Opening Sequence Analysis - 10 Things I Hate About You

10 Things I Hate About You is a teen comedy movie. The opening two minutes hints this genre to the audience by the music, setting and characters.

The music begins right from the start and is very upbeat, as the movie starts, the actors names come up onto the screen as the camera pans across what looks to be New York, this is effective because it immediately lets the audience know where the film is set. The camera continues to pan and shows a group of young girls driving along and dancing to their stereo. The camera then pans to another car pulling up next to it with an angry looking girl in it and the music quickly changes to rock. This shows the typical conventions of a teen film by having the popular girls listening to popular music that's in trend and the non popular girl listening to more indie music that isn't a trend. You can see the hatred on the popular girls faces as they look over at the other car and vice versa.

The unpopular girl rolls her eyes at the popular girls and drives on, this shows that the girls obviously don't get on.
The camera then cuts to boys playing hockey outside the school gates and the camera pans upwards onto all of the children waiting outside school for the bell to go.
 The camera cuts to the unpopular girl walking towards the school doors, she sees a poster that reads "Padua Prom". She reads this and then rips it down. This shows that the girl doesn't care about the school and what goes on in it and isn't interested in the prom whereas people who are popular would care about these things. You then see a girl who is organising the prom, look at the girl in disgust, this shows that the unpopular girl really isn't liked by anyone and you can tell by her facial expressions that she doesn't care.
This opening sequence is effective in hinting the genre of the film to the audience because it follows the conventions of a teen comedy. Popular people and unpopular people are also the main characters of these types of films and this film has exactly that. from this opening you see that the unpopular girl is the main character, this suggests to the audience that she may go on a journey throughout the film and may end up not being so hateful and hated.