Genre Research

Research into fantasy;

From the films we watched (Lord of the Rings - the Two Towers, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Pirates of the Caribbean - At Worlds End, to name a few), I have picked up on a couple of things. A lot of the films have old fashioned speech - not necessarily all characters, but often they speak well, and with long, Shakespearean sounding words. Key examples are Frodo Baggins(LOTR) Elizabeth Swan, Jack Sparrow, William Turner (Pirates of the Caribbean), And many of the Harry Potter characters also. This could be easily utilized in my final piece. There are also cliché characters and settings; These include things like forests, castles, fields and meadows, and characters such as Kings, Knights, and mythical beings. This of course can be twisted in some ways, for example Harry Potter is set in a school, but still involves mythical beings and magic. This can also be used in my final piece, for example taking a regular thing like a school and making it something else, e.g. a school for wizards and witches. All of them also have a character that guides. In Harry Potter there is Hagrid, Dumbledore etc, in the opening scene of Pirates of the Caribbean they seem to be led by Barbosa, in LOTR, Smeagol leads Frodo and Sam towards Mordor. This would also be easy to use in our piece. Also in fantasy films characters often seem to travel in a party. The group of pirates, Harry Potter and his friends, and Frodo and his friends. These groups may occasionally be split up, which could also be used. Things that most fantasy films have are good props, costumes, and often CGI. The props and costumes would be difficult to use but not impossible. Unfortunately CGI is not an option. Another film we watched was Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Although comedy, this film could also be considered fantasy as the setting is in the past and there are mythical things such as beasts and artifacts. If we wished to we could also attempt to give our film some comedic elements to stop it from being boring, and please the viewers.