Drama Background:
Drama is the exact form of fiction characterised in performance and comes from the Greek word "dran" meaning "action", which is derived from "to do" or "to act." Drama could be said to date from the 19th century.
Genre: Drama
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth growth of realistic characters dealing with emotional and relational themes.
Dramatic themes include:
Alcoholism, Infidelity, Moral dilemmas, Racial prejudice, Religious intolerance, Sexuality, Poverty, Class divisions, Violence against women and Corruption which put the protagonists in conflict with themselves, others and society.
These dramatic themes are taken from real life problems.
The reason I chose this genre of movie that I will make is because Drama is the broadest of movies genres and includes sub genres such as romantic drama, tragedy, courtroom drama and crime drama. They also aspire to tell an honest story of human struggles therefore making the Blumler and Katz theory of an active audience more viable, as my audience will be able to personally identify and relate to my characters.
Some of the greatest screen performances come from dramas and have been nominated frequently for the Academy Award - more than any other film genre. This tells me that dramas are highly successful and enjoyed by a wide range of audiences.
The Drama genre has been changed and adapted and as a result have been able to continue reflecting significant issues facing modern society. Also, in the genre, are many key texts. From the silent era to the 1950s, Dramas were tools to teach the audience. One of the key texts in Drama during this period is The Grapes of Wrath (1940) which showed the effects of the depression. During the 1960s politically driven dramas focusing on war were created, such as Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), it was directed by Stanley Kramer.
The Drama genre has been changed and adapted and as a result have been able to continue reflecting significant issues facing modern society. Also, in the genre, are many key texts. From the silent era to the 1950s, Dramas were tools to teach the audience. One of the key texts in Drama during this period is The Grapes of Wrath (1940) which showed the effects of the depression. During the 1960s politically driven dramas focusing on war were created, such as Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), it was directed by Stanley Kramer.
During the 1970s, modern dramatic directors made some of their first films, such as Francis Ford Coppola directed The Godfather in 1972 and Martin Scorsese directed Taxi Driver in 1976.Sylvester Stallone directed two of the most successful sports dramas with Rocky (1976) and the sequel Rocky II (1979). War films (specifically World War II films) were produced as well and gave the most realistic adaptation of the war seen in films at that time- Apocalypse Now (1979), showed the trials and hardships of war, and for that reason it is still considered as one of the classic war films.
In the 1980s, dramatic film put emphasis on emotional themes.
Films such as Robert Redford’s Ordinary People created in 1980 expressed the subdued emotions and tragic crises in an outwardly perfect family and Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple (1985) were complete character studies of African American culture and history. Comedy-dramas were featured with films like Forrest Gump (1994), directed by Robert Zemeckis and dramas for children also became more popular with films such as Disney’s Lion King made in 1994.
Films such as Robert Redford’s Ordinary People created in 1980 expressed the subdued emotions and tragic crises in an outwardly perfect family and Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple (1985) were complete character studies of African American culture and history. Comedy-dramas were featured with films like Forrest Gump (1994), directed by Robert Zemeckis and dramas for children also became more popular with films such as Disney’s Lion King made in 1994.
In the 2000s, biopic such as Frida made in 2002 by Julie Taymor, became popular.
I analysed three different Drama Opening Sequences in order to have insight on how Dramas represent their character/s visually and how they use the micro-elements of Mise-en-scene, Camera, Editing, Sound.
Film Title: Judgement at Nuremberg
Director: Stanley Kramer
Release Date: December 19, 1961
Genre: Drama/History
Explanation of Opening Sequence using the four micro-elements of Camera, Sound, Editing and Mise-en-scene.
The opening shows a mid shot, of a relatively enormous building, into a slow zoom of an enlarged Nazi logo directly above the building; as a result the audience assumes that it is Nazi headquarter and the films narrative will be in accordance with the Nazi headquarter or Nazis in general. There is non-diegetic, slightly jovial, therefore asynchronous music played in the background for a great length of time. The Nazi building headquarter scene is continually shown when suddenly only the Nazi logo above the building explodes- this could connote the destruction and downfall of Nazi Germany- the explosion is followed with moving scenes (using the shot movement of track) of devastated buildings. Then a non-diegetic instrumental, emotionally provoking, synchronous soundtrack plays.
There is an establishing shot of the devastated area and the audience sees the damage as well as limited amount of people on the road and in the area more clearly. The editing mainly used in terms of transitions are cuts.
Through the camera shot of mid shots the audience watch the dialogue between two gentlemen wearing suits, seated in an old-fashioned car (a prop) that was well accustomed to people living during the World War 2 era. Their conversation explains to the audience the reasons for the destruction that surrounds them and in doing so ascertains the film’s storyline.
The two male characters are smartly dressed in suits, indicating to the audience that they are men of wealth and intelligence. Their appearance, however, is juxtaposed by the disaster filled setting. There is also Levi-Strauss’ idea of binary opposition shown in the form of the two gentlemen- one is moderately young and the other is quite old. As well as the binary opposition between the two gentlemen and the man driving them to their destination- whose character from his attire and chauffeur role and limitation of speech seems to be insignificant and therefore appears not to be as educated as the other two gentlemen.
The old man looks as if he is the most dominant of all the males and when he asks a question or gives a command the younger men immediately act upon and respond to them.
Pretty Woman
After analysing in depth, Drama Opening Sequences I created an idea for my own Opening Sequence for my Drama Genre, which has elements of Romance in it; therefore it could be viewed to be an hybrid of both a Romance and Drama genre:
Initial Idea of an opening for my Drama genre:-
Title:- Evil Work
Plot Synopsis:
The strife between two different clashing ethnic groups as a result of a female who is the love interest of both the male group leaders, however the female likes neither of the group leaders and is interested instead with a male who is not accepted by either groups and is segregated from the society in which they live.
The female is constantly threatened by both groups but does not succumb to their aims of terrorising her into complete submission; instead she tries to run away with the exiled male.
Their attempts at being together are repeatedly thwarted by the groups and this is the disequilibrium that must be overcome by my film’s conclusion.
The film reaches its climax when it appears that at long last the exiled male and female can be forever openly united, however when the two groups find out about their relationship they are envious and continue to threaten and verbally abuse the female as well as the male.
The female feels she can no longer bear the consequences of rejecting the two males and so decides to commits suicide.
The film ends with the exiled man seeking revenge against the two groups.
I will not reveal how he does so because I want to end the film with a cliffhanger and have an open ending which my audience can construe themselves- this would be in line with Barthes’ theory and also there will be binary opposition between the female, the exiled male against the two different ethnic groups (this is aligned with Strauss’ theory).
I will keep to the conventional themes of dramas by focusing on realistic problems faced by many people in society, in the form of the racism and division challenges in my fictional society as well as the desire for revenge on those that have negatively affected their lives and the idea that suicide is the solution to problems that some people believe are unconquerable.
Opening Sequence:
First scene begins with the biblical scripture:-
Where envy and strife is there is confusion and every evil work.”
Where envy and strife is there is confusion and every evil work.”
The story begins at the end; I did this in order to challenge Aristotle’s narrative theory and the rest of the film will be a series of flashbacks explaining the reason for the present conclusion.
The present conclusion is that the exiled male sees the female’s suicide letter draft (which is the reason there are flashbacks, as it reflects the words from the letter) and is consumed with anger at the two groups and the situation they have put him and his female in.
Peer assessed by Sonny Rowling:
But I think a dramatic fight or a drawn out death resulting with a person who is guilty rather then suicide could improve the ending. There could be a different act of suspension building maybe taken from a different genre.
After creating my Opening Sequence Idea I created my characters and used images that represented their characteristics:
06/11/12
In class today we analysed, in different groups, multiple genres- it was really constructive, interesting and engaging.
The genres we analysed were Horror, Comedy, Film Noir, Drama and Thriller. This was really helpful because we were able to give each other ideas and share our knowledge in term of codes and conventions, examples and mise-en-scene of each of those genres.
"In this video I made an accidental error when I explained/gave an example of a Drama because I gave the description of Judgement at Nuremberg instead of Grapes of Wrath- I mixed up the two tittles; so the description I actually meant to give was about Judgement at Nuremberg."
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