5. Two Key approaches
• The Classical Hollywood Structure
– Order – chaos – order restored
– Equilibrium – disequilibrium – new equilibrium
– The Three Act Structure
• Comedian led narrative - Showcase of individual
gags, personal quirks and set pieces loose held
together by a ‘plot’
– The Three Stooges
– Charlie Chaplin
– Monty Python
6. What is the narrative of Love Actually
• The film begins with a voiceover from David
(Hugh Grant) commenting that whenever he gets
gloomy with the state of the world he thinks
about the arrivals terminal at Heathrow Airport,
and the pure uncomplicated love felt as friends
and families welcome their arriving loved ones.
David's voiceover also relates that all the
messages left by the people who died on the
9/11 planes were messages of love and not hate.
The film then tells the 'love stories' of many
people:
7. What is the narrative of Four Lions
• In groups mark out the plot using the Three
Act Structure
8. Four Lions and Love Actually
• Are mostly the classic Hollywood style but
they both do include element of gags and they
do play with conventions
• Single goal oriented protagonist
• Narrative is driven by character traits
9. Four Lions and Love Actually
• Cause and Effect
• Use of subplots
• The Happy ending
11. Researching Different types of
Comedy( 20 mins)
• There are many different types of comedy
films.
– Your job is to identify at least five ‘sub genres’
– Define how they fit the general conventions esp
narrative and Character types
– Highlight specific conventions esp narrative and
Character types
– List at least 5 British films that are typical of the
sub genre.
Editor's Notes
Post it notes of what they think – highlight the most common, how do our films fit?
The choice of characters. This is a somewhat obvious element which is typical to creating a comedy. Often just by looking at the cast of a program the viewer can easily decipher on what genre is being portrayed. Typically the characters are often quite spread out in there demeanours, with there being distinct character differences. For instance there will usually be an incompetent character, someone who makes mistakes easily, may not be very bright and often gets into trouble. Then there will be the complete opposite, the hard working, clever character who will get annoyed by the other characters incompetence. This opposite suggests conflict but because of the genre and comical nature of the character we know that the arguments which will follow will no doubt amuse us because of the unimaginable annoyance in which the more clever character will be feeling. For instance in the Simpsons, with homer being the typical bumbling oaf, in turn driving frank grimes to mistakably killing himself. This is unfortunate yet somewhat amusing to the viewer. This sort of scene is typical to comedies, with even the object of death being somehow portrayed in a light-hearted manner