Drama

1. Drama “A real-life event or situation that is particularly exciting or emotionally involving” “Exciting, tense, and gripping quality, either in a work of art or in a real-life situation” “Works written for performance on the stage, radio, or television, considered as a literary genre”

2. Research • I have put extensive research into 3 films which helped me define the codes and conventions of the Drama genre. I will now present those films and the reasons in which why they are defined as dramas. This will also give me a heavy insight on how to structure the narrative and plot of my coursework by following the conventions I have discovered. • The movies I have researched are “Harry Brown dir- Daniel Barber (2009), “Romeo And Juliet dir - Baz Luhrmann (1996)”, Shawshank Redemption dir-Frank Darabont (1994)

3. Codes And Conventions • A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, crime and corruption put the characters in conflict with themselves, others, society and even natural phenomena. • This film genre can be contrasted with an action film, which relies on fast-paced action and physical conflict, but superficial character development All film genres can include dramatic elements, but typically, films considered drama films focus mainly on the drama of the main issue.

4. Sub Genres • Crime drama and Legal drama - Character development based on themes involving criminals, law enforcement and the legal system. • Historical drama (epic) (including War drama) - Films that focus on dramatic events in history. • Docudrama: the difference between a docudrama and a documentary is that in a documentary it uses real people to describe history or current events; in a docudrama it uses professionally trained actors to play the roles in the current event, that is "dramatized" a bit. Not to be confused with docufiction. • Comedy-drama: is in which there is an equal, or nearly equal balance of humour and serious content. • Melodrama: a sub-type of drama films that uses plots that appeal to the heightened emotions of the audience. Melodramatic plots often deal with "crises of human emotion, failed romance or friendship, strained familial situations, tragedy, illness, neuroses, or emotional and physical hardship." Film critics sometimes use the term "pejoratively to connote an unrealistic, pathos-filled, campy tale of romance or domestic situations with stereotypical characters (often including a central female character) that would directly appeal to feminine audiences."[Also called "women's movies", "weepies", tearjerkers, or "chick flicks". If they are targeted to a male audience, then they are called "guy cry" films. • Romance: a sub-type of dramatic film which dwells on the elements of romantic love. • Tragedy: a drama in which a character's downfall is caused by a flaw in their character or by a major error in judgment. • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drama_film

5. Harry Brown (2009) “An elderly ex-serviceman and widower looks to avenge his best friend's murder by doling out his own form of justice.” This production like all drams tackles or resonates a current event . The event being today’s youth and anti social behaviour being on a high in modern times. This film shows a direct representation of today's youth and the elderly’s perspective on that youth. Like all drams it follows the standard equilibrium of everything being all well, then this equilibrium is disrupted by the murder of Harry’s best friend. Harry then gets a visit from the police, when they say there is nothing else they can do. Now formed protagonist Harry Brown takes the law into his own hands by waging a war on the youth that is terrorizing his neighbourhood. This drama clearly explores the issues of crime and corruption and also poverty. The drama comes from Harry growing tired of this stereotypical modern youth that is in working class districts of Britain.

6. Shawshank Redemption (1994) • Andy Dufresne is a young and successful banker whose life changes drastically when he is convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of his wife and her lover. Set in the 1940's, the film shows how Andy, with the help of his friend Red, the prison entrepreneur, turns out to be a most unconventional prisoner. • Conventionally this drama shows main protagonist Andy overall coping and surviving with the prison conditions. Andy is depicted as out of sorts and unlike all the other dangerous and manic prisoners, until he finds unity with “Red”. The main dramatic exploration of the film is the trials and tribulations of his reign in the prison. Its simply one mans story about how he had the strength to carry on. The camera work and mise en scene makes the demographic feel very compact and emotionally involved making us as an audience experience the trials and tribulations of Andy. Like many drams it has a narrator guiding the audience by re telling the story. In this case it is red speaking from the future and looking back and re telling the events of the prison.

7. Romeo And Juliet (1996) Shakespeare's famous play is updated to the hip modern suburb of Verona still retaining its original dialogue. The gun-toting members of the families wage a vicious war on the streets as the star-crossed lovers, their tragic destiny. Romeo and Juliet is a modern re make of the famous book by William Shakespeare . The main dramatized theme of the narrative is the romance of Romeo And Juliet, and how they must continue their romance without their rival families knowing. The narrative focus on the conflict of the two families as well as the different personalities of the characters e.g Tibalt is depicted as aggressive where as his relative Juliet is peace loving and un involved in the fighting. Both Romeo and Juliet juxta position their families which is what makes them fall in love as they are so alike. This is a hybrid genre film of romance and drama. Which makes me think about my own project, as I can combine more then one genre e.g “Lethal Weapon” crime drama or action drama. There is a hint of the social realism genre in “Harry Brown” , so I want to make a hybrid combination or sub genre combination of a drama social realism.

8. Drama Film Characters I will now highlight some famous drama film characters and how they fit the drama convention of a character developing out of a difficult situation. Forrest Gump (Forrest Gump) 1994- The production focuses on his battle through life with mental and physical disabilities. John Creasy (Man On Fire) 2004- Focuses on Creasy protecting a young girl as a body guard, he however is an alcoholic which provides an inner battle. Andy Dufresne- gets sent to prison and focuses on him getting through tough prison life.

9. How My Research Has helped Me Through my research I have learnt the codes and conventions of the Drama genre, I have also researched drama film productions to give me an even better understanding of the genre and how to structure the plot within the guidelines of Drama conventions. As I explained earlier in my presentation, conventionally Drama films explore current events and problems such as drug addiction, alcoholism. It focuses on the development of a character out of a difficult situation. With this in mind, this helped us broaden our ideas. A current issue is the burst of social networking. A production has recently been made to capitalise on this called “The Social Network”, this drama production focused on the creation of Facebook. Rather then making yet another production on the making of “social networking”, why not create something showing the effects of social networking. Social networking is massive on a world scale, it effects and is part of millions of peoples lives. Recent news stories have hit or news stations about internet grooming, the controversies of meeting people in person after meeting on the internet. This could be the disruption for our character in the equilibrium. The demographic would be interested in a character in this situation and may also give an insight into what social networking can lead to. Like other dramas, we will devise an exploration of this subject and film the instability of a character, and how this character may or may not get out of this problem.

10. Thanks Viewing My Presentation • Here are some entertaining clips from drama films. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsyYvFgdb5c (Forrest Gump Robert dir-Zemickis 1994) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwNfzNGysNo (Man On Fire 2004 dir-Tony Scott)