Our Results From Our Questionnaire

Garage Band Lesson

In our lesson we were allowed to experiment with Garage Band, a programme on the apple macs which allows you to create your own music. Me and my partner had a go on it and decided to have a go at making a sountrack to go with our film we are planing to make over the christmas period. As we have decided to do a drama genre we tried to make our piece sound dramactic. We experimented with numerous pre recorded tracks as neither of us can play music very well. We used a variety of instruments and found that the piano worked well as an accompaniment with others. Towards the end of the lesson we played it to the class and they all were able to guess what genre we had tried to represent.

Our Quetionnaire

Questionnaire for a Drama Film

1. Are you male or female?

Male

Female

2. How old are you?

Under 15

16 – 20

21 – 30

31 – 40

Over 40

3. What is your favourite type of sub-genre?

Melodrama

Romance

Crime

Tragedy

Action

Other

If other please state:

..........................................................................................

4. What is your favourite drama film?

...........................................................................................

5. What storyline would you like to see a drama film based upon?

Long lost love

Adoption

Journey to sucess

Friendship

Other

If other please state?

.......................................................................................

Associated Actors With The Drama Film Genre

Actors and actresses can play role in any genre of film making it difficult to associate a particular person with any particular genre of film however there are a few that almost always feature in topical drama films. Here are a few.

Will Smith - featured in films such as 'The Pursuit of Happyness' and 'I Am Legand'.

Morgan Freeman - featured in the films like 'The Bucket List' along with Jack Nicholson another great drama actor and 'The Shawshank Redemtion'.

Tom Hanks - featured in films such as 'The Green Mile' and 'Forrest Gump'.

Sandra Bullock - featured in films like 'The Blind Side' and '28 Days'.

Cameron Diaz - featured in films such as 'My Sister's Keeper' and 'In Her Shoes'.

Julia Roberts - featured in films like 'Fireflies In The Garden' and 'Closer'.

Examples of Posters Used In Advertising Drama Films

All these movie posters for these drama films all have one thing in comman - showing the close relationships between the characters in the films often in a two shot frame. in these posters we can recognise the warmth felt by the characters whether its mother and daughter, father and son, boyfriend and girlfriend or merely just friends.

Moodboard For Our Drama Genre

How Drama Films Have Developed

From the early 1950s filming...

Films were pretty much silent until the 1950s. Drama themed films were acted as tools to teach it's audience, take the film 'The Grapes of Wrath' released in 1940. It showed the effects of the depression going on at the time. Also 'Citizen Kane' 1941, was said to be not a biography of William Hearst himself, but a combination of many people's lives from that era. In the 1950s many actors became associated with the drama themed genre of film, examples including James Dean and Marilyn Monroe. Dramatic Films focused on character relationships and development. The film 'All About Eve' focused on women, and their relationship with men. Whereas 'Rebel Without a Cause' displayed teenage angst.

... to the 1960s...

The 1960s brought politically driven dramas focusing on issues like war - 'Flashback'. Sports dramas also became an inspiration at this time - 'Downhill Racer.

...to the 1970s...

At the time of the 1970s, modern dramatic directors made some of their first films. eg; Francis Ford Coppola directed 'The Godfather'. Musical drama 'New York, New York' became a huge hit in the 1970s. It's also the time when Sylvester Stallone created one of the most successful sports drama franchises 'Rocky' and also directed the sequel 'Rocky II'. In addition, sports drama took a new light were the films focused on the struggle of athletes such as 'The Longest Yard'.

...to the 1980s...

Dramatic film put emphasis on highly emotional themes. 'The Colour Purple' was full of character studies of African American culture and history. War dramas again played a big part when the film 'Platoon' showed the horrors of Vietnam. In the 1980s drama became enrolled with a science fiction theme when Steven Spielberg directed 'E.T' in 1982.

...to the 1990s...

During the 1990s, 'The Shawshank Redemption', a film which was set inside a prison, had strong themes of hope, as did the Holocaust-themed 'Schindler's List'. Dramas also took a turn with existentialist thrillers too. Coming of age was dealt with in 'Good Will Hunting', race relationships were a theme in 'American History X', and the AIDs epidemic and discrimination were the focus of 'Philadelphia'. Comedy-drama was featured with films like 'Forrest Gump'. From about the mid 1990s, child-oriented dramas also became more popular with titles such as 'Lion King' and 'Toy Story'.

...to the present day...

From the 2000s, biopics such as 'Ali' have become popular amongst filmmakers. Despite the drop on popularity of the romantic dramas, some of them have enjoyed big box office success. The controversial, ground breaking 'Brokeback Mountain' for example. And 'Slumdog Millionaire' was a critically-acclaimed romatic drama film.