Our Film Opening: The Musical

Our chosen genre is musical and romance combined. This blog post will be exploring the musical aspect of it. We chose this because we all found elements that we liked: the music, the dancing, and the overall happy tone that musicals tend to have. I was inclined to do this genre as well because when we watched film openings in class, the one from the movie La La Land (2016) really stood out to me. I have also done a lot of research on musical theather films, such as The Sound of Music (1965) and Grease (1978). It usually has a protagonist chasing after some big dream - usually in the show business, but not always. The target audience for a musical really depends on the plot, since musicals could appeal to kids all the way to full-grown adults. Mamma Mia is a good example of this; the musical not only appeals to today's generation but also Gen X and Baby Boomers since they are using songs sung by ABBA - a famous pop band from the '70s. Musicals also seem to be in a "fantasy world" since characters randomly break out into song. The songs used in musicals are often used to further the narrative accompanying the dialogue. They are usually "Broadway Style" songs, using powerful voices, and musical motifs/phrases are often used to identify characters.