Easy A (Directed by Will Gluck)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecwLPDcGeBY

To begin Easy A establishing shots are used such as mid shots of the Ojai, California sign, USA and California flag, to an Ojai North High School sign. This is showing us the exact setting and to expect an American high school scene. So it is a "real place where the action and events of the film occur."(1)

What the film has in common with The Perks of Being a Wallflower is that the two main characters both begin with talking directly to the audience. Olive's voice over anonymously begins with no sight of her until 45 seconds later. This POV shot gives the impression that we are the camera searching for the speaker heard and we follow a skateboarder, and search through groups. The final camera close in is a mid shot of a girl wearing a white singlet in the centre of a group. This leads us to believe she is the voice over speaker but soon realise we are wrong once she bumps into Olive, the correct main character. The voice over is "a text spoken by an offscreen narrator can act as the organising principle behind virtually all of the film's images,"(2) where in this case makes sense of what would just be a long establishing shot of high school students without it. The shot is created to be misleading and because of the length our anticipation keeps on building as we want to see who the speaker of the voice over is. 


Since Olive is knocked over and American high schools typically have 'cliques,' we categorise her as unpopular. The shot on the left, a high angle shot justifying this idea of Olive being inferior to others surrounding her. She did mention she "used to be anonymous," although she comes across as the most confident of all four film characters. 

There are also three layers of sound during this shot. The sound from the people at the school, Olive's voice over, and the pop song playing in the background. The song being nondiegetic and the voice over as "internal diegetic sound."(3) This is once we finally see the correct main character whom the mysterious voice belongs to the shot cuts over to her video log. The use of video logs to the viewer is where the voice overs are derived from which also creates a very personal story-telling relationship between Olive and the viewer. The video log is also a close up shot of her, feeling more intimate and trusting in the comfort of the character's own room. Coming-of-age films are meant to be relatable and feel personal so these clips help with relating to our own young reality.

To see through the eyes of Olive, POV shots are used. One is to introduce Mr Griffith when gathering her belongings from the ground. She tilts her head up and sees him from a low angle shot which is "the position from which a person" in this case Olive, "is seen."(4) This shows his superiority as a teacher and presents him as an authoritative character.

(1) Corrigan and White. The Film Experience, Chapter 2, Exploring a Material World: Mise-en-Scène, Page 71. Bedford/St. Martin's.

(2) Corrigan and White. The Film Experience, Chapter 5, Listening to the Cinema: Film Sound, Page 193. Bedford/St. Martin's.
(3) Corrigan and White. The Film Experience, Chapter 5, Listening to the Cinema: Film Sound, Page 186. Bedford/St. Martin's.

(4) Corrigan and White. The Film Experience, Chapter 3, Framing What We See: Cinematography, Page 105. Bedford/St. Martin's.