Opening Scene Analysis!

Hello! We have finally decided what genre that we are going to do. We have decided to do coming-of-age! I love coming-of-age movies, and one of our assignments is to analyse 3 film openings. The movies that I chose are Lady Bird, Pitch Perfect, and Easy A. All of these movies have different subgenres within the overall coming-of-age umbrella. It is important to pull different movies from the genre to be able to widely understand it as a whole. 

Lady Bird (2017) Directed by Greta Gerwig

The opening scene of Lady Bird is really important because we learn the relationship that she has with her mother early on. The opening scene of her lying close to her mother in the hotel bed leads us to believe that they have a close relationship. This is further proved in the car when they both bond over the audiobook. Things rapidly change when they begin to talk about college and they get into a fight,

which leads Lady Bird to jump out of a moving car. The film Lady Bird takes a dramatic subgenre of the coming-of-age genre. In this opening scene, we also get to understand Lady Bird and her mother's character. Lady Bird is painted as an obedient child by wearing floral pajamas, but a hint of rebellion is shown through her painted nails and her colored hair. The audience will eventually learn that she values liberal arts and wants to go to a college that focuses on that. This is displayed through her costuming and her dialogue. Making our opening scene similar to the theme and subgenre of Lady Bird can be a good option, but we need to make sure that we properly represent and introduce our main character. 

Pitch Perfect (2012) Directed by Jason Moore

This film's opening scene is drastically different from Lady Bird's. The approach of Pitch Perfect is more of a comedy subgenre instead of drama. This movie can be considered a musical movie due to the huge presence of a cappella. This opening scene follows the Barden Bellas and the Treblemakers during their performance. It immediately sets the high-pressure setting of competing in collegiate a cappella, while also focusing on the character of Aubrey. She is shown to be a very anxious person which is

shown through her actions at the end of her solo. The opening scene helps set the tone for the rest of the movie by showing a high-stakes situation, while also working in comedy. Despite the opening scene not introducing the main character Becca, it still does a good job of showing the world and a preview of Becca's experience being in the Barden Bellas. We need to look at the comedic lens of a coming-of-age film to get potential ideas for our opening scene, while also making sure that it doesn't come off as cringy. 

Easy A (2010) Directed by Will Guck

This film, similar to Pitch Perfect, focuses a lot on the aspect of comedy within coming-of-age films.

 This opening scene displays the stereotypical high school environment that is usually displayed in the media, while also showing off the setting of the film. The film quickly introduces the main character Olive Penderghast as the narrator of the story. Her narration can serve as a foreshadowing of the future events that happen in the film by telling the audience what happened but without detail, letting the audience stay engaged with the film. This film also highlights important topics that happen in everyday life, more specifically the dangers of gossip since Olive's life spirals out of control after she tells her best friend a lie. This was an important film to choose from since it can be easily relatable to people in high school, and we can gather different ideas from it. Something that can be incorporated is the shots of Olive talking to her video camera. 

We made sure to pick movies of characters who are transitioning from high school to college or already attending college since my partners relate to that the most, and we can get our target audience of older teenagers for this film. It's important to gather coming-of-age films that tackle different topics and subgenres so we have a wider view and idea of what to do with our own film opening.