Genre Research: West Side Story

  •  Common camera angles include close up shots, establishing shots and low angle shots. Close up shots were used to show the main characters and the emotions displayed on their faces. Establishing shots were used to show the setting of scenes as they would change. And low angles shots were prevalent when showing the male characters indicating superiority. We plan to include all of these types of shots in our video to make it more like a real movie. 
  • Diegetic sound is heard throughout the movie indicating the business of the world around them. We plan to use this type of sound in our video as well, ranging from the sounds of cars driving by, to birds chirping, to people talking in the background. This will help our video to seem as if it was filmed in real time similar to the West Side Story movie. 
  • Some conventions of the genre that our group chose to base our final task on are the angles as stated above, establishing shots, low angles, and closeups, the diegetic sound, as well as, lighting and editing that will make our movie more classic like West Side Story. One theme seen is West Side Story is the damsel in distress them which our group will be somewhat replicating. West side story also tackles the toxicity racism, although our group will not be portraying any forms of racism in our movie. 
  • Some elements that we enjoyed were the sounds, ranging from background sound such as shoes tapping and whistles in the air, to the planned musical numbers. Another favorite was the editing swell as visual effects. One thing we also enjoyed was the costumes used in the movie. This West Side Story is an adaptation from the original West Side Story filmed in the 50's, but despite being filmed in 2021 the characters till have a classic look to them which our group hopes to achieve with our costumes. The setting was also very fitting for the storyline, as it mostly took place in the street, alley, town square. Our group plans to use similar public locations in our filming. 
  • While there were many elements of this genre that did appeal and we will be using when filming, there were also a few elements that we will have to leave behind. For example, the musical numbers and flash mobs. While this may seem like a lot of fun it will be very difficult for our group to get enough people for a flashmob and we do not have any talented singers in our group either so we will have not be including this element from West Side Story. There were also many kissing scenes in West Side story which we do not plan to include because our group mates are all friends and would prefer to keep it that way. Overall watching West Side story has been very helpful in giving our group ideas for romantic scenes. 

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