Evaluation 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. film openings)

Evaluation 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. film openings)

The title of our film is "The Lonely Life of a Teenager". This is somewhat stereotypical of a teen angst film as it makes reference to teenagers, but the use of the words "Lonely Life" connote that it is not a stereotypical teen angst film, but rather the focus is placed on something much deeper than troubles with love life or exams for example. The title is similar to that of Clueless as the title of Clueless makes reference to the fact that the main character is a Clueless, stereotypical teenager. Our title also refers to the main character in the fact that he is shown to be socially anxious - and therefore lonely.

Unlike our title, the settings of our film are completely relevant to teenage life - those being a school and a park. The school is relevant because teenagers spend a majority of their time during school, and the park is relevant due to the fact that teenagers are usually associated with being quite social and more concerned with their friends, and the park is quite a sociable place. Easy A uses a similar settings to our film, that being a school. There are multiple other films which use this setting such as: The Breakfast Club - this is because, like I said, a school is a very relatable place for teenagers.

Similar to our settings, the costumes and props we used are also distinctively associated with teenagers. Some of the characters are shown to wear jeans and hoodies which are stereotypical of a teenager as they are quite casual. The girls in our film wear roughly the same thing as the boys (hoodies and jeans), however, girls are typically shown to wear items such as short skirts and other revealing items within the media industry. This is because we wanted our mean girls to have a rougher look to them so that it made the main characters seem even wimpier. The main character also breaks the stereotype to an extent as he wears a coat in all of the scenes and teens are usually represented as uncaring and rebellious - this establishes our character as a counter typical teen which is the whole premise of our film. We didn't use many props in our opening, but the ones we did use were very relatable to the teen angst genre, including: earphones, school bags, papers, etc. The clothing of our main character is somewhat similar to the main character from Juno as the two are shown to wear casual clothes (Hoodies/Coat and jeans) which makes it seem relatable. The props are also very stereotypical of a teen angst film, they are used in many different films. However, they are used in a specific sub-genre of teen angst, that being the girly style which consists of films such as: Mean Girls and Clueless. In those films they are used to show that the main character is popular and therefore uncaring or oblivious to their surroundings. In our film, we use the earphones to show that the main character doesn't care about his surroundings but the other conventions connote that it is not because he is uncaring, but rather he is uncomfortable.

We decided to use quite a few different types of camera shots, some of which are fairly creative. An example of this is a slanted low-angle shot of the main character walking through the hallway, we also have a lot of POV shots to make the viewer feel as thought they are the main character. This is fairly standard for a teen angst film as boring shots wouldn't attract the target audience. Our editing is fairly slow paced which is counter-typical, however, as our target audience is older teens it wouldn't be too much of an issue. This is similar to Easy A, as the camera shots in the opening are quite interesting e.g. the tracking shot of the popular girl where the camera then tracks to reveal the main character. The editing in Easy A is also moderately slow as, in the opening there isn't a lot that is going on which is similar to our film.

It was our decision to make our titles seem as though they were hand drawn, but also somewhat formal so that they weren't too childish but also to fit in with the idea of teenagers being young and messy. They are also quite dark which can be associated with teenagers (especially the unpopular group which our group is a part of), but we decided to highlight the word "Lonely" in our title as to emphasise the fact that the main character is lonely and we chose blue as it is quite a melancholic colour. We took a lot of inspiration for our titles from Juno. This is because we thought that they were effective at attracting an audience due to the fact that they are quite unique and wanted to try and implement them into our own work.

Our entire story isn't very stereotypical and there aren't many teen angst films which follow the same path as ours, this made researching for our film quite difficult the closest film we found was Easy A as the main character is not very popular and also has a supportive friend. Despite this, I feel as though our opening reflects the basic idea of the story - being that the main character suffers from social anxiety - especially through the use of the voice-overs. As a result of our opening being quite unique, there aren't many films which relate to our opening. The closest opening would probably be Easy A because the main character is shown to be unpopular and also that the best friend isn't a stereotypical teenager either.

Our opening somewhat suggests the genre of the film with the use of the voice-overs some examples of this include the main character talking about how unpopular he is and the fact that he mentions the mean girls. The setting and characters themselves also suggest the genre due to the fact that they are stereotypical of the teen angst genre. The voice-overs bear resemblance to those of Easy A due to the fact that they are used to state how unpopular the main character is. The voice-overs in Easy A also try to add a bit of comedy which have also tried to implement.

Our main character is introduced in a classroom and with the use of a conversation with another person. He then leaves the classroom, proceeds to put his earphones on and then a voice-over starts with him explaining who he is. The mean girls are introduced with a scene of them beating up a boy and with the main character explaining who they are. The best friend is only briefly seen, he is introduced similar to the mean girls, with a scene of him walking with the main character and with a voice-over. This is similar to the scene from The Breakfast Club; (presumably) one of the main characters is introduced when we see him sit at the back of the classroom on his own which has implications of him being unpopular. Likewise, the two popular characters' places are introduced when we see them laughing at the main character which shows the stereotype of a popular teenager - mean, uncaring, etc.

We haven't used many special effects as it isn't too typical of a teen angst film, but some we have used include: the fade to blacks with the titles and logo at the start, and the jump cuts of the main character walking outside the building so that it fits in time with the music. We have also included a black and white filter at the start of the film. This was to make the atmosphere seem quite depressing. The filter disappears in a white flash once the main character puts his earphones on, this was used to connote that music is very important to the main character and also that school (and social interactions) don't appeal to him. From the openings I researched, there was only one which used a large number of special effects, which lead us to use few of them, and that was Juno. The opening of Juno is entirely animated which makes it stand out from other teen angst films.