Working as a Script Writer by O Segrel do Penedo

THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER

Rita, Alba E, Joel, Paula S 4ยบA

INDEX INTRODUCTION

SUMMARY

FILM ANALYSIS

The characters

THE POSTER

THE TRAILER

THE CONVERSATION

CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTION This is our third term project, and it’s going to be about films and how to be a script writer. We are going to create a dialogue based on a quote of the film, analyse the trailer and the composition of the poster, putting into practice what we learned on the second term project about advertisements. The objective of this project is to learn how to interpret a film with its symbols and metaphors because in films there are a lot of important messages about life and its complications. We think that with this project we are going to improve our knowledge about the making off of the films, the different characters that exist, the plot structure of films… and with all of this we will be able to enjoy films in a very different way. SUMMARY The movie is about Charlie’s life. Charlie is a teenager with a very difficult past. It all changes when he meets Sam and Patrick, two stepbrothers that rapidly become friends with him. Charlie starts to feel what is like to be a typical teenager, he goes to parties, to football matches, he falls in love… Everything with Sam and Patrick’s help. FILM ANALYSIS This film was directed by Stephen Chbosky who is also the author of the book with the same name and the director of Wonder. The major characters are Charlie, Patrick and Sam interpreted by Logan Lerman, Ezra Miller and Emma Watson respectively. About the critics “Fotogramas” rated it with four out of five stars and said that the actuation of the actors and the music were fantastic but said that the image of wallflower that this film presented was not credible. “Sensacine” rated it with three out of five stars and said that the film showed very well the life of teenagers but that it was insignificant and that it needed to show better Charlie’s mental illness. “Espinof” rated it with three point five out of five stars and said that the music and the cast are the best of the film but it thinks that the evolution of characters is previsible and that the film was created specially for teenagers. Other critics say (like in Washington Square News) that the characters are very funny and specially interesting because, they explain that we don't have to worry for the future. They say that the music is very good too. In this case (The Spectator) they say that the actors are very good. They say that it is an special film for teenagers because is the age of the protagonists and the problems that they have can be similar to the spectator problems. In general the critics say that the actors are good, the film is good but is better if you are a teenager, and the music is fantastic. We think that the ambientation of this film is very common because there are a lot of young adult films that happen in high schools or schools. Because of that it reminds us the film Wonder. This film tells the story of August, a boy that is different to the other kids and is discriminated, like the protagonist of the film I chose. It also reminds us of “A monster calls”, we think that it is for the boy who is the protagonist, who has some problems in his life, like Charlie.

This film is a drama because of the terrible situation of its protagonist and it is destined to teenagers because most of the problems in the film are typical in teenagers’ life and the major characters are also teenagers and this contributes to create empathy in the young audience. The movie emphasises Charlie’s whole drama, and they are all teenagers, so the movie’s theme is Teenage Drama. The ideas raised are Charlie’s emotional life, and Sam and Patrick’s private life. The movie also shows the difficulties of going to highschool and sexual abuse. Some of us think that these ideas are limited to the teenagers, but other think that they aren’t . The idea is not applicable to all kind of situations, because not everybody has been through the same experiences as Charlie. The values involved are respect, bravery, friendship, love, freedom… The story proceeds chronologically but it has some small flashbacks that tell Charlie's story with her aunt and they have the effects of telling a parallel story and they also reveal to the audience some of Charlie's childhood. The film has different interlocking narratives, like the story of Charlie’s sister and her toxic relationship with her boyfriend and Patrick’s story and how he tries to have a normal relationship with his boyfriend in a society that didn’t accept homosexuality. Some of us think that the climax is when some characters are playing truth or dare and Charlie is challenged by Patrick to kiss the hottest girl in the room, but he kissed Sam instead of his girlfriend, and in that moment it seems like his friendship with Sam and Patrick is going to end and that would be very important. Other think that it is when Sam leaves the town and Charlie starts to get paranoid and tries to kill himself but he doesn't succeed, and after that scene he starts to get treatment for his trauma. In our opinion, the most important thing that the film doesn’t tell until the very end is the sexual abuse that Charlie suffered and we think this because the flashbacks appear through all the story but we don't understand them until the end. Most of us think that the film has a closed ending because there is no cliffhangers but one of us thinks that it is an open end because we don’t know if Charlie will recover completely his mental health or how will be his life during the rest of high school. The story of the film was told by Charlie and there aren’t multiple perspectives because the spectator follows Charlie during all the film. We watch Charlie’s life in complete, but only a few pieces of the other characters, everything that we know about them, is based on their actions and words. In many occasions, we have Charlie’s voiceover, reading the letters, or telling his opinion on a particular event. The point of view is very clear, so it doesn’t let anything to imagination. The movie’s plot is not about humour, instead, is quite dramatic, but there are some moments in which the characters laugh at something or someone, for example, when Patrick imitated his technology teacher. It’s mostly satire, because again, this is a drama. One irony,

in the worst possible way, is that Charlie still loves his aunt, in spite of everything she did to him. I think that all the characters have their own style, and I like all of them. Each member of the group dislikes some particular characters, for instance, Charlie's aunt obviously because she abused Charlie, Brad's dad because he is homophobic and because he hits his son just for being gay or Mary Elizabeth because she is very possessive and controlling and she tries to look more interesting by creating a false image. The action takes place in USA in the nineties. We can know the place because of the people’s language and the american football match that is a very popular sport there. We can know the time because of the references during all the film like the characters’ outfit, the music and the old technology (for example, Charlie’s television). The setting creates expectations because three decades ago society was different from now. For example, people were more religious and there was a different way of thinking (homosexuals were discriminated, there was less equality between men and women…). We think that the setting creates people who love going to parties, good music and spending time with their friends but with a less presence of technology than nowadays when most of the interactions happen through the mobile phones. The setting creates a good mood because of the freedom that inspires. The music in this movie is essentially popular music from well-known artists, such as David Bowie’s Heroes. This song is very important in the plot, because is the one they listen to in the tunnel scene. The characters speak like a teenager would, they use informal gang, with a lot of security on what they say. There are many scenes in which the silences are important. One example is when Charlie is telling his story and he takes his time.

The characters Sam Sam is Charlie's friend and Patrick's sister. She is nice, positive in bad moments and she is always encouraging her friends. She is a realistic person because she has real reactions and emotions to all the problems in the film. She expresses her opinions talking with Patrick and Charlie and helping them with their problems. From the way she acts we can know her opinion and her personality and by that we can judge her. In the film she changes the way of talking especially with Charlie because at the end she was more confident. Sam usually wears dresses with nets and a jacket, or shorts with sleeveless tops. She usually wears black and red. And black heels. She acts so happy and crazy, she looks open-minded and she cares about the people that she loves, she also looks emotionally strong and she looks so friendly too. Maybe the most important things that she does are

when she starts to talk with Charlie and when she finds out that his best friend killed himself she immediately starts to talk more with Charlie. I don't think that Charlie describes Sam a lot, the only thing that he says is that she is beautiful. For me she is consistent because she doesn't act so different throughout the movie and she doesn't change the way she is. Charlie Charlie is presented as a shy boy without friends that is ignored by his classmates and has a mental illness that worsen his situation. During the film Charlie wears different clothes. For example, on christmas, during the secret Santa, he wears a black suit and when he acts on the Rocky Horror Picture Show’s recreation he wears a red corset, but he usually wears jeans with a jumper or a shirt with a jacket. The director shows Charlie as a person who is separated from the other people because they don’t accept him for being shy and different. Through what Charlie says we know that he is a person that is more worried about his friends and family than about himself and that he is an understanding person who doesn’t want to judge people by appearances. Through what Charlie does we know that though he is shy he can lose his timidity in some special occasions (for example, when he acts on the Rocky Horror Picture Show’s representation) and that he can be aggressive when his friends are in danger (when Brad and his friend are hitting Patrick and Charlie hits them back). Through visual clues we know that he is an insecure boy because he tries to hide himself from the people and that he doesn’t care about his appearance. In the fim, Charlie expresses his ideas by writing them on letters and then acting like a narrator and telling them to the audience. Some actions that I didn’t mention but bring out important traits about him are: when he helped Sam with her finals so she could go to the university she wanted (this shows generosity because he had to spend a lot of hours helping her), when he tried to tolerate Mary Elizabeth as his girlfriend because he didn’t want to hurt her or when he tried to help Patrick when he broke up with his boyfriend. In my opinion, Charlie’s actions don’t allow us to know him completely because a person is very complex and unpredictable so we need to know his thoughts to know him in depth. I think that Charlie is consistent and believable because he reacts to the different situations like a real life person would react in the same conditions. I think that Charlie experienced a change in the film. He learned that high school can be better than he expected even when his friends went to university, that he must ignore people who bullied him for being different and that he should think a little bit more about what he needs.

Patrick Patrick’s ideas are expressed by his words, his actions, and his attitude. The story with Chad and his father brings out a very important trait in Patrick, the insecurity about love and romantic relationships. This insecurity can be often turned into fear, depending on the moment and the person. I think that Patrick was originally planned to be the good friend, that you can always trust, but then, he turned into something more, creating his own story besides Charlie’s. Patrick is described, again, like the typical irresponsible student, that often goes to parties, and doesn’t care of anything besides himself. He is important because he plays an essential role in Charlie’s life, and Charlie is the main character. We cannot judge Patrick by his actions, because he is the opposite. He is very consistent and believable, because you can find many people with the same behavior as him in the real world. He has changed a lot since the beginning, because at the end, we can see that Patrick was nothing like what he seemed. He starts being like any other, and at the end he has his own emotions. THE POSTER

In this poster we can see a green wall with the three protagonists, Patrick, Sam and Charlie respectively. This poster indicates that this three teenagers are friends, but it seems that Sam and Charlie are a couple, because Sam is resting her head on his shoulder. On the top there are the actors’ name and because there are only three names we understand that they are the main actors. Under the names there is the title that is written in small letters, in writing machine calligraphy and that makes us think that it will be important for the plot. Under the title we can see that the film is based on a novel whose author is also the director of the film and it also appears the other actors, the director, producers… In the middle of the poster we can see the tagline which is “We are infinite”, a very important sentence in the development of the film because it summarises what the main character is feeling. The background is very simple and that attracts people’s attention to the characters at the bottom of the poster. We think that this poster is very balanced because the title covers an important part of the image but the characters are also very important because they allow us to know the theme of the film. The colour green expresses that the film will be a light teenagers’ movie but, it is actually a very deep drama. The image is simple and it suggests that this is going to be a love story because most of teenagers’ films are about love. We think that the hidden message of the slogan is about the fact that in adolescence it seems as if we had all the time of the world but we are not immortal.

THE TRAILER ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5rh7O4IDc0&t=25s h We think that this trailer is a good one, because the selected scenes are very representative, for example: the tunnel and the truck scene that is very important in the plot due to the development of the characters and it transmits freedom; the scenes in which the writing machine appears that makes us think that the calligraphy of the title is connected to it and it communicates that the film is settled in another time and finally the scenes where we can see that Charlie isn't very popular in high school and transmits a sensation of sadness and loneliness. By the trailer we can know that the film is from the second half of the XX century because the cars are old, there aren’t smartphones and Charlie has a walkman. We also know that the film is going to be about the life of lonely boy in high school that meets two guys and they become friends, because they act very friendly with each other. We know that the film is settled in USA due to the fact that we can see typical things of that country like the american football, and the different spaces of the high school. And what’s more, the film was originally recorded in English.

THE CONVERSATION https://youtu.be/3n6TaEqpXSE Charlie is in the kitchen. MOTHER: (from the dining room) Charlie, dinner is ready.

DEREK: (to mother) How was Charlie’s first day in high school?

MOTHER: Oh it was nice but he was very nervous. It’s difficult for Charlie to make new friends.

FATHER: I am sure that he only became friend with the english teacher. Am I wrong, Mr. Charlie? CHARLIE: Thank you, sir, but if my English teacher is the only friend I make today, that would be sorta depressing. FATHER: That might be depressing, but I am sure that it is true. SISTER(Candace): Oh dad, you should treat better your son. FATHER: I am just preparing him for the real life. DEREK: (to Charlie) Don’t worry, I’m sure you will be making friends soon.

CONCLUSION With this project we applied our lessons on how to analyse a poster and a movie trailer. We also used the skills that we learned last term to write the conversation. With the individual work we learned the elements of a film and the different ways of telling a story. With the group work we learned the distribution of a poster and how to select the important images to summarise the plot in two minutes and create a trailer. This work will help us to be critical and with this we can now have our own opinion about the technical part of every type of films.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Lago, Loly (2019), Working as a Script Writer: Group Work, https://tinyurl.com/yyz8ytjt [27/05/2019] Lago, Loly (2019), Movie Quotes, https://tinyurl.com/y6fh2mbw, [27/05/2019] Lago, Loly (2019), Project on Movies, https://tinyurl.com/y4udutp6, [27/05/2019] (2002), Tiny URL,https://tinyurl.com/#link, [27/05/2019] Bezzos, Jeff(1994),The Perks of Being a Wallflower Poster, https://www.amazon.com/27x40-Perks-Being-Wallflower-Poster/dp/B009CLK56M, [27/05/2019] MovieClips Trailers (2012), The Perks of Being a Wallflower Official Trailer #1 (2012), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5rh7O4IDc0&t=25s, [27/05/2019] Fanpop, Emma Watson Photo: The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Sam Jones Portrait, https://www.pinterest.es/pin/461619030528889331/?lp=true, [04/06/2019] (2019), The Perks of Being a Wallflower Wiki: Charlie, https://perksofbeingawallflower.fandom.com/wiki/Charlie, [04/06/2019] Dr Nerdlove(2013), Learn From This: The Perks of Being A Wallflower https://www.doctornerdlove.com/learn-this-perks-wallflower/, [04/06/2019]