Film Opening: Drama, Drama, and some more Drama
So this past week we began learning about our film opening portfolio projects. I instantly began brainstorming different concepts and ideas for what I could do for this and it just clicked in my head that I wanted to do a drama. Honestly, I've always been more interested in romance and horror films when watching but I realized that in my creative journey, I think I can just do more with a dramatic film. Thinking about who I am as a person and how I've grown this year I have learned how important research is so I began looking into the drama genre.
The genre drama typically heavily relies on the emotional and relational development of a character. In genre, there are many different subsections but the one I am most looking at is tragedy. Tragedy is a movie where there is a downfall that causes something to change in a character. Some movies that represent tragedies are The Great Gatsby and Death of a Salesman. These types of films constantly show self-destruction and flaws that the character has as a result of death or degradation.
The Type of Drama Needed in My Film
In my film, I want to center it around one person in particular who has gone through a loss in her life but I still want to have other supporting characters that could be emotional relief to a more difficult-to-see story. I also wanted to look into how dramas are shot in this scenario. According to Adobe Creative Clouds article "Different types of shots in film" Charlie Chaplin states "Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up" I originally knew that I wanted to include lots of these shots in my film but this ensured that I was looking into proper techniques when researching cinemtography. Since close-ups help the audience to understand what the character is feeling I especially want to use these types of shots when I am trying to make the audience feel a particular way.
Some of the movies I have been researching to engage with the audience in the same way I do are "To All the Boys I've Loved Before" by Susan Johnson, "A Walk to Remember" by Nicholas Sparks, and "The Summer I Turned Pretty" by Zoe Cassavetes. I really wanted to learn from these films in how to portray the feeling of death in a loved one and investigate how they can make a dramatic film with comedic and still happy bits included.
Analysis
To All the Boys I've Loved Before is a film that was created in 2018 that was a technical romantic/comedy however the real reason I wanted to look into this piece was due to the content of Lara Jean's family life in having not grown up with a mother. I also wanted to look into this due to the intensity of some scenes and how the composition of each shot was framed. This was a great inspiration for my film in not only mise-en-scene elements but also specific dynamics I've been looking into like stereotypical popular high schoolers as well as more introverted characters. I definitely plan to go back and look into particular scenes that can help to appeal to the emotions I am trying to get out.
A Walk to Remember is a film created in 2002 that is dramatic. In this film, Jamie, a teenager discusses with her significant other her leukemia and how she hasn't been responding to treatments after months of chemotherapy. This film is about support given to someone who is getting progressively more sick and is a true dramatic tear-jerker film. I wanted to research more into a film like this because even though I do want some light-hearted scenes I understand that this film will be more intense to audiences similar to A Walk to Remember.
Other dramatic films include:
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