Learning How to Plan and Construct a Romance

         After conducting research behind the Romance genre writing process, I learned that in most romance films the audience go into the film already knowing two characters are destined to meet. When writing a Rom-Com, usually one of the characters has a conflict in their life that gets in the way but in the end gets solved. In many great rom-com films, two different personalities come together and end up working together and balancing each-other out. Characters should be unique and complex. What most people think of when they hear romantic comedy is a man and a woman sharing a cheesy and cliché love story. However, some of the most successful romantic comedies are hybrids, movies that have expanded their audience by mixing with other genres. Romantic comedies can be action-adventures, sports comedies, ghost stories, political, satirical, period pieces , crime stories, teen movies and more. This kind of cross-genre mixing has kept this genre successful for decades.                  

                                                                    Casablanca(1942)                              
             

        Not all romance films start of as love at first sight. Sometimes, making the characters hate each other will give the romance more room to bloom, but they can also have lukewarm, mixed, or one-sided feelings. Even though they aren’t pursuing a relationship, external forces bring them together. They might partner to accomplish a joint goal, attend the same school, or be hired to investigate each other. Something to take into mind when writing a romance is to avoid giving the audience the wrong idea about a character. It's important to avoid giving a character unhealthy behavior. You don’t want your audience to decide that your character or characters are terrible people. Unfortunately, it’s common for male love interests to be outright abusive to their partners. As time passes, more and more audience members will feel disgust when relationships aren’t equal. It's important to avoid this pitfall by checking over your character interactions.

Titanic(1997)

Genre Research

Romance Genre

        Romance films are love stories that focus on the relationship between two characters. Romantic films usually explore the important themes like; young love with older love, love at first sight, unanswered romantic love, sentimental love, obsessive love, etc. Romance films make the love story or the search for love the main plot focus. Oftentimes, lovers in screen romances face obstacles and the hazards of hardship, finances, physical illness, racial or social class status, occupation, psychological restraints, or family that threaten to break their union and attainment of love. The tone of Romance film can vary greatly. Whether the end is happy or tragic, Romance film aims to evoke strong emotions in the audience. Different sub-genres of Romance include Historical Romance, Romantic Drama, Chick flick, Romantic Comedies, and Romantic Action Comedies. 

Historical romance is focuses the setting in a historical time in history or just a period in history. An example is the movie The Duchess.

Romantic Drama usually revolves around an obstacle thats coming in between two people.Music is usually incorporated to point out the emotional mood. In a romantic drama it normally does not specify whether a concluding romantic union in between the two major characters will take place. An example of this is The Fault in Our Stars.

Chick Flick usually refers to films that attract mostly female viewers. Although many types of films may be directed towards a female audience, the term "chick flick" is typically used only in reference to films that contain personal drama and emotion or themes that are relationship-based. Chick flicks often are released around Valentine's Day. An example of this is The Notebook.

Romantic Comedies films are films that deal with love in a light, humorous way. Humor in every movie tends to be verbal, situational, or a low-key variety.  In a typical romantic comedy the two lovers tend to be young, like-able, and seemingly meant for each other, yet they are kept apart by some complicating circumstance. A perfect example of this is the film, The Big Sick.

Romantic Action Comedies  are comedy films that blends with action and romantic comedy films. The well known example of this is the movie, Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

Music Blog Post

Pop Genre
Pop music is popular music that originated in America and has now spread, reaching different parts of the world. The pop genre originated as a combination of different music styles. Today, styles such as urban, country, rock ,dance, and Latin are all incorporated into the pop genre. Pop music is mostly popular among the younger generations. It's popular among Millennials by 40% and amongst Generation X by 27%. The whole purpose of pop music is to appeal to a general audience. Therefore, the use of a mainstream style and a simple song structure is typically used. Some of the most famous pop songs tend to have a catchy chorus and hooks. The pop industry is heavy on recording, technology, and production, rather than live performance. Some of the most famous pop artists consist of Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Kesha, Justin Bieber, and the list goes on.

Marketing Trends 

Snapchat Filter 

Since pop appeals to a younger audience, what better way than to market and promote through social media. It is popular among pop artists/bands to post  of audio or a music video on instagram to promote their new or upcoming music. Pop artist Harry Styles, used a trail of clues through videos, corners of the internet and social media in order to get an interactive scavenger hunt. Another marketing trend pop artists use is to promote their music through twitter and snapchat. Through Twitter, artists usually create a trend among their fans and create hashtags. This allows fans to interact with the artists/bands and at the same time spread and promote new music releases. Through Snapchat, pop artists usually create filters with a snippet of their song. When used the sample of their song is played on a loop. An example of this was when pop artist, Calvin Harris first promoted his song "Slide" through Snapchat, by creating a filter. A marketing trend not only popular with pop but with many other genres is creating merch that shows the artists/band's name or a symbol that represents the band. Trending dances on TikTok, is another marketing trend for the poop genre. Vinyl sales is something that is trending among the younger generations since it gives a vintage aesthetic. Pop album vinyl sales are the second most popular at 25.6%.


Development of the Band's Brand
To develop the brand of my band, my group and I started off by creating a symbol that is meaningful and relates to the band name. Having a symbol allows fans to feel connected and tied to the band and band members. The name of the band is spelled Romat!c Di^ision, because if you were to align the arrow from "Di^ision" to the exclamation point in "Romant!c", you create the band symbol. The purpose of this is also so the fans feel connected because they know something others don't know. Since our band is of the pop genre, we decided to use the bold colors red, black. These bold colors are popular among artists/band themes because when used together they are eye-catching. We also used white as part of our theme colors to balance out the bold red and black. These theme colors are also seen throughout the website and merch that I created. To promote the band we created social media accounts on Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat. On Instagram snippets of the music video and new music announcements were posted. On snapchat, we created a filter that plays our music when used. To further reach our target audience, we created a trending dance on TtikTok. In order to get local recognition we made a local tour in Florida and made a list of venues were we were going to perform. In order to make our music more accessible we made sure our music was available through digital distribution and also through physical vinyl copies.

Marketing Products
To further promote my band I created a website thats associated with the theme colors. On the website you can learn about the background of the band, performance locations/dates, album releases. On the website, links to the social media accounts are included in order for quick access. On the website there is also a shop tab where the costumer can purchase merch. The merch includes hoodies, shirts, hats, phone cases, and vinyl albums. There are two different designs on the merch. One is a design of the band and the other is the design of the new album/local tour.

Sample Merch: