Compare how the film’s openings establish genre conventions and reach target audience through technical codes.

Compare how the film’s openings establish genre conventions and reach target audience through technical codes.

Comedy genre tends to appeal to large audience groups. However, different types of comedy appeal to distinct audience types. A romantic comedy usually targets audience between 13-40 years of age and usually aims at women in that age category, although men can also enjoy them. There are many conventions used in comedies to show each distinct type, in romantic comedies it is usually the dialogue, characters and setting that define the mood. I have researched the British rom com ‘Notting Hill’ in order to explore those distinct conventions. A horror film has a more narrow audience due to age restrictions and interests. Whereas comedies can cover many topics and target just about everyone, horror films have very specific conventions which appear over and over again in the films released under this genre. These conventions usually include blood/gore, suspense and of course a set of victims/heroes and a monster/criminal or any other supernatural representation of evil things. The horror I had focused on is a certificate 18 American horror called ‘Candyman’.

Romantic comedies tend to share certain aspects in their plot. Usually an unlikely pair of individuals who find themselves entangled in a string of events which bring them together and once they overcome numerous obstacles that complicate their relationship they fall in love. ‘Notting Hill’ is no exception to this unspoken rule. It is obvious from the very opening that our two central characters lead very, very different lifestyles. Anna Scott is one of the most famous Hollywood stars in recent years. She’s beautiful, talented, admired and generally leads the life every girl, be it ones in the film or from the audience, envies. William Thacker is at the opposite end of the spectrum. He lives in a flat which he shares with a rather unfortunate roommate ‘’for which there is no excuse for’’ and struggles with his current job due to small sales in the travel book shop he owns. All in all Will’s a rather general citizen whom the audience can sympathise with. Horror films don’t share the plot line amongst themselves because they need to keep the audience in suspense; however they do share a few things in common. There is the victim who is often vulnerable be it a woman, child or careless teenagers, the mystery which pulls said victim in to the whole ordeal and the characteristic use of mostly dark and gothic mise-en-scene. Those very aspects of the two genres can not only be seen in the very first minutes of the opening but also in the design of the DVD cases.

  Here is the case for Notting Hill. It has very light use of colours, mostly pastel shades. Julia Roberts has a light blue tint overlaying her which makes her seem almost ghost like. This could convey to the audience that the character she is playing, Anna Scott, is unreachable to the everyday man Will. However, being a romantic comedy it is expected that one or the other will somehow fall in to the other’s life. This can be also seen from the case as ‘Will’ casually walks further and further down the pavement which begins to fade out much like ‘Anna’. It could be a foreshadowing of their crossing paths. The use of such light tones is a trademark in most romance films of any genre. It reflects on the usually positive and happy tone such films have, even more so if they are comedies.

 It is a completely different story when it comes to the style of the case for Candyman. Straight away there’s a sinister message sent to the audience due to the red eye placed right in the middle of the case. There is silluette of a man placed in the eye instead of the pupil and the iris has a black outline to it. The message sent to whoever picks it up is ‘supernatural’, ‘evil’ and ‘scary’. Those connotations will appeal to any horror fan and so attract the right audience. The bee sitting on the edge of the eye is rather creepy too and the white background looks as if everything is fading away…..

During filming itself different aspects of it are needed for each genre. There has to be specific attention paid to the type of cuts made, types of angles used, the sound has to be specific to each scene be it ambient, diegetic or the use of non diegetic music or complete silence. Having paid attention to those aspects of filming I noted quite big differences in which the same type of any of the things mentioned above can be used to set a completely different mood just by altering it that little bit. Also I detected a popular trend of certain things popping up more than once not in just these two films, but repeatedly in films of the same genre.

Camera

 This two shot is from Anna and Scott’s first meeting in the bookstore. The distance between the characters is significant because it shows that at this point the characters have little in common. Anna is blurred and is way back in the background because she’s of little significance to Scott at the time.

 Here the proximity between them is much closer. The two shot is used during the scene where William runs into Anna because it foreshadows that their lives are about to collide!

There is a high use of two shots in the comedy. This is done to portray the proximity between the characters. Although on their first meeting, Anna and Will are shown in different shots through shot-reverse-shot, soon (well, within 15 minutes) the two shot is used much more than shot-reverse-shot. This is because as the film progresses the two shots help to portray the progress of the character’s relationships. An example of this can be seen in the two screen shots on the right. There are two other important camera shot types which let the audience guess at the character’s feelings and reactions, they are ECU’s and CU’s. For example in the scene where Will tells Anna it was ‘surreal but nice’ to meet her there is a gradual zoom in from a MCU to a CU so that it is clear he is beating himself up for using those words. This could send a message to the audience that Will actually wants to impress Anna even though they only just met. The use of close up’s is also very important in horror movies for the very same reason. It is important for the audience to see how the character is feeling in a certain situation. This can be used to scare the audience in a number of ways. For example, the character can look distressed which can make the audience feel in the 

same way or, the character can look relatively calm and this can be used as an element of surprise because the audience are likely to mimic the characters feelings and so would be more scared when there is sudden action while they are in a calm state. There is a use of the latter in Candyman when the young woman at the beginning says candyman for the fifth time after her ‘lover’ goes downstairs. She looks very relaxed and happy and no tension is felt in the scene when all of a sudden a figure appears in the mirror and then there is a rapid cut. Seconds later her blood is shown soaking through the ceiling. Another camera shot that is used very often in horror movies is horizontal tracking. It is most often used in chasing scenes and helps build up tension. This type of camera shot is used in this horror however, I did not manage to spot it in the opening 15 minutes of the film. This is most likely because instead of throwing the audience in to the action straight away, Candyman builds up the tension first without revealing the character straight away. There is no chase scenes at first because the villain doesn’t appear in the main character’s life in the opening.

Editing

Fade out is used after Anna comes in to Will’s flat….

In comedies editing varies at different points of the film to reflect on the action taking place at different times. At the very beginning there is seamless editing used when Anna Scott’s life is shown. This is because Anna’s life is all blurred together and nothing really stands out to her. Will’s life is also shown through seamless editing with the exception of a few cuts which separate his work and free time. However when Anna comes to William’s flat there is a use of a specific edit which foreshadows the changes that are to come in both of their lives due to their meeting. This edit is called ‘fade out’ and it is used when one shot fades out into another. This represents that Will’s current life is about to fade in to the past because his new life will include Anna. Horror films such as Candyman use two contradictory types of editing used for two different purposes. There is the use of slow pace editing used to build up the tension such as when Helen and her best friend call out Candyman 5 times into the mirror. This builds up the tension because the audience is eager to see the man attack them. However the shot is prolonged because Bernadette only says the name 4 times and then Helen has to decide whether she should finish the ‘curse’. Then there is a couple of seconds in which the girls wait for something to happen but Candyman does not appear, this once again drags out the action and further builds the suspense. The other type of editing is the use of rapid shots and cuts. These are used to surprise and scare the audience. In Candyman this type of editing is used when one of the cleaning ladies tells the story of the young woman who was murdered by Candyman. The camera cuts from the woman’s reflection down to her ‘lover’ and then to the ceiling where the woman’s blood spills and soaks through the ceiling. Rapid cuts are also used when Helen takes down the mirror to show Bernadette the room behind it. The cut is used when she scares Helen as a joke and it gives the audience a mini shock because they expect to see the Candyman. Another type of editing commonly used in horror films is CGI to create the gory deaths and creepy characters. This is because those things are expected to be seen in horror movies by the audience and it is much easier, especially nowadays, to give the audience that little bit more of gore through CGI. However in older movies or for less bloody takes the gore can be created by makeup. In Candyman this convention is created through the use of makeup on the actors thanks to mise-en-scene. 

Mise-en-scene

Here is a photo of William’s flat. It is white and the doors are colourful. Those colours connote calm and peace.

Here Will helps Spike pick a t-shirt for his date. The costume helps in creating a funny atmosphere.

This is an illustration presenting Candyman. He fits in to being the typical horror villain due to his bodily modifications, torn clothes and evident scars left from his gruesome death.