Conventions Of A Drama Film

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.

An example of a drama film is "The Bucket List". The beginning of this film starts with a helicopter shot of a mountain range. This shot establishes the setting and also the harsh terrain shows how the characters journey has not been and will not be an easy one. A voice over is then introduced and it is a man telling the audience the story of a character. The next sequence of shots we see are of a man walking up the mountain the audience then assume that it was him providing the voice over. Also the helicopter shots are then put into perspective as it appears as if it was a point of view shot from the character that has died looking down on the man climbing the mountain.

This combination of shots and voice over fits with the conventions of a drama film because the story line is dramatic and is emotional as already we can see that the two characters had a friendship and one of them has died leading the surviving one on a long and difficult journey which is connoted by the mountains. It is also a realistic storyline as everyone in life suffers the pain of losing a close friend or relative and they also have to go on the challenging journey to get through the pain.

The Importance of an Opening Sequence.

Opening sequences are important because they set the feeling of the film. They also give the viewer a valuable insight into what the film is going to be based on. It also sets the atmosphere and intensity.

The opening of a movie can be considered one of the most important pieces in a film. Other than trailers and marketing elements they are the first thing the audience see when they start watching the film. These clips lasting usually about two to three minutes outline the filmmaker's intentions and set up the expectations of those watching. Saul Bass, a graphic artist in the film industry said, "making a main-title was like making a poster, you're condensing the event into this one concept, this one metaphor·a back-story that needs to be told or a character that needs to be introduced."

Here is an example of a film with an iconic opening:

Saving Private Ryan

Reference: http://myweb.cwpost.liu.edu/paievoli/finals/505Sp_03/Prj2/MataP2.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZJANhWizUY

Suitable institutions.

If I was to make our idea into a full length film I would need a production companies support. New line Cinemas are a hollywood company that has often made drama films for example they funded the film, 'My Sisters Keeper". New line cinemas is a subsidiary company of Warner Bros. Because they are a large production company they can provide a large budget which will be required if we want to make a typical drama film.

Common Features when using titles in a Drama Film.

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.

Music in Drama films

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 is usually classical is played by a large orchestra.

Preliminary Task

My preliminary task

Evaluation of preliminary task.

Overall I am pleased with our preliminary task dispite the lack of time for shooting. I included all of the required elements which included match on action, we used this when one of the characters looked down and a phone was ringing, however the audience could not see the phone at this point, this is where I decided to use the match on action shot. I also used shot-reverse-shot as the conversation was happening. I found that our plot for our prelim was weak and boring, however I included all that we needed to. The lack of time also proved to be a problem as I could not develop our ideas as much as I wanted to. Another problem that I will learn form is that when I shot our film there are voices in the background which makes the film seem very amature. So when I come to shoot our real film I will ensure that I film in a quiet area. Editing was not to difficult because most of the shots had been taken in order so I just had to cut them to size and run them one after each other. The editing together was easy which I understand when I do our film opening editing may not be as easy, but I feel by creating this prlim task I now have a basic understanding to how imovie works because I have never used it before.