Research into chose genre

I have chosen the teen film genre as I feel that I will be able to create this genre best and will be able to target the aimed audience. I also chose this because this genre has different elements and themes to it which means that I have more freedom with what I can create, using the different sub genres to create what I feel will appeal to the target audience best.

This genre has been around since the mid-twenties but was not taken serious unit the 1980s. This genre was started in American and can still be seen in today’s teen films by the use of narratives, the language used and the location. From 1985 Hollywood has used youth trends and the attitudes of teenagers to address them appeal to the wider teen audience. These films are in relation to the social and political trends that appeal to their age. This is genre was then developed and made different youth sub-genre to appeal to a wider teen audience. Thought characters have varied and locations have changed teen films are still very much the same. With stock characters, location, situation and the narratives are found to still be the same. I think that is this because the target audience has not changed and the thing that this age group goes thought are still the same, because of these the narratives are still about relationships, parents not understanding them, sex, growing up and fearing change/adulthood. The narrative of these though have a kind of truth to them being that this is how teens are feeling. Films being aimed at this audience as they go to films to find them themselves. They are a key audience, as they are a big consumer and have disposable income. This genre is popular with audiences all over the world with independent film makers making them to fit in with where there from. This genre appeals to a bigger audience than first thought of.

A typical teen film is ‘The Breakfast Club’ filmed in 1985 directed by John Hughes and distributed by Universal Studios making a gross of $45,875,171. This film follows five teenagers as they are in detention. The film stars Emilio Estevez, Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson, Anthony Michael Hall, Ally Sheedy and Paul Gleason. I feel that this is a good example of a teen film I feel as it has the stereotypical characters in this film fitting in with the school clicks. Having this shows that it fits in with this genre as it is something used in most teen films and in fond to be one of the key conventions of this genre. Also by the film using these characters it makes the audience able to relate to the characters in the film and this making the film more appealing to the audience. Thought in the film I create I wanted to try and get away from the stereotypical characters and try to put across the more serious elements of the genre. Such as with this film they find out that they are more that just their stereotypes. I found that this film fits in with the genre well and shows some of the conventions of the genre. With the age of the characters being school age; I feel that this is because this age will appeal to their target audience in that they will be the same age and able to relate to what is happening in the film. Also I found that the type of characters that fitted in with the conventions of a teen film with them being in stereotypical school group and them reflecting the stereotypical way in which that person acts. Having the film fit into these stereotypes mean that the mise-en-scene in the film shows the audience the stereotypes as well such as with the costumes that are used reflecting what the character is meant to be wearing, with the popular girl wearing pink and then the out cast wearing dark colours. This helps the audience to know who the character is when they are watching the film. The location in this film also fits in with the convention being that it is set in a school this is found in most teen films. This is because it appeals to the target audience as they can relate to the location, most teen film are set in a school because of the way that it fits in with the genre and the age of the characters.