Codes and Convention for a Romance Drama

Codes and Conventions  

The codes and conventions in media can be separated into 3 distinct groups -
- Technical (camera techniques & shots),
- Symbolic (ie clothing, colours)
- Written and audio (music etc).

I will be doing a hybrid genre: Romance and Drama. Here are some examples of some Romance Drama films...

Examples of Romance, Drama

1.       Titanic

2.       The Vow

3.       Dear John

4.       The Notebook

5.       The Bodyguard

6.       Veer Zara( Bollywood)

7.       The Last Song

8.       Kal Ho Na Ho(Bollywood)

9.       Fashion (Bollywood)

10.   P.S I Love You

11.   Remember Me

12.   The Reader

In a Romantic Drama genre film, there are many codes and conventions which are used throughout the films. I will be discussing the conventions in this particular genre, for example...

You normally see love interests which are heterosexual, for example The Vow, Dear John and Titanic. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcL24s-S6ns  this is trailer for The Vow which shows who the love is between, for instance it’s between Channing Tatums character and Rachel McAdams characters Paige and Leo.

Another convention you see is that the non digetic scores are very soft and gentle as it reflect the mood of the film. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8udgmZMrnQY is the trailer for a Romance Drama Bollywood film ‘Kal Ho Na Ho’. The score is firstly heard as a heartbeat as it represents the starting character of Shahrukh Khan, as he is suffering from a heart condition, it can also represent that when in love your heart beats fast. After the heartbeat score, there’s the non digetic theme to the film which again represents the highs and lows of the film as it’s a film which surely will make the audience in the films mood.

There’s symbolic codes and conventions in trailers, for example in Dear John’s trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0fq5dd0C60 , when John and Savannahs love is portrayed at the very start, there’s simple, gentle colours used, such as soft pinks, baby blues and the nudity of skin can portray the love throughout the film which shows their purity and their simplicity.

Another convention used in a romance drama film is the technical areas such as the camera work.

There normally loads of cuts and fades in and out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3G3fILPQAU this is the trailer to The Notebook, which uses loads of fades. This shows that the use of fades represents the love is like heaven which is shown in the film. Without the quick cuts, its more smoother which romance films should be.  Love is connotated as happy, smooth, soft and gentle. However the trailer to The Vow, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcL24s-S6ns uses cuts as camera work. This is used to show the element of drama. With the quick cuts, it shows how the film is full of drama.

Also a major factor in the Romance drama trailers is the whole narrative of the trailer. There is normally a narrative structure used... I watched the trailer for the Vow http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcL24s-S6ns and the trailer for The Lucky One http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwp&NR=1&v=58oZRymxvgk and I noted down these checkpoints throughout the trailers...

1.       Establishing character also an equilibrium

2.       There’s a disruption

3.       recognition

4.       Trying to repair

5.       Quick cuts of past love 

6.       Last few shots of love the problem, which flips back and forth between the past love and the disruption.

Todorov’s theory can be applied, however the back and forth of the love before the disruption is very key as it reminds the audience that their love will be shown through the film also it’s like a reminder that this is how innocent their love was before the problem occurred. 

Overall with all this research of codes and conventions of romance, drama film, i personally feel that I will most definitely use Todorov’s theory in my trailer, also I will use both cuts and fades in my trailer to show the romance and drama content in my trailer. Lastly I will try to use non digetic sounds to portray the love through my trailer to the audience.