Research

For part of the researching of our chosen genre we had to watch the opening of some romantic comedies and also some gangster movies as at this point we were not sure of which one to do. The object of this task was to get an understanding of what happens and what is used. One of the first films I watched was ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’ which starts with a monologue from the main character. This happens in many other films such as ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’ and ‘John Tucker Must Die’. I think that the effect of this is that it makes the main character seem more real to the audience and one that they can get to know more intimately. It makes them feel part of the journey. Therefore it is useful for us to consider using a monologue of the main character. The main character is usually a someone that makes mistakes and says the wrong things and is so put in comedy situations in the case of Bridget and also with Charles in ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral.’

What also seems to reappear in the films I watched is a ridiculous friend of the main character that offers the comedy side of the film if it is more based on the romance. This happens in ‘Notting Hill’ when Will returns home and the audience see his roommate Spike who is a eccentric welsh

wannabe artist or in Bridget Jones’s Diary where audiences meet her mother who is dressed in something that looks like a carpet and is constantly interfering. It makes fun of the types of people that everyone knows. However some films do this differently. Some romantic comedies are targeted at teenagers such as ‘10 Things I hate about you’ and ‘John Tucker Must Die.’ In these films there were certain things that were changed to suit the younger audience. For example in most of the romantic comedies I saw, most of the titles were subtle and part of the shot. However in the films that are targeted younger the titles were in the middle and young like as if someone had written them not subtle and part of the shot. This was not all that changed there was younger more up to date songs playing rather than the classic love songs. It is these sort of slight changes that we have to take into account when deciding what sort of romantic comedy we will do.

One of the ideas that came up was doing a gangster movie or fusing the idea of gangster into a romantic comedy. Therefore we did look into some gangster movies. This was to give us an idea of what was included in a gangster movie generally. In the gangster films I saw they were very alike like romantic comedies are and have their generic characters. This was found in ‘Layer Cake’ where it followed Valadim Propp’s idea of archetypes. There was the main character, then his right hand man that helped him but was not a developed character on his own. The boss of all gangsters seemed to appear as well as the wannabe gangster that made mistakes. It was very similar to the romantic comedies which also had it’s archetypes. For the younger targeted films the characters changed to fit the stereotypes in schools such as the cool jock that everyone wants and the lovable but geeky main character that wants the head cheerleader. This draws in the younger audience as it is particular to them as does the characters in the romantic comedies that are for older audiences. The mise en scene of both of the genres is really important as it makes the genre its’ own and is similar to those that are in the same genre. For example gangster films usually contain if not always something to do with violence.

However from the research I think the group is going to look into romantic comedies that are based for younger audiences such as ‘10 Things I Hate About You’. This we feel means we can include what we know which is being a teenager and we know more about what school groups are like and we can incorporate this into our piece. It enables us to be more creative but research more into films of this type so we know what conventions are used specifically for this particular type of romantic comedy. From the research we also got an understanding of what is used to engage the audience such as the music and monlouges etc and got an idea as to what is used commanly in the romantic comedies and the gangster films if we decide to go down this route. This will be useful and we can look back to the research when diciding what conventions to use. The Mise-en scene is also similar within the genres so we can take this to use in the coursework.