Julie's View of the Media World: what's so special about musicals?

Musical film is described as a genre in which songs by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. In reality, musicals are primarily made for entertainment, since it is pretty obvious they are not realistic pieces, but they strive to tell a story through music, sometimes words aren't enough to express feelings. This genre already existed for on-stage musicals and started being translated onto film in the early 1900s, but it really had its peak between the 1930s and the 1950s. Musicals are all about engaging with the audience and expressing emotion through unusual manners, which include singing and dancing, and can be anything from big and glamorous productions to simple day-to-day life brought alive by music.

~Content~

Music is the most important aspect of a musical piece, as you can probably imagine. But there are many other conventions, characteristics of each individual genre present on most productions, that are established for musical films in order for them to be successful. These include:

A Protagonist With a Dream

The main plot of most musical films involves some kind of dream or a main goal for the protagonist, which they develop through the story. About a good amount of the songs in the piece will be about this dream and/or developing it as the story progresses.

EX: The movie "Funny Girl" features in its plot a girl who dreams about starring on Broadway.

Romance Subplot

Musicals tend to rely heavily on entertaining the audience with romance, usually featuring the main character. They tend to have duets together and/or songs about love and relationships. Interestingly enough, this can be for scientific reasons, romance often tends to be implemented in movies to boost oxytocin levels in the audience, but also to set the idea of love and strong emotions that are linked to happiness and fulfillment.

EX: The award-winning movie "La la land" follows two protagonists in love who are drawn together by their common dreams.

Happy Endings With a Depressive Subtext

Many times the audience doesn't get the actual meaning and message behind songs in musical films, and that is because many people are mostly just expecting to see dancing, pretty visuals, and a nice singing voice, and don't really pay attention to the lyrics of the song. The same thing goes for the ending of this piece. Musical films normally end with the main character(s) making a difficult choice, sometimes between their dream and romance, and choosing what is best for themselves and their growth and future. Recently, many musical pieces have tapped into important social matters and used music to give the piece even more meaning.

EX: The film adaptation of the Broadway musical "Dear Evan Hansen" talks about teenage suicide and gives importance to mental health and seeking help.

~Production Techniques~

Throughout musical films, the director relies heavily on how visually pleasing and simultaneously eye-catching their production looks, which means that mise-en-scene is extremely important for this genre.

* They often make use of extravagant costumes and/or sets, making sure that everything that is on screen has a meaning and reason to be there.

* Most importantly, the majority of the music incorporated into the piece is original and written by the people involved in the production, sometimes even the actors themselves, and soundtracks usually have around 5-7 songs in the movie, but they usually have many tracks that they cut out from the final product. Songs are written with the end goal of being catchy.

* Musical pieces strive to create surrealism, that being from the use of extravagant colors and transitions to random dance numbers where everyone knows the entire choreography and lyrics to the song that amazingly everyone can hear.

* Cameras have to be strategically placed in order to truly express the feeling of being inside the movie and be more engaging with the audience. They also lay more on the extremes of the lightning scale in the sense that happy and uplifting songs will have bright lighting and colors to express the emotion on the character, and in the same way, more depressing songs--where the character most likely sings about a problem--have low lightning, often incorporates rain as a symbol of sadness, and use gray and blue tones throughout the scene.

~Marketing~

The target audience for musical films are females around 18 to 30 years of age, but mostly just centered on young females, even children. This is mainly because the aspects of romance and music incorporated into film alongside the production techniques of this genre are usually more appealing to young girls/women. There are exceptions like for example older adults who saw the original musical at Broadway when it first came out and now decides to watch the movie production, but those aren't usually the target audience of this type of film.

Posters for musical films usually include the main character(s) during some acting, most likely dancing, in bright colors and a happy setting. Trailers include a lot of the original song written for the piece, and usually show a short version of the main plot of the film, which gives an audience an idea of what the movie is about. They also usually advertise these films nowadays by social media for then it reaches their audience target of teenagers and young adults.

~Film Samples~

In the musical film High School Musical (2006), Troy Bolton (Zac Efron), the star athlete at a small-town high school, falls into a girl called Gabriella Montez (Vanessa Anne Hudgens) at a holiday karaoke party. When they return to campus, Troy and Gabriella audition for the upcoming school musical. Meanwhile, the jealous Sharpay Evans (Ashley Tisdale) conspires to squelch their chances. The Two Must Struggle to Make It to Auditions While Also Meeting Their Existing Obligations to the Basketball Team and the Academic Decathlon. The movie includes the aspects of having a dream, which in this case is participating in the school musical, while also trying to keep up with their normal school extracurricular activities. It has original songs that characters start singing out of nowhere to express their emotions and life dilemmas, and it follows a romance subplot between the two main characters. The poster shows all the main characters and their friends jumping and expressing smiley faces and an auditorium as the background, and the name already has the word "musical" in it, which gives the audience a good idea of what to expect.

In the film The Greatest Showman (2017), which takes place in the early 1800s, PT Barnum (Hugh Jackman) displays a natural talent for publicity and promotion, selling lottery tickets by various ages 12. After trying his hands at jobs, PT turns to show business to indulge his limitless imagination, rising from nothing to create the Barnum & Bailey circus. Featuring catchy musical numbers, exotic performers, and daring acrobatic feats, Barnum's mesmerizing spectacle soon takes the world by storm to become the greatest show on Earth. The film also has a novel subplot between PT's work partner (Jack Efron) and one of his circus gymnasts (Zendaya), who come from two different "worlds" but are brought together by love. The main plot of the movie is PTs dream of having his circus that showcases people who are different but want to be accepted into society, which is also the message behind the movie. It has plenty of original songs and some of them are used in circus performances.