How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?
The genre of the film is presented to be a comedy that also has some elements of a drama. Like a comedy, the film mainly tries to emphasize humor and amuse the audience. To get this reaction, comedies tend to exaggerate certain characteristics of the action, language, characters, setting, or plot to provide the humorous effect. In a similar way, we follow conventions of a comedy in which our product centers around Santa losing his job. In situational comedies such as Groundhog Day and Happy Gilmore, the humor is centered around the narrative, by which the main-character is found in unfamiliar circumstances. In this case, a Not-So-Merry Christmas follows situational comedies as Santa Claus’s position to get fired after Christmas Day is regarded as unusual. By placing Santa Claus in a business environment, it provides humor and irony as his situation highly contrasts the stereotype of working in a happy, colorful, winter fantasy workshop. The font used for the job titles, Curlz MT, helps to express a whimsical, humorous tone that embraces the Christmas theme. The product also uses conventions in spoof or parody comedies that mimic another subject in a comical matter, since the film mimics the context of traditional Christmas tales and figures. This is similar to films such as the Austin Powers films that spoof the acclaimed James Bond movies. A Not-So-Merry Christmas follows traditional elements of a comedy as it will focus on a single primary character, Santa Claus. In addition, many comedies aim to provide enjoyment and an escape by observing the shortcomings and frustrations of life. This is where the film may overlap into the drama genre where the plot can take a more serious path. The loss of a job has serious ramifications for the character. Towards the end of the opening of the film, the board members decide that Santa Claus has been fired and leave the room. The stern tone of voice used by the President of the Board and the reaction by Santa provides a more serious atmosphere for the viewer. Many of the filming techniques for the opening of the film utilized some conventions of a comedy. To demonstrate, providing camera movements such as the zoom-in allowed for the viewer to see the scope of Santa’s reaction. Although some of the techniques were not expected in some of our original planning, they did match comedic conventions. For instance, some camera movements included quick zooms, including the camera pulling the shot in significantly close or significantly far. This added an absurd, exaggerated affect to the scene characteristic of a comedy. Although the hand-held, often shaky use of the camera along with overemphasized zooming and movements is not typically seen in acclaimed comedic films, it still provides a humorous effect. This type of camera technique can be observed in the Mockumentary television series The Office. Although not a film, The Office used these camera techniques that seemed fitting for A Not-So-Merry Christmas to adopt. Timing is also a crucial element utilized by comedy films. The lingering wide shot of the entire room depicting Santa Claus as the board members await his response could also be found in comedies. However, these camera movements are not commonly found in more serious films such as dramas. Despite this, camerawork such as close-ups to emphasize emotion and facial expressions are used in dramas to depict seriousness of tone and the situation. The insert used in the beginning of the film opening tends to be utilized by dramas to add curiosity and suspense as the plot begins to build. These conventions, including the zooms and the wide-shot helps represent social groups or issues by portraying the tension between Santa Claus and the board members. The zooms exaggerate and bring into detail the types of wrongdoings Santa Claus had committed and the way the elves felt about his actions. The wide-shot also helps portray the tension between Santa Claus and the elves, by bringing in the awkward silence and tension between the members as Santa Claus sits away from the rest of the group, as if antagonized. This could potentially depict a representation of exploiting workers, in which Santa Claus represents the boss and the elves represent the employees. A suitable audience for this film opening could be a general audience, in particular ones that celebrate Christmas, or those who enjoy holiday films. This product could be difficult to represent social groups or issues because the plot and characters are primarily fantasy. However, it challenges the typical notion of Santa Claus and Christmas tales by presenting a revered character as someone who has committed wrongdoings and must be fired from his job. By striving to challenge standard ideas about Christmas, our film could be interesting and comedic to the viewer.
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