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Genre Choice

Hey guys! After researching three genres for our short film, my team and I decided on drama. With our pitch in mind, we decided the plot twist we want to add would work best with the drama genre. To add to that, the lighting, sound, and camera techniques common in a drama film are the ones we'll be using in our project. We want to create an environment where the audience feels embedded into the film. We truly want to throw our audience into the heightened emotions and feelings in this short film, which we believe will work best with the conventions of the drama genre. Our pitch focuses on a person going through financially rough times and choosing gambling rather than better alternatives to help. Settings and props common in a drama will also help bring this idea to life, more so than with the thriller and action genres we explored. For example, one of our main ideas for the film is to show a pan where the scene gets progressively worse. It starts with a picture of a happy family and moves into liquor bottles piled up, cigarette stubs and ash on a tray, and a mess of papers and mail. This scene would most likely be one of our opening shots. It would really help to set the mood for the rest of the film. It would also give the audience background knowledge and insight into the family dynamics explored in this short film. The audience can start to get an idea of the kind of people they will encounter in this short film. Through the drama conventions of lighting, we can make the scene darker, using low-key lighting. In editing, we can reduce the amount of color in the scenes and bring a dark, grimy feeling to the audience. These techniques wouldn't be possible in other genres and would give this short film a feeling and look that we don’t think would work well without a pitch. With other conventions we saw in thrillers, our movie would be much more focused on the suspense and the answers to problems our characters are facing. In action, there would be brighter lighting and more focus on movements. Action would make the film more high-paced, but it would take away from the plotline this short film is trying to explore. Choosing drama also allows for the plot twist at the end to work well. While a thriller is also a really good genre for a plot twist, we felt that all of the other conventions in drama would work with our pitch the best, rather than with a thriller.

 


See you next time,
Danniella Miller

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