Author: Gloria T

Sketching “Rom-Com”

PB 2

 

EXEGESIS-

Audio sketch “What a Day”.

“What a Day” (2016) is an experimental audio-sketch that intends to define the romance comedy genre. The approach of this sketch is to challenge the ideological boundaries (as well as its ideological influences) created throughout romantic comedy films by bending certain popular tropes and conventions while discard some others. Often stories are divided up according to patterns of conventions and there comes genres as boundaries. As Ishiguro had mentioned, “I get worried when readers and writers take these boundaries too seriously…” (2015). Hence, what would challenge this strict grouping is to create or “sketch” a genre that removes the use of one of its popular tropes and still proves the piece to be a romantic comedy piece.

According to Mortimer (2010), romance comedy is known to consist of displacement and disruption in its narrative content that is complemented with gag, comical suspense or surprise as well as the subversion of the adult world. These films are predominantly predictable; with viewers know the basic happy ending and who the characters will end up with. Rom-com films rely greatly on the journey of the characters to achieve that happy-ending. “What a Day” is an example of a rom-com sketch that denies this popular happy-ending element while comprises other tropes and conventions. Additionally, the audio piece ends ambiguously, without the listeners knowing if the couple will end up together or not. As the audio piece is a parody, it defines the typical disruptive obstacles in rom-com ideologies and mocks the romance out of the couple. While its parody imitation includes the use of humour, verbal exaggeration and subversion of the adult world with the “truth or dare” plot, the typical pop romantic music is replaced entirely with a comedic-tone music. Garwood (2000) argues, “The virtues of the ‘old-fashioned’ visions of romance held by the songs have to be accepted as credible and relevant”. The background music complemented in “What a Day” is not one of those pop songs holding traditional romance semiotics. Furthermore, the experimentation of this background music and narrative component supports that without the satisfying ending, “What a Day” is still a piece about romance and relationship and it is still up-lifting. The audio text is about the romance of the two couple and is comedic because it is a parody of that archetypal romance (beside it having an ambiguous ending).

Romance comedy is indeed about the “celebration of love and relationships while lifting central characters out of the tedium and loneliness of their normality” (Mortimer, 2010). But rom-com can also be seen as a parody of that celebration due to its construction of made-up idealisation about the happily ever after as one reconcile with another. As “What a Day” portrays, rom-com is like looking at a relationship on truths or lies basis. As explained by Grindon (2011) Hollywood rom-com promotes “widespread illusions that everyone was destined to meet their true love or that lovers united in marriage lived happily ever after”. Therefore, the genre’s usual components generates audience’s blissful daydreams that there is always a happy ending after a number of obstacles, causes them to be dissatisfied with their own relationships (Grindon, 2011). The audio piece, through its experimentation, proves itself to be a rom-com without a happily ever after. Yet, it also implements the idea that relationships are not always blissful and heaven-like, turning audiences to the worldly reality rather than constructed rom-com ideologies.

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Sleepless in Rom-com

Romantic comedies are one of those films that will just put us in ease and delights. With all the laidback slow-paced sequences, pop music and the happy ending, we ought to be immersed in a dreamlike world of romantic drug. As I was doing my readings, I came across Mortimer’s (2010) descriptive text of typical rom-com characteristics and its use of conventions. There are these particular comedic tastes generated by the gag and performance that are carried out with silly witty characters and exaggeration of elements. We would also see a subversion of the adult world for a more childish approach. Mortimer (2010) identifies the conventions used among the rom-com film:

  • Displacement
  • Disruption
  • Gag performances
  • Suspense and surprise
  • Viewer’s predictability
  • Incongruity

quote-Timothy-Olyphant-usually-in-romantic-comedies-you-end-up-96757

In Nora Ephron’s Sleepless in Seattle (1993), we can see a displacement of character when Annie and her fiancé both visits her family during christmas. Her fiancé, being allergic to almost everything is put in a position of embarrassment as he loudly sneezes during the family dinner. Therefore, the basics of displacement is about the sense of things being out of place just like this example of social displacement as a source of humour. We can also see disruption within rom-com narrative as conflict or influences occurs between the two main leads in When Harry Met Sally (1989). In typical rom-com films though, the audiences have already predicted that whoever is mentioned or shown within the film poster would end up together and it is the exploration of their journey that takes upon various surprises and suspenses. As Mortimer had stated, rom-com is about “the celebration of love and relationships, lifting the central characters out of tedium and loneliness of their normality” (2010).

Mortimer, C 2010, Romantic comedy, “Chapter 4: The comedy of romance“, Oxon: Routledge, pp. 69-83.

Exploding Genre begins

Exploding Genre- PB 1

Statement of Intent

What I am thrilled to get out of Exploding Genre is challenging and eye-opening theories about film genre and itself as a mode of classification. I am also fascinated from the idea of a “hybrid genre” because of how a “mash-up” film signifies one’s unique imagination in which it encourages creativity. Rick Altman’s theory of semantic and syntactic genre as textual elements and contextual structure respectively provides a solid foundation in further defining what genre is.

In this studio, I would also like to question genre in response to the problems and issues of genre. Moreover, why those genre exists. A Hollywood scholar Stephen Neale’s theory of defamiliarisation seems to act as a significant aid to further investigate about genre. Drama as we know is a complex genre especially among contemporary films. There are a number of drama subgenres including historical drama, melodrama, docudrama and so on. Though, there are also drama films that are constructed with a mixture of patterns and become a hybrid such as drama with romantic-comedy elements conveyed. I found these cross-genre interesting and would like to explore a further depth on the notion of drama.

Finally, experimenting on mixtures of genre is what I am mostly excited about. Through genre sketches and editing skills practice, I would like to play on the elements as means to generate certain response that are ambiguous and yet impactful. Touching upon drama, which proves to be a popular genre and reconstructing it through mash-up techniques would be an interesting aspect of genre study about the notion of defamiliarisation.

 

Case Study; The Danish Girl

Tom Hooper’s biographical film The Danish Girl (2015) not only is classified as romance but also enters the subgenre historical drama. The film centres its focal point based on the life of Lili Elbe, the first surgically performed transgender in historical records. Eddie Redmayne was casted as Lili Elbe and performed a significant emotional and physical transformation of a courageous real-life figure. The film’s convention of this emotional-driven biography that implements tragic events generates a particular heart-breaking response, in which defines itself within a drama genre. The fact that the filmmaker chooses to adapt the historical life-changing figure and also focuses on his love life further generates a legitimate impact to the viewers. Stephen Teo in his talk mentioned the “Rasa Sentiments” or tastes within each genre films as a way of signifying what emotional impact is present within the film or as patterns in genre (2016). Shot with long-distance shots and long takes signifying the settings stretches the film in a slower pace creating a harmonious rhythm. These patterns are often conveyed in romance and biographical dramas as means to create specific “touching” response. Hence the patterns are used accordingly to divide stories in different genres and genres act only as means to group these emotions or “Rasa”.

The Danish Girl exemplifies a hybrid of genres between historical biography, romance and drama. As Ishiguro and Gaiman pointed out, it is important not to “take these boundaries too seriously” as they can limit one’s imagination (2015). The film is constructed with a narrative focusing on not only Lili Elbe’s gender identity crisis and transformation but also his relationship with his wife. Elbe’s change from a “husband” to a person exploring sexual identity with another man have had an emotional impact on his wife. To mix a romance film consisting of intimate scenes with a controversial historical moments makes The Danish Girl unusual to one specific genre. Therefore, Hooper has encouraged an exceptional play of conventions consisting different “tastes”.

 

Gaiman, N, Ishiguro, K 2015, New Statesman, “Let’s talk about genre: Neil Gaiman and Kazuo Ishiguro in conversation”, updated June 4, <http://www.newstatesman.com/2015/05/neil-gaiman-kazuo-ishiguro-interview-literature-genre-machines-can-toil-they-can-t-imagine>.

Teo, S 2016, Eastern Westerns: A Rasa Revisionist View of Once Upon a Time in the West and The Searchers, speech July 26.

The eastern eyes of western

An eastern western in terms of genre is constructing the western through eastern eyes. Likewise, spaghetti western is the Italian perspective of western cinema and there are other familiar national culinary labels. This week’s screening of Sukiyaki Western Django (2007) by Takashi Miike centres its notion on Japanese way of looking at the western “western”. The film implements western elements and tropes meshed in with some tints of Japanese style. This includes the vintage Japanese temple-like buildings, Asian actors speaking heavy-accented English dialogue as well as the use of Samurai swords. Metaphorically speaking is how an eastern chef cooks a western dish, in which the dish has a specific eastern ‘taste’. Like some of those dishes, Sukiyaki Western Django has a certain unsatisfactory result (through a subjective perspective) possibly due to the mixture of eastern and western components.

Khoo (2013) explored “when all of these ingredients are thrown together, does the film create something new?” Having Tarantino and English dialogue in the film represents a cross-pollination of film sources between east and west. Furthermore, as I attended Stephen Teo’s talk on Asian cinemas, he pointed out a theory that we can apply as “Rasa Sentiment” or taste. So the main idea of this theory is;

Film is the food

Cooking is the construction

Rasa is the taste which generate emotions

Can we then look at eastern western as an eastern colonization of the western, or is it the other way around? Or does that colonization go both ways?

Instead of colonisation, is it simply a cross-contamination (or as Khoo mentioned, a “cross-pollination”) between the two industries?

sukiyaki_western_django_movie_image__2_l

 

Khoo, O 2013, Asian Studies Review, “Bad Jokes, Bad English, Good Copy: Sukiyaki Western Django, or How the West Was Won”, Routledge, vol. 37, no. 1, pp 80-95. 

Imagining tropes and genre

What I have found interesting about this week’s studio discussion revolves around what genre really is. Genre can be a mode of categorising texts but it cannot strictly classify one film into one genre. When I came to think of it, films like other medium of literature or text, are like a population or individual within a country. One film can belong to one genre like a person can belong to a certain country while another can incorporate international teachings. Imagine how a student is studying abroad in a different country; learning, implementing and immersing one self into what is taught. There are certain boundaries genre classifications such that countries do. However, those boundaries can be crossed over by films in terms of many different aspects including the production, content as well as reception of that particular film. Just as the colonisation of one nation to another yet.

What we did in the first day of our exploding genre studio is identifying tropes within films. Second, we explore how these tropes are complemented or applied through similar as well as different films across genres. We can see forshadowing tropes within Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho on shots leading up to the stabbing murder scene in the shower. This is where the use of different angles, music, silence and shadows as symbolisms to create intensity and imbalance experienced by audiences across horror films.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VP5jEAP3K4

The presentation day

The presentation day isn’t only long but interesting in a way that opens up my ideas about other studios as well. Having watched other groups’ films during our screening has inspired me regarding the ‘ear’, the visuals and capabilities to utilise creative components of filmic methods to deliver that ‘ear’. Being in the editing team, I contributed by doing an interview I went with Dea to preview our film “Juvies” while James helped edit our trailer. Beforehand, we had also have a screening of the whole studio’s films with our casts and crews.

Whole Class Films

This would be the trailer for “Juvies”.

As a director…

You’ve gotta be…

Respectful

Responsible

and

Keep Calm

Before we had our shoots, I attended the studio workshops James had organised for us. These workshops allows us to explore a deeper understanding of lighting principles and cinematography techniques and some directing tips from James himself and Peter White. Our group have had tries to set up our camera and lighting points and figured that we won’t need much LEDs, spotlights or other heavy lighting as we will take advantage of the natural sunlight. Beside cinematography, we’ve also gain a great deal of tips and knowledge about producing and directing. Here are some dos and don’ts that will save us from glitches during the shooting days and the process after.

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The Script

.. In progress.

Starting the script with a draft is a successful practice that I have taken, seeing that it is my first time constructing a formal screenwriting skills. In the script I wrote, I have realised that it contains a dense amount of dialogue and expressive body language. Much of this action is portrayed with facial expression instead of highly active performances. I think that this form is suitable in going for a Indie style of realistic, non-exaggerated performances that we usually might have seen in mainstream films. Newman had stated that conventions of setting and human being representation on this kind of films are “typically naturalistic” (2011, 87). Likewise, we do not have exaggerated courageous or intellectual characters but rather ordinary ones representing lives of adolescents and young adults who may have suffered through past drug uses or crimes leading them into juvenile detention centre. These are realistic experiences that we human in real life is naturally a part of.

As we discussed and did some retouches on the script together, we decided to make some changes on some parts of the script. Because Dea is focusing on creating the characters, both she and I had a read-through to see if any psychological side of the characters and their behaviours are appropriate and make sense. The main adjustment that we’ve made is toward the ending of the short film.

Option 1

Option 1

Option 2

Option 2

Option 3

Option 3

Option 3 would be our final choice for the script narrative. James in our group thought that the ending would need to be prominent, not necessarily a final closed up resolution, but something the audience will think twice about. Plus, we wanted our film to be experimental with a rather “unfinished” ending to symbolise the true reality that our lives goes on ordinarily despite the dramas. Hence, James suggested that what if Julie slapped Ryan instead, as he lost control of his anger. I thought that it is a great unusual and unique idea, considering that Ryan is a being who has been treated without strictness or discipline by his calm “inferior” mother. After Julie’s slap, it would be a shocking and unexpected treatment for him yet also for the audience. Therefore we decided to go along with this sort of ending. I am now excited for the shooting and how the performance will come to be as well as any adjustments that might be made during the shooting.

Finally in week 9, we have officially finalised our script. There had been a couple cross outs and add ons but it seems like we are all satisfied with our screen writing end result. What we need to rely on is bring this piece out during the shooting days in which we are looking forward to in week 10.

The final script…

Juvies Script, click here 

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