Conventions Used
•Location- From researching many different coming of age films we found out that many are set in schools or homes, homes are typically used as that's where the protagonist lives, such as Juno and Ferris Bueller’s day off. Our opening sequence is purely based inside a home, the home is in quite a run down part of town and you can already start to tell that there are problems even before we see a character just from the location .
•Characters- We decided to show only 2 main characters in the opening sequence, they both were around the age of the demographic for the film. One was a teenager, this allows the audience to relate and feel closer to the victim of the abuse. The other character shown is older as he is playing the dad but reaches out to the demographic of parents. The protagonist is between the age of 15-17 which means that he must have a parent or guardian, this means that its hard to escape from the abuse as his abuser was his father.
•Production teams- Many coming-of-age films have individual or small teams working with them to produce and distribute the film this is because they’re usually indie films that have a strict budget and aren't expected to earn loads at box office, of course there are exceptions such as Juno, Superbad and Boyhood which did make a considerable amount of money. We used Film 4 which are known for making indie British films that are emotional and straight up with the themes of the film. We also Arrow Head as another production company.
•Narrative- In our research we discovered that many coming-of-age films were set in schools and usually were based around relationships and romance, which is a pretty relatable subject within the teenage community around the world. We felt that this was too common and so we still based it around relationships but our sequence was based very much outside of school and in a home instead. Our story line is about an abusive father who attacks his son after resorting to alcohol after the passing of his wife from cancer. we decided to do this topic because its a serious topic that doesn't really get the coverage it should. Our opening sequence was influenced by the short film Disgrace. This is about a father who comes home to see his eldest son bullying his younger sibling. The father takes immediate action and shows the oldest son what it feels like.
A
Conventions Developed
•Font- the font used in the credits is a typewriter this suggests that its a serious theme that doesn't need fancy and over the top fonts. It creates a sense of maturity and tells the audience that this film is going to possibly have an impact on them. This isn't a typical coming-of-age theme and so it wouldn’t be right if the font was a typical font for this genre. As the target audience is also parents, if the text was childish or fancy looking, the parents may no take it very seriously.
•Dialogue- In our opening sequence we used very little dialogue to create a tension and atmosphere, the fact that we have so little dialogue also shows the son's isolation and pain that his father is putting him through, the son has no voice, no body to tell or rely on and this is portrayed through this convention. Dialogue is common in coming-of-age opening sequences as usually there is groups of people at school or conversations between family members an example is the start to the Breakfast Club, an example of an opening sequence without dialogue is Juno where we see Juno walking with just music.
Conventions Challenged
