The title font and style of the film (1)
The first screengrab shows the title of our film as it appears to the audience. We decided to call our film "One Night, One Life" as it relates to the life of our main character and suggests that no matter what your life is like, it can all change in one moment because of one event. The repetition of the word "one" connotes the importance of how easily situations can change due to one small thing. The way we presented this title was by displaying it in the sky in a cloud font. The fact that we positioned it in the sky was because we felt that the sky connotes freedom and is a space of no limitations, which is significant as this emphasises the life that most teenagers should live by. They should not let anything restrict them from achieving their goals and ambitions, which is a contrast to how our main character feels. We used the cloud font as this is a further emphasis of this connotation and also because the clouds are related to dreams, which connote a carefree environment and a place where there are no restrictions. The style in which we presented our title challenges the stereotypical title in most Teen Angst films. This is because in most films such as Mean Girls, Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging and Juno, the title appears in a bright sans serif, which is a direct contrast to how we demonstrated our title. On the other hand, the title itself can be argued to be stereotypical, as there is no set stereotype of a Teen Angst title which I learnt from my research before we started planning. There is a variety of different Teen Angst titles that exists that range form being short, long, vague, specific etc. This meant that when we were creating our title it didn't really matter what the title of our film was as long as we could relate it to the film in some way. We decided to put our title at this point as it fades into the sky background in an almost effortless manner which relates to the idea of clouds - the fact that they look very delicate.
Setting and location (2)
The setting that we chose to set our film in was a School. This was important as it is extremely typical and an iconic convention of teen angst films, as it is the place where a teenager will spend most of their life, so it is a significant part of their daily lives. By using this convention allows the audience to identify straight away that the film is in fact of the teen angst genre and also makes the film more relatable to our target audience. An example of Teen Angst films that are set in schools would be Mean Girls, Easy A and Wild Child. We used ideas from these in order to set the scene more effectively. We used the fact that Easy A and Mean Girls use a voiceover that state they are currently in school and the tracking from EasyA to show the school and the main character walking through it.
Costumes and props (3)
The most used prop in our film would be the use of earphones and mobiles. Although the items themselves don't play an important role in our film, they are important in making the film relatable and allowed us to include aspects that are stereotypical of a teenager. The clothing that we used in our film was mostly counter typical of a teen angst film. The reason that we did this was because we felt that some people didn't relate to certain characters, possibly due to their outfit, especially with the "mean girl". Stereotypically the "mean girl" would wear skirts and dresses and lots of bright colours such as pink. When planning our characters we were initially going to use this image as well but when filming we decided to completely contrast this to wear she is wearing all black. This reflects the personality of the character and also adds a connection to the main character that most teen angst films do not have.
Camerawork and editing (4)
The fourth screengrab shows a panning shot that we used in order to show a passing of time and also to introduce the title of the film. This is used in a lot of teen angst films in order to set the scene, follow characters or like we used if for, to show a passing of time, although it is not as popular for this reason. Easy A is an example that uses panning and tracking throughout their opening sequence to set the scene as well as a montage of the town and school in order to help the audience establish where the film is set. Other parts of camerawork that we used would be a lot of long shots and mid shots. These are very significant in Teen Angst as the long shots enable to audience to get to know the scenes and the characters, as it allows them to view their clothing, mood/attitude (body language) and also their props, such as a mobile.
Smooth editing and the use of titles and special effects are a huge part of teen angst. From bright, sans serif titles to introduce characters, to the use of sound effects and animations to target the audience. Using our research we tried to include some of these factors when editing in order to make the film a convincing teen angst film. One editing technique we used to emphasises the importance of technology and also to introduce the main event in our film was layering two clips on top of each other. This was used when the art competition was introduced, with one layer being the main character walking into the room and the other being the computer screen. This gave the illusion that the camera was behind the computer screen. Although I have not seen this used in a Teen Angst film, it can be seen as conventional as it signifies the importance of technology in a teenagers life.
Setting and how the opening sets it up (5)
The 5th screengrab shows the two main characters right at the start of the film on their bikes, laughing and having fun. This shows that the setting of the film is quite a small quiet town, which is quite stereotypical of Teen Angst as most of the target audience live in quite sub-urban towns which is the reason teen angst films such as Mean Girls, Wild Child and Clueless are set in these places. This allows the audience to relate to the film more and have a slight understanding of the characters situation. From this scene, the main character is then shown walking through the town on her way to school, enabling the audience to get to know the area and the small scale of the school. We got this idea from Juno, where the whole opening is Juno on her way to the shop. Although, the two characters are not going to the same destinations, we felt that it had the same effect on the audience, that the characters are lonely as they are by themselves and in our case, school focused.
Genre and how the opening sets it up (6)
The genre of the film is clearly shown in the opening by the main characters journey to school. This depicts the genre (teen angst) as you can tell that the character is school focused and that this is a huge part of her life, due to the fact she has to attend this place 5 times a week. This is further emphasised through the voiceover, where the character talks about her own struggles - like being the unpopular one, her friends and her attitude towards school, which is negative. This is stereotypical of Teen Angst as voiceovers similar to this as used in Mean Girls and Easy A and all are shown going to school in their openings.
How the characters are introduced (7)
The way that we introduced our characters was through a voiceover and titles on screen, both of which are very conventional of Teen Angst. The 7th screengrab shows how we visually introduced our character Darcy. We used a bold, sans serif font in a variety of bright colours such as purple, in order to target our audience and allow them to clearly read the text written. This is stereotypical of Teen Angst as many teen angst films use a bold font that can almost be seen as childlike in order to attract the teenage audience. The voiceover that we used to introduce the character is another stereotypical aspect as films such as Mean Girls and Easy A use a voiceover at the start of the films that explain their situation and their friends etc. We used this idea where our main character is talking about her life and introduces the other characters which adds a personal feel to the film. When introducing Darcy, we used a still image of the character amongst the clips, so that the audience could can clearly see what the character looks like without any movement.
Special effects (8)
The special effects that we used in our film would include the typewriter effect of the words "24 hours before". We put these words on screen in order to make it clear to the audience that there is a change in time. We got this idea form the film 13 Going On 30, as in this film the main character changes ages, although it does not necessarily say this visually on screen as there is a bigger change in time compared to our film. Although this idea is used in 13 Going On 30, I would not necessarily say that this is a conventional aspect of Teen Angst as I haven't seen this technique used in any other film. For this reason I would say that the special effects that we used challenges the conventions of Teen Angst as most films in this genre do not give an insight into the end of the film at the start. The typewriter effect was added to make it look and sound as if someone is typing the words on screen as the audience watches. This adds to the stereotype that teenagers are always on some sort of technology.
Credit font and style (9)
The font that we used for the credits is a similar font and style that we used to introduce the characters. The only difference between these would be that the credit font was slightly narrower and the title font is more rounded and bubble like. We did this because the titles are more significant to the audience than the credits, so we made the font more appealing to teenagers as children are known for writing in a bubble style font for school presentations and titles on their homework etc. Although there is not a particular film that uses this, we wanted to add a visual element on top of the voiceover to make it more clear to the audience.
With Darcy, we wanted her character to almost be the alter ego of Ash. We thought that we needed to make the film more light hearted and stereotypical of a teen angst film, so we included a character who is the complete opposite of Ash. She is loved by most and always sees the light in every situation, which is the reverse of how Ash is presented. We based this character mainly off of Jas out of Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging. When watching the film we instantly recognised the strong friendship that Jas and Georgina have and we wanted to replicate that within our film also. This is a relatable aspect which is another reason way we found it so important to include a best friend for Ash. The majority have at least one person who they tell all their problems to and look to for support, whether that be a friend, family member or boyfriend/girlfriend; we wanted a relationship that most people if not everyone could relate to. Darcy is stereotypical of a best friend in a teen angst film both in appearance and nature. She is always there when needed and always has a solution. In the film she is seen wearing light clothing, such as a white top and cardigan with blue jeans, this also adds to the relatability of the film as this outfit is very casual and something most teenagers would wear. 
The last character in our film is Helen. In order to be a stereotypical teen angst film, it is essential that there is a 'mean girl', in our case this was Helen. She is very stereotypical of a 'mean girl' all a part from one thing which is her clothing. Instead of wearing lots of pink and light colours and skirts and dresses, she wears and all black outfit, which consist of a shirt and jeans. We decided to do this because we thought that in order to attract an audience we need to make the mean girl more appealing and challenge this stereotype a bit more. We wanted Helen to almost blend into everyone else at school and appear to be just like everyone else. That it's not until the two main characters meet that you realise Helen is in fact the 'mean girl'. Another reason why Helen is wearing black is to make her and Ash more linked together. This almost created the idea that they are more similar than the audience first thinks, which will be further emphasised as the film continues. We based the personality of our character off of Regina George; this is because when asking other people we found that she was the most iconic "mean girl". We wanted Helen to display the same sarcastic, rude attitude as Regina does in the film Mean Girls, however we found this difficult to do as Helen is only in the opening sequence for a very short period of time, but we felt that this attitude is still recognised by the audience anyway. 
