Romantic Short film By Noor Sharif

Romantic genre Romantic short films are normally aimed at

females, this is because many females are connected to their emotional feelings and have been in relationships. Men can watch romantic films but it is rare unless the genre is romantic comedy.

A typical romance genre would include emotions, gender, relationships, sexuality and status.

Narrative The narrative of romantic genres are

straightforward, it usually starts of with the characters being introduced. The ‘boy meets girl’ scenario and then throughout the whole film there are hints that they could be a good match.

The characters have an argument and go separate ways, and most often in romantic genres they always find a way back to each other – reinforcing the ‘living happily ever after’ tradition.

The love stories will most likely involve emotions, failure to victory, pain, love, flash backs and past stories.

Settings Many romantic films tend to start off in a

stereotypical setting where a chance encounter can occur between the characters, this includes places such as school, beach, party etc.

The setting helps the audience interpret what they think can happen during the film and where all the action will take place.

Sound There are two types of sound techniques used in

media – Non Diegetic and Diegetic sound. Sound is used throughout romantic films to help establish the mood and atmosphere.

In our film, we will be using both Non Diegetic and Diegetic sound. For example, when our characters are narrating and speaking we will have a calm quiet music in the background. And when they are silent we will have either upbeat or sad music depending on what is happening in the clip. Because the music has to correspond with the narrative of the story to make it a powerful short film.

Editing When the characters are being shown, editing

such as jump cuts can be used in pace with the non diegetic music in the background. This is the most effective way to establish the relationship between characters and the current mood depending on what is happening on the screen.

Transitions can also be used as part of editing when adding the titles and credits, we could make them come on using fade transitions, this would add a dreamy love effect even before the characters have been introduced to the story.

What we have learnt from this research? From researching the codes and conventions of

romance films, we are now able to write the script and storyboard based on the things we learnt. For example, we now know that when we have on screen silent moments and the characters have entered an sad moment where they are contemplating their current relationship we will play non-diegetic sound to reinforce the mood.

Although what we have researched is not directly based on romantic short films, we understand what is required to make a romantic film in general and this will help us create a great A2 media production because now we understand the basics behind the codes and conventions of romantic films.

Thank youBy Noor Sharif