Film director project

FILM DIRECTOR PROJECTBETH FLETCHER

JOHN HUGHES • John Wilden Hughes, Jr.

• February 18, 1950 – August 6, 2009

• American film director, producer, and screenwriter.

• Directed and/or scripted some of the most successful films of the 1980s and 1990s…

• He is known as the king of teen movies as well as helping launch the careers of actors including Michael Keaton, Bill Paxton, Matthew Broderick, John Candy, & “The Brat Pack”

FILMS:

TRADEMARK CHARACTERISTICS • The majority of Hughes' films were set in the North Shore

suburbs of the Chicago metropolitan area.

• In certain films, the setting is specifically identified as the fictional town of Shermer in Illinois.

• Another element that remained consistent through all of his movies was a strong emphasis on pop songs and music cues.

• He also frequently employed several filmic devices such as characters breaking the fourth wall; additional scenes under and/or after the closing credits; non-linear montages; and using a freeze-frame as the closing shot before the end credits.

• Several of his films including Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and The Breakfast Club have an extremely short time span, in both the entire film takes place over the course of a day.

THE BREAKFAST CLUB The Breakfast Club is a 1985 American teen coming of age comedy-drama film written and directed by John Hughes.

The storyline follows five teenagers (each a member of a different high school clique) as they spend a Saturday in detention together and come to realize that they are all deeper than their respective stereotypes.

Critically, it is considered to be one of the greatest high school-teen films of all time, as well as one of Hughes' most memorable and recognizable works.

“ SATURDAY, MARCH 24, 1984. SHERMER HIGH SCHOOL, SHERMER, ILLINOIS.

60062.

DEAR MR. VERNON, WE ACCEPT THE FACT THAT WE HAD TO SACRIFICE A

WHOLE SATURDAY IN DETENTION FOR WHATEVER IT WAS THAT WE DID

WRONG…WHAT WE DID WAS WRONG, BUT WE THINK YOU’RE CRAZY TO MAKE

US WRITE THIS ESSAY TELLING YOU WHO WE THINK WE ARE. WHAT DO YOU CARE? YOU SEE US AS YOU WANT TO

SEE US… IN THE SIMPLEST TERMS AND THE MOST CONVENIENT DEFINITIONS.

YOU SEE US AS A BRAIN, AN ATHLETE, A BASKET CASE, A PRINCESS AND A

CRIMINAL. CORRECT? THAT’S THE WAY WE SAW EACH OTHER AT SEVEN

O’CLOCK THIS MORNING. WE WERE BRAINWASHED…”

FILMINGDespite his lack of experience as a filmmaker Hughes managed to win the investors over with his argument that due to the film's low budget of one million dollars and its single-location shoot, the risks involved were minimal.

Shooting began on 28 March 1984 and ended in May of that year.

Filming took place at Maine North High School in Des Plaines, Illinois, the same school used for some of the school-based scenes in Hughes's Ferris Bueller's Day Off, which was released just a year after The Breakfast Club.

Some of the posters on the walls during filming of The Breakfast Club were still there when Ferris Bueller was filmed.

He shot the two films back to back to save time and money, and some outtakes of both films feature elements of the film crews working on the other film in each case.

SYMBOLISM: • Significance of the setting:

This film is almost entirely dialogue. It takes place in a Library. Libraries are collections of words - just like dialogue. But you won't perceive any of the words in a Library unless you seek them out - like the Character's thoughts.

• Significance of costumes- (the costume designer Marylin A Vance, was also the designer for several of Hughes films including Pretty in Pink, Unlce Buck and Ferris Bueller)

The costumes are colour coded to each character so that they are easily distinguished and recognised by the audience. It also helps to define how they are from different high school cliques.

FILM POSTERS:

FERRIS BUELLERS DAY OFF

Ferris Bueller's Day Off is a 1986 teen comedy movie written and directed by the legendary John Hughes. It's considered one of the best films of the eighties, and has been very influential.

The film follows Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick), a senior in high school, who pretends to be sick and skips school for the day. He's able to convince his neurotic best friend Cameron and his carefree girlfriend Sloane to come along with him. The three of them take Cameron's father's prized car, heading out to Chicago to spend one more day together before graduation. However, his principal and his younger sister are hot on his trail, ready to prove that he's skipping school..

During the film, Bueller frequently breaks the fourth wall by speaking directly to the camera to explain to the audience his techniques and thoughts.

Hughes wrote the screenplay in less than a week and shot the film—on a budget of $5.8 million—over several months in late 1985.

Featuring many famous Chicago landmarks including the then Sears Tower and the Art Institute of Chicago, the film was Hughes' love letter to the city: "I really wanted to capture as much of Chicago as I could. Not just in the architecture and landscape, but the spirit.”

Released by Paramount Pictures on June 11, 1986, Ferris Bueller's Day Off became one of the top grossing films of the year and was enthusiastically received by critics and audiences alike