Planning: Props

Throughout our film we will need to use a variety of props that are appropriate to our character and conventional of the coming of age genre. By including these props we will be able to attract our target audience and create a greater sense of realism around our protagonist.

One prop that is likely to feature multiple time throughout our film, due the age of our character and our chosen target audience, is a mobile phone. We have decided to use different models depending on the age of our protagonist in the scene. For example if we are shooting a scene in which the character is 14 years old, we will use a model similar to the slide up phone shown above. We may also use an older model of iPhone, such as the iPhone 4s, for these scenes as this phone is more accessible to us. Whereas if we are doing a scene where the character is 18 years old, we will use a modern phone such as the iPhone 6. These props will be used in scenes where the character is texting or taking a selfie for example.

Another prop that we will use is a birthday cake. For our opening scene we plan to do a rotating shot of the character blowing out the candles on her birthday cake. For this scene we will need both a cake and candles that demonstrate the age of our character. We will be using numbered candles for this purpose as this is the most effective way for us to convey the age of the character to the audience.

We will also be including scenes of our character binge eating unhealthy food. We will be buying food from a fast food restaurant such as McDonalds to use as props in these scenes. We feel that this is a recognisable brand and the audience will therefore relate more to the character. This brand also carries a well-known stigma for being bad for your health, thus conveying the message of the scene to the audience. 

We are including a short montage of shots within our film of the protagonist listening to music. Therefore we will need to use headphones as a prop for these scenes. We are going to use iPhone earphones as we believe that this is a brand that our audience will recognise and can relate to. 

We will also use a variety of other props for the purpose of dressing the scene. For example we will use a notebook and pen in a school location in order to make the scene look more realistic. The character will also be carrying a school bag in these scenes, again to create a sense of realism. We will also do this to the girl's bedroom. We will dress these scenes with makeup, makeup brushes, perfumes and a laptop as these are all common items for a teenage girl to own. This will therefore allow us to create a greater sense of realism.