After investigating simple genre conventions and coming up with a basic plot for the portfolio project, I know what to specifically look for while watching more coming-of-age/drama openings and techniques.
Coming-of-age characteristics
What truly makes a coming-of-age film what it is is the heavy character development of a young protagonist. They typically go through a path to grow in maturity using heavy dialogue instead of entertaining action. This means that the conflict is always internal, character vs. self. Some common elements include identity crisis (not fully understanding who you are, experimenting), a mix of comedy and drama, "escaping" their comfort zone or childhood, and outcasts trying to fit in. What I mostly want to focus on for the film is escaping from what your life used to be; I will expand on this next week while developing a plot outline. Films typically use visual metaphors to showcase internal struggles.
 |
| Ex: The Florida Project uses a decaying house to represent losing their fragile childhood innocence |
The Florida Project, displayed above, is a great example of a coming-of-age film. Through Moonee, the audience learns the importance of creativity and imagination in children, even when living in a harsh reality such as poverty. Even when facing their worst moments, they can imagine a world where they can enjoy their childhood. I decided to rewatch the opening scene for this film to inspire myself for the credits. However, I honestly disliked the opening. It was very bland, only showing a frame of a purple wall while displaying the credits. Although it gives the credits a full focus, I don't think it would work as a good inspiration for my opening.
One of my favorite opening scenes that follow the common characteristics of a coming-of-age opening is The Half of It. It uses basic and small fonts, as many of them do. Through editing it also mixes the credits with the real scene, such as blurring the text when the camera changes focus. I will definitely try to incorporate this blend in the opening, since I am doing the editing for it. While looking for the credits scene, I also came across one of the best videos I think I could possibly find for technique inspiration. Alice Wu, the director of The Half of It, broke down the sequence.
Around the timestamp 3:40, she explains how she uses different aspects of mise-en-scene and editing to display Ellie's isolated world. Here are the most important aspects I feel like would be great inspiration for my opening:
Color scheme - Wu explains that she created a set color pallet for Ellie's home with bland, grounded colors contrasting with the bright and vivid colors in her high school. It emphasizes how different her home life is compared to other teenagers and their school life. I will definitely try to create a color pallet to emphasize the girl's feelings and home life compared to her friend's personalities and feelings.
Text messages onscreen - Wu points out that she never really shoots phone screens; she instead makes parts of the phone pop up onscreen. It shows how much phones truly blend into reality, and at the same time it is an entire world of its own, where teenagers can be as cruel as they want. This can be incorporated into my opening as phones are a huge effect in teenager's lives, especially in films like coming of age.
I could rant forever about techniques from that video that inspire me with my credit openings. However, as I was looking for other film openings within the genre, I came across a really creative title sequence. Waves, a drama film, blended in their title with the sunlight of the scene itself.
While finding more information about this sequence I came across a website discussing the creation of the title along with some images of the opening credits of the film. You can find it here. One of the best parts about this is that the flickering title was inspired by the "Florida feeling." The film Waves was filmed in my county, so I could take advantage of this and create a similar feeling to show that the film will become darker later on.
No comments:
Post a Comment