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 3rd 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
