How British drama conventions have changed over time

BRITISH DRAMA

1.Traditionally British drama films were about the family dealing with realistic social occurrences. Typically they concerned white British heterosexual male and female characters.

2.However since then it has been more conventional for British drams to show characters who are influenced politically. A film that is coming out soon called “Made in Dagenham” directed by Nigel Cole, is about women right activists.

3.Recent films in British drama tend to educate people about the wider community. They deal with aspects of race, poverty, drugs and alcohol. Due to the range of people now portrayed in British drama a wider and more diverse audience are attracted.

Codes and Conventions of the British Drama and Horror genres

Horror
We have watched two classic horror movies, 'Scream' and 'Halloween', with the aim to find recurring or iconic codes and conventions within them.

• An initial introduction into 'normal'/socially accepted daily life.
• A grotesque or unexplained death, with the murderer either known or unknown.
• Teenagers/youths in an iscolated setting, either physically or just 'home alone'.
• Enigmatic phone calls or other form of communication.
• An iscolated, vulnerable victim
• A killer that does not die successfully (leaving ending of the film open for speculation/sequels)

British Drama

We have watched two British Drama films with different ‘feels’ – Trainspotting and Four Weddings and a Funeral - to find the common factors within them.

• Smoking and drinking 
• Violence
• Regional dialect
• British scenery – for example Big Ben
• The typical British sense of humour –Dry jokes, swearing

How horror conventions have changed over time

HORROR
1.Convention of gore. The 1957 movie The Curse of Frankenstein shocked audiences by showing blood and gore in colour and teenagers loved it.

2.The main attraction became the torture and mutilation of young beautiful women with Herschell Gordon Lewis who is said to be the inventor of gore.

3.After the success of “Halloween” it came a typical convention to have teenage characters, as they became the recognised target audience. Films such as Friday the 13th, Don’t Go In the House, Prom Night, Terror Train, He Knows You’re Alone, and Don’t Answer the Phone were all released in 1980. – known as “slasher films”.

4. Another convention that progressed over time was the notion of a “final girl”. For example A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween5 , Friday the 13th VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, The Descent and Final destination3

5. “The Texas chainsaw massacre” is an example of how news reports have become a convention of horror to add a realistic aspect to the narrative.

6. The film “Scream” directed by Wes Craven identifies the key codes and conventions of horror such as you may not survive the movie if you have sex, if you drink or do drugs or if you say "I'll be right back.” Since these have become classic conventions comedy takes have exploited these obvious traits in horror such as the film “Shaun of the dead”. As such horror presently tends to steer away from obvious conventions to complicate the story line and make it seem more original.