Synopsis- Teen-oriented film

Based on the series of books, Angus Thongs & Perfect snogging is set in Eastbourne in 2008; Georgia Nicolson (Georgia Groome) is a 14 year old girl who is overcoming the traumas of being a teenager.  She tackles each obstacle thrown her way with her best friends “the ace gang” and her beloved pet cat Angus. With her two main prayers waiting to be answered; one to get the schools new sex god twin as her boyfriend Robbie (Aaron Johnson), and two, to have the greatest 15^th birthday party of all time. At the start Georgia thinks she has the lamest life ever, never having kissed a boy, loved up parents, who makes her want to vomit and the fact she has a huge nose! But she later on realises this is the least of her worries! With her father moving away to New Zealand and her best friend Jas (Eleanor Tomlinson) shaking up with the other sex god twin, when the twin Georgia wants already has a girlfriend, her arch enemy Lindsey! After conspiring plans to get Robbie to ask her out, only faith can decide whether Georgia Nicolson is the mature sophisticated girlfriend he deserves.

                                                                                                                              

Narrative Theory- I Love you, Beth Cooper

                 

  The story types that apply to this film are Romeo and Juliet, Circe & Tristan. Romeo and Juliet is shown the when the geeky boy( Denis Cooverman) in the beginning of the film announces his love for the cheerleader (Beth Cooper) at the school who is well out of his league, which is also where Tristan is shown. The chase is shown of how the cheerleaders’ boyfriend (Kevin) is constantly chasing the Nerd throughout the film trying to beat him up.

The hero’s ordinary world is normal like any normal school boys, he’s clever so therefore referred to as a geek and only has one friend who is like him as well and both considered “un cool” to hang around with so they have to take a lot of slack off other people at school, never getting any attention from girls in particular.

The tests that Denis are faced with are the frequent running into of Kevin on many occasions. Kevin hates Denis so every time they are faced with each others presence fistfights break out, with the obvious slaughter of Denis as we would presume; a little fragile nerd against a big built football player! However the allies that Denis are given are the ones getting him into trouble with Kevin and his ex military friends. Kevin’s girlfriend and her two friends, join team Denis at first as some sort as practical joke but nearer to the end they form an ally helping each other defeat Kevin.

There are two main differences between the hero and villain as they are binary opposites. Firstly appearance, Kevin is huge, fit, big muscles & good looking compared to Denis who is skinny, not as attractive, bland and fragile, and here is a huge difference between the villain and hero. However the other difference is personality/ authority at school, Denis is quiet and more or less a “no body” people in the school have never even heard of him until he gives his graduation speech and bad mouths everyone. Kevin however is training to be in the military and is captain of the football squad so everyone knows of him and is extremely popular at school.

The technical codes used to detect the differences between the binary opposites are firstly music, when Kevin comes on screen for the first time, a dark, depressive song will play indicating to the audience something bad is going to happen, and this generally doesn’t happen to Denis apart from when something bad is going to happen to him, and the only time things bad happen to him are when he is about to get beat up by Kevin! Also the main camera shot for Kevin is a medium shot to show just how big and muscular he is, and to also show off his military uniform to show he has authority throughout the school. Compared to Kevin who mainly gets close ups to show how uncomfortable he gets in most teenage situations such as talking to a girl, which is shown through facial expressions. Mise-en-scene shown is the typical high key lighting for Denis and low key for Kevin which portrays the typical hero/villain image.

   

Prelim Task evaluation.

Our Prelim task reflected real TV dramas and films in many ways but also differed. Firstly like in Eastenders our conversation had the same camera shots, which were mainly two shots and over the shoulder shots due to it being a conversation between two people. Also when we edited our conversations, we could see that an eye line match was present like in many TV dramas, ones that I’ve specifically seen, are Waterloo Road & Eastenders which display a perfect demonstration of eye line match which we created within our conversations. And lastly another similarity is that the conversations had elements of realism like in Waterloo road, which again has school students present, same with our set task.

However our task differed in many ways to TV dramas and films. In Waterloo road when an intense conversation is about to start some sort of non-diegetic sound will play, too add impact and suspense to what is about to be said, our conversations didn’t have any non-diegetic sounds so here is a way in which it differed from a TV drama. Additionally an obvious reason is because of the actual quality of the conversation, usually within a drama there in no back ground sounds or there are ones that have been purposely put there such as in Waterloo road; conversations from students in the back ground, we had the unprofessional ruffle or scuff of the camera, or the quality of the recorded scenes weren’t as good as professional TV dramas or films.

     The audience for our media product would be mainly for teenagers of all sexes due to the two different sexed actors which again are teenagers which makes it easier to relate to, but really only suited to teenagers rather than adults as humour is included which is targeted to a specific niche (in this case age group, teenagers.) the humour is quite immature as well as, so that only teenagers would find funny.

        I have learned many things from doing the prelim task which range from how to use the camera to the actual acting, as i was an actor. As i wasn’t using the camera, there wasn’t much i could learn from it however, i was engaged in how people in my group were using the camera and how their skills were adapting. Firstly i could see them testing out different camera angles from using the camera tripod for the first time, Which consisted of panning and tilting the camera whilst filming the actor coming through the door, to actually sitting down and engaging in conversation . Also the range of shots in which they had to capture from the actor walking in and sitting down which was generally a medium shot then for the actual conversation such as two shots and over the shoulder shots, so the camera had to be frequently passed from the two directors in order to achieve these shots which showed how hard it can sometimes be to actually get the correct shots for a basic conversation between two people. Also we learned the basic functions of the camera, as we hadn’t used that type of camera before which was touch screen, so therefore we gathered how to used it and put it into process.

 As an actor the main thing i learned when doing the prelim task was to not acknowledge the camera was there filming, as i was frequently looking at the camera instead of focusing on the person i was talking to. I am glad in the end i established i shouldn’t be doing this as when we watched our videos back on the Mac’s, i looked extremely unprofessional so therefore the whole conversation was not realistic or believable.  I also had to work on my tone when talking as i was extremely slow paced and it wasn’t clear enough for the audience to understand so this was another minor thing i learned during the Prelim task.

When using the Mac and IMovie to edit our work, the main thing we learned was how to cut out unnecessary parts in our filming and how to construct the whole conversation together. However it was a major help watching back our videos on screen as we noticed a huge problem when we were shooting, we hadn’t stuck to the 180 degree rule, so therefore the whole conversation was wrong. So once we thought we had already finished, when noticing the problems we had to go and reshoot the whole conversation again taking in mind the problems, then take the best & correct bits from both shoots and reconstruct them all into one video, which is where IMovie helped us co-ordinate both sets of clips together, which was another thing we learned in the editing process of the Prelim task.

Challenges in getting filming right.

When filming our own scenes to Four Weddings And A Funeral, we came across many difficulties and challenges in the production within our groups, which all contribute to our overall experience of first time filming and when know what things to look for when filming in the future to develop our skills on acting and for me directing.
   
My first challenge when filming was my experience with the video camera. The first camera i used when turning it on had a red battery sign which kept flashing so i then knew i wouldn’t be able to use this video camera due to low battery, so then i called for assistance but i had previously been taught how to use the first video camera so i had difficulty in using the new one given to me and needed assistance again! So when it comes to filming technology/the video camera can be a huge challenge.

Also the actors partaking in the scene can add to the challenges, when i was filming we came across many problems with the actors! One didn’t want to move from one spot, so i found it difficult getting a shot of behind them with a tree in the way! Another was really tall, so it was really hard to get an over the shoulder shot of them, and the last actor had low confidence and kept forgetting all their lines when they only had to lines to remember! So overall the actors in that are being filmed can be a huge challenge when filming.

The preparation time can also contribute to the challenges of filming, as when we did our filming we had about 40 minutes to prepare how we were going to rein act it, i can assume that if we had a longer amount of time to prepare our scenes the output would have been better, as we would have had a longer time to go over lines, actions and filming techniques perfecting our filming.

In conclusion i think many factors effect filming but in time with practise these factors become minor.

Induction task- Film Two - Kidulthood.

      Kidulthood is about a group of London teenagers that grow up on a rough estate. It follows a day in the life of three teenage boys; Trife (Aml Ameen), Jay ( Adam Deacon) and Mooney (Femi Oyeniran) starting out at school and culminating at a party where the protagonist is tragically killed by the sinister character Sam (Noel Clarke who is also the writer of the screen play).

      The key elements of the movie are that it all occurs in one day showing the life of a London teenager from the class room, to home, and relationships with friends and enemies. And is all done from a realistic perspective so that it doesn’t have the fairy tale ending like other teenage movies.  However it is defined as a teenage movie due to the storyline although some adults can engage with the film.

      It’s aiming for a teenage audience by the fact that at the outset the setting is in a school which indicates that the cast are teenagers and it’s going to play out a situation that’s similar to one that the teenage audience know. Also the way in which the characters speak; latest slag that would be hard for adults to follow. Also the real life situation of bullying that starts off the film which was previously a huge issue within schools and it progresses to showing the effects of bullying, that is in some way trying to educate us teenagers.

      Kidulthood portrays the teenagers in the film to be rough, rude, and aggressive; constantly getting in fights and arguments and down grading London civilians. Adults however are seen as ignorant towards the teenagers getting bullied and what they were getting up to which i believe is a contributory factor to the tragedy at the end of the film.

      The locations that feature in the film are the school and on the streets of London, and at the end a student’s house party which are all common to a teenagers life.

      The mood created by Kidulthood is sad and sinister and brings a tear to the audience’s eye.

Induction task- Film one - Angus Thongs And Perfect Snogging.

     Angus Thongs And Perfect Snogging is based on the series of books and is about a teenage girl; Georgia Nicolson who is slowly overcoming the trauma of being a teenager.  Many obstacles are thrown her way as she struggles in finding her two main desires; one, to get a gorgeous sex-god as her boyfriend and two, to throw the greatest 15^th birthday party on earth!                                                                    

We can define this film as being a teenage movie due to the cast; four teenage girls Georgia, Ellen, Jas and Rosie facing the day to day teenage troubles such as sibling rivalry, fashion malfunctions & boys! Additionally the male protagonist creates sex appeal for all the young girls watching!

     This movie signals its aiming for a teenage audience due to the narrative; a fourteen year old girl talking about her life but also the way she talks, the way adults wouldn’t understand. Also the fact it’s about teenagers, so the teenage audience can find commonality and compare their life with the film.

     Adults in the film Angus Thongs and Perfect Snogging are defined as being harsh as they often don’t see eye-to-eye with the teenagers and usually find a way of embarrassing them such as when Georgia is in the fruit shop trying to impress the sex-god and her bonkers mother comes waltzing in telling everyone Georgia has flatulence issues!Teenagers on the other hand are made out to be upper class but weird; Georgia and Ellen go and get kissing lessons from the man the myth the legend Peter Dyer, which as a teenager i wouldn’t dream of doing!

Locations that feature within the film are the docks in Eastbourne, where Georgia is often caught stalking boys. School is also a common location where all the main characters are present which again shows the teenage element to the film.

   When watching the film the mood established is  light hearted and humorous.  And there is hardly ever a grim moment which makes it better suited to teenagers as they enjoy watching.