Tuesday, 24 September 2013

Codes and conventions essay 1st draft


For the short film that I and Holly Huzzard will be working on we have decided that we want our story to be a dramatic one with a crime/mysterious tweak to it too. In order to do this we will have to look at the codes and conventions of these particular types of films and apply them to our own, we must choose relevant ones though as if it doesn’t apply to our film than we will not be able to add it in. Some of the codes and conventions of drams include; One very significant convention of a drama film is that it shows the emotions of the characters at the very highest point and also at the lowest, this will apply to our film about a man who is addicted to drugs as we can show that he is only happy whilst taking the drugs and just how low and horrible his life and emotions can be when he waiting for the next hit. Another main convention is that the story line has to be something that can be relatable and real. Using this convention is how we got the idea of using a drug addict as many people are addicted to drugs and talk about how it only takes one time to become addicted therefore it makes out that this one person who is suffering from this awful drug filled life could be anyone and this will get the audience feeling the emotions too. In a drama the protagonist is usually unstable or vulnerable and in our film our main character is certainly unstable. As it is a drug addict he will be very anxious and on edge with the smallest of things being enough to flip him because of the addiction that he has got. Drama films are often used to portray a message about the society which we live in, it gives across a message in an entertaining world and through the use of mass media the message can be viewed in the masses helping to spread the message of the film. This shows in our film as there is a lot of publicity on teens doing drugs in this day and age and this is shown in a bad light so we are taking this and using this idea for our film. A sub-genre of the Drama genre is a Crime Drama which is what we will be doing were the films main theme is Good Versus Evil, in the film the protagonist often wins, however in ours it is Evil that wins. This is because the protagonist is the good guy and the drugs portray the bad guy and the drugs lead our protagonist to killing someone which makes him eventually kill himself.

There are other sub sections of dramas which if our idea changes however we still want to do a drama we could look at Teen dramas, these are often focused on teen pregnancy such as the film Juno who used the topic of teen drama to also include a comical side to it, making the issue of teen pregnancy somewhat not as serious but was done to show how common or typical teen pregnancy has become. Such as previously mentioned with Juno there could be a comical drama, these are usually very light-hearted and the drama tends to be not as intense, the moment is usually ruined by awkwardness rather than passion when it comes to a comical drama.

Another example of a sub-genre of the Drama genre would be a Romantic Drama were by love within the film is complicated because the two main protagonists have difficulties in been together for example family disapproval. An example of the Romantic Drama would be Titanic were Rose and Jack fall in love aboard the Titanic and the first problem they encounter is that Rose is from a wealthy background were as Jack is from a poor working class background, another problem is that Rose is due to be married therefore hindering the romance between the couple.

There are many different codes and conventions for us to use in our current idea and there are also many different ideas for us to explore as we have many different sub-genres of drama to look at, the codes and conventions of all these sub-genres however make it easier for us to fit our film into the specific genre of our choice and with these guidelines to follow we can construct our film perfectly so that it can be just as well thought out as any films that are created professionally. These conventions will also help when it comes to selecting our mise-en-scene and completing our editing as it will allow us to make sure that it fits in with other films within that genre and look professional.

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