Researching Your Chosen Genre

I spent some time researching chick flicks, because our coursework is going to be a chick flick.

Stereotypical Elements:

In a chick flick, the majority of the scenes tend to take place around a high school, a party, someones house or a shopping center, and they generally deal with multiple issues, like relationships, drugs, school, alcohol etc.This is good for us because we are easily able to access these settings.

Films of this kind rely on stock characters:

The popular kids: Shot from 'White Chicks'

The geeks: Shot from 'The Big Bang Theory'

The Hot Guy: Shot from '10 Things I hate about You'

The Protagonist: Shot from 'Twilight'

      

The plot is usually follows quite conventional lines, with the popular girls/crowd and the hot guy being somehow connected, and the main character being on the outside, possibly having a hard time at school. Then something happens that changes everythin;, there's a huge blow out or fight, the plot thickens and becomes tense, and we don't know if our protagonist and her potential love are going to make it. Of course, they pull through, and the outsider girl becomes popular, and she and the hot guy live happily ever after.  In order to make sure we sympathise with the outsider from the start, there is often a voiceover,  with the main character talking over the clip as we see what they see. I think this helps us familiarise with the character. The outsider status is also important because it's a classic narrative technique - as the outsider learns about the key characters and the rules of this world, so do we as the audience.

Common Camera Angles

Shot Reverse Shot: because there tends to be a lot of conversation - social activity such as parties

Two Shots: lots of two shots of friends, or the main character and her crush

Group Shots: again because of the whole social element, it makes the film seem more relatable to it's audience as seeing people in groups is natural.

                                                       Shot from 'John Tucker Must Die'

Hand Held Shots- often used in situations where the character is in a crowd, perhaps in a corridor at school filled with lots of people

POV Shots and Close Ups:  these help the audience establish a relationship or connection with the characters, because we're able to clearly see the emotion on their face, and we're able to see things in the same way they do.  

                                                                Shot from '17 Again'

Mise-En-Scene:

The mise-en-scene of a film is extremely important, because it helps the film seem more believable and relatable to the audience. 

Costume: The costumes can help identify characters without there even being any dialogue, and also gives you information about the character, like their personality, from what they're wearing. 

Lighting: The lighting is generally quite high key - chick flicks/ rom coms are usually have pleasant story lines with nothing too serious going on, and if there is a comical edge is given to it so the audience still enjoys themselves, so even at times where the scene is set at night, they usually have lighting so it isn't completely dark and we can focus on the characters' reactions and emotions. 

Setting: The settings are generally in a high school, and then this makes the film relatable as well to a whole range of people, as we have all experienced this, not just teenagers. 

I think that for our sequence, 'Just A Girl', we'll take tips from our research to try and make ours look light, and have reasonably high verisimilitude. 

For our props, we've decided to make the 'Popular Girl' really done up with make-up, so she looks well groomed for school, as opposed with the 'Geeky Girl', who won't have made a huge effort with her appearance, which should help highlight the differences between the two. We're also going to have our cast wearing their school uniform, as that will make the most sense as it's mostly set in a school, so it'll look believable.