For our genre - a typical Teenage Romantic Comedy, it is often to see the opening titles in a very arty and three dimensional way. The titles ranging from 'Juno' to '10 Things I Hate About You' all had titles that were very similar to that of a teenagers drawing in a note pad or doodle book. This gave our group a lot of ideas for how we could present our titles in our opening sequence in a creative way. The titles were usually very large and colourful and also introduced at about the same time as the main character in the film. The titles also seemed to relate to their characters or the film - for teenage films the titles came on quickly and seemed to jerk around rather being still and neat compared to a serious romance genre.
The music used in openings to our genre, or very similar, usually have a deeper meaning to them and link in to the story line of the film itself or gives underlying information about the character. The songs are often well known and quite pop mainstream, the title songs are usually non-diegetic although in some openings they are used to be diegetic by the main character driving a car or listening to an iPod. Other types of diegetic sounds that are common to be found in teenage rom-coms are groups of people talking so it seems like a crowd very faint in the background - this is often used to represent they are at a High School full of people which emphasises that at times, the audience are the only people relating to characters.
Music that can be used as a background noise can be songs like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MrqkiHWCnM&feature=fvst or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QXOymwtQKU, for example.
The characters that are most likely to appear in our genre was very easy to decipher. Through my research of the two film openings it is common to come across someone who is an out cast from everybody else in the school, and generally is not liking High School and wants a big change to happen. The main characters are usually stereotypical 'Nerds' who don't appear to have many friends or a social life. Binary Opposition is usually used in teenage rom-coms as it shows the diversity between the 'Nerds' and the 'Popular people' who the nerds want to be. The main characters in the beginning always wear bland and unflattering clothes that don't make them stand out. For female lead characters they are often filmed without make up and their hair tied back, and for male lead characters they are seen with typical 'geek' glasses and an out of dated hair cut. In the openings to films, the camera always seems to film the characters from a long shot or a medium close up - representing that we don't know the character very well because the character themselves don't either. The angle is usually low, as the character is supposed to appear to be belittled by everybody else.
In a typical High School rom-com, it is very typical to see all the lockers throughout the corridor; showing exposition as to where they are for the setting - which is generally within a High School or College. The lighting is usually bright to show how big the High School is and how daunting it is the main character of the film sees it. Also, there are usually big 'sports' fans in the background of most shots and pretty girls applying make up. This could be to connote how much the main character stands out from everybody else at the school. It is also typical to see the classrooms and school books that the main character is carrying, again to see how they only focus on school work instead of concentrating on socialising. 
The narratives that are mainly used are the Enigma codes to show the difference from when everything is 'normal' and how it concludes after a lot of drama and action. The music generally is the media language that represents this, as at first the music is similar to who the character is as a person to begin with. So if the character is from Africa, the music at first would sound like it came from that culture. This is to show that everything is okay - stage 1. When stage 2 occurs, the music usually changes to fit in with the drama. So if a love interest comes into the screen, a love song will play so the music will be non-diegetic and quite slow. It is also often to see Binary Opposition between the main characters and the dominant people in the school. So if the main character is a 'Nerd', you will see 'Popular' people breaking in and out of the screen to connote that they hold the power, so cinematography generally helps this by making the main character appear small in comparison.Cinematography is usually used to make the main character appear to be smaller compared to everybody else by the camera always looking down onto the main character to show they're isolated. Editing is also used to slow everything that the character does. Such as if they are walking past a crush - they slow down to show that how they are seeing them affects the main character. The camera also gets closer to the character as they appear to go through some drama or action, but then again starts to pull away as they make the wrong decisions. We also have a lot of point of view shots from the main character, so the audience tend to relate to the main character and favour them over everybody else within the film. There are also lots of close ups of the main character to identify the leading character in the movie, especially within openings.
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