Genre Research: Romance

  • Genre: Romance : love stories, that center on emotions, passion,
    and the romantic relationship of
usually two main characters and the journey that takes them through
dating, courtship or marriage
  • Genre Conventions—content      
    •  Often a voiceover is used to to introduce theme and characters
    • The script often suggest the characters are meant to be
    • ‘Boy meets girl’ is a common theme, meet cute
    • Often contains emotional feelings
    • Aimed at female audiences
    • Usually contains things that relate to love : flowers, weddings,
      etc
    • Usually what happens on day to day life                
    • A typical romance includes sexuality, status, gender, and
      relationships.
    • Usually bright and feminine colors are used: pink, red, orange, etc.
    • Climax is usually an argument or consequences of an action, and
then one of the characters seeks forgiveness, and they end together.
    • Usually has an emotionally satisfying optimistic ending
    • Occasionally love has obstacles like illness, money,
      discrimination, family, etc
    • Serves as a fantasy for audience “happily ever after”
    • Setting is usually an urban setting/big cities
    • Most of the time centered on female character
    • Through the years the genre has been stereotypically
      about heterosexual couples, recently though it has expanded.
  • Genre conventions--- production
  1. Sound is very closely related to the moods and feelings
    of the main character
  2. There is often used of diegetic and nondiegetic sound       
  3. Mid shots are used to set a more emotional connection with
    audience
  4. close ups used to show the main characters emotions, used
    to make the audience
  5. feel empathy
  6. two shots are used to show how the relationship develops
    through the film
  7. Panning shots are often used to show attachment of two people
  8. To portray the emotion better, romance films tend to use
    nondiegetic sounds and fast cuts are used to increase intensity
  9. as an argument may ensue   
  10. Over the shoulder shots are used to keep the conversation between
    the characters
  11. Establishing shot used to set the scene and location of the story   
  12. Long shot shows how close the characters are in their surroundings
  13. Extreme long shot shows the scenery of where the characters are,
    usually a famous landmark of the city, so audience can relate
  14. Usually sound has instruments like piano, guitar, or violin
  15. The music is key on setting the tone and mood of the film and
    scene
  16. Costumes are very generic and specific to the time period, as
they get happier the colors might get brighter

  • Institutional conventions-- marketing

  • Target audience is usually females
  • The posters usually include the couples in an embrace
  • Instagram and Snapchat ads are used often to target the teenage
girl audience, for high school romances like Love, Simon , since its '
the easiest most effective way to reach teenagers or young adults.
  • The trailers are often optimistic, and show the usually attractive
couple, and how “cute” their story is, where it is, and usually snippets
of their relationship, with a hint of the problem they will have, like
The Fault in our Stars.
  • Social media posts include interactions between the actors that are
in the romance film, interviews, and rumors of the actual actors dating,
creates publicity for free for the producers, a fandom

is born that “ ships” them, and the film can increase viewings this way,
like To all the Boys I've Loved before. This is a technique many Netflix
films use, since they are not shown in the movie theater, and rely on online
publicity.


  • Film example 1
Moonrise Kingdom
Image result for moonrise kingdom
  1. The movie begins with  a long take that ends in a long shot of the
    setting, the house of Suzy in an island.
  2. It contains diegetic and nondiegetic sound
  3. The colors are warm and bright
  4. The characters are introduced in the opening scene
  5. There is use of mid shot to create empathy and an emotional
connection with the audience, like when Suzy looks at the
camera in the opening scene
  1. Day to day life factors are very prevalent.
  2. Two shots are used to show the relationship of the characters
  • Film example 2
10 Things I Hate About You
Image result for 10 things i hate about you

  • The movie starts with sound that sets the mood of the film an
  • hints at Kat’s personality, as it switches when the music changes as she appears 
  • There is diegetic, the bell, and nondiegetic sound, the rock music in the opening scene
  • The characters are introduced, however there is two love stories in this film and one of each story is introduced at first,
  • Kat and Cameron, however we meet Patrick and Bianca after, and the
  • two stories collide, but Patrick and Kat’s is the main focus
  • An establishing shot shows the setting of the film: a school       
  • Climax is the consequences of the actions of Patrick, and it concludes in them ending together.


More examples of romantic films:
  1. Call me by your name
  1. Titanic
  1. La La Land
  1. P.S. I love you  
  1. The Shape of Water
  1. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind
  1. Blue is the warmest color



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