Evaluation question number 2

How does the opening sequence represent particular social groups and settings?

Our opening focuses on the different social groups found in most schools, the geeks the Goths, the popular kids, the jocks and the class clowns aka jokers. In some high school comedies/dramas and romances this concept can be watered down to prevent discrimination, however it mostly present in Bratz the Movie. 2007 directed by Sean McNamara. In this film the beginning of the year starts of with kids being put into certain social group which is where we got most of our characters attitudes and reactions from.

Each character is focused on individually throughout the film which is why Bianca can only be considered the main character because she is the first focused on in the film.
In our film Bianca is made to represents a very vain girl, at the height of the school food chain. A self obsessed girl who is not exactly very smart. She could come across s rude, arrogant, and quiet intimidating depending on were you stand. She represents a classic girly girl, who is most likely to wear pink or white, those kind of soft colours.
The girl originally cast for her role was chosen from very few because of her look. She was a white British female with very nice blond hair. The director and I though that with hair and costume she would look the part and become the perfect representation of that kind of character. This was difficult for her as she herself was nothing like her character at all and hated most things her character was supposed to practically love. Due to this we found she felt extremely uncomfortable playing this character and this showed in our photo story board and during our rehearsals. This made us decide to get someone else to replace her. This was a positive transition as our new actor got more into character and therefore looked more natural.

We put Bianca at the back of the class room as further away from the others reading a magazine, to represent a character that does not interact with those who are not of her kind. The magazine also represents her giggly girly kind of attitude. There wasn’t much lighting change for the characters as we only saw them briefly.
All these elements of mis en scene were done for her to look like a certain snobby girl who cares for nothing but herself. We did this by having her bag on the table at all times, her reading a magazine, and playing with her hair.
Her character was made up from characters like Regina George from mean girls and other popular girls in films such as not another teen movie.

My group and I made sure that every character was represented in a very stereotypical manner and also had a stereotypical look and attitude to them to make them very clear, with out unnecessary dialogue or interaction with other characters.
For the Goth we tried to get a very dark feel to him. He wore very dark clothing all black. This is because Goths and emos are very much known for their dark clothing and perception of life. His hair and make up was also very dark, he wore dark lipstick and black nail polish as well as eyeliner.
As for props he was listening to music on very big head phones, which is also very commonly seen in films as well as reality. We directed him to feel angry for some reason of his preference, and to constantly give us an angry facial expression.
He would be described as most likely a white male, constantly moody
He probably:
*would have had a past experience making him so angry
*enjoy rock sty type of music
*not have many friends as hardly anyone is likely to understand him

Although slightly irrelevant we made up his character by looking at other films where a character possessed a certain loneliness factor. For example films such as elephant, the boys were isolated causing them to do such a thing. They had an attitude that seemed as if they could not care less and carried burden of anger with them everywhere they went. This is very similar to our Goth character. Films such as St. Trinians, where the Goths in the boarding school are looked down upon and seen as ‘freaks’.
His appearance was not very hard to achieve as we went for a very stereotypical look with all our characters so we made him look as crazy and dark as possible through the use of very heavy dark make up which they are known for wearing. This was so that a lot about him came across on screen even without dialogue as there was no dialogue present.

For the basket ball player I personally found his character very easy to put together however I still feel as if it could have come across better than it did on screen.
We made our actor wear a hoodie, however not looking intimidating we made look busy playing with his basketball to keep a certain balance between bad boy and high school jock. We directed hi to constantly look at nothing but the ball moving around on the table to show his interest in basketball. We originally anted him to spin the ball on his finger during the pans, but it was not possible as the ball fell and so during rehearsals I thought that it would cause too much disruption on the actual filming day.
Our basketball jock was a black male, very active and sporty, preserved also as a bit of a bad boy, selfish and much focused on basketball. This character was made up from bits and pieces of other films like
Chad from high school musical but much more serious and less happy. Another character which he represents or is similar to would be 50 cent in destruct before i self, a young basketball player reaching for a basketball dream.

We wanted our class clown to be as annoying as can be. We directed him to constantly poke the Goth which is why we made them sit next to each other. His image was very casual and laid back he ware jeans and a jacket , we originally wanted him to wear a leather jacket but thought it would add a bit of seriousness to his character which is not what we indented. We made him poke the Goth with the pencil he was supposed to use to write his lines with to show his care free attitude to what I expected of him. This character was a white male describe a very funny, annoying, and unable to follow instructions straightaway.

Now for the geek, her character was very simple to portray. As soon as we put glasses on her she looked the part. However we wanted a more stereotypical kind of look so we plated her hair sand have her wear a very smart shirt.
We directed her to be the only one in the class actually doing what she was supposed to do, revising and writing her lines. In this she looks at nothing but the paper to once again emphasise her passion for education.
She is sat at the front of the class, because it’s seen as a very geeky thing to do. Sitting at the front is disliked by many teenagers in films as well as in reality.
She would be described as:
*smart
*conserved
*very focused
*teachers pet
*inferior to the rest in the classroom
These are the qualities which makes the end of the film so shocking.

Setting:
once gain our setting (school) was done to relate to the characters involved in our story like their age and occupations. This was also to give our story a slight twist.