Teenage Movie Madness

Now that our team has decided on an overall genre, teenage drama with a hint of suspense, it was time to conduct some serious research on all that teenage drama movies entail. In order to be successful, teenage drama movies usually include some sort of "rite of passage," which is a turning point in a person's life. Usually, rites of passage are developed throughout the entirety of a movie and the crucial event that leads to a turning point is not reached until the end of the film. Although we will not be able to reach this event within the first couple minutes of our film, we can include foreshadowing that would ultimately lead to this rite of passage. Another important element that should be captured in our film is the essence of being a teenager. This includes the typical teenage struggles, speech (such as teenage slang) and lifestyle choices--being teenagers ourselves it should be pretty easy to accomplish this.

Many teenage drama movies are so popular because of how relatable they are to young audiences. Characters face simple issues that are not too far off from what normal teenagers face. For example, one of the most iconic teenage drama movies, "Mean Girls" is an exaggerated comedy about a girl trying to fit in and survive high school. A concept as simple as this, along with an insanely humorous script and attractive actors, has made "Mean Girls" a staple teenage movie. "Mean Girls" also effectively combines humor and drama. This is especially important because although we decided it would be too difficult to focus on the genre of comedy itself, we do possibly want to incorporate some aspects of comedy into our film opening. Hopefully, we can embrace our inner comedians and conjure up a couple laugh-worthy lines in our script.

Martin, Daniel. “What Makes a Truly Great Teen Flick.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 31 Jan. 2008, www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2008/jan/31/thejunomachinehasarrived.

Brody, Richard. “Why ‘Mean Girls’ Is a Classic.” The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 3 Oct. 2018, www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/why-mean-girls-is-a-classic.