Since we were making the opening sequence for a romantic comedy which is targeted at girls between the ages of 12-22 we knew that we wanted our main protagonist to be a teenage girl whom audiences could relate to. We tried to represent this social group of "teenage females" in many ways in order to add depth to our character.
The first way in which we wanted to represent Naomi, the main female protagonist, was
confident. We tried to show this mainly through her costume. The very first shot in which we properly see Naomi is one where she is in a dressing gown, this in itself could show that she is confident in herself and in her body. When she writes her name in the mirror the idea that she quite likes herself is reaffirmed. When Naomi started to wear her clothes she chooses a short, tight skirt that would not be worn by someone who is not secure with their image. The bold red lipstick that Naomi applies is a direct signifier of Naomi's bold personality. Naomi's shoes are extremely high heels, which the entire female audience for our film would know are hard to walk in, and only someone who is confident and composed would be brave enough to wear. As well this, the fact that Naomi chose to wear the shoes in her room and walk down the starts in them, rather than putting them on before leaving the house shows her self-assurance; most people would only dare to wear heels like these on a night out where as we suggest that Naomi feels confident enough to use them on a day to day basis.
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| Confident |
Another way in which we wanted to represent our young female character was
girly; this may have been one of the easier ways in which to represent Naomi. The first thing we did in order to make our main character more seem more girly was place pink things in her room, for example her bedding. Pink is used as a universal signifier of femininity so our audiences would, maybe even subconsciously, associate Naomi with being girly. As well as this, we placed many effeminate items and props around Naomi's room such as the Vogue magazines and the romantic novels such as the iconic "50 Shades Of Grey" and a book called "50 ways to find a lover". Lastly, make up in itself is quite a feminine product since it represents women who take care in their appearance and "doll themselves up", rather than not wearing make up with is either associated with innocence or with more tomboyish girls. The font of the opening sequence is also quite girly since it is a handwriting style and the "i's" are dotted with little stars which is quite cute and feminine.
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| Girly |
We also wanted to represent Naomi as being slightly
flirtatious, however we didn't want her to come across as being promiscuous because we still wanted her to be a likeable character. We suggested that she was flirtatious through the text message that she receives from a boy named Aiden. Audiences could think that this is her boyfriend whom she is going to meet and although that is not who he is, she is still being represented how we wanted her to be. As well as this, the language in the text isn't the most affectionate, for example the word "babe"isn't something that girls particularly like being called as a pet name. We also made Naomi's character seem flirtatious though the pictures of her with boys which are places around her mirror. The first reaction people tend to have when they see a picture of a boy and girl together is that they are a couple, at least that is what we were hoping they would think. By having images of Naomi with many different boys it would suggest that she has a flirtatious nature. The last thing we did was include some sexual innuendoes; we were lucky to actually own items like these already which just happened to be useful for our film. I have a cream called "Glow Job" which is an obvious sexual innuendo for something else! ;) and Phoebe had a mascara called "Thick and Fast". We added these into our film to add some humour as well as show the playful and flirty side of Naomi. We wanted to have some sexual innuendoes in the film rather than having outright displays of sexual conduct firstly because it would not be appropriate for our target market, and secondly because we wanted Naomi to seem flirtatious rather than promiscuous because we still wanted her to be a likeable character which our audiences could relate too.
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| Flirtatious |
After deciding on Naomi's costume we realised that she gave off quite a
reckless quality. The leopard print on her shoes was one signifier of this. Leopard print is associated with being wild and care free so just having a hint of it on Naomi's shoes made her seem quite free and fun but without it being too much. Her leather jacket also helped give Naomi a daring quality, however by making the jacket brown we still maintained the girlyness rather than making her a "biker chick" or "rocker". To give a subtle hint of this dangerous side of Naomi, we added a black shadow behind our pink titles. Our thinking behind this was that Naomi is the sort of person who stands out from the crowd just as the black shadow makes the titles stand out and the shadow also gives the sense of mysteriousness and recklessness to the character.
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| Recklessness |
The ways in which we have chosen to represent our character is very stereotypical. We hope that when our target audience watches our opening sequence they will immediately associate the signifiers in our film with a teenage girl. Many young females will have seen character similar to Naomi in other romantic comedies so they will associate her characteristics with ones they have seen before. Also according to Laura Mulvey's theory, women tend to subconsciously dress themselves up and make up their appearance in a way that men would like and so the women the the audience may find that they can relate to what Naomi is doing and feel closer to the character.
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