CODES & CONVENTIONS

Codes and conventions for gangster movies throughout the ages have altered through the years. Since the 1930s they have panned out like this:

• 1930s: smart suits, acts of violence, murder, weapons and luxury items associated with the life style such as cigars and fine liquor, these influences was form Al Capone as he was well known for fulfilling all the above conventions. He wore the most expensive suits, constantly smoked cigars and once stabbed someone to death at a dinner party with a fork.
• 1980s: codes and conventions changed dramatically after the release of Scarface. The conventions now focus more on drugs and money eg. Cocaine, the original conventions are a lot more detailed; violence is more graphic, more use of guns, better clothing suits more appealing, and leading characters status is emphasised a lot.
• 20th century: Conventions slightly changed as there was more influence form street crime,
  racial discrimination which resulted to the original convention of violence and murder.
  Another reason why this culture grew so much is due to east coast and west coast arguments in gangster rap between artist such as Biggie (east coast) and Tupac (west coast)
  
  OUR FILM: Although we may include reference to drugs, our film will include 20th century gangster codes and conventions such as street crime. Our kidnappers will be involved with street crime and also kidnap fits into the 20th century catorgory more than the 30s and 80s. Like the 80s our main characters status will be exxagerated to show how powerful he is.

CODES AND CONVENTIONS are determined through LIGHTING, MIS EN SCENE, EDITING, SOUND and GENRE. These are known as CODES but the way they are used determine the CONVENTIONS of a movie. These tools are used to help us understand the roles characters play. They decide whether we like or dislike a chartacter.

Portrayed as a GOOD character                         Portrayed as a BAD character


This is a moodboard that includes stereotypical conventions of the CRIME/GANGSTER genre. I intend to include these conventions in the teaser trailer:

MORE ON THE PLOT

As said before, our plot is not yet complete. Between the four of us we have decided that there will be a kidnapping involved, we have decided that this kidnapping will be of some form of crime lord/gangster's partner. The kidnapping will be done by a group of people of a lower social class who have some form of money problem (not yet decided) and feel they can receive a randsom sum of money in order to pay off their problems. This is just the jist of things and will be developed into a well constructed gangster movie.

The plot will include stereotypes such as the 'dumb blonde' character being the gangster's kidnapped partner. This 'dumbe blonde' role is often put in danger and they always rely on somebody else to save them; this is the case in our movie so hopefully we will portray this stereotype perfectly.

A2 PROJECT- TEASER TRAILER- GENRE

After spending the first couple of lessons researching and discussing different genres, our group has finally came to a conclussion for our teaser trailer. For this year we will be creating and putting together a teaser triler for a GANGER/CRIME genre film.

We researched different movies of the same genre and watched other teaser trailers just to make sure we have a good idea of what we're producing. We looked at other films such as LOCK STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS, SNATCH, CASINO, LAYER CAKE and other examples however they are the ones we found most inspiring.

     

Although we have not decided on a definate plot, we have brainstormed a variety of ideas together and came to the conclussion that we wish to include some form of a kidnapping/ransom scenario. Because of this, i suggested watching the trailer for the film TAKEN because it includes suimular codes and conventions and may be useful to watch.

As you can see from this clip it includes a kidnapping, guns, crime and gangsters. Although the film focuses on the return of the kidnapped girl and not the gangster side, it is still a useful trailer for our project.