Faye & Charlotte

Faye & Charlotte
Faye & Charlotte

Wednesday 9 February 2011

FH - Research into rom-coms

Falling in love again... 
Chapter 7 is titled ' Transatlantic Exchanges & Influences'
This chapter is about how when making a rom-com when the genre and a culture come together you have to blend them to make sense.
While Levi-Strauss noted the link between genres and nations by saying that narrative is a culture's way of making sense of itself
This Quote (page 92) is saying that basically you need to move the rom com and its story, props, clothing etc to suit the setting and culture of the story, Example used in the book is that 'Both views need to be considered when thinking of the romantic comedy within a french context.' In France the rom-com, that we know in Britain, is a recent finding and is very rare to be found, their french films is about romance between two people but one of them usually ends up dying, where as our traditional rom-com is about a happy ending usually leaving us to guess where they go next, it can sometimes end with a wedding or pictures of a wedding during the end titles, but this idea has not yet been introduces to the traditional french cinema.  


The above information was found in the book 'falling in love again'  by Deborah Jermyn and Stacey Abbot.

A Traditional Rom-com...
The rom-com focusses on light humour as well as a romantic story line. Usually it is a male and female that are the main protagonists, they happen to meet and then have a complication to their relation ship (e.g. ....) but then in the end work it all out and get back together. The protagonists do not always come together as a 'lovers' relationship at first because along the way they find out they actually love each other (e.g...) 


"the screenwriters leave clues that suggest that the characters are, in fact, attracted to each other and that they would be a good love match. The protagonists often separate or seek time apart to sort out their feelings or deal with the external obstacles to their being together."- Quote from Wikipedia


After the difficulty in the relationship the characters reunite and admit their love for one another, usually one of them goes to find the other after letting them go earlier in the movie. Sometimes it is not the main characters that fall in love with each other but they help each other realise their love for someone else instead. (e.g My Super-ex Girlfriend.) 


"Some comedy films, such as Knocked Up, combine themes of romantic comedies and stoner comedies, creating a subgenre that appeals to both men and women. This genre is slowly becoming known as the "Bromcom" (Bro's Romantic Comedy) among the film review community, originally quoted by amateur film reviewer Luke Dilena in a number of his printed underground independent film review columns. These type of films usually uses sexual content and this brings the two characters together. Films in this genre include American Pie 2 or even Wedding Crashers."- Quote from Wikipedia 


This Quote shows us that theirs more than one type of comedies that are blended with other genres, but this is not what our film is going to be like, we are trying to make it more of a traditional rom-com. 


Television Rom-coms...
Romantic comedies are not always movies, they can be television series as well..
  1. Sex & The City (1998–2004) (HBO)
  2. Desperate Housewives (2004–) (ABC)
  3. How I Met Your Mother (2005–) (CBS)
  4. Gavin & Stacey (2007–2009) (BBC)
The above are examples of the television romantic comedies that have been around and still are.  
This is the link to the Wikipedia page that i used to collect all the above information;

Examples of more romantic comedies...
There are many inspiring rom-coms and the genre is based towards young females as they are romantic and most girls love watching romantics as they wish theyr life was a bit more interesting like that. The comedy has basically been added for when a girls tags her boyfriend along to the cinema to watch the new movie out that she's seen on an advert that brought a tear to her eye, the comedy is for the male so he does not switch off or fall asleep. Examples of more rom-com movies are on this website: 
There are over 100 rom coms and they all basically have the same story line, two people (usually male & Female) meet and basically fall in love, theres a complication which is soon resolved after one of them realises what they are missing. 
Rules of the Romantic Comedy ...
  • Usually the two characters are the complete opposite (in our film one is pop star and other is working class)
  • When the two meet it has usually got a strange way of them coming together, this makes the female audience feel happy for them and say aww whereas the males role their eyes (as said on the website)
  • Usually a friend/ some one close of the main characters is the one that is the comedy maker, they have the funny parts of the film e.g. the hangover.
the above info was found on this link:
http://imamovienerd.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/666/

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