Analysing a film opening

Last Media lesson, we were told to bring in DVD that fits our genre and may help us with our own Film Opening which was Teen Comedy. We decided to bring in American Pie Beta House.

Below, under the following headings "Conventions" "Titles", "Audience", "Representation", I will show you what we found in the opening 10 minutes.

Conventions

The film opens with a wide angle shot of a city, with a car coming towards the camera, as we see this, the titles appear on screen in big bold and brown letters (the name of the company who has made the film, but it does not show the actors name, this, I presume will be in the ending credits) , and as the car continues coming towards the screen, the titles also change to American Pie Beta House. It then changes to a close up of a teenage man and his father, in a rather funny situation as, abnormally they are talking about having sex, and how 'on campus there will be lots of things to bang'
Sex (Many of the scenes contain, or make referance to sex, this can help our film as we now know what the selected audience are interested in, and find funny)

Embarrasing parents ( The main characters father is very crude and open about his sexual endeavours, this also could help as it could create some very funny moment in our own film)

Embarrasing encounter with a girl (The main character meets a cute girl, and makes a fool of himself by peeing on his trousers. As our film is about detention, this could help as two characters could flirt with eachother, but leads to an embarrasing situation)

Embarrasing encounter with new friend (When he goes back to change his trousers, his new dorm buddy is having sex with a girl)

Parties (Many of the scenes contain outrageous parties)

Two enemy sides ( The Betas & The Geeks)

Drunkenness (This is very much like parties, where people just get drunk for the sake of it. One of the characters in the film could be drunk, which is cause for their detention)

Moving to a new place E.G college. (Start of a new era of someone's life, new place, new people ETC. This could also help, as one of the characters could be new, and forced to get in trouble by older students, and wrongfully gets put in detention.)

Funny incident (When the new dorm buddies girlfriend is choking on a chewing gum, the main character tries to give her the Heimleich Manouver, which looks like some sort of dodgy sex position, and his Father walks in)

Popular & unpopular people (Betas being popular and Geeks not)

Nudity (Most girls in the film are topless, or fully naked, typical of many teen comedys)



Titles

Big and brown, they show the name of companys who helped make the film, but NOT the actors names


Audience
Typical of a very controversial teen comedy, it has an 18 tag, however, the audience for this film, typically, is late teenagers, early 20's.


Representation
Sex mad (Virtually every scene contains sex, but as it is a comedy, these have a comical twist)

Girls only after money from Geeks (Girls are stereotyped as people who are only after money, and will do anything for it)

Party mad (As they are teens, they are stereotyped as wanting parties)