Codes and Conventions of Coming-Of-Age Films

As part of my pre-production research, I decided to compile a list of codes and conventions of coming-of-age films. This list will be very useful to me when I am producing my script as well as applying elements into my marketing texts, i.e.; my posters and my DVD cover.

 

This list has been compiled with assistance from primary research such as the recurring patterns from the textual analyses of marketing campaigns and opening sequences of coming-of-age films and from secondary sources (websites and news articles). This list not only contains typical character traits and typical locations that would feature in a coming-of-age film. It also includes a typical coming-of-age film's narrative structure.

• The plot of a coming-of-age film usually revolves around a relationship between two of the characters. This relationship is usually the influence behind key events of the story.
• Sub-plots: abuse, sex, bullying, drug use, first love, rebellion, society’s view on virginity, pregnancy, life at home, transition made to become mature, loss of innocence, acculturation (the psychological and emotional effects of society, how people adapt into society), stressing the ability to make wise decisions or judgments, gang culture.
• Themes include: romance, variety of characters (particularly humorous), the importance of friendship, exploring the party lifestyle, situations that the audience can relate to, drama
• Typical main characters are young people approaching 16 years old or 18 years old and a child-like trait, which was present at the start of the film, disappears as part of the characters' 'transformation'. Male characters are very stereotypical: they seek for 'one thing' (sex). The characters tend to have strained relationships with their parents.
• There are distinctive types of character such as; 'the girl next door'/the sweet innocent girl, the rebels/people who rebel against the law, the geek who lacks social skills, misfits, the jocks who intimidate the main, male character/try to liaise with the lead female character, etc.
• Urban, contemporary music is used for transitions between shots and cuts (particularly hip-hop and rap music when representing gang culture)
• The target audience for this genre of film is 15-21 year old females. The typical age rating varies from 12 to 18.
• There is often a moral or hidden message, which influences the conclusion, that encourages the audience to reflect on their past behaviour or their views on certain issues that affect a modern-day society.
• Typical locations include: school, parties, rough neighbourhoods, areas of outstanding beauty (countryside), a character's bedroom, abandoned areas of the countryside, council estates and apartment blocks.
• Typical shots that are used are: montage editing, minimal use of transitions (fade ins or cuts), inter-titles, date recapped at end of the film, low key lighting, focus pulls, slow motion, internal monologues/narration, scenes of intense dialogue, over-the-shoulder-shots for conversations and cross-cutting.

 

NARRATIVE STRUCTURE

 

INTRODUCTION: Introduce the main characters and the setting to the audience whilst establishing a conflict or a problem and doubts that are underlying factors of that conflict.

 

ORDEALS/COMPLICATIONS: Insert events that complicate the problem. Ensure the drama gradually increases until the film reaches the climax.

 

CLIMAX: The most dramatic section of the film.

EPIPHANY/KNOWLEDGE: The protagonist discovers something about themselves that makes them realise that things need to change.

TRANSFORMATION: As a part of the conclusion, a part of the protagonist's life has been changed because of the effects of the climax and of the epiphany. This is usually a positive ending but can be negative depending on the severity of the climax.

 



Factors of Media Representation

 

GENDER:

 

 

This is a still image that captures the girls’ dancing in the video.

In Britney Spears’ music video for ‘Work It B***’ (November 2013), women are represented as having lower respect in the social class than men and that their sole aim is to please the man and create the male gaze. This is represented in a number of ways. Britney Spears and the dancers are wearing barely any clothes to flatter their figures and to please the male eye. They also dance provocative moves which represent women as the gender who are the most sexually suggestive. The video is completely ironic when compared with the song’s lyrics because the content of the lyrics express female empowerment and it tells women that in order to have success in life, they have to work hard. When you compare that ethic to this video, it completely turns that ethic on its head and suggests that a woman only needs to flaunt and wear barely any clothes in order to bag a man.

AGE:

The action thriller Escape Plan (2013 starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone) has main characters that are countertypes of the older generation. People stereotype elderly people as being frail, weak and not being able to take part in a lot of physical activity. However, Stallone (who is 67) and Schwarzenegger (who is 66) have characteristics that are the complete opposite to stereotypical traits. As the film progresses, the pair perform a lot of intense stunt work during fight scenes and as the two actors are in their 60s, this shows the audience that not all old people are weak and cannot do the most basic of tasks without

keeling over in agony or breaking a hip.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1211956/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

 

PARTICULAR EVENTS (ROYAL EVENTS/SPORTS EVENTS/POLITICAL RIOTS):

This is a still image of a scene that occurred during the London Riots.

In this picture that was captured by an editor from The Guardian’s website, the 2011 London riots are represented as being a violent affair that is caused by masked hooligans. This does not represent the full picture of the London riots and the image has been carefully chosen by the press to represent the event as being a disgusting perception on British culture and society. This picture does not represent the reasons why the riots occurred in the first place so it lets people assume that the riots were just an excuse for people to damage properties and to destroy shops, not because of a death that horrified the hooligans involved.

ISSUES (POVERTY/DISABILITY/WAR):

 

 

 

 

 

This advert from Clarks is advertising the range of shoes that are available in its new collection from sports shoes to smart shoes and stilettos. One of the models is disabled. This advert is a positive representation of the disabled society as it shows that disabled people are just the same as everyone else. This representation gives a positive, friendly impression of the company and it encourages people to visit their stores and buy products from the shop.

 

ETHNICITY:

This is the front cover of Playstation 2’s version of Final Fantasy XII (2006).

Released in 2006, all of Final Fantasy XII’s characters are white. This is evident in the game’s front cover. This is a representation of white people, without causing offence, the dominating race. Even though the game was released during the twenty first century when segregation and prejudice against black people is looked down upon by society, the cover still fails to illustrate society’s perception of racial equality. It is as if the producers of the game are assuming that gamers do not think that playing a black character is cool.

NATIONAL & REGIONAL IDENTITY:

On the British political panel show, Mock the Week, there is a section or a round that most of the contestants take part in where they are given a particular topic and they have a minute to prove that their topic is the funniest in order to receive points for their team. On the eleventh episode of series 5, comedian Michael McIntyre was given the topic ‘The North and South divide’ to talk about. His discussion of this topic represents Northern people as being less articulate when they talk when compared with people from the South (where McIntyre is from). His representation of Northern people, although quite comical, could have been taken as an offence towards that part of society because he creates this perception that they are quite slow and retarded in the way that they speak.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67CbRALCdO4

Codes & Conventions for Different Genres

A genre code and convention is a typical feature that helps the audience to identify what genre a particular film belongs to. This is a list showing codes and conventions that are typically seen in these film genres. The list also contains some examples of films just so that you can be able to identify these conventions mentally.

The layout of each bullet point list consists of these headings:

1. Typical Film Locations
2. Typical Film Characters
3. Typical Film Plot
4. Typical Themes/Plot Influences
5. Examples

The film genres which I will be clarifying the codes and conventions for are:

• Romantic Comedy
• Disney
• Sci-Fi
• Horror
• Adventure
• Fantasy

Notting Hill (1999) is an example of a
rom-com where the plot is based on a
difference in character status.

ROMANTIC COMEDY

• Beach, café, hotel, famous landmarks (particularly cities in U.S.A and Europe, e.g.; Paris, Rome, New York, etc), church
• A man and a woman (usually young but sometimes old too), the lead characters' families
• The man and the woman somehow meet but instantly hate each other, some kind of coincidence or situation throws them together, they eventually fall in love
• Meeting by chance, Christmas, illness, curses, distance - being apart from one another, weddings, work, difference in character status and conflict because of this (e.g.; power, social class, ethnicity)
• Love Actually, About A Boy, Notting Hill, The Proposal, The Notebook

DISNEY

• Woods, castle, village, cave, ball/gathering, natural landscape, abandoned places
• A princess, her rescuer (masculine characteristics), talking creatures, evil villain, rescuer/princess' companion (usually a creature but can be human), army
• Princess gets into trouble, the rescuer meets her and they fall in love, the villain recaptures the princess, a dramatic climax until villain's death, 'happily ever after'
• Songs/very musical, death, love, friendship, usually a moral is involved for audience to take away, loss, tragedy, curses, faith, hope, adventures/voyages
• Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Princess & The Frog, Pocahontas, Mulan

SCI-FI

• City, space, different planets, space ship, desert, woods
• Alien/unusual creature, explorer, majority of cast is male except a female (usually very attractive), evil commander (creature/human)
• Explorer and crew discover unusual creature, creature invades main location/Earth, situation becomes apocalyptic, most of the cast is killed off during attempts to remove creature, creature is removed, outlook of location after removal - good and bad
• Love and relationships, discovering new life, political, environmental disasters, paranormal, exploring possible life, death, illness and disease, apocalypse and post-apocalypse outlooks, mass destruction
• Cloverfield, District 9, Alien, Predator, Terminator

HORROR

 

• Abandoned place (in the middle of nowhere), woods, isolated house or cabin, old hospital/asylum, church, cellar
• A group of teenagers/young people, twisted psychopath wanting to kill others (usually a man), male and female cast (females usually attractive, much emphasis on figure), cannibal-like creatures, cult groups,
• Starts in party/gathering/on holiday, bad event occurs involving attack or death of someone, people get hurt, cast gradually killed off when audience tries to figure out the cause of their death, escalates into extreme situation/climax, one or two remaining characters kill enemy,
• Gore, torture, possessions, demons, sex/sexuality, weapons (melee and firearms), loss of innocence, psychological trauma, effects of childhood, religion, inflicting pain for self-pleasure, documentary footage, true life/'non-fiction', historical, discovering new creatures, illness and disease
• Saw, Hostel, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Grudge, The Exorcist

ADVENTURE

• Castle, tomb, plenty of locations in one film, exotic places, dungeon, city, desert
• Male explorer, female assistant, comedy character, person who wants to stop them, army/group that follow antagonist's orders, professor/highly intelligent individual
• Explorer is sent away to search for treasure, obstacles in way (natural as well as man-made traps), a love interest develops between explorer and assistant, a character gets lost/abducted, antagonist bribes release of person for treasure, explorer rescues character and somehow stops antagonist (through death or arrest)
• Love, greed, money, friendship, trust, refusing to give up, materialism vs people, morals
• National Treasure, Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, The Mummy

FANTASY

• Fictional world, castle, palace, woods, sea, tomb/dungeon, 'underworld'
• Child protagonist, talking creatures, animal companion, mainly child cast, adult guardian, evil villain, villain's companion/army
• Protagonist enters fantasy world, set a challenge/search for mystical object, meets companion villain tries to stop protagonist, few obstacles in way (natural and man-made traps) sends army, protagonist defeats army, protagonist returns object to owner, 'happily ever after'
• Friendship, morals, strength - never giving up, caught between fantasy and reality, growing up/coming of age, magic, love, cures
• The Chronicles of Narnia, Black Cauldron, The Labyrinth, Epic, Percy Jackson franchise