Research Statement:
Upon reading Chapter 9 of Boardwell, david, tompson and kristins film art- Film genres, page 338 talks about genre mixing and how film-makers can use genre mixing to be innovative in creating compelling and interesting narratives. such as how and i quote “Guardians of the Galaxy found success by treating save-the-
universe space opera as a comic premise”. i want to be able to blend my genres in a unique and captivating way and i think that having comedy as one of my genres opens up that possibility more so. But how can i create a unique narrative with ‘coming of age’ as my sub genre if there are plenty of coming of age dark comedies. i want to be innovative and i thought that the readings example of drama and comedy with ‘ barbershop helped to create that understanding that it could be possible by combining comedy and coming of age with an action flick, a bit of a wild choice, but one that i thought could be interesting to develop and interpret. In the example given in 9.8 the reading states how a dramatic scene incorporates sight gags, inventive insults and scabrous monologues. These elements help to not only solidify but incorporate comedy into a dramatic scene. Upon preparing my script, these comedic elements will help to establish my film as its respective comedy and is something that i will keep in mind to add into my script to ensure comedic tones, while also writing it into a dramatic or serious scene. David leitch is a director i admire in this retrospect because of his ability to make action funny as well as the moments in between the action. But one thing i enjoyed about a certain interview with David leitch in relation to the readings was that genre can often be seen as a social reflection where film-makers will address their films to certain or current modern concerns. I bring this up because in an interview with peter gray, Leitch states that “Part of my conversations with Brad (brad pitt) early on where that we were in the middle of a pandemic and people want to laugh.” and i found that as a interesting way to incorporate a genre into an action movie, the fact that society circumstances positioned Leitch to mix genres helped to bring me a better understanding of not only the readings but genres as a whole.
Reflection:
Being Given a genre allowed for a strong foundation to build ideas from, ultimately making it an easy task to create an idea. Being given dark comedy and coming of age made it a little bit difficult because I’m not confined to any specific story settings such as how westerns are set in deserts or how period pieces are set in their respected timelines. I had a pretty broad genre to work with where I can incorporate any idea as long as it provoked dark comedy and coming of age feelings, which can be done in almost any setting. My initial thought was to focus on the dark comedy aspects first and prioritise that as my genre. I looked into my favourite films with crude humour. Deadpool, bullet train and super bad came to mind almost immediately, the idea would be how I can use these films to capture my story, themes and of course embody the genres. The idea of a dark comedy allowed for an unhinged amount of creative opportunities to dive into comedy that almost doesn’t have a limit, and it was fun to tap into how far I could go with the comedy. Ofcourse, I didn’t want my film to be offensive so I opted to more visual comedy in the light of violence, and a moment of realisation kicked in where i found that violence seemed to be a running trope in dark comedies, where there would be exaggerated or almost cartoonist violence depicted in a lighthearted or absurd way. And so I thought I would run with that idea. A lot of dark comedy action movies, use violence as almost a punch line (no pun intended) where jokes will be cracked or hits will be thrown in ludicrous ways. Tropes of dark comedies that i found as well were its quick cut aways and fast pacing, similar to Edgar wrights movies. That is the style that i want and found myself wanting to evoke within my script.
Link to script:
Ronin Donnelly – High Steaks draft 2.pdf
Citation:
Bordwell, David, (2023) et al. Film Art : An Introduction, McGraw-Hill US Higher Ed ISE, 2023, p.g 1 – 37, Accessed 4th april. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/rmit/detail.action?docID=30787546.
Peter gray, (august 4, 2022) Interview: Director David Leitch on fusing the action and broad comedy of Bullet Train; “Bigger doesn’t always mean bad. Accessed 4th april. https://www.theaureview.com/watch/interview-director-david-leitch/