The main conventions of a drama film is that the storyline is usually a serious, plot-driven presentation, showing realistic characters, settings, life situations, and involve intense character involvement and interaction. Drama films usually do not focus on special-effects, comedy or action but focus on telling a realistic, relatable and emotional storyline. The beginning of most of drama films start by revealing the ending of the story. This allows the audience to identify with the characters and the emotions that they are feeling.
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
About the Drama Theme
A drama film is a film drama that depends mostly on in depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes, such as alcoholism drug addiction, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, crime and corruption put the characters in conflict with themselves, others and society. All film genres can include dramatic elements, but typically, films considered drama films focus mainly on the drama of the main issue.
Dramatic films include a very large spectrum of film genres. Because of the large number of drama films, these films have been sub-categorised:
- Crime drama
- Historical drama
- Docudrama
- Comedy-drama
- Melodrama
- Romance drama
- Tragedy drama
Why I Like The Idea of Creating a Drama Sequence
The idea of creating a drama film really excited me as most of the things I watch on television or watch on film are all pretty much drama based. A drama film can take on any of society's issues and use it in ways to relate to their audience. Topical issues such as cancer, adoption, Altheimers, kidnaps, murders, rapes, romance, love and affairs can be use in Drama programmes. For instance popular soap operas, Corrination Street, Eastenders, Emmerdale, Hollyoaks, etc, use these topics to address and almost educate the veiwers of that particular topic, however topics cause contraversy amongst both the producers of the programme and their audience. For example recently their has been a bit of a row with the Soap Opera 'Eastenders' where two of their characters became centred around the issue of cot death. Although there was nothing wrong with the way it was portrayed, the audience didn't think it was a suitable issue to have been raised in the programme, let alone on television. Society's topics are not just featured on television but in some of the most popular of films. For example the film 'The Notebook' deals with the heartbreak of dementia and long lost love. The film 'P.s I love you' deals with the topic of love again but also of death and the grieving process which I'm sure many people can relate to worldwide. Another film is 'My sister's keeper' which adresses the issues of leukemia, in vitro fertilization and organ donation.
Monday, 22 November 2010
Film Institutions
If we were to make our idea into a full length film we would need a production company's backing and support. An example of a film company we could turn to would be 'New Line Cinemas', a Hollywood company which has helped to create many drama themed filmsin the past, e;g: they funded the film, 'My Sister's Keeper'. New Line Cinemas is a subsidiary company of 'Warner Bros'. As 'New Line Cinemas' are a large production company they would be able to provide us with a huge budget which will be required if we were to make this a full length film, and make it of high quality.
About The Music Used In A Drama Film
Generally drama films feature strong emotion and intense story-lines. This often leads to the music also creating a strong emotional feeling. The music in the opening is generally slow and low in pitch. The music is used to tie all of the different images together, so as one clip feeds to the next the music keeps a constant feel. However when there is a voice over the music is quieter so the speech becomes the more important aspect. The genre usually uses more classical music played by a large orchestra.
I am going to use 'The Boy In Stripped Pyjamas' as an example of an opening of a drama sequence. (Analysing between the times of, 0:00 - 3:14). In this post I will be focusing on the music and the soundtrack used. As the film begins we see a blood red screen which gradually turns into the Nazi flag. At this point the audience can hear a quiet, sad sounding piano playing accompanied by some string instruments. As the scene changes we hear the sound of a waving flag in the wind. The audience now sees a small group of children playing together running trough the busy streets weaving in and out of people acting like planes. We hear the children making aeroplane noises while running, (diagetic sound). Meanwhile the audience can still hear the piano playing, still slow paced but seems a little more upbeat. This continues throughout the piece and gradually it becomes louder and the string instruments become more apparent, this could reflect the childrens feelings of happiness while they're playing and also their innocence. In shots showing the grand house the music almost gives a regal sense to it showing it is important. As the audience watches the children run around the corner (2.56 ish) the non-diagetic sound of the piano and strings becomes slower and has more dramatic sounding beats. The piano dies down and the orchestral strings take over feeding more emotion in to the film opening by holding on to notes.
About The Titles Of Drama Films
The opening of a drama film is key in conveying emotion and aligning the audience with the main character. They generally do not cut into the main action as the back story is often complex. Therefore they usually use a montage of clips and images to illustrate the basic story-line. This short montage is usually accompanied by a voiceover which tells the story so far and starts to set out the films intention. The titles are usually small and appear in the bottom left corner of the screen. The actors names rarely coincide with the images of the actors, so unless you already know the actor/actress it is not clear who plays which part. The titles are very subtle so they do not disrupt the feeling of the film.
Example links:
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS55xHZWzEo 2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsV5vcESJlo
Why Is An Opening Scene Important?
An opening sequence gives an insight to the rest of the film. It sets an atmoshere and gives veiwers a sense of what the film is about. An opening sequence, even two minutes long can be packed full with action or filled with emotion. Within this time we are usually introduced to the main character and maybe some others. The opening sequence can be used as a marketting tool as it gives the audience a certain expectation for the duration of the film showing what it is based on and whether it is attractive to the audience members. The opening scene always establishes the genre clearly to make the audience understand what sort of a film it is and whether it is a genre they will enjoy. This first 2 minutes or so are vital as this is when the audience makes their judgments on the film. A very good example of an opening sequence is the opening to saving private ryan.
heres a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZgKo46X8CI
Wednesday, 17 November 2010
Monday, 15 November 2010
Preliminary Task - Take Two
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LrCl5XdUik
This is the link to our second preliminary task, it is posted on 'Youtube'.
We choose to do a second preliminary task as we were not very satisfied with how the first one went earlier on at the start of the year. We did not complete all the criteria that was needed on the sheet given to us, I managed to break the 180 degree rule numerous times and while editing I managed to make the shots jumpy by cutting shots too short. However we turned it around this time and we were even able to sort out the sound which was a problem last time. We choose to do a second task later on in the year as we had, had more experience with the cameras and the programme used to edit our film on the Apple Macs. In this preliminary task I feel it ran a lot more smoothly and we were able to cover all of the criteria given to us.
Monday, 8 November 2010
Preliminary Task Evaluation
While editing my film and peicing it together I discovered I had made numerous mistakes. One being I broke the 180 degree rule which happened during the filming right at the start. The camera seemed to have moved and instead of filming on my left side it switched to my right. Unfortunately, no matter what I did I couldn't seem to fix it while editing so I had no choice but to delete the begining chunk. I also broke this rule a little later on while filming the conversation. Secondly, I found that a lot of my shots were jumpy and seemed to cut away a bit too sudden. You may also have noticed that at the end of the film the scene changed from the stairs to a part in the hallway. This is because when I played it back I couldn't hear any sound and couldn't find a way on the camera to change it either. So I decided I would simply do an example of a series of over the shoulder shots to show a conversation instead. As well as this, I committed one of the worst crimes in media - filming in front of a window. This is displayed when doing the low angle scene at the bottom of the stairs, however to over come this I changed the brightness setting on the camera. I did try and complete the criteria set but missed out three shot, these were; the high angle shot; the dutch angle and also the exstreme close up shot. If I was to do this task again I think I would take more time in planning my shots and the places I would film to make sure I wouldn't mess up like this time and film in front of a window. Also with careful planning I could make sure I fitted in all the shots I need. I feel a little disappointed with this task as I feel I could have done a lot better but at least now I know what to expect for future tasks and I feel a little more comfortable with using a camera.
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