Genre

Genre: Comedy

Basics
Comedy: humorous to the audience/viewer

Sub Genres of comedy: Black Comedy (dark humor), Family Comedy, British Comedy, Stand Up Comedy, and Slapstick Comedy.

Black Comedy
Dr. Strangelove (1964)

Family Comedy
Cheaper by the Dozen (2003)

British Comedy
Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie (1997)

Stand Up Comedy
Kevin Hart: Seriously Funny (2010)

Slapstick Comedy
The Three Stooges

Conventions

- Cinematography

• camera follows basic angles
• basic shots (CU, WS, MS, LS)
• sometimes whips zooms---Films from the 70's era
• blocking techniques used when necessary (ex: censoring something)

- Edit

• basic cutting
• faster cutting based on action
• Special FX possible

- Sound

• catchy music
• very animated sounds---possibility of a light motif
• Possible narration, thoughts of the main character
• Special FX

- Character

• Characters who seem to be normal are often satirical in a sense
• People are often stereotyped by Western civilization

Application to my own film...

I would like my short film to be under the genre Comedy, additionally under the sub genres of Black Comedy and Nostalgia. In the storyline aspect, the purpose of the film is to make the audience laugh through a sense of dry humor.

Through cinematography, we will use whip zooms, a series of blocking shots in order to hide violence in the film and follow a main structure of dialogue cinematography for the most part of the film. In the edit, we plan on following basic cutting sequences.

I plan on making the dialogue very important throughout the film to motivate the plot rather than the cinematography of edit doing that. The dialogue will be quirky for the main character for he is supposed to be very dim witted and oblivious to the crime around him. I plan on doing a lot of word play in the character of the police officer like a police officer would "patter" in real life.

Since I plan to make the film a spoof of a 70's film, I will use animated sounds and very bad sound effects on purpose. I will also try to use a light motif to play on throughout the film like in the Godfather. I will also use very catchy 70's music. Possible narration if I would like the main character to speak their thoughts to the audience and separate from the police officers thoughts. 

We plan to watch Godfather, My Cousin Vinny, Mickey Blue Eyes and The Untouchables