Romance Opening - "10 Things I Hate About You"

10 Things I Hate About You

Opening of this film is massively stereotypical; not only to romance genre but to how people perceive school and teenagers to be. Typical popular girls in their convertible car match conventions, although as the other car pulls up stereotypes are challenged. As the new boy is being shown around there is supposedly all these social groups within a high school, which are never accurate and finally as he sees this beautiful girl that he is astounded by her beauty, classical music starts to play confirming the genre as romance.

We focus on a few characters, the guidance councillor who obviously doesn’t care for students as she should, she used rude language around the pupils and is more interested on writing a novel, reflecting why the behaviour of the students is poor. Leading on to our next main character, a teenage girl with very opinionated views, she doesn’t care for he appearance like the other girls, she is an outcast with her different music, clothing and approach to school. Seems well educated as she is talking about books during English, she seems to get frustrated with the level of intelligence shown by her fellow pupils suggesting she may think she is better than them. We also focus on 2 boys, one being the new boy who moves from school to school a lot, he falls straight in love with the prettiest girl in school despite the challenges it may bring. Finally we are introduced to the rebellious troubled outcast boy with his no care attitude towards school, it is obvious already that they two troubled teens are most likely to fall in love.

Sound presented at the start is rocky electric music symbolising youth, a teenage rap song takes over; these are all signs pointing towards this film being about teenagers and target audience being teenagers. As camera swaps to a popular girls car,  a normal pop song is playing whereas a rebellious song overpowers as we pan to a girl who obviously has different attitude to life and how she doesn’t “give a dam about her  bad reputation”  suggesting that she is an outcast in the high school scene.

As scene changes to the office the music stops while dialog continues, then non diegetic drum and guitar music starts as he is being shown to all the stereotypical social groups. This is because when the adults are present in a scene the music played is not fitted to the setting therefore it stops, and then carries on when they are in the hallway. When he sees a girl music changes to romance song confirming the genre. Then to finish a diegetic school bell cuts out the music. Now they are in a classroom there is no music only talking because there’s a adult present in the scene.

                 Establishing shot opens the movie showing an area outside of the city suggesting this is a normal school, containing normal people. Opening credits are very quirky and fun showing that the target audience is for teenagers. Medium shot of two cars pulling up has the effect of showing the audience to two different types of girls whom attend this school. Close up shot of the girls in the car as they roll their eyes to the other girl showing that they don’t like her and that she isn’t popular. Followed by an over the shoulder shot of the main girl ripping down a prom poster giving the impression that she hates school events which involve popularity status. Now in the office a two shot of the boys as their paths cross, the shorter and more vulnerable one seems afraid of this raged looking teen. Camera then follows this new boy around as he is getting a tour by another student, we focus mainly on them but also pay attention to the groups of people and how they are interpreted through their clothes and lifestyle choices. Medium shot of the boys with people walking past behind them, we now have a feel to how this high school setting is.

Slow motion medium shot of a girl takes the attention away from the boys,  as she walks past the camera we go back to the boys seeing his reaction. Effect of slow motion is to suggest that for the new boy what he has just seen was so beautiful that it occurred slow motion to him, this is also to symbolise that she is a main character. Two shot of the girls as they are talking, we immediately see that they don’t have a high intellectual level as they are talking about very superficial things. Fitting in with the stereotypes of high school girls. Finishing with a high angle shot of classroom setting showing a clash of opinions between two students.