Portfolio Project Genre #2

Hello there and welcome back! In this blog post, I will be talking about the second approach that I considered to do my final project about, and today's genre is:

Coming of age 

Genre overview:

Coming of age movies usually focus on themes like youth, growing up and maturity. They usually focus on a young protagonist that is coming of age and preparing for the next big stage of their life. These stories also explore their identity, relationships and their challenges during the teenage years. 

Typical target audience: 

The target audience are teenagers and young adults since they can relate to the situations and emotions shown because they can also be experiencing something similar as the main character in real life. 

Genre conventions - Content: 

- A young protagonist experiencing change. 

- Themes of identity, independence and self discovery. 

- It focus on everyday life and personal struggles like relationships, teenage love or insecurity with themselves. 

- Internal conflicts like feelings, choices and mental health struggles like anxiety or depression. 

- The settings are everyday and realistic places like school, homes or neighborhoods. 

- The narrative shows a transition from innocence to maturity from the main characters. 

Genre conventions - Techniques: 

- They use natural lighting so the movie feel more real, so people can connect with it.

- Medium shots and close ups are used when they want to really capture the character’s emotions or how they're reacting.

- They play some scenes like conversations longer, so the audience can really feel what the characters are feeling and to also make the scene look more real and less hurried. 

- Things like people talking or sounds from the environment make the scenes feel more real also. 

- Soft music in the background during emotional parts to help them feel deeper and more emotional.

- Warm colors like yellows and orange are often used in moments of comfort or connection.

Institutional conventions: 

- A lot of coming of age movies are usually low budget. 

- They are usually distributed at film festivals, on streaming platforms or theaters. 

- The marketing focus on feelings, on what's real and how the characters relate to each other instead of just action or cool special effects.

- The trailers often show the big emotional stuff and important dialogue. 

- A lot of times, posters just show the main character by themselves or doing normal things.

- The narrative is meant to feel personal and real, like something that could happen to anyone. 

Film/ TV productions that represent the genre: 

- The perks of being a wallflower (2012)

- Juno (2007)