)

MAX: (quietly) Huh? What?

MR ANDERSON: Hey Max, since you are very attentive can you tell me the date at which World War 2 began?

MAX: uhhh (brief pause) I did know, but I kinda forgot…

MR ANDERSON: (sarcastically) Can anybody here please enlighten me with an answer?

TIFFANY: Uh, sir, it’s the 3^rd of September 1939, when Neville Chamberlain, the prime minister, declared war on Germany.

MR ANDERSON: (talking while Tiffany speaks, praises her and continues speaking)

TIFFANY: (Quieter, looking at Max, leans towards her) Looks like you aren’t a smartass after all.

BRITNEY, WHITNEY: *giggling*

(School Bell rings, people begin to pack up and leave)

MR ANDERSON: (Louder voice) Don’t forget your history assignment for Friday please, and don’t forget the test on Monday.

(Max leaves frame, shot changes to a match-on-action of her walking out the door, then looks around briefly)

(Switch to internal narration, Max is standing in front of the door)

Max: *sigh* That was embarrassing. At least I can go home now, I guess. Not like anyone will actually talk to me or anything.

(Max moves to one side and puts on headphones and proceeds to walk home)

(Some titles put during this sequence)

Max: My name’s Max if you didn’t catch it. Mr Anderson has a habit of picking on me for some reason.

(Max sees Tiffany, Britney and Whitney)

Max: And, of course, the stereotypical clichéd mean girls. And they picked on me because I can’t afford clothes that cost literally 10 times my allowance.

(Max sees Sam)

Max: And there’s Sam. He’s nice and I’m grateful that he isn’t a dick. I guess not everyone hates me. Think positively, as mum always says. It’s hard though, when it doesn’t feel like you’re a part of the school. Just some weird girl who can’t answer a basic history question.

Our script is fairly short, this is because we want to be able to fit everything we had planned into our film. Despite the length, we still feel that it is effective in establishing the characters and setting the scene.

Teen angst film (The Lonely Life Of A Teenager) planning - everything

The Lonely Life of a Teenager plan
*Each section can be found on a separate post*

 

Logo and contribution

Throughout the planning of our (myself, Joshua Worth and Adam Stubbs) teen angst film, we all collaborated on each part - we each had some form of input on what was going on at each stage - however, we each had an area on which we would focus on. My area was design including the titles and the logo for our film company. Our company name is Lone Wolf Productions; this is a reference to our film being about a socially anxious teenager (hence the word "lone") and we chose a wolf because they are usually depicted as being strong even though some are on their own, this is a reference to the fact that people with social anxiety are strong because of the fact that they face so many problems in day-to-day life.

 

Originally our design was a moon with the silhouette of a wolf howling in it and the name of our company on the bottom. The final design has not changed drastically but now the titles are in the moon above the wolf and I have added effects to the moon to make it look darker in some areas.

Titles
Our titles are fairly simple. We didn't want something that stood out in order to reflect the fact that people with social anxiety don't want to stand out. We are currently undecided on which font we are going to use, but some ideas include: Verdana and Tw cen MT condensed extra bold. We are going to use either black or white titles (depending on the background) at this point in time. However, if the colours look out of place then we may choose another colour.

Our title "The Lonely Life of a Teenager" makes reference to social anxiety as sufferers can often feel as though they are alone and that the world is against them. We also feel as though it is fairly catchy through the use of alliteration with "Lonely Life" which will therefore make it more memorable.

Script

Our script is fairly short, this is because we want to be able to fit everything we had planned into our film. Despite the length, we still feel that it is effective in establishing the characters and setting the scene.

Characters

Our characters are fairly typical of a teen angst film; the two unpopular main characters who get bullied by the popular group along with various extras including teachers and students. They characters will be wearing stereotypical items you would expect teenagers to wear. The two main characters have unisex names (Max and Sam) to show that both genders suffer from social anxiety equally. This is also good in sending a message to people who suffer from social, which is that they are not alone. This is quite counter-typical of teen angst films because they usually focus on problems such as popularity. For the costumes, we would just like the actors to wear normal, everyday items that teenagers are stereotypically shown to wear such as: hoodies, jeans, etc.

USP and target audience

Our unique selling point is the fact that the story is quite different in the fact that a majority of teen angst films today make the main focus on popularity whilst ignoring the actual problems a lot of teenagers face. The main story behind the film is that the main character is struggling with social anxiety and she sees her best (and only) friend being bullied by the popular girls but she doesn't do anything about it as a result of her anxiety. Our target audience is teenagers but also young adults due to the mature themes expressed within our film. It is probably more aimed towards teenagers due to the fact that the use of mise-en-scene is mainly used to relate to teenagers.
 

Setting
Much like our characters, our locations are associated with teenagers - the school and Priory park. Specifically, within the school we are going to film in the classroom F2.2, the stairs outside the room and multiple hallways. Within Priory park we are going to film in multiple places.
 

Music and sound
Originally for our music we were going to use Stressed Out by Twenty One Pilots, Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day and Sugar we're goin' down by Fall Out Boy. However, these songs were copyrighted so we instead decided to use Dreamkiddo - Away from home and/or AfterImages - Valleys from the YouTube channel Flying Tunes. This is because we believe that it fits the mood of the film quite well; they are not too exciting (to represent the sadness experienced by people with social anxiety) but also not too sad (to keep the viewer entertained). We should not need to add many sound effects in editing as the music will be the main focus. We may however choose to add some if we feel it is necessary e.g. doors slamming.

 

Inspiration
Our film takes its main inspiration from Easy A. This is shown in the fact that both the main character from Easy A and our film are quite unpopular and have to deal with this at school. They both also have a supportive best friend. Despite this inspiration, we wanted to make our film stand out from the rest of the teen angst films and in the process portray an issue which affects many teenagers, therefore our film does not follow stereotypical conventions of many teen angst films.

 

Feedback and changes
Some of the feedback we received from our teachers was concerning the lack of inspiration, originally we were unsure of where the idea of our film took inspiration from but with a bit of thought we realised that the characters were fairly relatable to those from Easy A due to the fact that both main characters are seen as unpopular and only really have their one friend who backs them up, but doesn't fully appreciate their friend. The key difference between the two films is that our film is less comedic and focuses more on the severity of the real life situation rather than making it seem comedic.

 

Storyboard

 



Script

 

(Fade from black, for this segment audio is muffled)

MR ANDERSON: (talking about *interesting* history stuff for roughly 5 seconds)

MR ANDERSON: Max.

MR ANDERSON: MAX!

(Audio fades in, Max wakes up)

MAX: (quietly) Huh? What?

MR ANDERSON: Hey Max, since you are very attentive can you tell me the date at which World War 2 began?

MAX: uhhh (brief pause) I did know, but I kinda forgot…

MR ANDERSON: (sarcastically) Can anybody here please enlighten me with an answer?

TIFFANY: Uh, sir, it’s the 3^rd of September 1939, when Neville Chamberlain, the prime minister, declared war on Germany.

MR ANDERSON: (talking while Tiffany speaks, praises her and continues speaking)

TIFFANY: (Quieter, looking at Max, leans towards her) Looks like you aren’t a smartass after all.

BRITNEY, WHITNEY: *giggling*

(School Bell rings, people begin to pack up and leave)

MR ANDERSON: (Louder voice) Don’t forget your history assignment for Friday please, and don’t forget the test on Monday.

(Max leaves frame, shot changes to a match-on-action of her walking out the door, then looks around briefly)

(Switch to internal narration, Max is standing in front of the door)

Max: *sigh* That was embarrassing. At least I can go home now, I guess. Not like anyone will actually talk to me or anything.

(Max moves to one side and puts on headphones and proceeds to walk home)

(Some titles put during this sequence)

Max: My name’s Max if you didn’t catch it. Mr Anderson has a habit of picking on me for some reason.

(Max sees Tiffany, Britney and Whitney)

Max: And, of course, the stereotypical clichéd mean girls. And they picked on me because I can’t afford clothes that cost literally 10 times my allowance.

(Max sees Sam)

Max: And there’s Sam. He’s nice and I’m grateful that he isn’t a dick. I guess not everyone hates me. Think positively, as mum always says. It’s hard though, when it doesn’t feel like you’re a part of the school. Just some weird girl who can’t answer a basic history question.

 

Cast list

Max – Bethan Rutherford

Sam – Joshua Worth

Mr. Anderson – Mr. Williams (?)

Tiffany – Eleanor Luhar (?)

Nathan - Jak Wright

Brittany – Darcey Page

Whitney – Alice Nutter

Extras…

Costumes/Props

Costumes:

•Max, Sam & Nathan : General Sixth form wear

•Tiff, Brit & Whit: Expensive looking Clothing

•Mr. Anderson: Suit/General Smart Clothing

•Extras: School Uniform/ general Sixth From wear.

Props:

•Classroom: Stationary/ Books/ Bags

•Corridor: Headphones/ Phone

•Field: Headphones

Filming schedule

We will try and shoot all our opening sequence at around the end of the school day so that there will be a lot of people around, and we will try to film all of our different shots fairly close together so that it will all be roughly the same time of day, and so that we don’t have to worry about the weather changing outside. We will probably try and shoot our shots in the order they will be put in in editing, so that it is easier to find the correct shots when it comes to editing.



Our presentation - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOe6n7zK7Mo
Dreamkiddo - Away from home - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOmnbx3j2fQ
Afterimages - Valleys - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=own0hdQbGaA

Footloose, Herbert Ross (1984), Mood Board - Notes

Footloose, Herbert Ross (1984), Conventions mood board

Titles

• White with slight black border
• Used to show main members of production team

Mise-en-scene

• Lots of different people wearing different shoes and dancing in different ways (Shows that each teenager is different)
• Looks as if there is a stage setting

Camerawork

• Only close-ups of people's ankles and feet/shoes

Music/Sound

• Famous/Popular song "Footloose" made especially for the film

Voiceovers

• No voices aside from singer

Characters

• Multiple people dancing (not all of same ethnicity)

Editing

• Short clips of about 5-7 seconds of people dancing (Fairly fast paced)
• Titles fade out after a few seconds

Footloose, Herbert Ross (1984), Title Sequence Analysis

Footloose, Herbert Ross (1984), Title Sequence Analysis

 

 

Start - Paramount logo appears

1 second - Clip of man tapping feet with brown shoes and music starts

7 seconds - Clip of man dancing with brown shoes and jeans

8 seconds - Titles "Paramount Pictures presents"

12 seconds - Clip of woman dancing with white high heels

13 seconds - Titles "A Daniel Melnick production"

19 seconds - Clip of man dancing with white shoes

20 seconds - Titles "A Herbert Ross film"

24 seconds - Clip of man dancing in bowling shoes and chorus starts

26 seconds - Film title "Footloose" appears as if made out of shoe laces

32 seconds - Clip of woman hopping with white shoes and titles "Kevin Bacon"

37 seconds - Clip of woman dancing with black high heels and titles "Lori Singer"

43 seconds - Clip of woman dancing with black high heels and titles "Dianne Wiest"

47 seconds - Clip of man dancing with red shoes and titles "And John Lithgow"

53 seconds - Clip of man dancing with white shoes and titles of team members

59 seconds - Clip of woman dancing with white high heels and titles of team members

64 seconds - Clip of man dancing with brown boots and titles of team members

73 seconds - Clip of woman dancing with white trainers and titles of "Casting by..."

78 seconds - Clip of man dancing with brown shoes and titles of "Costumes by..."

84 seconds - Clip of woman dancing with red high heels and titles of "Music supervised by..."

89 seconds - Clip of man dancing with brown shoes and titles of "Score adaptation by..."

95 seconds - Clip of woman dancing in silver shoes and titles of "Choreographed by..."

101 seconds - Clip of woman dancing with red high heels and titles of "Edited by..."

106 seconds - Clip of man shuffling with socks and titles of "Production designer..."

110 seconds - Clip of man dancing with white trainers and titles of "Director of photography..."

117 seconds - Clip of man dancing with white shoes and titles of "Executive producer..."

123 seconds - Clip of man dancing with white boots and titles of "Written by..."

128 seconds - Clip of woman tapping with stripy socks and titles of "Produced by..."

135 seconds - Clip of man dancing with brown trainers and titles of "Directed by..."

140 seconds - Music stops and film starts



Clueless, Amy Heckerling (1995), Mood Board - Notes

Clueless, Amy Heckerling (1995), Conventions mood board

Titles

• White with black border which contrasts with white border/bright background
• Flash with a border of bright colours
• Made to look like text from computer (slowly appears) (Representative of teenager's love for technology)
• Include many important production members including: title design and director

Mise-en-scene

• Computer (Scene takes place inside)
• Images of: Clothes hangers, shirts, skirts, lips, gum, shoes, scarfs, hats, phones, a car (Show objects that teenage girls are associated with)
• Pixelated image of teenage girl (Could suggest that previous items are a part of her as she also appears on the screen)

Camerawork

•  No camerawork (as all is animated) apart from slow zoom in and out at start and end

Music/Sound

•  Sound associated with computer at start - beeping
• Catchy music plays throughout (Would have been more popular at time of film's release)
• Someone can occasionally be heard singing

Voiceovers

• Only from music, but is very faint as the music is louder (Represents teenager's passion for music?)

Characters

•  Pixelated teenage girl at the end is only character

Editing

• Almost entirety of scene is animated
• Fairly slow paced (to represent a computer at the time of the film's release)
• Items appear and disappear via pixilation
• Bright colours (Representative of teenager's personality/mood swings)

Se7en, David Fincher (1995), Mood Board - Notes

Se7en, David Fincher (1995), Conventions mood board

Titles

• White (Contrast to the black/dark background)
• Sporadic (Adds to the overall mood of the trailer)
• Various sizes
• Title starts small but grows
• Font looks sketchy (Also adds to overall mood)

Mise-en-scene

• Newspaper
• Sharp objects
• Dark lighting
• Photos
• Pens
• Books
• Blood
• Darkroom
• Camera film

Camerawork

•  Only (extreme) close-ups of what the person is doing

Music/Sound

• Very creepy (slowly builds up by adding more and more instruments)
• No sound effects
• Particularly weird at about 1:00

Voiceovers

•  No voices

Characters

• Boy in photos
• Person's hands (Enigma effect)

Editing

• Very fragmented - lots of things going at same time (adds to sense of chaos)
• Very fast (starts slow but builds up)
• Titles mainly shown on black screen (sometimes on clips)
• Made to look like an old film

Preliminary task

͒Preliminary task

What we did:

We worked in groups of three and followed a storyboard which included descriptions of shot types and actions we were required to follow. We altered this by adding speech in order to make a scene. In order to make a higher quality product we filmed each shot at least twice as to ensure that we had a back-up in case one of the shots didn't work as planned/become corrupt for example and also to see what worked best such as when we filmed the door being opened; we were unsure as to what we should have done before that, so we that tried about three different ideas before deciding on the final shot. This is also true for the idea behind our short clip - someone forgets to tell someone of an event and returns to the classroom to tell him. In the production of the clip I was the one being told about the event and also helped towards the start of the filming when the other two group members were acting.

What I've learnt:

I have learnt that the setting is quite important this is because in the other areas we tried to film in before our final choice there was a lot of echoing of sound in the background which made it difficult to make the speech clear. I have also learnt the importance of taking multiple shots (as I mentioned) as in one of our shots, the main actor started smiling towards the end, so we decided to use the other clip as he wasn't laughing and it looked of higher quality. Furthermore, I have learnt the importance of editing, as without it the shots looked very untidy and some of the clips looked unprofessional so we cut some of them to remove the undesirable parts - this would have been a suitable alternative to the previously mentioned scene of the main actor smiling but as we had a higher quality shot we decided to use that instead.

Shot reverse shot, 180 degree rule, match on action: 

We used shot reverse shot during the conversation between the two students which made it look as if the camera was from the perspective of the person speaking in order to add immersion when viewing the clip. While we were doing this, we had to take the 180 degree rule into account. This meant that when we were filming the shot reverse shot we could not go beyond the 180 degree mark, this lead to us filming both shots on the right shoulder of both actors as to incorporate this rule. We used match on action when the main actor was entering the classroom this made the two shots of him pushing the handle and entering the door feel more fluent.

Clueless, Amy Heckerling (1995), Title Sequence Analysis

Clueless, Amy Heckerling (1995), Title Sequence Analysis

 

 

1 second - Image of computer shown with gradual zoom

5 seconds - Image of clothes hangers appear on screen and begin rotating

8 seconds - Clothes hangers disappear, camera zooms in and light blue background appears

10 seconds - Image of skirt and dress fade in with arrows on both sides and "select" in bottom right corner

12 seconds - "A film by Amy Heckerling" appears over image

15 seconds - Shirt changes to match skirt

18 seconds  - "Alicia Silverstone" flashes on screen followed by "Selected"

24 seconds - Screen fades to black and text "Produced by Robert Lawrence and Scott Rudin" appears

28 seconds - Screen turns pink and images of lips fade in

29 seconds - One big lip appears blowing bubble-gum and screen turns peach with text stating co-producers

35 seconds - Image of shoes appear in similar fashion to skirt and shirt

37 seconds - "Screens goes slightly darker and "costuming by Mona May appears

38 seconds - Hat appears

39 seconds - Editor and music team appear

42 seconds - Scarf appears

46 seconds - Director of photography and title design team appear

49 seconds - Screen fades to black "Paul Rudd" appears in centre alongside multiple images of phones

52 seconds - "Stacey Dash" takes the place of "Paul Rudd" after fading out

56 seconds - Screen fades to peach and image of car appears in similar fashion to skirt and dress

58 seconds - "Brittany Murphy and Donald Faison" flash on screen

61 seconds - "Selected" appears on screen and screen turns pink

62 seconds - Screen fades to black and text shows "in"

66 seconds - Camera zooms out revealing computer and screen turns light blue alongside title "Clueless" and pixelated image of girl
68 seconds - Image of girl disappears and computer screen turns black

69 seconds - Entire screen fades to black and sequence ends

Se7en, David Fincher (1995), Title Sequence Analysis

Se7en, David Fincher (1995), Title Sequence Analysis

 

 

2 seconds - Close-up of book pages turning and creepy music starts playing

6 seconds - Still image of book containing "new line cinema presents"

10 seconds - Distorted black and white hands

14 seconds - Contrasting white titles on black background (which flicker slightly) with name of actor "Brad Pitt"

18 seconds - Close-up of fingers covered in mud and blood and sharp object shown presumably scraping skin

22 seconds - "Morgan Freeman" text flashes on screen

25 seconds - "Se7en" flashes onto screen and gradually fades out

31 seconds - Shadow appears alongside name of actor "Gwyneth Paltrow"

34 seconds - Close-up shows someone writing something alongside two photos (one of which is made to look like a shadow) and name of actor "Richard Roundtree" appears

37 seconds - Blurry pictures and random writing flash on screen with red filter

41 seconds - Close-up of scissors cutting up photos

46 seconds - Black and white photo of boy (maybe teen) appears

50 seconds - Close-up of newspaper cuttings from birds eye view whilst blood is splattered onto the page

56 seconds - Name of three actors "John Cassini, Reginald E. Cathey and Peter Crombie" appear

60 seconds - Extreme close-up shows thumb smudging ink

62 seconds - POV shows black marker crossing out words

67 seconds - Writing in background accompanied by blood smudges in foreground with black marker

71 seconds - Drawing of boy's face is shown with black marker concealing his eyes, alongside "casting by..." in the foreground
74 seconds - Red filter appears again, boys face is completely covered in marker
77 seconds - Top half of shot has red filter, bottom half contains photos, "music by Howard Shore" in foreground
87 seconds - Close up of hooks and fingers with dirty nails, alongside "production design..."
90 seconds - Upside down pages of books
94 seconds - Photographs in background, dirty filter
99 seconds - Extreme close-up of fingers playing with needles
103 seconds - Multiple flashing images and cuts
Last 15 seconds - "produced by..." and "directed by..." along with flashing images
128 seconds - End

Teen Angst Research (Title Sequence)

Teen Angst Research (Title Sequence)

 

 



Juno



The title sequence of Juno is fairly long but still manages to keep the viewer entertained with the use of many different conventions such as: the catchy and upbeat music which stops the viewer from becoming bored because of how captivating it is. The titles are also bright - consisting of primary colours (of light) - and quite messy which makes them look eye-catching but different. The whole scene has a comic vibe about it (both in the comedic way and comic book way) due to the style to make it look like it has been drawn. The scene starts live but clearly transitions to the comic book style shortly after which gives the scene quite a carefree vibe which represents a teenagers carefree attitude. Only important production members are mentioned in the opening title scene. The editing pace is mainly quite fast but slows down in some places.
 

 

The Breakfast Club

The title sequence of The Breakfast Club is quite boring; there is a lack of action as the entirety of the screen is black and the titles are in a bright, but boring, yellow colour. Similarly to Juno, only the names of important staff members and companies are shown. The song accompanying this is 'Don't You Forget About Me' which is fairly catchy but would have been a lot more popular when the film was released. As the titles are quite boring and serious I don't think it would attract the target audience.

 

Clueless

The title sequence of Clueless is animated and takes place on a computer with various images of items associated with teenage girls such as shoes, make-up and phones. The titles themselves do stand out because of their unique style and contrasting colours. They too state the names of important members of the production team. This creates a very light-hearted atmosphere and a reflection of the life of a stereotypical teenage girl - it is very effective of reflecting the genre of teen angst. The editing is very faced pace in comparison to the previous two examples. The music is very fitting for the reflection of teenagers in the mid 1990's as it represents the type of music which was popular at the time. The start and end of the title sequence is clearly shown with the zooming in and out on the computer screen and appears to be separate from the main film.

Teen Angst Research (Opening Scene)

Teen Angst Research (Opening Scene)

 

 

Juno

The titles are made to look like they've been drawn which ends up looking quite childish and cartoony which could suggest that the main character is not a stereotypical teenager. They are also in red and yellow which are bright/eye-catching and therefore more appealing to the younger generation. The girl's clothing reflects that of a typical teenager - tight/skinny jeans and a hoodie. Whilst the music is fairly simple, it is also quite catchy and uplifting which could be a reflection of a teenager's stereotypical carefree nature. Personality is also connoted with the editing where the editing flips between various different settings and themes. The main setting is a town which is again typical of a teenager; they are shown to spend a lot of their time in town/shopping.

 

Easy A

The main setting is a school which is where teenagers spend most of their time. The editing also shows various different locations including the school, town, somewhere to do with nature (as leaves are shown), etc.. Similar to Juno, the music is quite upbeat and catchy which will attract teenagers due to it being similar to the music they are shown to enjoy. The titles fit into the scene, often being hard to see as a result of them being in obscure places such as: on the ground and in trees. This could link to what the main character says in her voiceover about not wanting to stand out and fit in. The titles also appear in different colours (red and white) and are in capitals which makes them stand out. The voiceover I mentioned consists of her stating the struggles of life as a teenager which is relatable. Her friend is shown to swear which is also fairly accurate in representing a teenager's rebellious attitude. The only characters shown are students, teachers and parents which are probably the people most associated with teenagers. The editing starts smooth and fairly quick but slows down to a point which it isn't too slow or too fast.

The Breakfast Club



The opening of The Breakfast Club is quite boring as it only consists of titles (which are also quite boring, but eye-catching, due to font being bright yellow and quite basic). There is music playing over this which is fairly catchy and would have been quite popular at the time of the film's release and therefore would have made it more appealing. After the title sequence a school setting is shown which is familiar to the film's target audience of teenagers and the characters are introduced with the use of a montage featuring various other clips such as shot reverse shot. The characters shown are teenagers and family members and the teenagers shown are presumably from different groups of social status (e.g. popular, nerdy, etc.). This means that there is a character who appeals to everyone.

The Inbetweeners, Ben Palmer (2011)

The Inbetweeners, Ben Palmer (2011)

In the opening scene of The Inbetweeners, the viewers get a chance to meet the four characters (Will, Jay, Simon and Neil). These four main characters each represent a different representation of a teenage boy stereotype. Will represents the socially awkward and geeky stereotype, Jay represents the hormone crazed one, Simon represents the obsession with girls and Neil represents the brainless and simple minded/ carefree. Each of these stereotypes is backed up with the use of different film techniques. This could persuade the target audience of teenagers to watch the film as they will most likely have someone to relate to.

 

For Simon, the sound of tears is heard and we see him crying on his bed after he gets dumped by his girlfriend, also he doesn’t cry until he is alone – this could represent the stereotype of men not wanting to show their emotions. Jay’s scene consists of many sexual noises and one final shot of him without any clothes on. These sounds are very comedic (especially towards the target audience) and will therefore attract them. There is only a bit of music in the opening scene and it is quite similar to the music which teenage boys are shown to listen to in other films/forms of media. Will and Neil don’t have much to back up their representation through sound, they do however in the way of camera shots. Another example of this is within the Mean Girls trailer where the main character’s mum is crying onto the main character’s shoulder. This could be relatable to teenagers who have overprotective parents and works well together with the use of the voice-over.

Once all of the characters have been met, the title of the film is shown. This is quite simple and could represent the simple-mindedness of Neil. It also has a cloudy backdrop which could suggest that teenage boys have their heads in the clouds and are unaware of the real world. This could attract an audience because of its simplicity and sparking the viewer’s curiosity, however I believe that this would be quite unlikely. The Mean Girls’ title is also very simple but is a purple colour with a small amount of pink. Pink and purple are commonly associated with girls and as such would be effective at attracting the film’s main audience.

 

The camerawork is a very important aspect for attracting the audience and creating the characters. The best example of the camerawork defining a character is with Will where one of the first scenes is a close-up of his face which reveals a character who looks incredibly nerdy and follows the stereotypes of what a geeky character should look like (Spotty, glasses and not very attractive). This also works for Neil as a close-up of his face shows that he isn’t the smartest person which is backed up by the shot of him dropping his cup as soon as the clock changes - to signal that his work shift is over - and the mid shot of him kissing his girlfriend. However, it is because of this that the audience becomes so enticed to watch the remainder of the film – they instantly feel connected to the characters. The very first scene is a high angle/panoramic shot showing the area where the boys live. This may also attract the audience because it shows that they are not too different from the target audience. The camerawork in the opening scene of Mean Girls is not very exciting as 90% of the camera-shots are close-ups and mid-shots to show the emotion on the character’s faces which range from confusion with the main character to excitement with the geeky girl and stupidity with the poor family.

The quick editing between shots of characters makes it a lot easier to meet and connect with the characters as we are able to skip between them quickly and get a deeper understanding of what their life is like. To contrast the quick cuts between shots, the scenes with will contain quite a few long takes which show the different emotions which come over on Will’s face. This is especially relevant when his dad begins kissing Wills, step-mum (who he did not know was his step-mum until a few seconds prior). Altogether this adds a slightly more comedic element to scenes which should be quite boring or disturbing in theory. This is also shown in the opening scene of Mean Girls where the main character is part of a voice over explaining to the audience how difficult it is to start something new when people instantly relate you to a certain stereotype associated with the situation (in this case, moving to a public school after being home-schooled). The comedy comes in to play when scenes of over-exaggerated home-school stereotypes appear on screen.

In conclusion, the main way that The Inbetweeners tries to attract an audience is by relating to its target audience through many different ways, but mainly using representation to make its characters appealing to almost everyone it is aimed at and to show that they are not too different.

Timeline and changes over time of teen angst films

Timeline and changes over time of teen angst films

 

Timeline

Footloose     1984     Herbert Ross

Sixteen Candles     1984     John Hughes

Mischief     1985     Mel Damski

The Breakfast Club     1985     John Hughes

Can’t Buy Me Love     1987     Steve Rash

Loverboy     1989     John Micklin Silver

Clueless     1995     Amy Heckerling

Mean Girls     2004     Mark Waters

Easy A     2010     Will Gluck

The Inbetweeners     2011     Ben Palmer
 

Changes over time

Throughout the years, the genre of Teen Angst has changed a lot. A major example of this is the fact that the older films were more associated with teenagers and their feelings towards the opposite gender whereas nowadays a lot of them are to do with social status and where the characters fit in in their environment which is - more often than not – a school. The setting has remained fairly consistent throughout the years the genre has been around, but there have still been some different settings including: foreign countries for example.