CONVENTIONS OF A FANTASY FILM GENRE

Fantasy films are films which includes fantastic themes and supernatural events, many involve elements of magic, make-believe creatures or exotic worlds. The genre is believed to have evolved from the genre of science-fiction, although the two genres overlap there are many noticeable differences. Fantasy is a typical genre aimed at teenagers to young adults as its purpose is to create escapism from the audience, people of this age will have stressful, busy lives and so sometimes need to escape from their own worlds into a supernatural and extraordinary universe.

Fantasy films have no well defined boundaries, categorizing a film as fantasy requires an examination of the structural evens within the narrative as well as characters, setting or props. Many fantasy films, such as Star Wars, is suggested to be both a science fiction movie as well as one which has many fantasy genre elements. Animated films are very rarely described as fantasy films, although films such as Disney's 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' has elements of a film we would expect to see within a fantasy movie, it is categorized in a separate genre of fairy tale. Fairy tale genre films can also be described as sub-genre fantasy films. Superhero moves also fulfill many of the codes and conventions of a fantasy film, however, are also classified in an entirely separate category. 

Examples of fantasy movies: 

• Lord of the Rings (Peter Jackson, 2001-2003) 
• Harry Potter (Chris Columbus, 2001-2011) 
• Chronicles of Narnia (Andrew Adamson, 2005) 
• Tron (Kenneth Branagh, 2011) 

I have observed from looking at well known examples of fantasy films, that many of them lay in a series format. Very successful movies such as Lord of the Rings are a trilogy of movies. This means if we choose to create a fantasy film we will possibly leave it as if it is only the first part of a series of movies.

Here is an outline of some of the codes and conventions of a fantasy: 

• High production values 
• Younger target audience although significant older appeal 
• Wide/ saturated distribution (normally by an america conglomerate, such as Disney or Warners) 
• Dedicated, sometimes obsessive fan bases (this will be useful if we use this genre, especially when creating our poser or magazine cover) 
• Convergence and synergy 
• Emotive, often 'romanticized' narratives 
• Hyper real, idealized representations 
• Saturated primary colours 
• High key lighting 
• Significant CGI and FX e.g. green screen technology 
• Aspiration, escapism characters, often undertaking a quest 
• Occasional political narrative themes, for example, on minority groups 
• Simplistic, linear narrative (e.g. Hobbit travels across middle earth) 
• Iconography including magic, mystical creates, e.g. Elves and Faires 
• Often set in the part or in an imagined times

Sub-genres

There are two main sub-genres of fantasy which are High Fantasy and Sword and Sorcery. Both commonly cosiest with a medieval setting, magical creatures and characters and many of the main conventions of a fantasy genre film.

High fantasy tends to be more deeply involved in a fantasy world with more complex creatures as characters which for the most part are not human. There is usually a plot including a battle of good and evil in which both parties are easily defined from one another. An example would be 'Lord of the Rings' which is a typical modern High Fantasy films. This film includes high budget settings, CGI and complicated creatures as its characters. There is also a fairly simplistic storyline throughout the trilogy of films which is accompanied with a clear difference in who is good and who is evil; resulting in the obvious triumph of good.

Sword and Sorcery movies tend to be much more plot driven than High Fantasy. This means they lay heavily on action, which tends to be elaborate fights using both magic and swords (hence the name). Although films of this sub-genre sometimes describe an epic battle between good and evil, much like High Fantasy, there is an obvious difference between the two; they may alternatively present the hero character as having more immediate motivations such as protecting someone or something. The characters also tend to be more human, for example Harry Potter, although there are magical creatures, the majority of the characters are in fact human.