Planning and Brainstorming (genres and conventions)

I am going to work with Sarah Divilly, Fariha Khan and Celyn Ofori. I chose to work with them because they are reliable and we all get along well so we can help each other with the work.
The genres we are considering to do are are:

• Horror
• Fantasy 
• Comedy 
• Romantic Comedy 
• Romance

We chose a different selection of genres and each of us will choose one and research about it. We will research the conventions and watch trailers with our chosen genre. Then we will create a blog post with the research we found out and the conventions.

Conventions for Horror films:

• Settings- Small communities and isolated places. Urban environments, dark streets and narrow alleyways. Large cities or run down ghost towns or being alone. 
• Technical Codes- High and Low angle, POV shots, Handheld shots, diegetic and non-diegetic sounds 
• Iconography- Visual Style, often dark colours such as red and black which link to blood and danger. Lighting, Low key lighting to create a dark shadows and creepy shapes in the darkness. Specific props such as knives, chainsaws, claws and machetes. Also masks, weapons and religious icons. 
• Character Types- The protagonist is usually the victim and the hero of the movie. The villain is usually psychopath, serial killer, monster, alien and possessed people. The immoral teenagers are the characters who always get killed. Creepy children, policemen and others such as ghosts, zombies, demons and stalkers. 
• Themes- Good vs Evil, depression, religion, childhood issues, revenge, supernatural, beyond death, science gone bad, zombie apocalypse, nightmares, madness, insanity, lust, self consciousness, envy and suicide. 

Conventions for Romantic Comedy Films

• Narratives- They can vary, basic narrative would usually be a man and a woman, meet and then part in the middle of the film due to a disagreement or an argument but end up back together again in the end. Other narratives such as love at first sight, marriage/divorce, best friends in love and high school teen love. 
• Characters- Good looking male, Good looking female, Parents. the leading males best friend, the leading females best friend, 
• Setting- Cities such as New York, London, L.A. etc. Schools, workplaces 
• Mise-en-scene- Costumes, Lighting, Props

Conventions of a Romance Film

• Target Audience- Female, as they will interact with it more and be able to relate to it easily. 
• Realistic
• Contains emotions
• 'boy meets girl' scenario 
• Always a happy ending 
• Dramatic Irony- Audience have an idea that the characters are going to get together
• Voice-overs- introduces the love theme  
• Characters have a disagreement but reunite after 
• Involve weddings/ hearts/ flowers connotations of love
• Themes- Sexuality, status, gender, relationships, pain, love, failure, victory, flashbacks as well as part story 

Whichever genre we decide on, we will have to think carefully about whether we can definitely film that certain genre and get the correct settings and characters. We can accommodate these into our film, for example with Romance we can use school, peoples houses and workplaces. The only issues we might have when filming this would be if we don't have the right people to play the characters, so we will have to make sure they know they know the script and what they have to do.