ANALYSING FILMS: Jawbreaker

 Film Analysis: Jawbreaker (1999)

Director: Darren Stein

BBFC 15  MPAA R 

Opening Length: 4 minutes

Budget: $3.5 m

Box Office: $3.1 m

Theatrical Distribution: international, 19 territories

Production Company: TriStar Pictures, Kramer-Tornell Productions, Crossroad Films

Distributor: Sony Pictures Releasing

Synopsis: Three of the most popular girls at Reagan High accidentally kill the prom queen with a jawbreaker when a kidnapping goes horribly wrong. (IMDB)

LINKS: wikipedia , imdb, art of the title, boxofficemojo , The Numbers.com

Trailer:

Opening Shot:

The first shot is an Extreme Long Shot of a school corridor. This framing is conventional as films often open with an ELS or establishing shot, to set the scene. 

There is a voiceover detailing exposition of the scene and the characters that are going to appear. 

This shot immediately reveals exposition about the characters. There is a voice-over describing them, which also gives exposition about them. They have a similar appearance and clothing style, but are distinct in the colours and varied, giving them the sense of a "clique", while also revealing their individual personalities. The school corridor is a denotes the primarily targeted teen audience.  

Titles:

The production, distribution, and director titles appear before the main title, and the linking words are in cursive, which the names are capitalised and in a sans-serif font. The cursive is a typical denotation of femininity, which works well as the primary target audience for the film is teenage girls. The titles appear and disappear with a s swirling effect, which matches the swirling of the sugar being mixed for the jawbreakers. 

The main title of the film is seen 4 minutes in, to transition to the main film. The colouring and effect on the title is similar to that of a jawbreaker, and the cursive font is used again, and connotes femininity. The black background and effect of jawbreakers matches the title well, and separates the title sequence from the opening, showing a clear transition. Something we would want to replicate in our film opening is the main title giving a smoother transition into the main body of the film.