Codes and Conventions

Codes and Conventions

My group have now finished the prelim task and we have been now told to research the codes and conventions of the film genre that we are final film is going to be part of. Our final film is going to be a chase scene and while these can be seen in a variety of different film genres it's most commonly found in the the Action film genre so that is where i'll be looking for codes and conventions.

The setting for a majority of action films is a large, busy city with many tall buildings. This is because when intense scenes are filmed in busy areas they are made more realistic by all of the people in area  reacting to their situation such as fleeing the area when fight scenes occur this makes the film look more realistic. Also while it can also include exotic locations (temples, ruins, etc) that is more commonly found in the action adventure sub genre. The setting of our final film is going to be the sixth form building as because of the buildings layout (stairs, elevators, corridors, etc) it heavily resembles a office building which are found in large cities. This means it we can film a chase scene in this location and it won't look out of place as the location will make audiences think that it has been filmed in a large city.

The music that is found in the action genre is used to create suspense and tension in certain scenes where the protagonist is being pushed to his/her limit such as being chased by the antagonists henchmen (main antagonist would make his followers do his bidding). This is so that the audience does not lose interest when watching the film as if the chase scene had no music in the background it would be very lack luster so sound is a key element to a chase scene. However the music those not always have to be used to create suspense it is also used to make scenes more intense and in some cases it will be the films themes song which is normally used in final confrontation against the films antagonist. This makes the viewers get hyped as we are about to see an epic fight.

Above is an example of music used to make film scenes much more intense from the film Star Wars The phantom menace (1999). The scene it is used in is the climatic fight at the end of the film where   Qui gon jinn and Obi wan Kenobi must fight the sith apprentice Darth Maul and this song starts even before the fight begins which slowly builds up the intensity until they start fighting.

The costume that the characters wear is a very broad as in an action film one character could be wear a shirt and jeans and look like a random civilian and then in another scene be wearing a shirt and tie and look like they have a very rich person. But when I think about chase scene costumes I mostly associate them with the chasers wearing black suits as it makes them look more ominous so they stand out among everyone else in the scene where as the person getting chased will be wearing clothes that fit with the setting around him (Wearing jeans in a city and work shirt and tie when working in a office) this way they blend in with everyone else which from the characters perspective makes them believe that they won't get noticed as they don't stand out.

The video above is from The Matrix (1999) where Neo must escape from the Agents. I show this video because it will help me to explain what I mean about costume. throughout the scene the Agents wear black suits which compared to everyone else's makes them stand out more. Now look at Neo's outfit a business suit while this sounds similar to the Agents outfits we can tell that they are different but compare that to all of his co workers clothes and they look almost identical but this only works in this scene as it's a office building so you expect to see people in suits whereas you'd wouldn't expect someone like Neo to wear in outside of his job. 

And one of the most common conventions of a Action films explosions. These are found in almost every action film including sub genres. They are found in scenes with lots of action in them such as a final battle or escaping a somewhere that is about to explode. This is such a popular convention that there is a theory (The Whammo theory) which states that every 10 minutes there should be a 'Whammo' or a explosion of some sort so that the audience is entertained throughout the film. However for are final film it may be difficult to add explosions to our chase scene as none of my group have any experience adding Special effects of that scale to a film.