Genre and conventions essay

This is a recent essay I wrote concerning the genre and conventions that have shaped the pre-production of my short film:

To gain experience in the common conventions of short films, I have analysed various products such as films that have premiered at festivals and recent University graduate projects. Through viewing these films online, I discovered that all of them contain common themes such as the length of time, stretching from three minutes to thirty minutes being classed as ‘short’. All of the films that I watched had a strong sense of narrative and character theory containing linearity, a cause and effect, enigmas and finally a resolution. A great example of this is the short film called ‘The Siren’ created be Alex Nevil, based around an old man seeing visions of a beautiful young lady. “Linearity of cause and effect within an overall trajectory of enigma resolution” (Barthes) This quote explains that the film has a certain linearity to it, such as a beginning, middle and end. The beginning being this elderly man wandering around on his own, the middle being when he sees this beautiful young lady and the end when he finally goes out to sea and meets her.

In two short films that I analysed, ‘Get off my land’ and ‘The Siren’ the filming takes place in the countryside, which is something that I also will do for my film as it has a scene that takes place by a river. I think that although this setting seems like a common convention, it all depends on the plot and location hunting that can be very varied depending on the genre. In some senses I broke the conventions of location as most other films are set in cities or built up areas, these are places that you are more likely to pair up with drama and social realism. The use of colloquial language and swearing is very prominent in ‘Get off my land’, which creates a real gritty mood to the film as well as giving the film a more adult and realistic feel to it. This isn’t something that I intend to use in my film because I really want it to be able to be viewed my people of all ages, which in turn doesn’t follow conventions of dramas and social realist films which tend to have age certificates of 15 to 18.

In ‘The Grammar of Narrative’, Tzvetan Todorov developed a theory of narrative structure, which I studied and followed when I began turning my script into a screenplay. In some senses my plot follows Todorov’s theory, as there is state is Equilibrium, before the character’s dies, Disruption, when the characters dies, Disequilibrium, when he is dead reviewing his memories, the resolution, when he realizes he isn’t scared of death, and the new equilibrium, where he is finally back in peace. Whilst analysing current existing products, in terms of structure, the title of each film seems to fade in after the final shot has actually been shown. Personally, I think I will do this to cause dramatic effect, as the title would make more impact if it were shown after the film has ended at a very poignant moment.

Vladimir Propp, in his 1928 book The Morphology Of The Folktale, concluded that regardless of the individual differences in terms of plot, characters and settings, such narratives would share common structural features. Propp’s key characters are:

1)    The Villian

2)    The Donor (who helps the hero with an object)

3)    The Helper (someone who helps the hero)

4)    The Princess (the prize for the hero)

5)    Her Father (someone who rewards the hero)

6)    The Dispatcher (someone who sets the hero a task)

7)    The hero (the protagonist)

8)    The false hero (a deceptive character)

Most current existing short films that I analysed follow Propp’s character theory, but I feel that I broke this convention when I began writing the script to my film. This is because most products that I analysed were over five minutes long, where they could fit in the necessary amount of characters to keep the conventions of Propp’s key characters, but my film is only five minutes long with three characters. The Elder, who dies, the Child, who guides the Elder through his past and the Elder’s brother, who shows the Elder that death isn’t anything to fear. This could relate to Propp’s theory, as the Elder is the Hero, the child is the helper and the brother either the donor of the dispatcher, who sets the hero a task to live his life to the full, and not wait for death to take him.

The film is heavily based around the theme of death, so consequently I have storyboarded interesting camera angles and shot types to create this atmosphere, such as long shots from eyelevel far away from my main actor, to create isolation, loneliness and looking in on someone else’s solitude. This relates to certain aspects of cinematography from ‘The Siren’ which the viewer can tell has been carefully crafted to really connote the aspects of bleakness and loneliness that old age might bring. A shot that I planned into my film was when the elderly man is passing away at the beginning of the story. The shot was a high angle shot, looking down at the elder in his bed, connoting the insignificance and weakness of the elderly man, which consequently contrasts with the rest of the film where the man isn’t weak or insignificant at all. This, along with all of the other planned cinematography for the hospital scene was influenced by ‘Hunger’ by Steve McQueen, which features a section at the end of a man in the bed who is starving to death. The final shot on the character is looking down on him from above, which I think works perfectly because it creates a great contrast between the strong character before he started starving and the frail, insignificant man in the bed who is slowly dying.   

As Bentley said in 1997 “Creativity is the making of the new and rearranging of the old” to create a market successful product you need to analyse, break down, understand and follow conventions from existing media products. Personally, through looking in depth at films such as ‘Get off my land’ by Douglas Ray, ‘The Siren’ by Alex Nevil and ‘Hunger’ by Steve McQueen I believe I have gained inspiration for my film in terms of cinematography, narrative and location. Through these conventions, I hope that my film will be a professional and commercially viable media product.