Risk Assessment

Before we started filming, we had to carry out a risk assessment, to ensure that we were safe whilst filming.
The risk which needed to be aware of was making sure the camera did not fall onto Peter, this could of happened when we filmed Peter on the floor and the camera was placed on top of the locker. We made sure that the tripod is firmly in place and not capable of falling.

One risk we had to assess was to make sure  no one got hurt during the fight scene. We resolved this issue by practicing the scene beforehand to ensure that no one would get injured. This allowed us to make sure the actors knew what they were doing.

  Another risk that is needed to be aware of is when the camera needs to be a high angle, the camera man may have to stand on a chair. We then decided to use the locker technique instead of making the camera man stand on a chair, this means the camera man doesn't have the risk of getting hurt. 
 
 

The Plot

Our film starts with Peter Davis, a student from Katowice Gymnasium, a normal high school which Peter likes a lot, and he gets ready for his first day in his new school. Peter was fairly confident with English language, this gave him confidence that he would find it easy to settle into his new school.

However, this all changes on his first day when the bully of the school, Jay Brown, targets Peter.  This is because Jay doesn't like people of different cultures'. Jay pins Peter up against a locker and then beats him up for no reason, apart from the fact that  he is Polish. Peter becomes friends with one other person in the school, Sarah Levine, as she is also new to the school.

Throughout the film, Sarah and Peter develop a strong friendship. Peter then develops more confidence and then decides to stand up to the bullies.

Throughout the film, Peter also develops a slight crush for a girl at the beginning, however, him trying to become more popular means that he forgets about the girl and he eventually looses her. The movies finishes with the school year ending, Alex then goes back to Poland, he looks over the previous year and realises that he has changed a whole lot and he knows whats important to him.

The Characters

 The main bully within the film is Jay Brown. He is a stereotypical lower class teen. He was raised with a lower class family and has a different perspective of life. Jay is fairly racist as his dad doesn't agree with Immigrants. When Peter joins the school he automatically doesn't like him due to his culture. He has many ASBO's and enjoys breaking the rules of the school by disrespecting everyone. Within Angus Thongs Perfect Snogging there are two school bullies. We based him on the two bullies as they are from a lower class and are stereotypical 'chavs'. They wear side ponytails and have big hooped earrings, all of which is associated with lower class people.

 The next character is Peter Davis. We originally planned for him to be an American exchange student, but we then decided to make him a Polish exchange student, this is because racial issues against the Polish is a back problem in Britain, therefore we felt this would give the story a more ethical view on cultural diversity. When Peter lived in Poland, he was a fun and lively character, however, he becomes antisocial when he moves to England since he finds it difficult settling into his new school, especially as he has Jay on his back. We decided to link Peter to Zac Efron in 17Again. This is because he is new to the school aswell and he doesn't fit in straight away. He gets bullied by a group of 'football jocks'. This group is the school bullies. We chose to go along the lines of them, however in our we changed Jays group life styles.

The third main character is Sarah Levine. Along with Peter, she is also new to the school and is struggling to make friends as she is shy and unsociable. As her and Peter are both new they slowly begin to develop a strong friendship.

Our Production Company Logo

This is our production company logo. We decided to call our film company 'EA Productions'.

We made this logo try to make stand out and look different to other companies. When doing research we couldn't find any other production companies that used the same font or transition as we did.    Making the logo unique would make it recognisable by our demographics. We chose black and white as they both stand out when they are put together. The white contrasts with the black to allow our audience to understand that this was the company. We chose black and white because some other production companies, such as Mirmax and New Line Cinema, use these colours too, however we kept it very simple to be recognisable.

Music

For our film we had to choose music that would act as a non diegetic song to be played on top of our title sequence. We looked on Freeplay for music that we could include. Eventually we found two pieces of music. These were both called;

The lamb and Lion by The Mae Shi 
outlines by abstract

We felt that both of these music would fit in with our film as they are upbeat and fast. We chose to keep 'The Lamb and Lion'. This was because it is a loud drum/soft rock song. This would attract our target audience of boys straight away as it is catchy and fast paced. We felt that this would be suitable  for a target audience of boys as boys are stereotypically loader and risky compared to girls.  

Within the film Wild Child they start off playing a quiet soft song that connotes peace. We started our film with a quiet alarm tone. This was similar to Wild Child. Then when both Poppy and Peter wake up the Music turns loud and upbeat. It engages the audience straight away and ensures they they are interested in the first minute.

The music played in Wild Child is: Shut up and Drive by Rihanna. This at the time was a popular song and attracted the audience by allowing them to recognise what the song was. 

The setting of our Teen Angst Plan

For our setting, we decided to base the beginning of the film at the characters (Peter) house. This was because the opening of our film showed Peter getting ready for his first day of a new school. We decided to base the first part in his house as all teenagers can relate to this as they all go through the same sort of routines before school.

The second setting we used was the school (Ernulf Academy). We showed this by using a Low Angle of the school sign. Also we used tracking to follow the way Peter walked. This allowed the audience to connect straight away and recognise that it was based in a school. We did this because this is where most teen angst films are based.

The USP of our film

The USP of our film is that our Demographic is teenage boys. This is a countertype compared to most teen angst films such as mean girls and wild child. Therefore this means that the main audience for our film would be boys. This is because it includes moderate violence due to the fight and contains the moral of friendship. This is also another reason as to what our USP is. Our film contains the story of friendship unlike most teen angst films which are about a girl and boy falling in love and contain romance. Also our film is British made which creates a different type of audience for our film.

The Roles

Originally, there were four people in our group, unfortunately, one person left meaning there was only three of us to make the film. Our group consisted of myself (Amy Lockwood), Alex Mizia and Callum Bartlett. As a group we edited the films by including transitions, titles, fx and sound. In order for us to do this used a program called Final Cut Pro. Alex was the director of the film. Also he played Peter Davis in the movie. I played the character Sarah Levine, and was also in charge of finding the correct and suitable music for the movie. Callum's role was the camera man and editor. He was in charge of making sure we had the right shot for each scene and made sure the shots were correctly framed.

StoryBoard

Our storyboard outlines the base of our opening sequence. We incorporated the use of pictures and writing. This was to show what the scene would look like and what it involves. Also to show what sort of music we were going to use and what type of edit. It shows the camera work and gives all the the background information that the audience are less likely to know.

Character Costumes

For our costumes we decided to keep it fairly simple. We used normal clothes for the characters to wear to show that they are older and mature.

Peter- For Peter we used fashionable clothing, however not stereotypical 'British teenage boy' clothes. He was wearing a grey coat with dark jeans. We decided to base Peter on zac Efron in 17 again. This is because he is 'unaware' of what life is like at a high school. We linked Peter with Zac Efron as they have a connection with the fact they are both new to the school.

Sarah- For Sarah we decided to keep her quite fashionable. This was because we wanted her to fit in better then Peter. She wore a wooly checkered jumper with skinny jeans and fashionable trainers. We decided to base her on poppy from wild child, however Sarah was not as 'fashion obsessed'. We chose Poppy as she is new to the school and makes an entrance with her fashionable clothes, like Sarah does. 

Filming

To film our Teen angst we had to use a variety of equipment to make it. The first thing we had to use was a HD video recorder. This allowed us to film each scene to a good quality. We had to learn how to use the cameras, by playing and pausing in between scenes, zooming in to adjust our framing and how to playback what we had just filmed. Because we learnt and understood how to do this, we were able to save time by checking if we needed to film again.


For the scenes that we were filming within school, it took about 3 hours to complete all the filming. however this was stretched out as the hours were separated.  For the scenes we did at home we had to book the cameras out and take them out of school in our own time to film all the scenes at home. We filmed the scenes at home in Alex's house. When filming we had to use many different shots,levels and angles. Some points we had to consider was where we were going to place our titles and what font we were going to use, also framing had to be taken in to consideration. From watching other teen angst's films such as mean girls and wild child, all of them have very high key lighting, mostly to connote a 'happy atmosphere', so we wanted to include high key lighting because of this. However when the bullies came along we wanted to create a tense atmosphere for the audience so we wanted the lighting to be slightly dimmed therefore using low key lighting. From research most teen angst films are targeted for girls, this is why the lighting is high key because girls stereotypically like happiness within films.

We also needed a tripod to make sure our filming was steady and not shaky. The tripod meant our filming was better quality and appear more professional. It allowed us to adjust the height, angle and distance so achieve the best possible shots, to create a better film.