CHARACTER RESEARCH

For this analysis, I have looked at specific movies and other entertainment platforms to get an idea of what my characters would be like.

FOR JOE:

Because he is the comedy centre of the movie and has a fourth wall breaking style, I looked at popular comedies that all ages enjoy to get an idea of the comedy style and Joe's character. For this, I looked at these movies that have that 4th wall style:
Wayne's World
Spaceballs
Deadpool
Scott Pilgrim vs the world
From all of these movies I found the style I was going to use. I knew my character couldn't be as raunchy as Deadpool, I needed the character to be more verbally appropriate so young teenagers could watch my movie as well. From Wayne's World and Scott Pilgrim specifically I found two characters who I though were great stepping stones for my character. Garth Algar (Wayne's World) and Scott Pilgrim (Scott Pilgrim) are both very socially awkward, have weird behaviour, messy hair and were the kind of character my "outcast" audience could relate to.

FOR SIMON/JOSH:

Because both of these are parodies of the internet and the people who use it, I decided I would explore the internet some more. I joined many meme sights and researched many current memes at the time in order to get a feeling of what the kind of people who love memes look and behave like. I knew my characters would need to wear dorky clothes and glasses as the stereotypical nerd wears that, and most of the people I met via exploring memes were typical nerds, they weren't very social either.

FOR ERIN/GRETCHEN:

Because she is the "I hate everything" kind of person, I watched a couple of teen shows and films, but also a couple of the goth/horror movies that she'd most likely watched. the main movies I watched were:
Beetlejuice
The addams family
Glee
Mean girls

From these movies and shows, I gathered the kind of characters she would be like. Lydia from Beetlejuice, Morticia and Wednesday from The Addams family, Tina from Glee and Janis Ian from Mean girls. they all wear black, had a mysterious ego to them and most of them had a very bad attitude. these were all essential to my characters of Erin and Gretchen.

FOR EUGENE:

Because I wanted him to be that of a typical antagonist, and (because of personal viewership) I knew that many high school horror films usually have a bully as a primary antagonist outside of the possible supernatural monster, I watched some high school horrors such as:
Carrie
IT
Let me in

From these I knew my character needed a weakness, something that made him insecure and that's why he bullied. EG: Kenny (Let me in) was bullied by his older brother and wanted to look tough in front of him. With Eugene, he hates his own name and he bullies to compensate.

FOR EVANGELINE:
I wanted her to be the typical popular/beautiful girl, who really couldn't care less about our protagonist. For this, I looked at typical teen comedy films like:
Scott Pilgrim vs the world
Mean girls

From Mean girls I knew she'd have to be the most beautiful girl in the school, preferably blonde and that she'd have a blunt attitude where she ignores and blanks the main character, like how Ramona (Scott Pilgrim) flees or blanks Scott to keep this fearless persona up or to avoid a problem.