R+P Post 10: Reflections so far/ looking ahead

Overall I am feeling very positive about our project so far. We have been working well as a group and everyone in the group has contributed equally to the project so far. I am excited about our idea and although it will take a lot of work to pull off our ambitious party scene, if we plan it out meticulously we have a good chance of pulling it off. Moving forward it is integral that every part of our opening sequence is planned in detail and that we make sure that we achieve the vision that we have in our heads.

R+P Post 9: Our script

The majority of our opening sequence is a montage sequence with no dialogue. We felt this was typical of many opening sequences as they often give the opportunity for directors and producers to be slightly more creative than in the rest of the film. However there is some dialogue at the end of the opening sequence although we plan to make it very muffled, as it is being drowned out by music. It is just being used to illustrate the fight going on between the two main characters.




Script:
Lola: What the f*ck!
Marlon: Oh, Lola
Lola: Who the f*ck is this?
Marlon: What are you talking about?
Lola: Don't try that shit with me
Marlon: Chill out!


Although there is strong language in the script you wont actually be able to hear it in the opening sequence as it will be drowned out by music. Teenagers do tend to swear a lot and we wanted to make it as realistic as possible.

R+P Post 8: Our opening sequence idea, to include sound and titles

The audience is immediately thrown into a montage sequence of a party scene. There are snappy shots of people drinking, smoking, chatting, dancing and throwing up, all typical party shots. The audience is also introduced to our protagonist, Lola, through a recurring motif of a mirror shots in which our character gazes into the mirror at her reflection as she watches herself deteriorate throughout the evening.

The montage sequence ends with a tracking shot of Lola's face as she walks through the party to find her boyfriend Marlon talking to a girl. She immediately begins to shout at him, accusing him of flirting with another girl. The opening sequence ends with Lola punching her boyfriend in the face and walking upstairs to the bathroom where she takes one last look at herself in the mirror before collapsing on the floor in tears.

Sound

This is the song that will be playing throughout our opening sequence. It's the sort of music we would play at our party and is perfect for an energetic montage sequence. Throughout the montage sequence the music will remain at the same volume level, however towards the end it will quiten slightly and eventually fade out at the end.

Titles

- Starring Ella budget

- Ezra Burns, Flora Cox

- Directed by Eleanor Lynch and Flo Donald

-Music: Conducta & Notion- Felt this way

- Adolescents

R+P Post 7: Our films title and plotline

Title: Adolescents


Synopsis:
Our film is based around a teenager called Lola, following her downward spiral as she struggles with drug and alcohol abuse. Resulting in the deterioration of the relationships with the people she loves and in the end her tragic death.


Beginning:
Our films begins with a party scene which introduces the group of friends that our film is based around as well as introducing the main character Lola. It is obvious to the audience that Lola is either on drugs or extremely drunk. She then punches her boyfriend. She then realises the severity of what she has done and runs to the bathroom crying. The rest of the beginning of the film will introduce some of the sub plots within the rest of the friendship group.


Middle:

Lola's life spirals downhill. She gets expelled from school, continues to be violent and aggressive towards her boyfriend and becomes more reliant on substances to get her through her problems. Her friends realise the gravity of the situation and try to help her but they cant get through to her.

End:
A tragic ending in which the protagonist dies due to a drug overdose. Highlights the affects of her death on the people around her.


References:
Lola's story is very similar to Effy's from Skins. Throughout the series of skins the audience witnesses Effy's spiral into depression and eventually psychosis. She seems very detracted from the rest of the world. She is very mysterious and seems to be struggled by something darker. The character of Lola has been largely based on Effy from Skins, however unfortunately for Lola her story does not have the same happy ending as Effys.

R+P Post 6: Our chosen genre and how we plan to connote this

Genre: Teen Drama

From the outset we plan to make the genre of our film very evident. All of the characters in our film our teenagers and it is based around one teenage girl, following her struggle to find herself. This is very typical of the teen drama genre.

To gain as much knowledge on the teen drama genre as possible we researched other teen dramas to fully understand the typical conventions of the genre. One of the films we researched was Fish Tank. Fish Tank follows a 15 year old girl and her struggle with teenage life. Fish Tank depicts gritty British realism that we hope to achieve in our film.

R+P Post 5: How we plan to attract/address our target audience

How we plan to attract our primary target audience

Our opening sequence immediately begins with a crazy montage sequence of a teenage party scene. This will immediately resonate with our target audience. Within the montage sequence there are people dancing, throwing up and chatting to their friends, these are all very typical things that go on at a teenage party so we hope that the audience will relate to this scene and draw upon similar experiences that they have had. This will give the audience a personal attachment to the film. Also the teens that will be presented in our film will be 'cool' teenagers with a fun party lifestyle this will hopefully be aspirational for the audience. The clothes the teenagers our wearing is important as we want them to be very reminiscent of youth culture today so that the audience can relate.

Project X is a film based around a huge party. Although it is very American we took much inspiration from the montage sequence i have included on the right. We liked the realism in Project X and wanted to incorporate this into our own project. When the produces of Project X wee coming up with ideas for this massive party they all came together and discussed there own experiences at parties and incorporated them into the movie. We decided to do this with our own project and many of the scenes are things that we have experienced at parties. We felt that this way our film would be more realistic and relatable to our target audience.

How we plan to attract our secondary target audience

Our secondary target audience is fans of British Indie Films. Our film fits perfectly into this genre as it is very low budget but we plan to incorporate much handheld camera movement and interesting camera angles. We will also be using unknown actors and tackling difficult subject issues which is very typical of this TV genre.

How we plan to attract our tertiary target audience
Our tertiary target audience are domestic abuse campaigners and people that are affected by domestic abuse. In our opening sequence the main character punches her boyfriend. This sets up the on going theme for the rest of the film. The fact that it is a girl punching a boy subverts many of the typical views that people have of domestic violence. This could interest campaigners as they could use it as an alternative stance on domestic violence.

R+P Post 4: Representation of social groups in our opening sequence

Through our opening sequence we are planning on representing British teenagers, of mixed ethnicities and gender, aged between 16-18.

As our opening sequence is shot at a party there will be alcohol, drug use and smoking. So it is a relatively stereotypical, negative representation of teenagers.

Much of our inspiration for our representation of teenagers has come from Skins. Although Skins is a British TV series, it is very similar to our movie as it is centred around a group of British teenagers, with many different diverse characters. There are also many party scenes in skins, which is where we got much of our inspiration from.

We also plan to subvert many of the traditional gender stereotypes. Our film is based around domestic violence, but towards men. It is often presumed that when there is domestic violence in relationships it is the man who is abusing the women. However this is untrue as more than 40% of domestic violence victims are male. Often in the media men are presented as hyper masculine and their emotional side is suppressed, however in our film we hope to reverse some o these typical gender roles.

R+P Post 3: Our production and distribution institutions

Production Company

Stealth Films Ltd.

We chose Stealth Films as our production company as it is a British production company based in London. As our film is centred around youth culture in London we felt it was important that our production company were London based. Stealth films also produced Kidulthood, which is a film that has much influenced many of ideas for our film so we felt it would fit our film to use the same production company.

Distributor

Studio Canal UK

Studio Canal UK (formerly Optimum Releasing) is a film distributing company working in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Its headquarters are in London which is convenient as our film is filmed in London and our production company is also based in London.

R+P Post 2: Our target audience

Primary Target Audience

Our primary target audience will be British 15-24 year olds of both genders. Our film is about a group of teenage friends so we felt that this target audience would relate to our film. Although the main character is a girl and much of the film is based around her, the film is also about the rest of the friendship groups and the dynamics within it. We hope that with our diverse cast and contrasting personalities within the friendship group there will be someone for everyone to relate to.

We've also decided that the certification of our film will be a 15. There is violence and strong language in it, as well as very adult themes so we feel it fits into this certification category. One of the films that influenced our film ideas was Girl Interrupted. This contains similar themes to our film and it is a 15.


Secondary Target Audience

Our secondary target audience is fans of British Indie films. We feel like our film will appeal to this audience because we ant our film to be unique and edgy, different to many of the mainstream films in the cinemas.The films set in London where we have all grown up and we want our film to represent much of the youth culture in London. Similarly to films such as Kidulthood and Fish tank.


Tertiary target audience

As our film tackles difficult themes such as Domestic abuse and Drug abuse and addiction we felt that our film could also be used by awareness campaigners to show in schools to create awareness about these topics.

'This is Abuse' is a campaign set in the UK which creates awareness for domestic abuse especially in teenage relationships. On their website they have many videos and short films highlighting the effects of domestic abuse in young relationships. We hope that campaigners could use our film to help create further awareness on this topic that can have such a disastrous effect on people in our primary target audience.

R+P Post 1: How we intend to work as a group

Left to Right: Ella Budgett, Florence Donald, Eleanor Lynch

As a group we  discussed are working principles and set up 2 hours worth of meeting times a week. On week 1 we will be meeting on Thursday for an hour after school (4pm-5pm), Wednesday at lunch for half an hour (12:30pm-1pm) and Thursday during period 6 for half an hour ( 1:55pm-2:25pm). On week 2 we will meet on Wednesday at lunch for half an hour (12:30pm-1pm), Thursday for an hour after school (4pm-5pm), and Friday during period 1 for 30 minutes (9:00am-9:30am). Our meetings will take place in the media block so we have full access to everything we will need to plan our project and so that we can receive support from the media teachers.


The working principles we established in our group are as follows:
1) Arrive on time to all scheduled meetings and let each member know in advance if you are unable to attend one of the meetings for a suitable reason.
2) Make sure that each task/job allocated to you gets completed promptly and to its full potential.
3) Bring forward ideas at each meeting and play a keen participating role in order to make sure our project is the best it can be.