TECHNICAL CODES

1. Use of both diegetic such as accents and ambient noises that represent reality.

2. As it’s a hybrid drama meets coming of age, there should also be non-diegetic music playing during certain scenes.

3. (Extreme) close ups throughout, in order to display emotions of the characters as it’s a drama.

4. There shouldn’t be any form of CFI or SFX within the film as that defeats the point – as it conveys fantasy instead of reality.

5. Use of establishing shots in order to introduce the character’s to convey their social status, and social class status.

6. Use of insert shots in order to break up scenes to avoid the film being mundane or being shot at angles that are too similar/repetitive.

7. As it’s a coming of age, typically scenes that are filmed in a school usually use low and high angles when representing the different social groups making some seem inferior and other superior.

8. Another technical code is the use of handheld cam in order to create the feel of rawness and grittiness of reality.

9. Usually in coming of age movies the protagonist who is throughout seen as inferior are involved in a fight, throughout there are many quick jump cuts involved.

10.Dramas usually contain voice overs in order to imply what is going on in their head/their thoughts.



thing we will change/alter to make our film opening sequence unique…

• The location, as most coming of age films contain scenes of school, however during my groups opening scene it will be set in the coast to provide metaphors of emotions within the characters.


SYMBOLIC CODES

1. Use of low key lighting (narrative) because need to keep film looking raw.

1. Use of social realism to relate to the current time also to the atmosphere of the location of where the film is going to be set.
2. coming of age therefore the set conventions state that the age of the characters is between 15-19 and the social class is more or less working class/students.
3. Ethnicity/race/sexuality is usually white female more than male also sexual orientation is straight.
4. Genre iconography - TV, branded clothing, school bag, bank account cards, school banks, CD's, DVDs, Magazines and Posters relating to the audience (young adults and teenagers)
5. Inter-textual references the interrelationship between texts, relating to Stuart Hall’s theory of audience reception.
6. Mode of address – relaxed, casual in order to relate to the audience, direct eye contact with the camera used often.

THINGS WE WILL CHANGE - USP

The symbolic code that we will be change in the film is the ethnicity/race/sexuality. Usually within coming of age film, there is usually white females rather than male, whose sexual orientation is straight. We’re going to juxtapose this convention to make the main character black or mixed or Asian also the sexuality of the character is questionable as this isn’t the main topic of the film but it does play a part. The reason for not ‘white’ female is the in the film is that it’s generic as in all films which are coming of age the protagonist is so we want to challenge that.