Casting

As we knew the characters in our film was inspired by our very own friends, it was only best to use them for our film. The characters represented in our film is a Loner, Rebel, Bully/misfit, Otaku and Geek. Our main characters are all outcasts within the teenage "status quo".

Priscilla Amankwah "Nicolla"-Loner

Nicolla is the main character of the story, even though she is a loner, she does have an interest in others and can be gentle as long as she doesn't feel offended. She has a "keep myself to myself and no one will bother me" approach to life, which has kept her distant from others throughout her high school life. In her childhood, she was known as the genius piano child, but events of the past have kept her away from her passion of music.






Tosin Oluyadi "Coco"- Otaku
Coco the otaku, is an exuberant teenage girl, with an attachment for all things Japanese. Everything from the music she listens to down to her last "pocky" is from the land of the rising sun. The aspiring weeabo is loud and Proud and always has to have the last of everything. With her motto being "Baka Janai" (I'm not an idiot), as time draws near to become "O.D.D", would she suck up her pride........not likely.





Lorna Dean "Precious"- Rebel
Having done something back in yr 9, known as "that incident", which she is still repaying off to this day, with detention, Precious the Rebel will only go against a no if it is from the authorities, as her goal is to go against all restrictions from the "man", as the youths of today are being imprisoned more and more. Quite friendly amongst her peers, but as an ablutophobe, she rarely ever takes baths because of her fear of bathing.








Amina Koroma "Tuesday" -Bully/misfit
Only one word can describe Tuesday.....Troublemaker. Causing trouble is a natural hobby for her and she doesn't get as big of a thrill from antagonising others. Though this troublemaker can't resist the temptations of discord, she is quite loyal to the ones closest to her and is a genius in disguise, having as much information as a hit man, she knows everything about everyone, so she is always just a blackmail away from an unsuspecting victim.

Stella Anaman "Cynthia"-Geek
Cynthia is an accident prone Geek, who may look smart, but is a long way off from it. Her shy yet ambitious nature, have made her a target for bullies alike, but her misfortune is something that comes along quite handy . With her unusual traits that seem to attract every kind of bully, would this aid, O.D.D in getting there message across?



Sharifa Reynolds "Grace"


Grace is Nicolla's childhood friend, a very outgoing and caring person, who regulary checks up on Nicolla. She is always trying to offer Nicolla wise words of encouragement, though these are not always received well from her. She is always looking out for her friends and loves to make new ones, as she would become the sounding voice of encouragement to the whole group.


Enitan Ajayi Make up artist/Coco's Friend

Enitan ajayi is in charge of costume design and make up for our film. She also played the role of coco's friend at the beggining of the film when coco and tuesday are first introduced.

Storyboard and Shotlist

When it came to our storyboard we started with an initial storyboard which we soon found we could be improved upon.

The primary storyboarding

Below are our idea sketches for the new storyboard; drawn by Tosin.
When making the initial ideas, producing a short storyboard helped alot on deciding on the colours we wanted to use for the mise en scene to create a mood, and generalise what we wanted for our opening.



We changed our storyboard because, when making the original storyboard we found that there would be some difficulties in filming certain scenes and that it may cause confusion, so we changed into something alot more slower paced, so that the audience may get a feel for the characters.

Below is our new storyboard



We kept pretty much, most of the beginning, it is until she enters the school alot changes, in entering the school nicolla walks past a fight between Tuesday and Coco, which is then followed by her going past a tripping cynthia.

She finally ends up at her class, but she is shut out due to her lateness.



She is in the late room, where she is introduced to the other main characters.

Stupid Pictures and Practice Runs

On our first day of shooting we ran into some trouble with the rain, wind and snow...The footage we had collected had been overrun with the sound of rain and traffic on wet roads, laughing from umbrellas flying away and frozen hands while filming. After some takes in these conditions we decided to film the next day when the weather would hopefully be better.

Here is an image of Lorna (Precious the Rebel) and Tosin (Coco the Otaku) standing filming in the rain outside of St. Martin's laughing at Pricilla's (Nicolla) umbrella inside out during a take.

Here is a clip of Nicolla the Loner (Priscilla) and her friend Grace (Sharifa) practising the second scene in our film opening. In this scene Nicolla is walking down to School and her friend Grace sees her. Grace talks to her about being more open and becoming friends with more people in school which leaves Nicolla feeling upset. We decided to practise this scene inside due to the heavy rain.

On our second day of filming the weather seemed better so we re-filmed the Grace and Nicolla scene and continued down into the Sixth Form (St. Martins).

Here is a clip of Cynthia the Geek (Stella) performing a few practise takes of her 'clumsy' door scene.

We also filmed Coco the Otaku (Tosin) and Tuesday the Misfit (Amina) fight scene as well as the detention/late scene where all of the main characters 'meet'.

Below is an image showing the location for the detention/late scene.
Featuring Stella (Cynthia) and Priscilla (Nicolla).


Below is an image of Lorna (Precious the Rebel) in costume unaware of the camera's gaze.

Target Audience

As we decided as a group to make a teen movie, it only makes sense that our target audience are teens. But there are two types of groups amongst teenagers, such as the outcasts and the popular kids.

our film being heavily focused on characters who are outcasts, our film would relate more to them, as opposed to someone who socially fits in. so we looked at the contrast of these two groups and it gave us time to reflect on how unique our chosen target audience is!

Music plays a large part in the lives of young people and the music that is played in a teen film, really reflects on what sub group of the target audience, a genre of film is trying to attract.

In our film, there would be Rock and pop and as a little twist J-pop, to reflect really on how perculiar the characters are and the more weirder our characters, the more the audience would be drawn to them.

Summary of questionnaire

We surveyed a group of people on teen films, so that we got more background information on what we would like to do with our film.

Summary

The most popular genres are Romantic Comedy and Teen Film.

Favorite teen movie is Mean Girls and then She’s the Man.

Aspects expected in teen films: Comedy, relationships/romance, dancing, drama, school and stereotypes – dominantly white rather than black characters.

Most people prefer the main characters to be a mixture of girls and boys

Most people prefer the lead character to be an outcast or a group of friends

Most people relate to The Outcasts and the Smart Kids

Most people like to have a complete twist in narrative or to be mislead rather than following a lead character or knowing the story from the start.

Most people go to the cinema with their friends rather than with their families or with their partners.

Most people think the most important aspect of a film is acting and then story.

Conventions of Teen films

Teen film is a genre of film, that is targeted at teenagers and young people and even has appealed to a younger market.

Teen films have been very popular within the entertainment world since the 50's. During that time it was the first time films were portraying young people and it made the older generation acknowledge that young adults existed.

The plot often focuses on:

• Coming of age


• First loves


• Rebellion


• Angst


• alienation
  
  Teen films are almost always set in High school and the serious subject matters, listed above are often presented in a glossy, stereotypical and trivialised manner.

The codes and conventions of a teen film can vary depending on the subject matter, cultural context and ideas that are trying to be presented through the film. A majority of recurring themes within a teen film are:

• Proms
• Alcohol
• Drugs
• School
• Parties and raves
• Social groups/"Cliques"
• Sexual themes
• Crude humour
• Pop culture
  
  A classic convention that comes across in a teen film are the stereotypes of teen social groups and personalities. These include:

The princess/School Diva

This is the well liked to the point of being worshipped female student. This character type would always regard herself as the alpha female, as they are popular, pretty and very arrogant.

The Jock


The American stereotype of a teenage male athlete and is regarded as the popular boy, in a high school sitting.

The new boy/ Girl
This character type usually has a major focus in teen romance comedies.



The boy/girl next door



The boy/girl next door also has a major focus in the romance side of teen films. This character is usually quite open, and is usually the childhood friend of the protagonist and if the main is a boy, she often does not recognise the feelings that the friend has for her, because of his youth and social status.

The Misfit/Outcast

This is the trouble maker within the school and is looked down at everyone, they never fit in to any group and often are up to mischief.

The Rebel

The rebel is the teen who has a rebellious nature, they don't conform and they resist authority and control.

The loner
This character type does not seek social interaction. They seek solitude for many reasons such as extreme shyness or introversion, religious or philosophical reasons.

The geek/nerd


They are known to have a extreme obsession over intelect, computers or comics. This character type is normally poked fun at.

I'm so different it will make you cry! character types part 1

When coming up with the idea, one thing we wanted was the characters to be a whole new level of socially awkward, that no matter what they do their awkwardness would always stand out, whether for the right or wrong reasons.


But there was so many things that we realised made people weird such as the way they speak, act, dress and the groups they hang out with.

so we thought, then we thought and we thought some more and.......

we realised that everyone is weird these days, that to be strange is the popular thing to be. so we looked at the characteristics of our friends and some of the weird moments we have had with them and it helped alot on deciding the characters we wanted.

Then we looked again at groups of people who are outcasted amongst society:

The geek

wikipedia says it is, "a peculiar or otherwise odd person, especially one who is perceived to be overly obsessed with one or more things including those of intellectuality, electronics, etc."

In teen films, they are typically the characters to use when using outcasts.

The Emo

Emo is a genre of rock music recognised for its expressive and almost confessional lyrics. They are known to be emotional, sensitive, shy, introverted,and angst-ridden. Their group have has also been associated with depression, self-injury, and suicide.

Amongst teenagers, the "emo" is recognised with wearing skinny fit jeans, short sleeved tight t-shirts which may have a name of a band or an expressive statement, Studded belts and black wristbands as well as black converses or Vans. They usually have dyed black hair with bangs that swept to the side that may cover an eye or both eyes.

The Loner
A person who avoids and does not seek other human interaction and usually prefers to be alone, there are many reasons why a loner may seek solitude such as religious or philosiphical beliefs or they may be extremly shy and introverted.

More recently in popular culture the idea of the loner has become quite romantic within storys since he or she is seen as very special and unique. As a result, the concept of a lonely hero is uasually a reccuring theme in films and novels.

The Otaku/weeaboo


The last group of people who are known to be outcasts amongst society and have recently grown over the recent years are otaku/weeaboos.

A weeaboo is someone who is known to be obsessed with Japan, Japanese Culture, Anime, and everything that is japanese, and an otaku is a japanese term for someone who is obsessed with videogames, anime and manga, basically, the east asian version of a geek.

so this is the basis of the characters we want for our film.

Translation Check! O.D.D ~Original Dysfunctional Doofuses~

Translation check! O.D.D

synopsis

The storyline follows a group of socially awkward friends and their journey in breaking through the status quo by becoming a band called O.D.D ~ Original dysfunctional doofuses~ and entering a world renowned competition for bands, that would get them their long overdue respect and appreciation from society.

We brainstormed our ideas surrounding the idea and teen film conventions such as the colours used which are quite alot of bright colours, representation of characters such as the misfits, outcasts and popular teens and other elements implemented within the genre like romance, comedy and drama.

We decided that our location for the film would be in st.martins in the field and we decided on a possible cast, which would be some of our friends.

Translation check! O.D.D, explores friendships, passions and the uniqueness of everyone. so the point of the film is to show that deep deep deep down inside everyone has something very strange aswell as awkward about them and that weird is the new normal and normal is the new weird.





peace and love!

Mood Board for our target audience

As we decided as a group to make a teen movie, it only makes sense that our target audience are teens. But there are two types of groups amongst teenagers, such as the outcasts and the popular kids.

our film being heavily focused on characters who are outcasts, our film would relate more to them, as opposed to someone who socially fits in. so we looked at the contrast of these two groups and it gave us time to reflect on how unique our chosen target audience is!



Tosin

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