William DeAth OCR media studies foundation portfolio: Evaluation Question 1

The main conventions of an Action/Comedy film would be non-diegetic music which would normally be fast passed, heavy beat such as Rock, Rap or Bass music. This makes the film have more of a tense attention draw for the audience to be engaged with what they are watching. Diegetic sounds would normally involve in what the viewers are seeing in which this could be the sounds of gun shots, loud shouts, vehicles, explosions and running footsteps. The diegetic sound in Action/Comedies creates a tense feel to the film and makes a real atmosphere for the viewers to feel. Fast action also is a convention of Action/Comedy films. This is normally seen in chase scenes in which either the villain is being chase on foot or in cars or other vehicles. This gives the film more of an interesting and exciting feel to the viewer. Industrial, baron or an unusual environment are usually used in settings in Action/Comedy conventions. This makes the audience in a tense and almost uncomfortable environment in which makes the film more exciting to watch. Action/Comedies usually would use funny characters in smart or flash clothing to set the genre for the audience. The actors would normally be seen in Comedy films and then put into to the Action genre to make the film into a more effective and working hybrid genre. The titles and credits would normally stand out, be bold and run through fast to show to the viewers what is to come in the film’s genre. The editing in this genre is usually fast passed to show the action and the rush in the film. Sometimes the editing will be slowed down to show tension, fear or excitement. This is usually done by slow motion and is normally accompanied by a close-up shot of the characters, explosions or vehicles. The shots would normally be mid-shots, establishing shots and close-ups. All these shots take the viewer into a more dynamic look at the themes, genre and mood of the film. Props and Mise-En-Scene in Action/Comedies are usually fast cars, guns, lots of make up like blood or make up on females, money, drugs and smart suits for the allies and dark clothing for the villains. Some of these props would normally be of a futuristic kind with lots funny looking gadgets to help them through their mission. The lighting should normally be dark for the fights and action and light lighting for the comedic parts. These are used often in Action/Comedy films as it gives the viewers a clear look at what the film’s genre is and keeps them interested.

This film opening from mission impossible shows most of the conventions above and is a clear example of Action/Comedy films. It shows us a baron location in which the actor Tom Cruise is rock climbing where a establishing shot is used to set first scene. When he is climbing slower editing is used between shots to show then tension with him. This is also accompanied with a close-up shot to show his facial expressions. The props shown are a helicopter, rockets and futuristic sunglasses. These show us that the film has stuck to the main conventions of props to enhance the feel of the Action side of the movie. Fast passed non-diegetic rock music is used to enhance the audiences feel to the film when a helicopter comes out over the cliff-side.

Our conventions used in our film opening have been based around these main conventions mostly on the Action side but still with Comedy conventions included in with it. We have also challenged these main conventions in our own ideas of the genre.

Our conventions we used in our Action/Comedy film opening are:

We used the typical clothing for this genre to clearly show that it is an Action/Comedy.

I dressed in a suit, cowboy hat and sunglasses as I was the ally and George and Kain dressed in dark clothing to show that they were the villains. We did this because the clothing is one of the most seen things in films and we wanted to make it obvious of this.

Our lighting in our film opening was both light and dark. Natural light lighting was used for the comedy parts as it shows a more of what’s happening and keeps the audience interested as they see the funny parts. Dark/Low artificial lighting was used for the more serious action parts to show the tense scenes. We used a lamp low to the floor to produce this effect.

Our characters met the conventions as they were the normal looking people in Action/Comedy films. Eugene, the good guy is being chased by two bad guys, Clive and Dave. These characters and roles of them are typically seen in Action/Comedy films.

The film Paul shows these conventions:

We have challenged the conventions of Action/Comedies as we have had the two bad guys as the team instead of there being a friend relationship between two main characters. This is like the film Paul where there two bad guys. One of them is trying to be professional while the other is an idiot. In the original idea for the opening we were going to have a female take on the dominant role and boss of the two bad guys but as which we didn’t do this as it came out as an improved idea to not to do so. Our locations challenged the conventions of Action/Comedies as the most of them normally feature the opening in a city environment where as ours starts in the countryside. The film Hot Fuzz and our locations in our film Fatal Error feature the same type of locations in the countryside which shows the comedic look at the film.

These photos show the similarity of our film, Fatal Error and Hot Fuzz the two films challenging the conventions and one other film Bad Boys with the film sticking to the conventions:

Hot Fuzz challenged convention locations: