Some films we looked at when deciding our representations were 'St Trinians', 'Mean Girls', 'Fast Girls', 'Legally Blonde', 'Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging', 'Wildchild' and 'Lizzie McGuire'. From these films, we knew how teenage girls were represented in chick flicks, and how different character roles affected these representations. Conventionally, the main characters would be very girly, with their lives focusing on their issues involving their parents, their friends, fashion, school and boys.
Teenagers in chick flicks today usually have the most up to date technology, and tend to fight with their parents about things such as school, homework, going out, friends and money. They have strong ties with a small group of close friends, often including a best friend character, these friends are incredibly important to them and crucial to the story line Clothes, make-up, popularity and boys are all problems usually arising in their lives, and the course of the chick flick is based on their journey in solving their problems.
LAUREN
Lauren, our protagonist, is the typical chick flick heroine. She is blonde, pretty, clever, popular, and has a seemingly 'perfect' life. We have shown this through the mise-en-scene of our opening, as Lauren's bedroom is not only pink and girly, it also has many different photos of friends on the walls, and a report with an A* grade on it. Lauren takes great care with her hair, outfit and make up, as she is seen applying lip gloss and mascara, and also buttoning the top button of her shirt, something which is considered to be very fashionable within modern teenage culture. Lauren travels to school with two friends, who like her are dressed in sheer shirts, skirts and heels, along her journey we see her chatting with her friends, and they all seem very happy and comfortable with each other. Hence we have established Lauren's character.SCARLETT
Contrastingly, with Scarlett, our antagonist, we showed her lazy and reluctant to get out of bed, in her messy and cluttered red room, littered with cigarette packets and clothes. This use of the mise-en-scene in her room established her character as more messy, unique and rebelic. In Scarlett's room we were careful to remove any photos of friends, as we felt this would create a greater contrast with the character of Lauren, and there was no sign of school work, stationary or even a desk. Her hair and make-up reflected the personality of Scarlett, with dark, volumous back-combed hair, large amounts of dark eyeliner and eye-shadow as well as bright red lipstick. Our aim was to make this girl seem rather 'slutty' and promiscuous, establishing her as a character our audience would immediately be able to dislike, and recognize, and we used clips of Scarlett shortening her tube skirt, and unbuttoning her shirt in order to reveal more cleavage to show this character trait. Scarlett travels alone on her way to school, and smokes a cigarette leaning against a wall, showing her to be the kind of girl who doesn't care what anyone thinks, and perhaps implies that she wants to be seen so blatantly disobeying rules.LAUREN'S BOYFRIEND -Thahesh
As Lauren was meant to be the prettiest and most popular girl in school, we felt it would be appropriate for the character to have a boyfriend. We used an Asian actor for this character, as we felt this represented London, and the diversity in ethnic groups. While initially we had planned to include the boyfriend in the opening, we later decided that the inclusion would be too difficult, as we needed it to be just Lauren and Scarlett entering the school together, and in these shots, Thahesh dressed fashionably and smartly to also coincide with the character of Lauren herself. Ultimately, we just included a photo of Lauren's boyfriend on the computer screen on her desk.Throughout the course of our film, Lauren discovers Thahesh is actually very vain and shallow, more interested in her status and looks, than her personality. Despite his seemingly loving actions, he dumps her when he realises she is no longer the 'Queen Bee', due to Scarletts corruptive plans, while Lauren is devestated at first, she later realises how much better off she is without him.
Originally we planned to include Thahesh in our opening scene, with Lauren greeting him at the gates before entering the school, however we found that this would be too difficult, as we needed to get Lauren and Scarlett alone together for their entry to the school, to highlight their differences and raise questions into the connection between the two characters. In our final opening, Thahesh only appears in a photo on Lauren's laptop, and this established the character as Lauren's boyfriend.
We represented our British teenage girls through our use of mise-en-scene in each girls room, and our use of make up and costume. We depicted both girls getting ready for school, and applying their make up.
BRITISH
Since the majority of chick flicks, and the ones we were inspired by, are American, our decision to make our chick flick British was a controversial change, and would be something new and interesting, differentiating our film, due to the different stereotypes and character conventions recognisable of a British setting. Globally, Britain is known for tea, the Royal Family and rain, as well as the iconic London landmarks. British girls are stereotypically supposed to be more laid back and polite than Americans, with emphasis on their natural beauty, hence the 'English Rose' stereotype. British girls may also be considered by Americans, to be both beautiful and intelligent, with good values, while typically in American films, girls seem to either be smart and geeky looking, or stunning and dumb.
In making a British chick flick, we knew we needed to alter the typical character conventions slightly, and so we decided our main character would be better as a blonde, with a typically 'English Rose' preppy look. American chick flicks tend to have the blonde featuring as one of the 'bitchy' characters, and our alteration of this was a far more British take on the genre.
ESTABLISHING CHARACTER
Lauren's room was very pink and girly, with lots of floral and pink items, including make up, cosmetics and notebooks.
Contrastingly Scarlett's room was very messy, strewn withclothes and cigarette packets.
We used split screens to contrast the look and actions of both characters side by side, with Lauren on the left and Scarlett on the right. Here we contrasted the colours, styles and actions of each character.
Lauren's drawer contains stationary items such as pens, notepads and a calculator, while Scarlett's is more messy, containing cigarette packets, sweet wrappers and condoms.
While Scarlett uses a bright red lipstick, Lauren uses a pale girly pink gloss.
Here we contrasted the make up of the two characters, with Scarlett being heavily made up with dark eye make up, while Lauren is more natural, with cleaner and more refined make up.
We showed Lauren tucking her blouse into her skirt, and Scarlett rolling up her tight tube skirt.
The colours of the two bedrooms are contrasted here, as we synchronise the action taking place in each shot.
No comments:
Post a Comment