Genre: Teen
Research about the genre:
I Google’d ‘teen movies’ in order to find some names of teen films that have already been produced. I did this so I can analyse some current teen movies to see what codes and conventions are typically used. As I did this I came across a small summary of what teen films are generally all about. The summary is as follows:
Teen films (also called teen movie or teenpic) is a film genre targeted at teenagers and young adults in which the plot is based upon the special interests of teenagers, such as coming of age, first love, rebellion, conflict with parents, teen angst, and alienation. Often these normally serious subject matters are presented in a glossy, stereotyped or trivialized way.
Films in this genre are often set in high schools, or contain characters that are of high school age. Sexual themes are also common, as are nudity and crude forms of humor.
This was good to find as I have gained a small understanding of what is normally featured in films of this type of genre from it. I now know that they are often set in comprehensive school and normally feature comprehensive school students. I have also got a couple of film titles, which are shown in colour, that I can look at in more depth in order to go deep into the conventions of the genre.
Before I started looking at specific films I decided to look at film studios. I did this because one of the questions we have to answer in our evaluation is: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? Looking at the studios now means that I can answer this question easily when it comes to writing my evaluation.
So I fired Google up as you do when you want to know something and I quickly found out that there are 8 generally recognized major film studios, these are:
- 20th Century Fox
- RKO Pictures
- Paramount Pictures
- Warner Bros
- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
- Universal Pictures
- Columbia Pictures
- United Artists
I looked at 20th Century Fox to see what teen films they have produced before. I looked for films that would also appeal to teenagers. I am doing this so I know if it would be possible for 20th Century Fox to consider making out film.
I have found that all of the following films were made by 20th Century Fox. (All of the films listed are from 1990’s onwards):
- Home Alone (November 16th 1990)
- Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (November 20th 1992)
- Toys (December 18th 1992)
- The Good Son (September 24th 1993)
- Power Rangers: The Movie (June 30th 1995)
- Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie (March 28th 1997)
- Home Alone 3 (December 12th 1997)
- Dr. Dolitte (June 26th 1998)
- Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace (May 19th 1999)
- Big Momma’s House (June 2nd 2000)
- X-Men (July 14th 2000)
- Digimon: The Movie (October 6th 2000)
- Dude, Where’s My Car? (December 15th 2000)
- Dr. Dolittle 2 (June 22nd 2001)
- Ice Age (March 15th 2002)
- Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones (May 16th 2002)
- Garfield: The Movie (June 11th 2004)
- Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (June 18th 2004)
- Robots (March 11th 2005)
- Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith (May 19th 2005)
- Fantastic Four (July 8th 2005)
- Big Momma’s House 2 (January 27th 2006)
- Date Movie (February 17th 2006)
- Ice Age: The Meltdown (March 31st 2006)
- X-Men: The Last Stand (May 26th 2006)
- Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (June 16th 2006)
- Night at the Museum (December 22nd 2006)
- Epic Movie (January 26th 2007)
- Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (June 15th 2007)
- The Simpsons Movie (July 27th 2007)
- Alvin and the Chipmunks (December 14th 2007)
- X-Men Origins: Wolverine (May 1st 2009)
- Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (May 22nd 2009)
- Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (July 1st 2009)
- Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squekquel (December 23rd 2009)
- The A-Team (June 11th 2010)
- The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (December 10th 2010)
20th Century Fox seem to make quite a lot of teen orientated films which makes me confident we could talk to this production studio about the production of our film.
Now I am going to look at the opening sequences of some teen films to find the common codes and conventions that we will need to include in our opening sequence. I will look at six title sequences all in all to get a good idea of codes and conventions.
First of all I decided to watch Kidulthood. This is the trailer:
Kidulthood Trailer from ADAM on Vimeo.
The opining shot is of the titles is very bland. It is a black background with the white ‘Kidulthood’ across the middle of the screen. This seems to be boring but could have connotations of being secretive. The teenagers in the clip seem to be represented in a very stereotypical way, especially through the style of clothes that they wear. All of the teenagers that are featured in the clip seem to have their hoods up, creating the stereotypical ‘Hoodie’ image. Some of the actors have caps on and at one point in the clip we can see one of the actors looking at ‘cool’ Nike trainers. I think this image makes the actors in the film look like gangsters. At the very start of the clip the first thing we see is a DJ which we would associate with teenagers as they love to go to parties etc. Just after we see the DJ we also see someone smoking. We see the actors smoking quite a lot in the clip which represents that the characters aren’t particularly ‘nice’ characters. Throughout the clip there is a background track. It is a rap track and it seems to be quite heavy and fast. This is also stereotypical to teenagers even though not all teenagers listen to rap. It fits the image of the clip well and also fits the city area as you would imagine that the area is quite rough. I also saw a baseball bat in the clip which connotes violence. This shows that the teenagers fight quite a lot and hints that there may be rivalry from other gangs. We see quite a lot of fighting throughout the clip as well which backs up the fact that most of the characters seem to be violent. We see fighting from both male and female genres within the clip. One of the shots of the actors fighting is in the back of a taxi. One of the actors is shown stealing alcohol from a shop which portrays teenagers to be thieves. There are also hints at drug use throughout the clip. One of the shots shows an actor giving (What looks to be a reasonable sum of money) to another actor which hints at dealing. In another scene we see one of the actresses put her head down on a table to sniff a line. This is representing teenagers as being drug dealers and users. Most of the actors seem to be black or half caste. I don’t know whether this is so the characters fit with the stereotype better it was just something I picked out from the clip. During the clip there also seems to be a lot of hints saying that the teenagers are all sexual active. There is a shot which looked like two people having sex and also another seen where a male got out of bed pulling his underpants up. In one of the shots we see a lot of the actors in school uniform. I think this is done to put the age that the actors are supposed to be into perspective.
Summary: This clip seems to represent teenagers as having a very ‘rock and roll’ type life style. There are a lot of hints at sex, drug use, alcohol and crime related to these areas. There also seems to be a lot of parties in the clip and the education side of there life isn’t shown in the clip at all. I think teenagers are portrayed badly in this clip as being ‘thug’ type characters.
This screen grab shows the stereotypical dress sense of teenagers of today:
The next movie I looked at was Trainspotting:
Trainspotting - U.K. Trailer from you_want_elvis on Vimeo.
The action starts almost immediately in the trailer. At the very start of the trailer, two of the main actors are shown running down the street. This means that the trailer is hinted at the criminal stereotype of teenagers straight away. There was a theme of crime in the Kidulthood trailer also. There is also commentary in this trailer from one of the actors in the film. There is an interesting way of introducing the characters on this trailer which is a method that we have thought about using for our own trailer. When the characters are on screen they are paused on the screen and then there name appears and the voice over gives a little bit of background information about the characters. I like this element of the trailer and have thought about using it on my own trailer. What I mean is demonstrated in the image below. The teenage sex theme is also present in this trailer as we can see one of the female actresses getting undressed in front of a male actor and getting ready to get into bed. Immaturity is also shown on this trailer. We see the actors doing a lot of things that older and possibly mature people probably wouldn’t do, for example, diving down a toilet in part of the trailer and appearing out of the toilet again towards the end of the clip and also going swimming fully clothed! There is a small theme of violence in the trailer as we see someone aiming a gun at someone else and then the other person’s dog. We see what he sees through the gun, as if we were looking through the scope, which I thought was quite a good effect as it makes you feel as if you are getting into the action. Also in one part of the trailer the voice over talks about junk food and we see a full fried breakfast at one point in the trailer. This is hinting at the un-healthy lifestyle of teenagers. The titles seem fairly simple on this trailer. The titles consist of Trainspotting in orange text which is against a black background which flashes between black and white. At the very end of the trailer all of the artists of the songs that are used in the film are shown in the same way.
Summary: From the trailer this film seems to be more comical than the Kidulthood film. I think the aim of this film is to show the antics that teenagers get up to in a jokey way and the other Kidulthood film takes the teenage genre more seriously.
This screen grab shows how the main characters are introduced on the Trainspotting movie:
The next movie trailer I looked at was Juno:
The trailer starts by showing a still picture for a couple of seconds with the awards that the film won written at the top of the picture. This is different from the other trailers and it is the first time I have seen this technique used. This moves to an establishing shot of the main character. After this are the details of the film director and it also has the studio name. The trailer shows that the film is about a teenage pregnancy. The trailer shows us more about the storyline, it shows that the girls first thoughts were to have the baby and give it away, and then changing her feelings over time and having to make the decision of whether to keep the baby or not. You have to watch the film to find out what decision she makes in the end. At the end the name of the film ‘Juno’ is shown against an orange and white stripy background. The text has a shadow and looks quite childish which could be referred to the age of the main character.
Summary: This trailer seems to give a lot more information about the film, for example, the awards it’s won, film director and the studios name. This is different to the other two trailers as the other trailers seem to concentrate more along the storyline.
This screen grab shows the first shot of the trailer which shows what awards the movie won:
The next film I looked at was American Pie 2:
The first part of the trailer shows that the main characters are in college because his dad is going to pick him up. This shows the age range of the characters. Almost straight away the trailer shows one of the characters having sex which hints at teenage stereotypes. Meeting girls is a strong theme throughout the film and all of the boys meet different girls that the meet up with. The character is caught by his dad when he is having sex which is funny and reflects the immaturity of the film and the target audience it appeals to. After this point in the trailer the Universal studios name is shown with their company logo. This is the first time I have seen a studio shown in this way on a film trailer. The trailer shows the lads doing some crazy things which shows the immaturity of the characters. The main characters dad has a strong part in the film and his dad tries to talk to him about growing up which every teenage boy will also have had at some point during their teenage years so it makes the film relate to the target audience. On the trailer we saw a shot of band camp which also reflects the age of the characters. There is also a voiceover at the end of the trailer. At the moment I am unsure whether or not I like this technique in film trailers. The name is shown at the end of the trailer in red against a black background. This is a good contrast and red is a primary colour which could hint at the age of the characters.
Summary: The film is all about a group of friends who do a lot of crazy things together which reflects the immaturity in their age. There is a strong theme throughout of teenage relationships which is shown by all of the lads meeting different girls.
This screen grab shows an example of the ‘crazy’ immature things that the boys get up to:
The next film I looked at was Superbad:
The trailer introduces the characters in an interesting way at the start of the clip. It is similar to the technique which I want to use which is the technique which is used in Trainspotting. In that technique the characters are paused on screen and the name appears and a voiceover gives a little bit of information about the characters. In this technique the characters are paused in what they were doing but the background is replaced with a blue colour and the name appears in orange text. There isn’t any information given about the characters. Even though I prefer the other character introduction method I would also consider this method to use for my final piece. The film is about three lads who have just left high school and over the summer they get up to the type of things that other teenagers do. For example going to parties, trying to buy alcohol illegally, trying to make friends and meeting girls, which is similar to the story of American Pie. There is a theme of humor throughout the trailer as we see the boys getting up to funny things like using a fake I.D which has a silly name on it, which relates to the target audience, getting hit by a car and falling over and the trailer shows one of the actors running away from the police in a funny way. When text appears on the screen it is shown in the same way every time. There is a blue background and the text is always in orange, which is consistent. A voiceover is used when text is shown on the screen and the voiceover says the text what is on the screen. At the end there is a black screen which shows the studio that it was made in.
Summary: The film is about a group of three lads who you could stereotype as ‘geeks’ that are trying to make friends and also meet girls. They are at the age where they are leaving high school and they go to parties like other teenagers. The film seems to be funny as there are different funny situations that are shown on the trailer throughout. The way the film introduces the characters is interesting. It is an adapted way to the way which I wanted to introduce my characters. It looks good and I would consider using it in my trailer.
This screen grab shows how this trailer introduces the characters:
The last movie I looked at was Step Up:
The start of the trailer shows the young man who is the main character in the film being sentenced to community service by the judge. This reflects on young people as being bad natured and criminals, this is a common stereotype of teenage people. He goes on throughout the trailer to turn his life around which goes against stereotypes. He meets a girl by doing her a favour but we need to watch the whole film to find out what happens between them.
Summary: The movie is about a youngish male who got himself into trouble with the law which is stereotypical to the teenage audience. He gets community service and meets a girl through this. He ends up doing a girl a favour and we can see that there seems to be chemistry between the characters but we don’t know from the trailer if he gets his girl or not.
Sceen grab showing chemistry between the two characters:
The film I would most like to watch from watching all of the trailers is Trainspotting. This is because it appeals to me as a teenager which is the target audience that we want to base our film around so I can hopefully learn techniques from it and include them in our trailer to make it appeal to our target audience well. I strongly want to use the way they introduce the characters to the film as I have thought that would be a good way to do it from the beginning and the trailer proves in my mind that it is a good way to do it.
Target Audience:
By watching these film trailers, I have gained a good idea of the target audience of our film genre. Our target audience will be roughly the same target audience that the films above are aimed at. Our target audience will be youths aged 16 - 21. We will reach our target audience by dressing our cast appropriately, so that the characters appeal to the target audience as it is something that they can relate to. Hopefully our trailer will appeal to our target audience because they will find it funny and want to know the kind of things that the characters in our film get up to.
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