Saturday, March 11, 2023

Narration Research: Clueless

Since I decided to add narration into the montage portion of the film, I needed to research rom coms that had narration at the beginning of them. This is a stereotypical, almost cliche quality of rom coms, so it adds to the purpose of my film (to create a light-hearted lesbian rom com that is like its other heterosexual counterparts).

My first thought was Clueless as it's one of the most iconic teenage rom coms with a narration at the beginning. I rewatched the beginning and took notes on the narration script.

So OK, you're probably thinking, "Is this, like a Noxema commercial, or what?!" But seriously, I actually have a way normal life for a teenage girl. I mean I get up, I brush my teeth, and I pick out my school clothes.

Daddy's a litigator. Those are the scariest kinds of lawyers. Even Lucy, our maid, is terrified of him. He's so good he gets paid five hundred dollars an hour just to fight with people, but he fights with me for free 'cause I'm his daughter.

The beginning also has a getting ready sequence, but the mood and tone isn't the same as what I want my film to be. Cher is ditzy, airheaded, and your stereotypical depiction of a rich teenage blonde in Hollywood. The tone of this narration perfectly contrues this characterization, but I don't want my main character to have this personality. I want her to be interpreted as your typical kind of messy, small circle of close friends, loveable loser type basically. 

While looking over the narration for this film won't help me with the screenwriting, it does have an element I like where the words and the visual don't correlate.

You can see what I mean in the clip below.


Cher says she has "a way normal life for a teenage girl", and gets ready by using her outfit picking machine to get dressed. The narration for this part is "and I pick out my school clothes", which on paper seems like a normal line, but with the visual, it creates a different meaning. This is an important concept to understand and I would like to insert it into my film if possible.

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