Inspirations!

 

    So, if you've been following my blog you may have noticed that I have been talking about coming of age films quite a lot and how much I love the messages behind each one, along with the desire to want to recreate that feeling when filming my own film opening. So, I thought for this blog post I should talk a bit about some coming of age films I really enjoy!

    First, I'd like to discuss one of my favorites, "Perks of Being A Wallflower". The movie was released in 2012 and was directed by Stephen Chbosky. The film follows various teenagers from different social cliques in high school that have all became friends with one another. The movie has the typical teenager drama involved, but also goes over many things that teenagers struggle with, and show how different people can have different experiences. This particular movie really stood out to me as a coming of age film because it follows the typical themes of other movies in this genre, but also addresses very deep and serious matters like use of drugs and sexual abuse. The scoring for this movie is brilliantly done in my opinion, the song choices for each scene were perfectly picked, especially the tunnel scene in the end of the movie. All around I was very impressed by this movie and the themes that it was able to communicate. 

    I view this film as inspiration for me when thinking about doing a coming of age film myself because it showed me that movies can have the cheesy coming of age high school drama, but still manage to strike a cord with the audience; since I know I was touched by it, along with many other viewers as well. Things that I would like to incorporate in my own film, if I choose to do a coming of age, would definitely be the music choice, clearly I wouldn't choose the same song choices as in the film but it has shown me how impactful music can be on films to make them really stand out and mean something. Also, filming in a way to incorporate the subject's full friends circle and tribulations they are facing. 

    Another beautifully made coming of age film would be "The Florida Project". This movie was released in 2017 and was directed by Sean Baker. I reallyyy enjoyed the way this film was directed, because of the way that it seemed very natural and practically filmed in a documentary manner. The film follows struggling single parents living in Florida that are going through a lot during this time, especially financially, as they also struggle with disciplining their children who are also growing up in the same environment as them. What really stood out to me with this piece was that although we could clearly see the deepening problems of the adults, the film seems to mainly focus on the children's perspectives and reveals to the audience how significant the feeling of child-like wonder is. The audience can view the constantly laughing and playing of the children because they don't view their lives as people in poverty, but rather as kids who are just playing and having a fun time. The final scene of the movie when the main character finally reaches where she had been wanting to go is a beautiful shot and really captures the essence of being a child.

    What inspires me about this film and gives me hope when thinking of making my film opening a coming of age piece, is that the movie is made in a pretty simplistic style and doesn't rely scenes on music, in fact the film barely uses soundtracks (as opposed to the film mentioned previously). This shows me that I don't need super fancy production styles and equipment in order for me to make a good, meaningful film opening.