Genre Fake-Out

     The film idea that I am working with involves a main factor of a genre flip. You start off viewing the film thinking it revolves around the story of a troubled couple, possibly a romance. Then, throughout the film the teenagers plotting together takes over as the true genre: drama/heist. Although, the film doesn't actually show any of the heist, rather just the planning, so the genre is dominantly drama.

    However, it is really important to convince the viewer in the opening scene that the genre IS romance, setting up confusion and building truth for the later reveal of the distraction.

The fake genre: ROMANCE

La La Land (2016)

    The film I wanted to look into for this opening scene is La La Land. This is because it is a musical movie- relying on music to portray emotion. I'm planning on using a song in my opening scene (played on the jukebox) in order to be a dominant portrayal.

Some major conventions of La La Land's aesthetically appealing portrayal of romance are:

• Lighting - colored lighting to portray stage-like scenes.
• The way I would use this would be more dim-lit scenes to show an intimate vibe across the screen. 

• Close ups - to show more intimate emotion.

The two conventions put together

Something as simple as that creates such an intimate look. This is what I intend to pull off immediately with shots focused on the female lead of the opening. It will look just like a typical romance. 

Little do they know...