A lot of comedies aimed at my age group 17 years old (or younger) is a lot of the time set in a secondary school or a high school. So I thought of the stereotypical view of each gender in a high school film.
Female high school conventions:
-love interests
-popularity
-looks
-class and status
-wealth
-success
-bitchiness
-backstabbing
-upset
-sentimental endings
(examples of female high school films are Easy A and Mean Girls)
Male high school conventions:
- Fit body
- Humour
- 'Gross out'
- Stupid situations
- Daring
- Fights
- Unconforming
- Chaos
- Parties
- Geeks and jocks but the geek gets the girl at the end of the film
(examples of male high school films are American pie and Piranah)
In general American High School films show the students succeeding in what they set out to for example, the geek character will almost always get the girl. The one who works hard will get their scholarship etc. But in British High School films there is very rarely success shown in the films, it's normally theft or shootings or something a lot more gritty. I think that with my film if I do do a film based upon a high school I will show it through my point of view, so just the normal life not over exaggerated shootings nor the entire school loving one another.
An example of a high school film that in ways conforms with the general high school but seems so different is Rushmore (1998).
Director: Wes Anderson, who has also directed films such as Fantastic Mr Fox.
Genre: Comedy/Drama - It's an unconventional comedy in the sense that it doesn't make you laugh out loud yet you still notice all the key comedy moments.
Stars:Bill Murray (He is well known for being in comedies)
Rushmore school is a private education high school, which immediately indicates upper class people (unless they have scholarships like Max Fisher does.) This class is backed up in the film by the music, which is very much orchestral sounds.
The film digs at private education, Murray's character even says that you gotta be rich and you'll survive no matter what, and if you're not you gotta take them down; Which is a really realistic approach to take for a film. This sort of dark view on society is backed up the the lighting choice chosen by Anderson, he used a very muted colour scheme. For my film I think I probably will show the problems within society but make a joke out of it rather than just pointing it out, and depending on what audience i'm aiming my film at will depend on what part of society I focus on.
The film is conventional in the sense that it has the typical characters the geek, jocks, the girl; But, The 'geek' character- Max doesn't have good grades he's only at Rushmore as he wrote a play when he was 13. He also doesn't have the personality of the normal 'geeks' he has a lot of confidence. The camera uses a slight fish eye which makes his head bulge slightly giving that over confidence visually. This is an effect I may use in my trailer to show peoples status/ personality.
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