Reflection:
For this weeks experiment, genre hybridisation, I was mainly involved in pre-production and production stages, having no role in post. The writing process for this scene was mainly conceived through listing common conventions of action movies – with the main one being intense chase/standoff sequences. We then began to think about how action movies typically incorporate humour to work within the genre. One of the main ways we thought of this was through the classic innocent bystander, who is usually equipped with a food trolley/shopping bags, getting wiped out by the characters involved in the chase. Obviously our idea took this to a more extreme and focused level, however I think we did a good job in sticking to the main message I took from the weeks tutorials; If you remove the comedic elements, the movie still makes sense and works in a narrative sense.
Although our idea doesn’t develop the action characters, we thought the best way to effectively execute this hybridisaton was to through the audience into a scene that would typically be found half way through a film. With the addition of the news story at the beginning, and the comedic characters introduction in the middle, I think the scene does a terrific job at nearly making the audience forget that a random guy has won the lottery, making the eventual surprise shooting even funnier.
similar to other weeks, lots of this scene was elevated through improvisation and on the spot thinking during our shooting day – for example, the multiple gun shots after the comedic characters shots, as well as the ’12 o’clock’ argument between the two shooters.
This weeks experiment certainly helped me consider how humour is utilised in outside genres, as well as encouraged me how to think of comedy as an addition (as opposed to focus)
to a narrative.