My film’s opening sequence uses the forms and conventions of real media product such as opening sequence from popular films however challenges and develops some of these conventions.
My film ‘Spotlight on Alison (2009)’ is based around the genre Teenage Romance. Spotlight on Alison holds many of the aspects within the genre (teenage romance) due to some of the typical themes and storylines used. The main themes within my film are Love/Relationship and
Hatred/Jealousy, these themes highlights and emphases the biggest theme teenage life. The film gives many clues of these themes right from the start. As the film (Spotlight on Alison), starts off with establishing shots of the building (Barking Abbey School)
, as time goes on fades into children walking past and into the school... this is effective as it helps to set the scene and gives the audience a sense of location, also showing the theme of teenage life. An example of a real media film that also uses this theme of teenage life in the beginning of opening sequence is ‘High School Musical 2 (2007)’. High School Musical 2 starts off with the camera panning around the school and the inside to emphases that the location is in a school.
Love and relations
hip is a typical theme that mostly occurs a lot in my film (spotlight on Alison)... this is a theme that all romance films have to follow. In my film we see in the opening sequence that Alison has a lot of feelings for Ricardo by the way she looks and acts when she sees him. Alison sometimes looks love stuck when she see him and can’t take her eyes off him. This particular storyline kind of relates to ‘Love don’t cost a thing (2003)’, when Nick Canon who played the pool-boy sees this beautiful popular girl who is played by Christina Milian and start he was day dreaming about what it would be like if he was with her.
Most of the teenage romance films share some of the same conventions... one example being the Characters. In teenage romance the typical protagonists are usually a lonely geek (boy/girl) that has liked this beauty (girl/boy) for quite a while... whether it is since they were young or a couple of years... for example Princess Diaries (2001) and A Cinderella story (2004). In Princess Diaries (2001) Mia Thermopolis who is a geek she has always like her best friend’s brother, Michael Moscovitz who is a cool guitar player. Sam Montgomery in A Cinderella Story (2004), liked this popular handsome boy called Austin Ames but she is scared to talk to him. However my film, Spotlight on Alison (2009) first develops this by changing the two worlds of teenage romance to something else; and by doing this my film also challenges the protagonists by having a normal girl (dancer) who is more of independent then lonely and popular boy (basketball player), that she has liked for a while. In some ways this relates to ‘High School Musical (2006)’, has the protagonist is a popular boy who was a basketball player and independent smart young girl who loves science. They first meet each other in the beginning at a party and then later meet up again when she moves to a new school... not knowing that he attends that school.
The narrative used in my film shared similar storylines of typical films in the genre, Teenage Romance. However it doesn’t really challenge or develop because as it was the first film we have created, we felt it would be best to keep this convention the same just in case anything drastic happened in trying to change it; by doing this we found it much more easier, as we used the research as guide and was able to create a teenage romance. The narrative tells the story of an
independent young girl called Alison who longs to be with this popular basketball player called Ricardo. At first Ricardo shows no signs that he notices her but in the ‘New Resolution’, something happens to make them meet up and they start their love/relationship together. However some of their schoolmates try to hinder and destroy their relationship because of hatred and jealousy they have for them; not knowing all the problems they were causing only made Ricardo and Alison stronger. This storyline relates to some episodes in Gossip Girl when Serena Vanderwood started going out with Dan Humpfree but people did not like the idea of it because he was a “lonely boy” from downtown and she was a beautiful rich girl. People tried to make them break apart by saying all sorts of things to put Dan Humpfree down but Serena helped him get through it and they become stronger as a couple.
In creation my film, we (me and my group) placed non-digetic sound (soundtrack) throughout the opening sequence as we saw that it would work better than to put digetic off/on screen sounds; it also worked as a Sound Bridge by emphasising the TWO DIFFERENT WORLDS with the help of the cutaways and gives signs that later on in the film the two worlds would MERGE. This particular part can be seen in the opening sequence of ‘Step Up (2006)’; in this film we see two types of dance, one ballet and the other street... it is seen as if they were from completely to different worlds. Even though they are different the music brings the dances together (Sound Bridge) making it like later on in film their worlds would meet.
When researching for a song that would fit my opening sequence best, I discovered that the typical songs used in my genre (teenage romance) was Funky/Rocky/Upbeat Music rather the slow paced love song, as that was mostly used in adult romance instead. However this type of music is used in teenage romance because it represents the life of a teenager as it loud, energetic and forceful. As a group we decided it would be better if we followed this convention instead of trying to challenge it just in case the music we choose did not fit the film; by using the typical convention of music we found out it worked much better as it brought everything in our opening sequence together. Below is a list of some of the films I looked at in my research:
- Step up (2006)
- Love don’t cost a thing (2003)
- Princess Diaries (2001)
- John Tucker must die (2006)
- Twilight (2008)
- Wild Child(2008)
Spotlight on Alison uses some of the typical conventions of Mise en scene: lighting, props, setting, costumes and make up. The lighting use was not artificial lighting as everything is natural because of the time of day we was shooting which was in the afternoon. However by using natural lighting we followed the typical conventions. This is similar The Secret Life of the American Teenager as natural lighting is used. The costume worn in the teenage romance are young fashionable clothes such as tracksuit, jeans etc. This is similar to what Ricardo wear as in our opening sequence you see him wearing the school tracksuit; and also relates to Zac Efron in High School Musical as he was mostly seen in his school tracksuit. The typical setting of films in our genre is at School/college as that’s more or less what the world of a teenager is. Our uses this typical convention... an example of a film in our genre is Mean Girls as the setting and location is mainly in the high school.
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