The Breakfast Club, John Hughes (1985), Mood Board - Detailed

The Breakfast Club, John Hughes (1985), Mood Board - Detailed

 

 

The titles in The Breakfast Club aren’t very exciting, they are a bright yellow colour in a somewhat basic font which are placed on a black background. This can make the title sequence seem very boring, especially due to the fact that it lasts quite a while.

However, the use of mise-en-scene is very important; almost everything can be related to a teenager such as: the school setting, the props (including: cars, classroom items, lockers, graffiti, litter, etc.). This is very important in attracting an audience as it means that the audience is able to relate to the characters through the use of these things. The lighting also seems fairly natural, apart from when inside the school.

There are lots of different camera shots used. A long-shot is used to set the scene when inside of the classroom where the students are sitting their detention, this is effective as it is capable of showing lots of things within the scene and therefore makes it seem more realistic. A close-up is used when the teens are talking to their parents, this makes it easier to see the emotion on their face (in some of the parent’s cases its anger and the teen’s misery). A mid-shot is used when the teens are sat in the classroom, this may be to show the relation between the teens e.g. we see one of the boys laughing with one of the girls which suggests they are quite close.

The music is quite stereotypical of a teenage film – the beat is fairly catchy and seems like something a teenager would listen to.

There is a voiceover at the start of the clip, it is presumably one of the teenagers and he is used to give information about the scene such as time and location. The rest of the voices aren’t edited in and they mainly consist of the teens talking to their parents about how unfair the situation is.

The characters in the film act similar to the use of mise-en-scene in the fact that they are relatable to teenage life as they are the main people in a teenager’s life – the teenagers themselves, their parents (and one sibling) and the teacher.

The editing starts off quite slow but begins to speed up when the clips of inside the school are shown. This then slows down again when the teenagers begin talking to their parents and a shot-reverse-shot is used in combination with a close-up which makes the viewer feel more engrossed in the conversation which is going on.

In conclusion, I feel that The Breakfast Club is the best example of a teen angst film from the films I have studied because it is so relatable and also quite appealing to teenagers.