Romantic Drama Research

As said before, we have chosen to create a romantic drama. Romance films are love stories that focus on passion, emotion and the involvement of the protagonists (usually two characters) and the story of how their love develops and changes. Romance films make this the focus of the plot. Typically, the lovers will come across obstacles that become the plot twist. This could be an illness, discrimination or family/friends that try to split the lovers up.

The stereotypical romantic film will explore 'love at first sight', unrequited love, forbidden love and tragic love. Romantic films are so popular because they are like fantasies for the viewer, for example, if two lovers overcome the difficulties and have the 'happily ever after' life that everyone desires. This is usually shown with a kiss to end the film. This provides a connection between the audience and the characters. It is a popular sub-genre because it provides us with climaxes and anti-climaxes, which builds and releases tension, keeping the audience on edge throughout the entire film.

An example of a romantic film that explores tragic love is Titanic (1997):

An epic, action-packed romance set against the ill-fated maiden voyage of the "unsinkable" Titanic, at the time, the largest moving object ever built. She was the most luxurious liner of her era -- the "ship of dreams" -- which ultimately carried over 1,500 people to their death in the ice cold waters of the North Atlantic in the early hours of April 15, 1912.
Rose DeWitt Bukater is a 17-year-old, upper-class American suffocating under the rigid confines and expectations of Edwardian society who falls for a free-spirited young steerage passenger named Jack Dawson.Once he opens her eyes to the world that lies outside her gilded cage, Rose and Jack's forbidden love begins a powerful mystery that ultimately echoes across the years into the present. Nothing on earth is going to come between them -- not even something as unimaginable as the sinking of Titanic.

As you can see from the synopsis above it includes most of the conventions of a typical romantic film. (Class discrimination, family dilemmas, forbidden love, death, etc) whereas our film doesn't contain as many conventions of romantic drama as The Titanic and so to improve our plot we could include more such as family/friends trying to part them or death.
Here is the official trailer of the Titanic:

 

'Chick Flick' Drama: This is a term that is widely used (particularly in America) to describe a film dealing with love and romance. These films are targeted towards a female audience rather than a male audience. 'Chick Flicks' are often released around valentines day as they focus on heavily on emotion and relationship themes. They are designed to attract a young, female audience because they normally include the 'happily ever after' which as said before, is what stereotypical females like to see as it is their fantasies.
Chick Flicks generally tend to have a female protagonist, an over-the-top use of the colour pink and a relationship based storyline.

The film: 'A Cinderella Story' (2004) has been associated with the term 'Chick Flick':

As you can see from just the theatrical poster, the female protagonist has pink shoes, is dressed as a princess (Cinderella) and has her prince.

This film in particular received negative views from critics with Rotten Tomatoes describing it as: An uninspired, generic updating of the classic fairy tale.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/cinderella_story/

In its opening weekend, the film grossed almost $14,000,000 in America alone, ranking 4th at the box office where it was the best debut for a teen film in that period. In total, the film grossed over $70,000,000 worldwide.
Therefore, despite it's critical acclaim, the film was highly successful within the public's opinion.






Romantic Comedies or 'RomCom's' are light-hearted, humerus plot lines with a common theme that true love will conquer throughout any obstacle. A stereotypical 'RomCom' will include two characters (usually a man and a woman) will meet, become friends and fall in love, however they will part due to an obstacle such as an argument and then they will reunite towards the end of the film. The two protagonists may not initially become involved with each other until towards the end of the films because they may not know or admit that they have feelings for the other or one may already have a partner.
One of the protagonists will realise that they both have feelings for each other and they will usually demonstrate their love with a big gesture towards the end of the film, to give it a happy ending.
Some romantic comedy films aim to appeal to not only women but men so they incorporate 'bromance' themes and sexual stories to bring the protagonists together. A film which demonstrates this is 'American Pie' as this film was originally created to appeal to a female target audience rather than males. However, to create a wider target audience they adapted their story and changed the subgenre completely.

American Pie (1999) -Certificate 15- is a Romantic comedy film.

American Pie was a box office hit with a grossing total of nearly $110,000,000 and around half of that coming in from the United States. The reason why it was so popular in the USA was because it's original target audience was American because of the comedy style used ('toilet humour') which, in comedy films, you would generally associate this with American films rather than British films.

As you can see from the DVD cover it doesn't look like any of the previous covers or posters, which from the out set looked like films aimed towards a female audience whereas this has more of a comedy feel to it, particularly aimed at a male audience. It doesn't necessarily have the main conventions of drama normally used for a DVD cover however, it does show male and female characters which suggests to a female audience that the story is about love and finding romance as there are five men and five women shown on the cover.



Chalet Girl (12A) is a romantic comedy like American Pie but it is a British RomCom which means the comedy style will be different. Chalet Girl did extremely well in British cinema's however it only grossed a total of around $1,000 whereas in the UK it grossed nearly £700,000.

As you can see from the cover the two protagonists are stood close together telling the audience that they are emotionally involved with eachother. There are other characters that are shown underneath them which implies to the audience that they could be the obstacles in the two protagonists relationships.
This 'RomCom' is aimed towards a different audience rather than the stereotypical male and female audience as, even though it is still open to male viewers the main audience will be females as the film is largely based on romance and how it develops rather than the comedy element.