Genre Assignment

Lucy McKenna

Monday Morning Madness

The clever girl

The ditsy boy

HISTORY: Comic films began to appear during the era of silent films, roughly 1895 to 1930. The visual humour of these silent films relied on slapstick comdey.

A popular trend during the 1920s and afterward was comedy in the form of animated cartoons. Several popular characters of the period, among these were Felix the Cat, Krazy Kat, and Betty Boop.

Media Conventions:

NarrativeIdeology

Representation

Genre

Media language

Audience

Narrative:‘Monday Morning Madness’:Joe wakes up on a Monday morning after having a dream about his teacher (who hates him) shouting at him not to be late again. He wakes up later than the other character Charlotte, who wakes up late, about 7:30. She is not a student that is late or failing to do homework. Joe however wakes up and slacks about taking everything slowly. We see both of them going through their morning routine, Charlotte (our clever character) is rushing for fear of being late. Joe isn't rushing his morning ritual. He isn't all that bothered about getting to school late. We follow both characters on their journey to school, they are continuously greeted by problems (flat tyres, stepping in dog poo etc).Throughout we are not really given any hints as to who is going to be late, but undoubtedly one will be.

Audience:I would use teenagers in my short film, as it is a teen comedy.

Id hope that the characters can be related to the audiences peers, I want the style to be fairly naturalistic, natural body expressions, no over acting. This will help the audience to relate to what they are seeing.

Representation:

•The clever girl would wear a pair of jeans, a jumper and a high neck top, to show that she is shy. She would be wearing a big rucksack, full of books.

•The ditsy boy would be wearing jeans too, these would be tight, he would be wearing a hoodie with them, trainers/baseball boots, hey would be wearing a pencil behind his ear, instead of having a bag.

Genre:

• The genre of ‘Monday Morning Madness’ (our short film) is a teen comedy, since our short film wont have much dialogue, the comedy aspect will come from facial expressions and actions, as well as what happens in the scene.

• Many films have periods of time where there is no dialogue/speech, however the audience is still entertained by facial expressions etc.

• I will concentrate on this aspect in my short film.

Typical conventions of a comedy:

• Music highlighting

comical aspects.•Obviou

s facial

express

ions•A

possible

love

interest • Normally

contra

sting

chara

cters.

• A proble

m that

needs

to be

sorted/

is explore

d through

out the

film.

• Thing that

the audience

can see that the

characters

cant.

Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. Also, films in this style typically have a happy ending. One of the oldest genres in film, some of the very first silent movies were comedies. Comedy, unlike other film genres, puts much more focus on individual stars, with many former stand-up comic transitioning to the film industry due to their popularity. While many comic films are light hearted stories with no intent other than to amuse, others contain political or social commentary.

Comedy often shows social class humour is often made from the poorer (in wealth, love, social), represented by stock characters. The plot of the comedy is often concerned with an illicit love affair or some other scandal. However, the plot is generally less important than its witty dialogue. This form of comedy has a long ancestry, dating back at least as far as ‘Much Ado about Nothing’ by William Shakespeare, which has a very comical plot.

WITTY DIALOGUE

PLOT

STOCK

CHARACTE

RS

ILLICIT LOVE AFFAIR

SCANDEL

Other teen movies/ programmes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhJrN3B6J1M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BlHY69ZsZ0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-m9BX2K_38

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnkefjCES-4