Further Research

The Best and Worst of Teen Movies

I conducted further research into teen films and what makes them successful and attracts audiences to watch them. I came across some videos on YouTube that counted down the top ten best teen films voted by the public and taking into consideration the films overall success, annotating carefully what makes this film deserving of a top ten.

Watching this video was very useful in terms of looking into these particular films and finding out what they hall had in common. As you can see not all of them are comedy's such as 'The Perks of Being A Wallflower' a film about how mental health affects teenagers and 'Juno' a film about teenage pregnancy, yet they contained mild comedic lines that helped with the convention of comedy in teen films. Another thing I noticed about all these films that are in the comedy genre is that they all contain story lines and situations that have the same difference. Some of these situations include teenage relationships, Friday night parties and school problems. All of these situations are portrayed in a comic way and I realized that this is, perhaps to adults, teenagers are funny and everything that they do seems like the most important thing in the world at the time to them but in reality its not and that is why its entertaining to watch. This is like the audience is laughing at the characters not with them because their situations are storms in teacups. I took this though into consideration when filming my opening sequence. When Sydney is dancing in the mirror I intended the audience to be laughing at her not with her and when her parents storm into her room Sydney makes a big deal over a small situation and an otherwise kind gesture. This adds onto the convention list and will hopefully make my film more relate able to existing media. 

There was another video I watched that was the top ten worst teen movies of all time. This was also useful as I made sure to watch carefully and pick out what it was about these particular films that made them unsuccessful and dull so that I could avoid it in my film.

From this video, I noticed that the majority are squeals or franchises such as 'Bring It On','Hannah Montana', 'Dumb and Dumber' and the 'Twilight' franchise. That is not something I need to worry about with my film. However this trait in unsuccessful teen films did not surprise me as sequels are almost never as high grossing or successful as the originals and the audiences are fast at predicting this and almost always guarantee that they will not enjoy the spin of as much as the original. Yet there are films in this video that just flopped for reasons such as:

1. "Lacks redeeming quality's"
2. "Has little acting talent"
3. "Story's are painfully unoriginal"
4. "To say the screenplay sucks is an understatement"
5. "Graced with characters we never grow to care about"
6. "Dull script"
7. "Jokes that mostly fall flat"
8. "Uninspired script"
9. "Plots are overworked, cliche and shallow"
10. "Plot points obuserd and soundtrack exasperating"
11. "Unconvincing performances, muddled plot and an incomprehensible ending"
12. "Unabashqonaly clunky dialogue, uncomfortable romantic scenes, most awkward interactions between characters and the longest running times filled with the most bland and expressionless characters"  

Furthermore most of the films on this list don't seem to be aiming to be funny and lighthearted. For example the 'Twilight' franchise, even though it was a "huge success" the actual ratings and reviews were slating the films. In this video, it is critercised for being "unfunny". Comedy is a trait in teen films, even if the film is not intended to be a comedy, there are a few punchlines and funny jokes that need to be thrown in to keep the teenage audience who have an attention span one second less than a goldfish entertained and engaged with the film. Twilight clearly lacked this with its "dull acting" and slow story line.

Another thing I noticed about these films when I researched into them was that a lot of them don't have a relevant story line or sincere message to teach their teenage target audience. For example 'Material Girls', 'Bring It On', 'Boys and Girls' and 'Get Over It'. In all these films there is no deep message to the target audience about they way they live or treat each other. A reason why Mean Girls was such a success was because of the message it gives to the audience. The message that mean girls gives is to be yourself and dont hide behind an act of someone else. As in the movie all the characters turn out to be completely different to when they were first introduced because they realized that it was okay to be themselves. Other films that give out this message include 'Wild Child', 'The Duff', 'LOL' and 'Easy A'. My film also holds this trait as Sydney finds out she never needed her 'Alter Ego' to be happy and she finds at the end of the film people accept her for the way she is. Material Girls for example has no message behind it that low key gives a good life lesson. Therefore the target audience didn't click with it as much and found it irrelevant when comparing it to their own lives. 

When I created a story synopsis I put a lot of though into my film ark to make sure I create a decent plot and story line so that my film wouldn't fall under this category.

Teen Comedy Mood Board

Teen Comedys At The Box Office

I decided to look at the website Box Office Mojo to investigate what teen movies are the most successful and least successful and to look more into the approximate budget and grossing for this genre of film.
On the Box Office Moho website, I looked under the category 'Comedy-High School'.

As you can see 21 Jump Street is the most successful teen comedy or high school comedy to date. When I looked more into this film, I gathered that there were multiple reasons why this film was the most successful. Firstly the actors. Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill star in this teen comedy, they are both well known in the media and are considered comic actors. Channing Tatum was seen as being the "eye candy" in this film to attract young female to watch it. Jonah Hill was considered the more laughable character and he has a huge advantage in a film like this with his previous success with the film 'Superbad' which came second on the teen comedy box office.

Ways I Would Advertise My Teen Comedy 

Because my films target audience is teenagers I decided that social media would be an excelent way to advertise my film. I would pay Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr etc... to sponser my film on their website so that the eye of my target audiecne is attracted. I would also use YouTube adverts to draw in a wider range of audience. Peopl of all ages watch YouTube therefore broadcasting my film out on YouTube would draw in a bigger audiecne for my film.

 I also think magazines are a good way of getting your film out in the media so that people pay more attention to it. If I were to put an advertsement for my film in magazines I would make sure to look into the magazines target audiences and vary the audience.
 I would put my ad in a tween pop magazine (Go Girl, Girl Talk...) These magazines would draw in my younger audience of around 12-15 years old. 

 Another magazine I would push for my film to be advertised in is teen fashion and pop magazines. This is probably the most important magazine for the ad to be in as most of my target audience would read this magazine therfore they will be most intrested in the film. These magazines would draw in most of my target audience of around 15-19

I would also want my film to be advertised in slightly older magazines such as Glamour and Elle. My target audiences streaches from 12-28 years old, these magazines would be attracting the older target audience of 19-28 year olds. 

All these magazines have one thing in common and that is that they are aimed at females and that is because my film would not fit in a male magazine such as mens health it would look out of proportion with the rest of the magazine. Furthermore my films main target audience is females and so by putting my ad in media aimed at females it would definatly get the most interest.


Other media and press I would use to advertise my film are radio adverts and tv adverts.

I carried out a survey using survey monkey to ask questions about what kind of advertisment gets the public eye and what advertisments are looked over. 

I found from this that most people use Facebook most as a form of social media followed up by Instagram and Snapchat which came under 'Other'. From this I decided I should focus on these three main social media to advertise my film as they will definatly get the most attention and attract the most audiecne. A bonus to advertising on these socail media is that I also found that the majority of people do actually watch or read the advertisments or sponsers on these social medias. I found that TV ads, radio ads and YouTube ads are watched "a little" and people avoid them as much as they can especially on YouTube. Therefore I have come to the conclusion that public advertisments especially YouTube ads are probably not the best solution as people think they are "annoying" and "irrelevant", if my film were to be shown in these terms people will most likely assosaite my film as being annoying because of the advertisments and might discourage them to see it.