Research & Conventions into Genre

British Crime/Drama

Codes and conventions of crime/drama genre vary depending on the cultural context of the film, but they are likely to include , alcohol, illegal substances, weapons, parties, raves, sex, murders,shootings, relationships, social groups and gang turf wars.
The classic codes and conventions of crime/drama film came from American films, where one of the most widely used conventions are the stereotypes and social groups and the main sterotypes in this genre associated with these kind of films.

It is mostly young black people who are involved in these types of films, so teenagers who have been in a gang or maybe just a group of friends or an organised syndicate, will recognise and relate to these type of films. The story lines usually play out, that the characters then will get into illegal things, doing small crimes or using drugs and over time getting more serious and then having to deal with the consequences. This can then be adapted to the british scene instead of America so teenage boys in London mostly refferd to as 'chavs'  by the genral public, commiting all sorts of crimes or just causing trouble. For others british crime and drama films this seems to show the more grittier and realistic side than American films, which usally seems to glamourlise this kind of lifestyle e.g. gangsters driving expensive cars, living in big houses, having lots of money etc, but British films show the more realistic side of it and the problems the characters face which leads to them having to deal with the consequences after.  


Examples of this genre include Kidutlhood, SHANK & 4.3.2.1;

Preliminary Task Evaluation

The filming was harder than I thought it would be, sticking to the 180 degree rule and making no continuity errors were specifically the hardest parts, especially with the short time allowance we were given to film. I feel the editing went well considering the clips we had to work with- I especially like the cut at the beginning in which it then turns into a panning shot, also another bit of editing i felt worked well was the action match at the end.
The biggest problems our group encountered was planning the filming scenario and the filming itself- because we had such little time we felt rushed into deciding a scenario and not necessarily planning it in detail.
Strengths of the prelim task I feel was the editing in certain parts- including the action match which came out much better than I firstly expected, and some of the cuts which fitted in well together and weren't jumpy, also another strength was that we included all the editing and camera shots that were required of us.
Weaknesses of the prelim task were mainly the poor acting on behalf of my self and Abdi, also the duration of the final piece was not very long- lasting only around 30 seconds which do not allow us to include a lot of different shots.
Next time we will remember to plan a lot more before we start filming so we have a strict plan to stick to and we all know our roles etc... Also we will include a wide variation of shots to maximise our potential of the highest grades.
What we will do differently next time is film more clips to allow the scene to be longer, also ask better actors to film, we will film outside of school to widen our accessibility to better & more realistic locations.

Preliminary Filming Task

About Me

My name's Daniel McNeela, I'm 16 years old and about 6 foot 3. I love football- going to Fulham every other week with a season ticket and also travel the country to see them play away with recent visits to Newcastle, Arsenal, Tottenham, Chelsea, Birmingham & Accrington Stanley in 2011 alone. Also I love a wide variety of music of different genre's- favorite artists being Drake
, Professor Green, Oasis & Chase & Status. My favorite films include Law Abiding Citizen, The Firm, Ali-G, Limitless & Pineapple Express. I also have a hobby of using Adobe Photoshop when bored.