ITS KIND OF A FUNNY STORYThis is film that I have chosen to investigate in detail due to its conventions and inspiration that as a group, we have used as a source of knowledge for our coming of age genre. The reason to choosing this particular film is because it has aspects in it that relate to our own production in terms of the protagonist as much as the actual scenes itself.In the beginning of the opening sequence we, as an audience are introduced with a voice-over. The voice-over is our first indicator that it is the protagonist speaking, seeming as the way he is talking acts as if he is almost telling a story to the audience with the camera panning down from the sky to the boy (who we assume is the protagonist) on the bike. Throughout these stages, non-diegetic sound of background music is played; the music is a way of building suspense, making it seem edgy for the boy to be riding a bike. The theory is also identified as edgy since the boy is riding the bike during the evening in an odd area. The camera then changes angles and shifts to the front to see the front of him, and then it quickly pans when the boy stops by the side of the bridge. Match on action has been used in editing to keep up the continuous flow of the cuts to make it look like it happened all in one go. By this point it builds up an enigma code for the audience what is he doing? Why is he doing it? By time the boy hops on the other side of the bridge, he walks along a rail which is on top of the bridge. The camera then has the whole view of the road and the bridge which is completely blurred out, but then the boy comes into view and is in focus. This shows his importance to the film and is also another indication that he is the protagonist and not another character that is less important than him. That shot then turns into a birds eye view as the camera shifts from that position to the next, showing that he is directly above the roads and is therefore telling us he is putting himself in danger. It then focuses on close ups of his feet and the back of his head this could be a way of foreshadowing that he might fall because of his unsteadiness. The mood of the music breaks when the protagonist hears a younger girls voice and turns around. We then are able to verify that the protagonist is suicidal when he says, I dont care about my bike Im killing myself. The whole idea of the protagonist riding his bike gave us an idea to insert that same sort of idea into our own production because we saw that when the protagonist is riding his bike, hes showing his journey mentally and physically from the start to end. It is the build up to an upcoming event that will happen next. For example, when the boy cycled in the beginning that showed the start of the journey and when he stopped his bike by the bridge it showed the end of it. This idea is important in a coming of age film due to it showing the development of the character overcoming obstacles this is what we wanted to use as inspiration for our own production and for it to reflect upon the character.Another aspect of the opening sequence that we wanted to use is the mise en scene. From this we wanted to grasp the costume, facial expression and the body language of the character and experiment it with our own protagonist in our production. Since the protagonist in this film is experiencing suicidal thoughts and negativity, we thought that it would work well with our own protagonist because they both share similar traits. We wanted to be able to use our protagonists mise en scene as a convention of the coming of age genre; a troubled character.The whole scene of the opening sequence also seems as if it is a metric montage because of the frequent variety in shots and the unusual switch in angles that are used. Since voice-over is also being used, it can also give the appearance of it being a metric montage. In the end of the opening two minutes, as the boy almost hits the water, the boy freezes in that moment and a voice-over is reintroduced to the audience, This is the moment where I usually wake up in a sweaty panic. But for some reason As soon as that was said, the boy unfreezes and hits the water where the screen then blacks out in which it could relate to the boys mental state he then says at the black screen, this time it was different, with the titling emerging in a typewriter font of Its kind of a funny story. This moment then verifies that it was some sort of dream of his that he wanted to come true.The whole opening sequence was an inspiration for all of us we were able to develop these traits and make it into our own, making it more unique. It gave us an opportunity to experiment, develop and build which helped us improve our skills on camera work, music, locational areas and conventions.