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Conventions of Drama films

  • Exhibits real life situations with realistic characters, settings, and stories

  • Portrays journeys of character development

  • Intense social interaction

  • Purpose of a dramatic story line is to move the audience emotionally

  • Heart of drama is the conflict. Conflicts include inner/outer realistic struggles depicting hardships, difficulty, and pain

  • Audience can relate to the Characters

  • Structured with climaxes and anti climaxes to keep the audience emotionally attached and the tension ongoing

  • Drama can be interlaced with other genres such as comedy, tragedy, etc. It does not have to be complete drama.

Examples of Drama films

  • Fight Club

  • Titanic

  • American Beauty

  • Schindler's List

  • Forrest Gump

  • Shawshank Redemption

  • 12 Years a Slave

  • X+Y

  • I Origins

  • The Danish Girl

  • The Silence of the Lambs

  • Anna Karenina

  • Extremely Loud Incredibly Close

Technical codes used in drama

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Mise-en-scene

  • Generally dull lighting to portray gritty and bleak nature

  • Realistic Props, characters and settings

  • Typical settings may be: Close knit locations e.g. council estates, flats, schools, streets of neighbourhood etc.

  • Typical Costumes may be: Gritty Drama’s: Worn out, torn, dirty hand me down clothing, Period Drama: Old fashioned clothing e.g. Dress’s, suits, Military uniform’s, depending on era, Teen Drama: Hoodies, Tracksuits, Caps, bandana’s, Chains, trainers, t-shirts. School Uniform’s

Camera

  • Close up of characters to show emotion clearly

  • Low Angle and High angle shots- to portray strength and weakness amongst characters

  • Many emotional scenes (Anger, grief, love)

  • Focus on the one character, whether it be Male or Female

  • The characters are crucial to a Drama/Teen Drama as they help to create the tension and atmosphere of the film due to the circumstances they are facing. 

Sound

  • Dramatic music in the background (Emotional Scenes)

  • Often a Drama/Teen Drama Trailer is narrated.

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