Monday, 6 December 2010
Sunday, 5 December 2010
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
...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.
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
Generic Conventions of Drama
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.
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.
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