OCR GCSE Media - Action and adventure

Contemporary Action Adventure Films (including hybrids)

• Your Highness (Adventure/Comedy Hybrid) 2011
• Raiders of The Lost Ark (1981)
• Pirates of the Caribbean – On Stranger Tides (2011)
• Superman Returns (2006)
• The Italian Job (1969)
• Romancing The Stone (1984)
• Stormbreaker (2006)
• Godzilla (1998)
• King Arthur (2004)
• Back to the Future (1985)
• Chicken Run (2000)
• Star Trek (2009)
• Chronicles of Narnia (2005)
• The Musketeer (2001)
• Blackbeard (2006)
• The Mummy (1999)
• Robin Hood (2010)
• Beowolf (2007)
• Gulliver’s Travels (2010)
• Bourne Identity (2002)

Codes and Conventions

• 12/15 certificate, maximising youth audiences
• Young, male, aspirational target audience – secondary female target audience
• Hybridised – often also with Sci Fi, Animation and Romance
• Innocent, often childlike representations
• Graphic violence is tolerated but dumbed down and often encoded with humour
• The narrative commonly involves a quest
• Major Hollywood studio produced and distributed
• High production values including CGI FX
• Fast paced editing
• Classic Hollywood 3 act narrative structure
• Predictable chain of events – narrative cause and effect
• Single stranded, linear, closed narrative
• Dramatic non-diegetic soundtrack
• More narrative action codes than enigma codes
• Clear binary oppositions positioning audiences into a preferred reading
• Star Marketing: Audience identification/expectations e.g. Johnny Depp, Harrison Ford
• Generic Typecasting and Secondary Persona apply (actors are expected to play certain characters)
• Romantic sub-plot (see Propp)
• Humorous dialogue underpinning the narrative
• Relationships with new technology (youth audiences)
• Use of Close up / Insert shots / High Key Lighting
• Dominant representation of gender: male/female action hero encoding a hegemonic cultural stereotype
• Mulvey’s male gaze and contemporary female gaze can apply (many Action Adventure films have a post feminist, strong female character e.g. Your Highness)
• Propp’s theories applicable – characters often pertain to stereotype
• Uses and Gratifications theory can be mapped onto Action Adventure Films (Escapism as a key appeal)