10 Best Urban Drama Movies Of All Time:
Institutional Context
Influential Genre Examples
History and Background of Urban Drama
Repertoire of Elements of Urban Drama Genre
Character: Typically in a Urban Drama movie there is generally three groups of characters; The Gangs, The Police, Innocent Civilians, along with these group of characters there is also typically a ex gang member who gets dragged back into his old gang life. Normally the female characters are stereotyped to be ignorant and to be used for sex appeal and the men are usually the gang members. Children appear very often in urban drama films as it gives the film a sense of how the innocence can be twisted to become involved in a gang or can also be used to show how a gang could be ruthless in killing a child.
Audience: Men seem to be one of the main audiences for Urban Drama Films as it's exciting and ruthless and gives the audience an insight on gang life. Also young adults from 14 upwards possibly from London would be interested possibly by the Urban Drama genre as it shows them what actually occurs near where they live.
Settings: For the majority of Urban Drama films the setting is quiet similar, there is generally always a dull, rainy day and a council house around an area which you can tell is full of crime e.g. graffiti showing vandalism. Popular settings also include London Streets, alleyways and Council.
Themes: For an Urban Drama film to be successful it needs to conform to some of the typical themes, themes such as Evil vs. Good, Misunderstood children, Dark Lives, Sin vs. Purity and even death.
Style: Conventional lighting for an Urban Drama film is quite low key, dark and gloomy with a dull, cold feel to it. They have a lot of use of close ups and a variety of low and high angles shots, to create tension. Another way of creating tension is through the use of sound, typically you'd get a lot of rap, grime, and nowadays even dubstep playing, this also gives an insight of what the gangs of today like listening to, in terms of music genre.
Iconography: An iconic item you'd find within a Urban Drama film would be some form of knife or gun, and of course most defiantly blood. In terms of clothing, Hoodies, Snapbacks and tracksuits are worn to represent how gangs dress.
Narrative: Typically the narrative of a Urban Drama film would be to have some sort of gang with gang members and gang leaders established, so the audience get an insight of the hierarchy of power within the gang, there is usually also a police group who the gang are running from at some point within the film, there is also usually a misunderstood gang member who believes he is doing or
not doing the right thing by being in a gang.
This movie trailer is an exemplar trailer to the urban drama movie trailer that me and my group are aiming to achieve. In this movie trailer there is minimum dialogue and only diegetic sound used, it is mostly the films theme song throughout most of the trailer followed by music that is more intact with emotion to touch the audience and make them feel sympathetic. The mise-en-scene such as the costumes represent the stereotypical identities of young people who are associated in gangs in east London. It shows young people (mostly male) wearing clothing such as hoodies with their hoods up some of the time to hide their identities from their rivals, baggy trousers and trainers. In the trailer we also see different props such as guns, knives and baseball bats which are all used for violent actions. From the narration of the film it shows how there is a desperation between the individuals to battle against each other for the sake of their status and to make others afraid of them, revenge is another theme that is well presented in this movie trailer and is a stereotypical theme know to be fought for between young people in gangs in today's society.
The theme song for this movie is rap music which is another element that is associated with people in gangs and the only time of music that they listen to as well as create. This trailer has been presented very violently which is also another technique used to create emotion and reaction through the audience.
This is a film trailer that has really captured my groups attention, whereby many aspects of this trailer can be incorparated into our teaser trailer. The storyline of the film 'Shank' relates significantly to our Urban Drama, 'Bloodline'. It depicts a close knit relationship between brothers which shows how the lives can change significantly to result back to crime. From watching this trailer, we feel that the non-digetic voiceover plays a major roll in giving the audience an understanding of the storyline, drawing the viewer in.
Furthermore, we have realised that we need a larger amount of montage shots to pull the whole trailer together. This will make the storyline less obvious for the audience while highlight the genre to entice the target audience.
key iconography is here but I would also like a short written summary to go alongside the visual imagery.
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