Genre: Drama

Genre Conventions:


Content:
Drama films tend to illustrate real-life situations and incidents. They portray reasonable and expected characters as well as realistic settings and story plots. There is usually a build up of suspense and tension until the climax, which keeps the audience wanting more. Drama films aim to move the audience emotionally. The main focus of the drama genre is based on any type of conflict, difficulties, struggles, or pain.

Production techniques:
The mise-en-scene of drama films are represented by the dull lighting that is used. It makes the audience feel a sense of tension that portrays a gritty and bleak nature. There are many types of angles and camera movements that are used, as well as close ups of characters. The high and low angle shots are used to depict the strength or weakness amongst characters. The props that are typically used are guns, alcohol, drugs, knifes, and phones. The common settings for drama films are schools, ghettos, streets of neighborhoods and run down neighborhoods.

Film example #1:

Gossip Girl (2007-2012)
Gossip Girl is a good representation of the Drama genre because it is about the scandalous lives of Manhattans’ elite. Out of all of the wealthy families, the Humphrey’s aren’t one of them. Dan Humphrey is an outsider who started a blog called gossip girl so that he could feel like he was a part of it all. There is a lot of school drama and also parent drama. Throughout all of the seasons the tension only ended when the show terminated, because of how the director planned the plot.

Film example #2:

10 Things I Hate about You (1999)
10 Things I Hate about You is a good representation of the Drama genre because it is about a teenage girl that isn’t allowed to date. She has a sister who is very boylike, and as her father thought, she would never go on a date with a guy. He placed the condition that if she boylike sister begins to date, so can the other sister. As expected the sister made sure to find them both dates, and the boylike sister fell in love with the guy.