Drama

Conventions of the Genre

• Often shows real life situations with realistic characters, settings and stories that the audience can easily relate to.
• Often shows journeys of character development, with a sense of realisation at the end
• Intense social interaction.
• The drama is usually some form of conflict.
• Mise-en-scene can include dull lighting to portray a gritty and bleak nature during scenes of conflict, close up shots of the characters faces to really portray their emotions & use of low and high angle to shots to portray strength and weakness amongst different characters.
• Typical props include alcohol, drugs and sometimes weapons to stir up conflict and create the drama. Mobile phones are also key props, as the Drama genre is often tied in with the Romance genre, and mobile phones are often used for two characters to communicate, often in a romantic way. I am looking to use this as one of my ideas.
• Conventional settings in dramas are often tight-knit locations with lots of people such as flats, schools & other neighbourhoods. Grittier dramas are often set in places like run down houses, estates and in the workplace. 
• The type of costumes seen in dramas include worn out, torn and dirty clothes for grittier, more down to earth dramas. On the other hand, period dramas like the television programme 'Downton Abbey' make use of old fashioned clothing, expensive period dresses and suits. Military uniforms are also commonly used in war dramas such as 'Atonement', which is set in the 1930's during WWII. Teen dramas make use of everyday clothing like jeans, hoodies, caps and trainers. Also, school uniforms are used in dramas set in high school and colleges.

Pros and Cons of a Short Drama Film

Pros:

• A short in this genre can hold the viewers attention and interest before making it boring.
• There is no need for an in-depth and long script so less time is needed to prepare and plan.
• Many teen dramas focus on displaying real life situations, and so not a lot of money is needed to be spent on costume and setting. 
• Characters are often presented in a way to easily digest and relate to.

Cons:

• Not as much chance to expand on your story, and getting to know the characters better. In a drama, it is extremely important that the viewer can relate with the protagonist. A short offers limited time, so this is more difficult.
• The limited time frame also means that your storyline needs to be really well thought out and effective at capturing the viewers sympathy and empathy in most cases.
• The story itself has to be very well refined and well structured, this can be very hard to pull off and may leave the viewer with a feeling that the story hasn't been fully explained if done ineffectively. It needs to be understandable.

Textual Analysis of About a Girl

‘About A Girl’ is a BAFTA award winning short film from 2001. Written by Julie Rutterford and directed by Brian Percival, the film gained great success winning several awards at a host of UK film festivals. 

Set in Manchester’s industrial estate, the film is a documentary type with the protagonist, a 13 year old girl, talking directly to camera about her life and aspirations. Throughout the short many themes and issues are brought to the foreground including teenage pregnancy, lack of education, poverty, unemployment and perhaps most importantly the issue of separated parents and how this affects others.

The film begins with the title being typed onto a simple black background in a text like font, while the sound of beeping is also heard suggesting the theme of youth to the audience and representing the age of the character we are about to see. The next thing we see is a wide shot of a silhouette dancing and singing along. The use of a wide shot here shows the girls isolation as she is alone with nothing but her music and her surroundings, while the dim lighting and the fact we can’t see the girl clearly helps to create a sense of mystery around this character and draw the audience in. 


The film then cuts to a series of hand-held close-ups of a young girl talking directly to the camera. Her accent represents her regional identity while the mise-en-scene of the scene shows her working class background, with the grim lighting and dilapidated industrial estate showing this. It is through the mise-en-scene that the issues of endemic poverty and social status are brought to the audience’s attention. Costume is also used to hint towards the girl’s class and status, with her gold hoops, scraped back hair and sporty puffa jacket all holding the stereotypical connotations of a ‘chav’ and being lower class. 

Between each the close-ups the film cuts to show flashbacks of the girl’s day-to-day life. 


The girl then begins to talk about her father and it is obvious from what she says that her mother and father are separated and do not have a good relationship. We then see the girl and who we assume to be her dad having lunch; this appears to be their quality time together however the girl’s father is more interested in reading his paper than talking to his daughter. 


The girl is then pictured on the bus with her friends singing the same song again; it is at this point in the film that we see the girl for the first time as a child, laughing with her friends. However, the song has the line “I’m not that innocent” which hints towards the girl’s own loss of innocence which we later see in the film. The girl then begins to talk about her hopes of becoming a pop star and how she writes the music for her band, but not on a piano as her mum says they can’t afford one. It is here we notice the girl’s resentment towards her mother, with the girl blaming her mum for everything they do not have. This tells us the girl’s immaturity as she doesn’t understand the financial situation her and her family are in, however it also shows the mothers neglect with the girl saying her mum always has enough money to spend on herself.


We then find out more of her story and how her brother bought a puppy, hiding it in is room until their mum found it. The girl then reveals that her mother asked the neighbours to dispose of it in the canal. We then see the girl overlooking the canal from a high-angle as she throws a plastic bag in and walks away. It is here that the shocking discovery that the girl’s still born baby was in the bag is revealed as the bag unravels and the baby sinks into the depths of the water. The audience are now fully aware of the girl’s naivety and lack of emotional maturity as she dumps her baby in the canal without any emotion whatsoever.

This drama is overall very hard-hitting and works well to explore the storyline slowly and give subtle yet sometimes important hints to the storyline of the characters and their very big background story. This storyline is portrayed very well using camera angles and mise-en-sence to explore the story and show stereotypes. I feel the drama genre is very well shown in this short film and is very professionally made and well constructed.