GENRE - ROMANCE CONVENTIONS/INSPIRATIONS: Flashdance, Pretty in Pink, Footloose

Romance conventions and how they might potentially inspire aspects in out film 
The films I looked at:
Pretty in Pink 
Footloose
Flashdance

Key Features in Footloose
I looked at both the original (1984) and the remake (2011).

Sound: In both movies they have the title track, Footloose, this is an iconic 
song and really fits with what the characters are doing. As this is the final 
dance scene of the movie it also creates a good ending for the film, the 
audience are left with the new equilibrium and its a happy one which is 
only enhanced by the up-beat tempo of this song.

Final Dance, Kevin Bacon 

Cowboy hat and neck tie

Costume: In the 2011 version, one of the main protagonists wears a suit but with a cowboy hat and neck tie.
Inspiration: This costume is similar to what we described for our quirky male character's costume as we spoke about having a hat, shirt and then the neck tie.






Key features in Pretty in Pink

Location: One of the most iconic scenes from Pretty in Pink is the record shop scene in which Duckie mimes along to Otis Reddings Try a little tenderness
Inspiration: As I have said before, we thought about using the scene from Pretty in Pink
where Duckie walks in to the shop and dances in our film, so as we would want intertexuality in this, we would want to try and get as close to the actual location as possible. Also,

Duckie dancing in the record shop

if we were to do a school scene instead of the dance scene, the classrooms are an idea of what we could have instead.

Sound: This scene features Try a little tenderness
Inspiration: Again, if we were to use the idea of intertexuality in our film opening then we would want to use similar music as to what is 
in this particular scene. 

Our basic idea of costume for quirky male.

Costume: Duckie wears a blazer, white shirt, cowboy neck tie, hat and glasses. Molly Ringwald's character also wears quirky vintage clothes. 
Inspiration: A lot of the costume in this film stood out for me, when we are first introduced to Duckie's character, his outfit is almost exactly what we had in mind for our quirky male. Molly Ringwald's character also is a strong representation of how we were thinking we wanted our main female character to look like.

Key features in Flashdance

Mise-en-scene and inspiration: As this film is set in the 80's it had some really 
good examples of mise-en-scene we could use, for example the
 record player in the final dance scene and throughout, we have 
talked about having a record player in our bedroom scene. This 
shot is also very similar to that in the opening scene of Billy Elliott, 
as is the entire storyline.

Close up of record player

Character and inspiration: The main protagonist in 
this film is similar to how we would 
want to portray our quirky characters, 
an outcast, someone who doesn't fit in
 etc. As I've said there are some very 
close relations between this film and 
Billy Elliott.

Extreme long shot of the room

Sound: Similar to Footloose, this film 
has an iconic song in it too which lifts 
the atmosphere and tension of what is 
going on in the scene.

GENRE - ROMANCE CONVENTIONS: Heathers, Rushmore, Girls just want to have fun, She's all that

I have looked at the films:
Heathers
Rushmore
Girls just want to have fun
She's all that 

Key features in each film that stood out for me were these:
In 'Heathers'

 Character- One of the lead role, played by Christian Slater, is the 'bad boy' which is a dangerous character who is usually very handsome, dressed in black, riding a motorcycle and bad influence whilst also being disruptive at school. Other common features of a bad boy are that they smoke, drink, have a husky voice and swear. 

Costume- The clothes worn are the fashionable clothes of the 1980's. These could influence our main character as she will be wearing retro vintage clothing, consisting of oversized blazers with large shoulder pads, bright block colours or complex patterns, tartan and tennis skirts. This could also link to make-up as they have distinctive bright eye make-up on when going out and volumed curled hair.

Titles- The 'produced by' is in swirly curled writing typical of a romantic film and shows that this film is focused more at a female audience. The names are all in blocked white and red font which shows that it is a high school film. The wording is quite formal as they use the phrase "produced by" rather than "made by".

 'Rushmore'
Titles- The text position moves around the shot which looks vey affective as it also changes colour depending on the background it is placed. Also the colour varies from white to black but the main title is a bright red which looks very effective whilst also connoting that the film is a romantic or romcom film. 

 Mise-en-scene- The headmasters room contains a lot of dark wood and leather furniture. This isn't the exact style of furniture that we would go for but the full packed and obvious mise-en-scene is what our room will be like. 

Shot types- one of our shots maybe of a book showing the name of our chosen male protagonist so this type of shot is very effective as it uses the rule of thirds. 
 Also this shot of a newspaper that would also link to mise-en-scene relates to our film as we wanted our male protagonist to stand out as being an individual and him holding a newspaper would clearly show that. 

'Girls just want to have fun'

Titles- The font is bold and a bright orange colour stereo typical of rom-coms. Used the phrase "directed by" but not a "Alan Metter film".

Mise-en-scene- This retro Tv would fit with or retro style of mise-en-scene.
Costume- The outfits worn were typical of youths in the    80's again.

'She's all that'

 Titles- Again the font is brightly coloured using the most popular colours of a rom-com orange, yellow and red. This time the text is rounded and smooth but still bold.
Characters- As our female and male protagonists will be outcasts the main female character in 'She's all that' is a perfect example as you can tell immediately that she is a quirky individual. (Costume + Props + Make-up) This is shown by her holding art pads and paints when walking around school whilst also wearing glasses with messy tied up hair, no make up and ripped dungarees with brightly coloured teeshirts that gave her a tomboy look. The male character in 'She's all that' is a stereo typical posh popular boy like in 'Pretty in Pink' (Costume) he wore plainish clothes like jeans and tee-shirts as well as a varsity jacket. We may cast a character much like this as a love interest. 

MISE-EN-SCENE: Costume ideas + influences

Costume ideas

Girl

Clueless costume

Breakfast Club costume

For the girl we want her to have a very specific style, quite retro, vintage and quirky to connote that she's an outsider and not the stereotypical "normal girl". Films we are thinking about looking at to get inspiration are films like Pretty in Pink, Clueless and Breakfast Club. 

Pretty in Pink costume

Boy

 For our quirky male character, we want to base him on the character of Duckie from Pretty in Pink.

We decided we liked his overall dress sense because he stood out and his dress sense reflected his crazy and humorous personality. This style would fit perfectly with the male character we had in mind who is also funny and eccentric. He wears glasses and a bright and heavily patterned waist coat which we are most likely to incorporate into our male protagonist. 

Judd Nelson

For the second male and the binary opposite to our quirky male we looked at the badboy character from The Breakfast Club, Judd Nelson, and Charlie Sheens character in Ferris Buellers day off. After looking at all of the badboy inspirations we picked out the recurring theme of oversized jackets and mainly leather and denim jackets with rolled up sleeves and a white teeshirt. The hair is also messy, unkempt and long. They also usually wear torn jeans.

Charlie Sheen

How this fits in with the target audience
Our film is focused towards a young target audience. Right now the vintage style is very in fashion, therefore putting the male and female central protagonists in vintage clothing helps appeal to the youthful audience. But to help appeal to the wider youth audience we will put the bad boy character in a leather jacket and jeans as this is also a style that many people know and which helps denote his rebel status.