2. Romantic genre
Romantic short films are normally aimed at females,
this is because many females are connected to their
emotional feelings and have been in relationships.
Men can watch romantic films but it is rare unless the
genre is romantic comedy.
A typical romance genre would include emotions,
gender, relationships, sexuality and status.
3. Narrative
The narrative of romantic genres are straightforward, it
usually starts of with the characters being introduced.
The ‘boy meets girl’ scenario and then throughout the
whole film there are hints that they could be a good
match.
The characters have an argument and go separate
ways, and most often in romantic genres they always
find a way back to each other – reinforcing the ‘living
happily ever after’ tradition.
The love stories will most likely involve emotions, failure
to victory, pain, love, flash backs and past stories.
4. Settings
Many romantic films tend to start off in a stereotypical
setting where a chance encounter can occur between
the characters, this includes places such as school,
beach, party etc.
The setting helps the audience interpret what they
think can happen during the film and where all the
action will take place.
5. Sound
There are two types of sound techniques used in
media – Non Diegetic and Diegetic sound. Sound is
used throughout romantic films to help establish the
mood and atmosphere.
In our film, we will be using both Non Diegetic and
Diegetic sound. For example, when our characters
are narrating and speaking we will have a calm quiet
music in the background. And when they are silent we
will have either upbeat or sad music depending on
what is happening in the clip. Because the music has
to correspond with the narrative of the story to make it
a powerful short film.
6. Editing
When the characters are being shown, editing such
as jump cuts can be used in pace with the non
diegetic music in the background. This is the most
effective way to establish the relationship between
characters and the current mood depending on what
is happening on the screen.
Transitions can also be used as part of editing when
adding the titles and credits, we could make them
come on using fade transitions, this would add a
dreamy love effect even before the characters have
been introduced to the story.
7. What we have learnt from this
research?
From researching the codes and conventions of
romance films, we are now able to write the script and
storyboard based on the things we learnt. For example,
we now know that when we have on screen silent
moments and the characters have entered an sad
moment where they are contemplating their current
relationship we will play non-diegetic sound to reinforce
the mood.
Although what we have researched is not directly based
on romantic short films, we understand what is required
to make a romantic film in general and this will help us
create a great A2 media production because now we
understand the basics behind the codes and
conventions of romantic films.
