2013 Post 7E- Drama Genre convention summary

Our short film genre will be Drama as we believe this will challenge us to make a dramatic project, yet be realistic enough for us to achieve with our resources.
I have researched the conventions of the Drama film genre so that I know what makes up the genre, and can incorporate these into our short film.
Conventions:

• Real life situations with realistic characters, settings and stories to really connect with the viewer. This means there will usually not be any fantasy involved, which is perhaps where our film subverts from this convention as our main character has an un-natural gift amongst the normality of society.
• Narrative driven, typically following a character development journey wherein the core is focused on conflict, showing difficulties/pain, within the character or with others. Here, our film relies on this convention to emotionally engage the audience.

This convention can clearly be seen in the Adventure, Drama 'Castaway' which focuses on the main character facing life-threatening ordeals.

• Dramatic storyline to emotionally move the audience, this includes intense/serious social interactions within climaxes often followed by anti-climaxes, intense music often orchestral and emotions and events being shown at their most dramatized moments. I believe the short film we plan to make, follows this convention closely through the main character's inner struggle and frightening gift.
• Happy or resolved ending to set the audience at ease, although our short film will not feature this convention as we'd like our work to have a strong impact on the viewer. The 'Titanic' was a Drama film that also broke this convention with a tragic ending for the protagonists.

• Editing to mood, such as fades to black at the end of scenes to show closure and continuity for the sense of realism, so jarring jump cuts are usually avoided. For cinematography a deep depth of field draws the audience in and long takes draw out scenes for added drama. This convention will be incorporated into our short film as it is key for emotionally engaging our audience.

Popular themes for this film genre include: Injustice, corruption of power, racial prejudice and typically link to something topical like politics or poverty that an audience can relate to. More basic themes can also involve failed romances, family loss and broken friendships, although these are usually known as Melodramas for being typically 'overly dramatic'. Our short film would include a melodramatic theme of broken friendships, but the main theme would be isolation as the storyline closely follows a character's decent into seclusion.

I found this link very helpful when conducting this research into the Drama genre:

http://chelskifilm.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/genre-drama-conventions.html
They list different subgenres within the Drama film genre, discussing the core techniques that can be seen in all which will be crucial for me to keep in mind for our short film.