The film title of a comedy film tends to not have any real conventions to it, just normally that it is interest provoking. For example, 'The Leap Year' provokes interest as it already makes people wonder what will happen, as it gives nothing away, only that it has something to do with a leap year (this being that is is set on a new year party for a leap year, and is a reference to the year it was made, though this isn't obvious to begin with) and means the audience will watch on in order to decipher why this film is titled in this way, because it intentionally makes no sense to begin with. However, the title being obscure is quite unconventional when our inspiring movies are taken into consideration, as 'The Hangover' and 'Dude, where's my car?' introduce the movie's events quite quickly, primarily the 'we got drunk and a lot of crazy stuff we can't remember happened', wheres as 'The Leap Year' does hide this quite well.
The title style/font is a clear development of the comedy genre. Although the genre has no outward conventions to which the title styles must comply, many films within the genre have title sequences designed to fit the film, and therefore the genre. Our title sequence are in rather large bubble style writing, and falls to the bottom of the screen with a clattering sound, which fits the conventions of alcohol and accidents within the film.
The a comedy film can take place in a number of places, meaning determining a setting for the genre as a whole is difficult, though less so within sub genre's, for example a space ship being a setting in a sci-fi comedy. Most films take place within settings or locations that are relevant to the film idea's or events. As the film is a teen based comedy, the film settings most associated with this are houses, schools, shops, and clubs, and so the setting of our opening sequence does slightly challenge this, although this could also be due to the alcohol conventions, which could mean the conventions of quite strange settings due to strange events taking place is actually developed.
Costumes featured in comedy films often depend on the particular sub-genre for which they are part of. For most comedy films, the costumes are quite casual (jeans, shirts, etc) which we chose to do also, as this made the film more believable and easier for the audience to relate to.
The props featured in comedy films are pretty generic to all film genre's, and tend to be basic or everyday items. In our opening sequence, this isn't much different. The characters both have mobile phones, basic everyday items which most audience members will own and therefore be able to relate to. However, a few of the props we used were to provoke humour, such as the mask, party poppers and masking tape. which aren't usually items the audience will use, or at the very least not in a park. Humour provoking props are often used in comedy films, be they generic everyday items used out of context, or actual strange or joke items.
The story and how the story is set up fits the conventions of this type of comedy film. The set up to the story is very much waking up the morning after something big happened and being able to remember barely any of it, and spending the rest of the film tracing their tracks back to the party in order to find out what happened. This is a pretty common convention for this genre, and is seen in both 'The Hangover' and 'Dude wheres my car?'.
The set up of the genre is probably quite conventional also. Like the way the story sets up the movie, this set up helps set up the genre. The opening sequence is full of gimmicks and little flash backs, which in themselves are gimmicks. These gimmicks set up the genre as comedy. For example, the first gimmick is Ryan (Louis) falling for the tree, which I don't beleive is in many if any comedy films, or at least not from what I've seen. Other comedy films use gimmicks also, notably in both 'The Hangover' and 'Dude where's my car?' the use of wild animals is used as a gimmick to address the fact that all is not well in the opening sequence, though we chose to avoid this gimmick and go with something a little simpler and more unique.
The way the characters are introduce are by falling and finding. Louis's character is seen just before he falls out of the tree, but we're only really introduced to him when he stands up and looks around, as we get a sense of his personality this way, that being that he's comedy's generic mean character with a stupid best friend, who we're introduced to when he walks to the other side of the tree and finds taped to it. Barry is seen in the flashbacks that Louis has before this point, but we just see the pair of them messing around, we don't see much else of them, and so Barry is only really introduced when he's sleeping taped to a tree. Barry's introduction is quite fitting with the genre, as in 'The Hangover' a few of the characters are introduced while they're asleep. Louis's could also be, as in 'Dude where's my car?' the characters are awake, though when Louis wakes up, he knows something isn't right straight away, though they're in their house and he's in a a park, so it's forgivable.
The camera work and editing in the film is conventional to any film. There is no real set way any film has to use a camera or editing, just so that it is in a away which suits the film. For example, we chose to zoom in ever so slightly on Louis before zooming right back out on him in order to establish confusion to those who notice it, and therefore the confusion which Louis will show shortly after. The editing we chose to do was mainly sequencing and music. All films use relevant music in order to establish genre conventions, and as so, we used 'Macho Man' by the village people to add comedic effect. Also, we chose to sequence the opening sequence with flashbacks after each object he looked at, in order to establish comedy, as the events in the flashbacks are slightly comedic as well as giving an insight into Louis and Barry as characters, and the night before.
Just as with camerawork and editing, special effects have no real conventions depending on the genre.
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