Analysis of the first 15 minutes of St Trinnian's

I have watched the first 15 minutes of St Trinnian's a film that is based on a 'posh' girl attending her aunties boarding school, however this boarding school is not your every day boarding school as it is the complete opposite to the 'boarding school' stereo type 







From looking at this found that the opening entails a lot of information. The opening title sequence is shown in a cartoon form. The back ground is pink with various 'doodles' on it, almost as though it is the front cover of a note book.


After this shot, you then get an image of a car on fire, this is not what you would expect when you are not far off of a boarding school, after this shot there is a shot of man looking out of the car at these, he has sun glasses on and a hat, he is also driving a vintage car, and wearing a tweed suit jacket. This is the first image you are given of the man therefore by looking at his style of clothing we can see he appears to be quite a posh character. However due to his eyes being covered by dark glasses this makes us think there may be things about him we have not been told yet. 

After this there is a close up of the sign for St Trinnian's school sign, this sign looks a bit tatty, the writing has begun to fade, as it is cream you can see all of the dirt and marks on it, the sign is also in a very old fashioned font, it is almost a 'creepy' style font. At this point we know where they are heading and from the sign we begin to gather that it doesn't seem a very nice place. 

After the sign we are shown an extreme long shot of the building and grounds of the school, at first glance this looks a very posh school however you can tell from the girls reaction getting out of her car it is not what she is used to. The girl has her hair neatly tied up, wearing posh clothing, she also speaks with a posh accent pronouncing all her words correctly. After this is a shot at the reception desk of the school, inside all the furnishings look old, warn and are mostly mahogany coloured wood; this alone giving the building and old feel to it. On reception is a young woman who has got her feet on the desk listening to her mp3 player, this is not the kind of stereotypical welcoming people would expect from a boarding school, the woman was dressed in casual clothing, this giving us an impression that she is not very bothered about her job, it also tells us a bit about the standard of the place. After this we see a shot looking up at all the other pupils over the banister, the angle of this shot makes them seem as though they have power, this is not surprising as she will be the 'new girl' who would stereo typically be seen as the person who might not fit in with the rest and be bullied. 

After this we are introduced to the head mistress of the school, who yet again does not fit the stereotypical view of a head teacher, her manner and casual clothing give us the impression that she is not overly bothered about the level of education that is given within the school. 

After this we are introduced to 'Flash' who is a character who seems to have a lot of power. The other school girls seem to bring him things and ideas, he has his own desk and in this scene an eye line match is shown (however print screen sadly doesn't show this very well). It also shows a change in power when another girl, one of the elder ones walks into the room her presence makes Flash stutter through his words. The director of this film cleverly pieces a conversation together where the person who is talking's face is in focus and the other one is blurred, this is a clever way of showing who has power as in this shot Flash's face seems to spend more time blurred. 

Eye-line Match 

Conversation with blurred faces

After this there is a change in location to show this we see a long shot of a bridge that is quite busy looking at some important buildings in the back ground. After this shot we are shown a long shot of a posh well furnished office where people are in a meeting; all of these people look important due to their costume (mainly suits or formal dress). We then hear that this man is planning on shutting St Trinnian's down, due to his power the viewer hopes this is not possible however assume that due to his amount of power he is capable of this. 

After this there is a medium close up of a CCTV screen that the girls are watching, this shows that they are quite protective over their school, they are watching a new teacher walk down the drive, after this we are shown a medium long shot of 2 pupils looking out of the window, both of these looking very unique and not dressed, or have the appearance you would expect from a pupil at boarding school.

I finished my analysis of this film at this point as I found that up to this point is when we were given the most crucial information on the film, we were shown a variety of charachters from a new pupil who clearly came from a well-to-do back ground, to Flash a man who was quite trendy to important business men and 2 Goth pupils. All of these things were shown to us not told to us through words. Their costume, make-up, props and location helped us work out and make our own ideas, thoughts and opinions on the character. In these opening 15 minutes of the film we get to see a range of shots, power been shown through shot type, eye line matches and clever edit techniques and for all of these to appear in the first 15 minutes and to be done well proves the quality of the editing in the film has been done to a high standard.