Media PitchTara and Claire

SynopsisThe clip will start out with Lola (the protagonist) getting ready for school. She’ll be an archetypal teenager and we’ll get an introduction to her as a character and her personality- through the connotations of her

room and her costume. We’ll then see Katie getting ready, frantically. We’ll get an insight into her problems which include organising her younger brother and battling with her girlfriend. Next, her younger

brother Jack will be introduced as ‘the funny one’ he’ll be charismatic and chilled out: un-phased by his sister’s dramatic morning routine. He’ll be the archetypal ‘lad’. After that, Susan (‘the geeky one’) is

introduced and is the stereotypical sensible and mild teen that is fully invested in her work. Although, she loves playing sport and is a keen footballer and basketballer- she often competes against all the boys.

Susan’s in a relationship with Katie and they’re always arguing. The last character we meet is Ethan: he’s always in trouble with the police and in school too- his hearts in the right place though. This character has

struggles with his dad letting him be a teenager so relies on his friends’ support. Moreover, the sequence progresses to the park where all the friends are together- allowing us to see the importance of friendship.

Finally, there’s a blur between the positive friendship scenes and the melancholy dark room: where the friends are being held hostage- shown as a montage throughout.

Explain how effective our opening will be in communicating genre

It’ll be clear from our characters that this is a teen film due to their age and appearance. Other iconography like phones will connote the stereotypical teenage behaviour.�

The setting will be extremely conventional with everyday settings like homes-communicating the stereotype of realism.�

We’ve considered our soundtrack too- and decided on ‘The Middle’ by Jimmy Eat World as it’s upbeat so will communicate the equilibrium of the majority of our opening. Plus, the

soundtrack will be contrapuntal with the kidnap scene: heightening the enigma.�In teen drama openings we’ve looked at, there’s the convention of the protagonist

introducing their life and friends: so we’ll communicate this in the opening sequence by having Lola (the protagonist) as the first character with a voiceover narrating us

through how different the friends are.

Explain how effective our opening will be in creating enigma

The main enigma will be created through the montage of the kidnap scene- this will confuse our audience with the stark contrast between the peaceful friends scene and the enigmatic hostage scene. �Another sense of enigma will be created through the setting up of other teen problems like relationship

conflict and parent arguments. This is not only relatable but engaging for the audience to see how these problems pan out for the characters.�

Our teen drama genre doesn’t always have a conventional sense of enigma as the majority of the openings remain at an equilibrium. For instance, in Perks of being a wallflower (2010) it may be argued that there isn’t even an evident narrative- simply an introduction to the characters. �

The thriller genre often has a more conventional enigma. But for more hybrid texts like ours, for example Trust (2010) there’s still an equilibrium- high key lighting and calm body language weakens the traditional enigma in this opening. We’ve also analysed Seven (1995) as it’s a thriller/drama to see how the conventional hybrid would form. Even though it isn’t a teen film: this opening is very

enigmatic in terms of sound and iconography.

Explain how effective our opening is in introducing key characters

Lola (the protagonist) will be quickly introduced as we want to enhance the enigma through a slight sense of her being anonymous- the main focus being on her friends. Just like Angus, thongs and

perfect snogging (2008) the character will talk us through her life and friends. Elements of the introduction will mirror that of Juno (2007) with Juno’s upbeat walk through her life.�

Katie (the feminine one) will be introduced in a conventional way as we get an insight into her character through the connotations of iconography in her room e.g. the pink wallpaper. We’ll see her

rushing for school: enhancing the relatable convention.�Jack (the lad) is introduced effectively because we see his sibling disputes. In Stand By me (1986) a key

element is all the different friends having unique traits- so this introduction highlights what makes Jack unique.�

Susan (the geeky one) introduction will reinforce the convention of ‘coming of age’ as she struggles to balance her sporty side with her intellect.�

Kyle (the deviant one) will have an effective introduction as we gain an insight into his parent problems- reinforcing the relatable convention.�

Explain how our opening will be effective in setting up the plot

The plot will form, when the montage of thriller shots are shown, as the audience will get a sense of the turmoil that is foreshadowed in

the opening. Shots of characters tied up will quickly cut onto the screen, hopefully making the audience feel slightly disorientated, so that they can get inside the minds of the characters, realising that

everything is not as it seems. When the characters are introduced, we find out who the protagonist is and who are the main characters are,

which shows the type of plotlines that might occur between them.

Explain how our opening will be effective in creating the right mood and tone

The mood of our opening will fluctuate according to when the thriller scenes are shown and when the opening finishes, leaving the audience gripped, wanting to watch till the end of the film. The diegetic soundtrack at the start of the opening will reflect a cheery mood, relating to a typical teen ‘coming of age’ movie. This music will coincide with the bubbly body movement from the characters that we see. Our

inspiration for this idea came from our research of the movies, ‘Perks of Being a Wallflower’ and ‘juno’, as they both use an indie diegetic soundtrack to sustain the opening as the opening titles are being shown. This creates a mellow mood, so not to shock the audience straight away, reflecting the

features of a teen drama and not a thriller. This could also be effective in our opening, as we can use the soundtrack at the beginning to set a happy mood, which we will then distort, by adding the cuts to the thriller scenes. The mood in our opening, will work really well with the character’s facial expressions,

as when their expressions change, the audience will know that they aren’t as happy as before, thus foreshadowing the fluctuations in mood throughout the film.

Explain how our opening will be effective in setting up the pace and rhythm

The pace will start slow, due to the fact that we will have no diegetic soundtrack over the opening. The soundtrack will start when Niamh’s character ‘Lola’ puts on her headphones, which will look as though the

audience can hear everything that she can hear as well, making it soundtrack diegetic. This is effective as it adds a sustained pace to the

opening and makes the audience think that there will no more changes in the soundtrack pace or pace of the character.

The pace will be changed when the thriller shots are shown. This will bring the audience’s attention away from the characters happiness and into their dark

reality. Since this happens in the blink of an eye, the audience won’t know what to expect, distorting the pace.

How conventional is our opening?Characters: our archetypal characters are extremely convergent as with Stand By Me (1986) for example has a group of very different friends. Each character has a role contributing

to the group with varying characteristics.�Setting: stock settings like homes, streets and parks will be used to convey genre, in Juno

(2007) for instance: the entire opening is set on a street.�Themes and narrative: the key objective is to make a relatable yet enigmatic sequence so our narrative mostly remains at an equilibrium with snippets of the disruption i.e. the

kidnap.�Pace/mood: on the whole, the sequence will have a pace that mirrors our character’s

feelings- reinforcing the audience connection. For example, more quick cuts and faster camera movements will be used in Katie’s scene to reflect how much of a ‘drama queen’

she is.�

How well will you appeal to your target audience?

Through our various characters, dialogue context and setting, our opening should reflect our chosen genre quite well, since our distributor is Nickelodeon (an American Television and

film institution), who’s demographic is children to adolescents, ages 8-17. This shows that we want to reach a large teen audience, but also entice the slightly older teens as well.

Our drama is a hybrid, which links, both the teen genre and the thriller genre together, adding that little bit of maturity to the content we are aiming to show. In our opening,

there will be quick cuts to scenes of the thriller genre and likewise teen drama, giving both our older and our younger teen audiences, a taste of content that they will enjoy.

Through our research on our target demographic, our questionnaire results and our focus groups, we have found that many teens enjoy spending time with their friends and using

various types of modern technology. We will appeal to our target audience by incorporating different types of technology into our opening, whether we film using a mobile phone etc.

and relay the strong theme of friendship throughout.

CHARACTER MOODBOARDS

Character representationsKatie

• Loves to use technology• Enjoys hanging out with her friends• Watches teen tv dramas, like ‘Friends’ and ‘Vampire Diaries’• Social Media is her life• She cares a lot about her appearance and spends time putting make-up on every

day• Casting Jess:• Jess suits this character very well, as Jess also enjoys going on social media

and her phone, checking messages and arranging times to meet up with people. Jess watches the same sort of shows that Katie watches, typical to the teen girl convention and she is very talented at applying make-up every morning for school.• Jess enjoys meeting up with her friends, whenever she has the chance and this

will be reflected through the friendship scenes in our opening, letting the audience into Katie’s world, but also the world of Jess, as she is friends with the other actors.

Jack

• Loves technology• Enjoys hanging out with his friends• He plays sport whenever he can• Unless he is out with his friends, he is inside his room, playing

video games on his Xbox• Casting Harry:• Harry is a mirror image of Jack, because of his joker like

qualities, making everyone laugh. Like Jess, Harry is a fan of social media and video games. Jack likes to hang out with Katie’s friends at the park and we will show this in our opening.

Character representations

Character representations

We’ve decided to use Niamh as Lola. She fits the archetypal teen image- blonde

hair ‘standard’ makeup and typical costume. Also, Niamh has features of

the character in her personality anyway. For example, Niamh’s typically

‘feminine’ and friendship’s important.

Character representations

We’ve decided to use jake as ethan. Jake is the typical teen meaning the relatable motif is conveyed. Jake is

extremely sporty meaning the character portayal of individuality is shown.

He also enjoys hanging out with his friends and is close to Susie in real life, which helps with their

chemistry in the opening. We’d associate Jake’s style with ethan, as it is casual, but stylish, reflecting the

archetypal teen boy quite well.

Character representations

We’ve chosen Susie as our Susan, as she enjoys sport, hangs out with

Jake and Jess a lot and works hard at school, reflecting the inner ‘geek’, that we wanted Susan to possess. Susie’s everyday costume would be conventional of what

we’d have Susan wear, making her a good choice for our casting.

Liv

Liv and josh are typical archetypal teenagers, which helps the relatability of the genre. They both love to hang out with Katie and

Lola.

Character representationsJOSH

Locations for Filming

Script

Storyboard

Storyboard

Storyboard

Storyboard

Storyboard