Film Genres

 Tuesday 6th December 2022

L/O: To explore the concept of film genre.

Do Now:

Film Genres:

• Comedy
• Fantasy
• Action adventure
• Sci-fi
• Horror
• Drama
• Thriller
• Romance
• Western
• Documentaries
• Crime
• Animation
• Period drama
• Family?
• Kids?
• Musical
• Rom-Com (is a hybrid)
• Action-Comedy (is a hybrid)
• Music
• Christmas?

Genre- A style, especially in the arts, that involves a particular set of characteristics.

Hybrid- mixture of of 2 or more genres.

Sub-genres- categories a genre can be divided into. 

Animation:

• Frozen
• The Emoji Movie
• Beauty and the beast
• Cinderella
• Snow White
• Sleeping Beauty
• Moana
• Tangled
• Princess and the frog
• Coco
• Wall-E
• Inside Out
• Soul
• Up
• Monsters Inc.
• Lady and the Tramp

Animation Sub-Genres:

• Fantasy
• Music
• Adventure
• Romance
• Comedy

Animated Film Research:

1) Find out and list the main genre conventions for your genre.

1) Some of the main genre conventions from animation are:

• Hero- In every animated film there is always someone who is going to save the day in the nick of time. This is the hero.
• Villain- The villain is always put in to contradict the hero and mess with his or her plans.
• Physical risk- There always has to be some sort of risk involved when the hero saves the world. Without it the film would become a little dull, as there would be no excitement of whether the hero is going to make it.
• Rising tension- If things are too easy for your protagonist, and they don't have to struggle, the audience will get bored very quickly, and the film may flop.
• A race against time- Time restraints add a LOT of excitement to the film because, just like the physical risk I mentioned earlier, it makes the audience start questioning whether the protagonist will make it or not.
• Plot twists- any good animated film will have a plot twist that foils the main characters plans, benefiting the villain.

2) Name three directors famous for directing blockbuster films from your genre and one example each of their films

2) Jennifer Yuh Nelson directed: Kung Fu Panda 2, Kung Fu Panda, Love, Death & Robots 

    John Stevenson directed: Kung Fu Panda, Shrek, Shrek 2

    Chris McKay directed: The Tomorrow War, The Lego Batman Movie, The Lego movie.

3) Which movie stars have become associated with your genre films?

3) Robin Williams- Aladdin

Mike myers- Shrek

Ellen Degeneres- Finding Nemo

4) Find and copy the movie posters for THREE blockbuster movies, from your genre, from the past ten years.

Tuesday 13th December 2022

L/O: To implement genre codes and conventions.

Trailer conventions of Animated Films

• Romantic, uplifting and sometimes menacing music in the background
• A voice over- most of the time an american male explaining what special features there are on the film
• quick shots- maybe to keep the viewers attention
• lots of the music were pieces of music from the actual films for example, in the beauty and the beast, tale as old as time and be our guest both featured in the trailer.
• Certain features the film had such as 25th anniversary in one of them, sometimes the directors name is on there (in text not as part of the voiceover).
• Most of the trailers had clips of both the hero and the villain either having fun and laughing (or biting into the apple in the snow white trailer) or conjuring up an evil plan.
• good vs evil story line
• usually a love story
• sometimes a close up of faces depending on the characters emotions at the time. For example, when the evil queen turned herself into an old woman, there was a close up of her face smiling after snow white bit into the apple. Another example would be when sleeping beauty fell asleep there was a close up of her face, however it was on the screen for a very short period of time.
• on most of the trailers, there were a lot of clips of the main character having fun with her friends or with her love interest
• all of the main characters were female

Recipe for an animated film trailer:

Ingredients:

• A helpless young female- best if this is a long lost princess, or if she is going to marry a prince
• Agood looking love interest-make sure he can save her later!
• A villain- recipe works best if this villain is an evil step-mother, however if this is inconvenient, a regular one will work too.
• Some sort of evil object such as a spinning wheel, or a poison apple.
• Romantic, uplifting or menacing music to play in the background
• A castle and dainty little cottage
• Some sort of creature for the main character to make friends with
• Lots of white screens
• Some gold writing (optional)
• A forest
• A male narrator

Method:

1) Take both your helpless young female and your villain (I used an evil step-mother, but you can choose what kind you have, get creative) and put them both into the castle together.

2) Place in a white screen- don't worry about running out, you'll have enough.

3) Put your forest and love interest next- have your female victim walk through it just to bump into the love interest

4) Add in another white screen, but put some gold writing on it, maybe the director's name.

5) Next, take your dainty little cottage and add your female victim into it.

6) Sprinkle the cottage with your creature, and have them yelling at the female victim.

7) Add in another white screen and mix.

8) Place in a clip of your villain changing into their disguise.

9) Yet another white screen

 

10) Now add in your evil character knocking at the door of the cottage - preferably when the creatures are out.

11) Have your female victim answer

12) Another white screen

13) Have your victim hurt herself with the poison object and have her fall onto the floor

14) Another white screen

15) Have the love interest find the female victim and kiss her and save her.

16) Finally, serve with some romantic, uplifting and menacing music, a male narrator, and enjoy!