Reflective Anaysis

For my short film, I focused on the genre: teenage/romance.

I choose two teenagers to be the main characters because it is a convention of teenage films for the characters to be from 13-19 to make them more relatable to the audience- older children and teenagers. A very common convention within the teen/romance genre is 'boy meets girl' which is what I wanted to focus on in my film. I also incorporated the stereotypes within teenagers which are used a lot within the genre. I wanted the boy to be quiet and needy and for the girl to be more popular and beautiful so that she had all the boys chasing after her.
In the first few shots of the scene, I used close up on his actions and made the shots short and fast to suggest there's tension within his movements. I also made sure that you could see the background in the shots so that it established the setting of a teenager alone in his home which is an important convention of a romance film; when a couple are going through conflict and are separated by having an argument or disagreement. In my film I wanted the conflict/separation to be about someone cheating because I thought I could use parallel editing and two shots to create the divide between the boy and the girl.

 In the first opening seconds I used a close up of  the boys phone to show what he was sending to his girlfriend and that he was distressed about something to do with her. This narrated the beginning of the story without there being any dialogue which gives hints early on suggesting that she's going to cheat and show what the girls character is like.
Another good use of close ups was the shot of the glass bottle being thrown at the wall in slow motion. I think it was an effective shot because it symbolises how their love and trust has been shattered which links to the common convention of the romance genre; a separation.
I found it hard to capture the girlfriend cheating on her partner without using dialogue to explain it so I had to use a sequence of close ups to narrate it instead. I think an effective shot was of the boy ripping open the condom packet, I did this to imply to the audience that they were going to have sex which meant the girlfriend would be cheating.

I used fast pace editing to show the tense atmosphere building between the two characters and shoot the girl walking in the opposite direction to the boy to show how she's turned her back on him and that she's walking away to someone new.
In the sequence when It shows the girlfriend cheating, I capture the two lovers in a two shot which shows that they're got a close, intimate relationship. This contrasts to the way the boyfriend and girlfriend are captured in two different shots which shows their distance.

I used lots of parallel editing in my film as well because it is a common convention in romance films for a scene to show the characters feelings/emotions/pain/love/failed relationships. I used parallel editing to show juxtaposition between the couples emotions at that particular moment in time. In the edits, you can see the boyfriend's anger building up almost as if he can see what is happening even though he can't. The way that I've made the edits short and fast builds up tension and creates the feeling  that a huge separation will happen as the two characters fall out of love with each other.

I tried to pick out my settings carefully to match the tone and mood of the scene. I filmed the scenes with the boyfriend in places with abandoned and run down Mis-en-scene to match the distressed nature that the boy was showing through his body language. I tried to shoot the girlfriend in settings that were quite plain to keep her mysterious and not give any details away due to her secretive and bad behaviour. This is also linked up to the way I directed her to look on edge and paranoid whenever she was travelling from one destination to the other.
I think I could've improved my scene by including flash backs and memories of happier times to show deeper emotions felt by the boyfriend. I think I could've made more focus on the girlfriend cheating on her boyfriend by adding more close ups in to add more context.