Superbad analysis

The film Superbad is about a group of three teenagers trying to lose their virginity before they start college. The teenagers Seth, Evan and Fogell all attend high school and are about to graduate, all of them unpopular get surprisingly invited to a graduation party and knowing that the girls they like will be attending the party Seth is determined to get alcohol with the help of Fogell and his fake ID.

Things immediately take a turn for the worse when Seth finds out the name that Fogell is going to use on his fake ID "McLovin" and plans to shoplift the store instead but chickens out at the last minute so Fogell tries his luck. While outside the store Seth and Evan are distracted by a woman walking down the street and miss the robbery of the liquor store and assume that Fogell has been caught because of the police questioning him inside. Annoyed by this Seth panics and is hit by a car, the drivers say he'll do anything if they don't contact the police so Seth uses him to buy alcohol for himself and Evan and then a lift to the party. Arriving at the party the driver of the car is beaten up and Evan if fuming that Seth has taken him to a dangerous party.

Meanwhile Fogell with the police officers has not been arrested but is drinking with them at a bar and ends up spending the night with them. The cops run into the other teens at the party and try to arrest them so Fogell with the alcohol along with Seth and Evan get the bus the to the actual graduation party. The girls are already there and heavily drunk, Evan realises that Becca is trying to advance on him so he refuses and says he wants their relationship to be more than physical. While Seth finds out that Jules' will only have sex with him if they are both sober and passes out knocking Jules' and giving her a black eye. The officers who were with Fogell bust the party and find Fogell about to have sex with a girl, Officer Slater is angry that Fogell left them and tells him that he knew his ID was fake but let him go because he hated cops when he was their age, they agree to be friends and to try and impress the girl the officers drag Fogell out and pretend to arrest him and drive off. They end up doing donuts in a car park in the squad car.

Seth and Evan go home and make pizzas and climb in their sleeping bags, saying they love each others as friends, the next day they got shopping and bump into Becca and Jules. Becca thanks Evan for what he did at the party and Seth apologises to Jules for how he behaved. Seth and Evan end up being comfortable apart.

This picture is taken from a scene in Superbad, it is a over the shoulder shot of a police officer with a teenager also in shot, The shot is normally used when two characters are having a discussion and allows the audience to engage. In this specific shot you get to see what the officer is looking at but you also get to see the worry on the boys face at the same time. In this scene the boy is trying to buy alcohol underage with fake ID when a robbery takes place and the police are called in. You can clearly see in this shot that the teenager is worried and looks scared as he knows he is breaking the law, i believe that this is stereotypical of most teenagers in this situation as they would also be worried because they know that they can be in serious trouble. The lighting in this shot is bright and high key which brings a bit of humour to the scene as it isn't very dark and is not serious.

In this photo from Superbad three teens are at a house party drinking alcohol, this is a stereotype from boys of their age as most teen males who get invited to a party are going to grab a chance to drink and party with a load of people. The shot is a mid-close up as you only see them from the waist up and can't really see whats around them, The setting is set at a house clearly showing a house party, it connotes that the teenagers are normal lads trying to have fun. The lighting in this shot is quite dim and not very bright but this does not represent accuracy for the scene as it is not a serious scene and indeed is very lighthearted and humorous. The 3 characters in shot are wearing t-shirts and hoodies, this is another stereotype as most average teenagers like to wear this style of clothing as it seen as "cool". 

Mean Girls

Mean girls is about a girl called Cady Heron who moves from Africa to start high school in America. Being home-schooled in Africa by her Zoologist parents she returns to America to attend her first day in public school of which she isnt prepared. With the help of Janis and Damien, Cady learns about the various groups around school. She is warned to avoid the school's most exclusive group, the Plastics, led by the Regina George. The Plastics start to like Cady and start to invite her to sit with them at lunch and go shopping with them after school. While knowing Cady has been accepted into the Plastics, Janis creates a plan to get revenge on Regina.

Having gotten herself involved with the Plastics Cady learns about a "Burn Book." This notebook is Regina's top secret notebook filled with vicious rumors, secrets, and gossip about all the other girls in their class. Cady soon falls in love with Regina's ex-boyfriend, Aaron Samuels, who Regina steals back from Cady by being jealous. Hurt and frustrated, Cady continues with Janis' plan, which involves cutting off Regina separating her from Aaron and turning Regina's fellow Plastics, Gretchen Wieners and Karen Smith against her. Cady starts to fail in maths to get Aaron's attention and end up kissing, She soon tells Aaron about Regina seeing another boy. Cady also tricks Regina into eating a high-calorie nutrition bar by saying that they actually help her lose weight when in reality it makes her gain weight.

In her efforts to get revenge on Regina, Cady starts to lose her personality and remakes herself in the image of Regina. She soon becomes as nasty as Regina, no longer seeing Janis and Damien and focusing more on her image.

Regina responds by spreading the entire contents of her Burn Book around the school. To avoid suspicion, Regina inserts fake stuff about herself in order to focus blame on Cady and the rest of them. The riot which kicks off is eventually stopped by Principal Duvall. Ms. Norbury, who appears in the Burn Book makes the girls realize that all of them are guilty of hurting each other, She has each girl confess and apologise to the rest of the girls. When Janis' turn comes, Regina makes an insulting joke about her sexuality and the crowd laughs. Janis retaliates by confessing her plan to destroy Regina with Cady's help and mocks Regina with the support of the entire school. Regina storms out and gets hit by a school bus. Rumors then circulate that Cady actually pushed Regina in front of the bus.

Cady decides to make amends by taking full blame for the Burn Book in which she returns to her old personality.

At the Spring Fling dance, Cady is elected Spring Fling Queen, but in her acceptance speech, she declares her victory is meaningless. As a gesture she breaks her tiara and shares the pieces with her classmates. Cady makes up with Janis and Damien and Aaron.

The film ends with the Plastics going their separate ways. Regina joins the lacrosse team, Karen becomes the school weather girl, Gretchen joins the asians, and Cady hangs out with Damien and Janis.

I think that this film would appeal to teenage girlsfrom about 14 up as there is alot of stuff in the film which can be related to in real life such as bullying and break ups, this means it really engages the audience.

What have i learnt when creating a film?

We were given a task to split into small groups of 3-5 people and create a swede version of a popular film, A swede is a low budget remake of a well known film. We had to plan the setting, actors and props in which we had one week to get this organised. The main aim of this task was to help us understand how to learn the basics of creating a film, 
from planning the film and then actually filming it. 

When we had decided who was in what groups we had to plan our film and decide what film we were going to do, my group choose The Hunger Games. Once we discussed what film we were doing we had to plan it, since we had no budget we would have to make our own props or bring them from home. We then had to plan who was going to bring in the props and who needed them in the film. After that was sorted we needed to decide how many people were going to star in the film so we discussed how many actors we may need to use and when they were going to be available to film. We also had to think about the setting of the film for where it was going to be shot, we decided on one overall location of the back of our school field as The Hunger Games is mainly filmed outside it was pretty much decided straight away. Once all the this was done it was the matter of figuring out a story-line for our film but because of the time limit we mainly did this on the day of filming.

Before we went out to film we had to discuss risk assessments on what could go wrong while filming and then what we could do to prevent these risks from happening and also we discussed how to use the equipment properly. Some of the main risks that came up were tripping over things, falling over and getting the equipment damaged. We then created some ideas on how to avoid these problems, firstly we said how to avoid falling or tripping this was by everyone agreeing that you should be aware of your surroundings and aware of other people. We then discussed how to work the equipment properly and safely, this meant we would learn how to use the camera properly and how to use the tripod legs for the camera. This helped while walking around to be safe and while filming to help us get them better the best shots we could, Within our group we used a wide variety of shots like close ups, mid shots, long shots and panning.

Finally we had to make sure we were on time. We struggled with this as while we were filming our camera ran out of charge so this meant that we had a large amount of time lost when trying to film, luckily we went back and used a spare one but this meant we were struck for time and we had to be quick to film it. Another problem was getting all the actors at the same time as some were were busy and came late which again meant we didn't have much time to film.

Overall I think our film was a success considering all the problems we faced when trying to film.