Wild Child

 

Characters

Poppy Moore

A stereotypical spoilt teenage girl from California, Poppy lives in luxury until her father sends her to an English boarding school.  Her life is suddenly completely different and she finds it difficult to adapt to a new lifestyle. Poppy is represented as spoilt and childish, until she makes friends with Kate, Drippy, Kiki and Josie. Under their influence she changes to be more mature and a nicer person.  Her character seems confident but also has a vulnerable side and faces everyday teenage problems, such as relationship problems. Many of the target audience will find these issues relatable.

Freddie Kingsley

Freddie is the headmistress’s son and is also Poppy Moore’s love interest, and later on her boyfriend. He is a stereotypical attractive male with blonde hair, British accent, and natural good looks. This would attract the target audience of female teenagers.

 

Harriet Bentley

As head girl of Abbey Mount Harriet takes her role very seriously, she is the antagonist of the film and with her stuck-up and pretentious attitude she and Poppy straight away dislike each other.  

Poppy’s friends

Drippy, Kate, Kiki and Josie are Poppy’s new found friends and are protagonists within the film. They are all close loyal friends, but are represented as less dominant, pretty and cool than Poppy.

Settings

Poppy’s house in California

The first part of the film is set in California at Poppy’s house. It is a stereotypical large, wealthy glamorous house with a swimming pool overlooking the sea. It’s all very clean and precise, it’s the kind of place you stereotypically associate with a character like Poppy, popular, spoilt and rich.

Abbey Mount

The school is also a main setting in the film, it is stereotypical English mansion and shows the contrast between her life in California and England. It looks dull, gloomy, yet posh and well looked after. It has pillars showing that it is expensive and therefore suggests the school has a high standard. Inside is also well decorated with stereotypical English Boarding school features, such as wooden panelled floors, wide staircases and book shelves.

Dormitory

The girls all share a room, it’s plain, simple and is the first place where the girls begin to bond. Very different from the rest of the school, it appears friendlier and looks like a stereotypical dormitory with simple furnishing and plain single beds.  

Mise-en-scene

Clothing

Poppy’s clothing is very stereotypical, she wears expensive designer brands and carries bags from Chanel. She also wears sunglasses despite the fact it’s dark and raining. This shows she has a sense in fashion with expensive taste. It also makes her stand out from everyone else with her expensive clothing, shoes and numerous flashy accessories. Even when forced to wear a school uniform she has customised it so it’s shorter and more stylish, she also wears heels with it. This is a countertype to what you expect to see in a high standard, English boarding school.

Her friends however wear a plain, boring school uniform, with sensible shoes and their hair up, showing they respect the schools standards and do not care about their looks.  The way they dress is iconography for a girls boarding student. They wear long tartan patterned skirts and a grey blazer.

All the girls have basic, cheap mobile phones whilst Poppy has multiple iPhone’s. This shows the contrast between them and that poppy values expensive things more than the rest of them.

Camera Shots

A variety of camera shots are used in the film, there are numerous close-ups on Poppy's clothing and expensive accessories. Eye level shots are used between Harriet and Poppy to show the tension and dislike between them. Establishing shots are used to show Abbey Mount to portray that it is dull yet magnificent.

Lighting

Low key lighting is used in England whilst high key lighting is used in California. this shows the contrast in environment and also the atmosphere at the beginning.  The use of a lighter when the rest of the room is in the dark shows signifies the importance of what you can see. Which in this case is Poppy, it represents her isolation and loneliness.

 

Narrative

Poppy is sent to England boarding school after her father reaches fed up of her childish behaviour. She starts off as an outcast, believing she is above everyone, however she soon makes friends with the girls she shares a room with. However she still hates life in England is determined to return home. Between the girls they come out with a plan to get Poppy expelled. It begins with childish pranks such as filling the swimming pool with red dye and re-recording over their teacher’s lesson. Things are then taken a step further and she knows the only way she will be expelled is to ‘snog Freddie.’ As the headmistresses son she knows this will get her kicked out once and for all. However she begins to enjoy her life at Abbey Mount and after getting to know Freddie realises she actually likes him and wants to stay. After playing with her LA lighter, she accidently sets fire to a curtain, she puts it out and goes to bed. Harriet see’s this and goes back to restart the fire, when the fire spreads out of control she frames it on Poppy. Poppy turns herself in thinking she was to blame, not knowing Harriet had re-started it. She finds herself in Honour Court fearing being expelled. After nearly being kicked out it is discovered that Harriet was to blame. Harriet is expelled and Poppy continues to board at Abbey Mount. The film ends with a stereotypical happy ending, where she wins over the antagonist, and ends up with the boy.  Her father also comes to visit and is shocked to see how much she has changed into a mature women.

Mean girls summary (2004)

 

Mean girls is a stereotypical American teen angst film. Cady Heron is a home schooled teenager who’s grown up in Africa. When her parents move to America and decide to get her “socialised” she suddenly finds herself in a completely new environment. She joins North Shore high school innocent and naïve, but that doesn’t last long, she quickly finds herself influenced by her peers.

Starting school as an outcast, alone and vulnerable she is soon taken in by Janis Ian and Damien, two other students considered also to be outcast, she soon begins to settle in and everything is going well until ‘The Plastics’ invite her to sit with them. Janis convinces her it will be a good idea and to spy on them to get back at Regina for ruining Janis’s life when they were younger. The plastics are considered royalty within North Shore, and Cady is quickly influenced by their spiteful ways. What started off as a prank of revenge has now changed into bitchy behaviour and Cady slowly becomes influenced by The Plastics therefore becoming one of them and, forgetting about her true friends.  

However Janis is still determined to seek her 8^th grade revenge and ruin Regina, with the help from Cady she discovers her secrets and uses them to turn everyone against her. They pull a number of pranks on Regina, such as replacing her face cream with foot cream and making her eat Cal Teen bars that make her gain weight. However Regina discovers their plan and frames Cady for writing ‘The Burn Book’ this is a book where the plastics have wrote mean things about the girls in their year. Cady is now most hated, not helped by the fact Regina is then hit by a bus and many people think she was pushed by Cady. Cady is still however voted spring fling queen (the equivalent to prom queen) makes a speech apologising to everyone she has hurt. She makes up with Janis and Damian, the Plastics split up and school continues peacefully.

The target audience for this film is teenage girls, they would be attracted to this film because it is relatable, it shows issues that the audience face within everyday life, it shows issues such as bullying, spitefulness between cliques and just everyday problems that teenage girls encounter. Another reason girls are attracted to this movie is the main boy within the film is attractive and good looking so many are drawn in by the presence of the good looking male with a kind personality. A teen angst often shows a stereotypical version of how life is shown to be, however it is often exaggerated. A common theme is parties, alcohol, drugs and sex. This attracts the audience as it is a more exciting version of life.

What have I learnt from making a film?

Task:

We got set a task in class to work in groups of 4-5 and produce a swede film. A swede film is a short recreation of a popular film using basic filming equipment and a limited budget. We were given 30 minutes to discuss ideas within our group and then plan our film. Over the next week we had to prepare props. We then had 30 minutes to film. We then got a lesson to begin editing. We were set this task to help us build a basic idea of how to make a film and edit it. The aim was not to make a brilliant film but to learn how to use the equipment and get a basic understanding of how to film and edit.

Planning:

The first problem we faced was during planning. Our group had chosen to do Harry Potter. For this we realised we needed props that we had no budget for. We had to make many of our props with the basic supplies we already had. For example we made glasses with paper and our wands were sticks we’d found outside. We also borrowed black cloth from our drama apartment to make cloaks. We also needed to find actors. We had to plan this advance as within our group we didn’t have enough people to play each character. We had to insure that people we asked were free during our allocated filming time. We planned a rough story board thinking about the plot of our film and which scenes would go in what order and also where we would film them. The location of each scene was difficult because it was obvious we were filming at school whereas the original setting of Harry Potter was in a castle and looked magical. However we worked around this by planning in advance where each scene would be set, trying to hide the actual setting in each scene, using props and different camera angles.

Risk assessment:

On the day of filming before we got started we had to discuss a risk assessment to avoid anyone getting hurt. As a class we discussed risks such as dropping and damaging the equipment, people falling over, and people being hit by doors or falling off chairs/tables etc. we then discussed ways to prevent these. We came up with; everyone walking carefully, no climbing on things and making sure to be careful whilst holding the equipment, making sure the tripods legs are always closed whilst moving.

Learning how to use the equipment:

Before we were allowed to leave and start filming we had to learn how to use the equipment. This meant learning to open and extend the tripods legs and how to attach the camera to it. By learning this it meant that there was less risk of damaging the equipment. We then learnt how to actually use the filming setting on the camera. This meant we could get the best shots and scenes possible.

Filming:

We then were let off to go and film. It had to be a 2-3 minute film and we had 8 short scenes within our swede. From making this film I learnt which camera shots and angles were appropriate for each scene. I got a better understanding of how to use and position the camera and the height of the tripod to be get the best shots.

Time management:

This is the part our group struggled the most with. We were given a very limited amount of time to film and found ourselves rushed to finish filming each scene. Especially as our scenes were all in different locations so not only did we have to film but we had to walk to and from settings. From this I learnt how to manage my time better and next time will have learnt from our mistake. I also learnt that planning was very key in time management as everyone has to know exactly what they’re doing when and where to avoid time wastage.