Research for #1 question of CCR post

My CCR research post focuses on the first CCR question "How does your product use or challenge conventions, and how does it represent social groups or views?".

We have researched films such as The Fast and the Furious, 2 Fast 2 Furious, and Tokyo Drift and found that there are many things within this genre that can help with our project, like the underground car meets, close ups of engines and modifications, rivalry between racers, male protagonists with lots of confidence, and an enthusiastic start to the race. Filmmakers of racing films also tend to cut very quickly when they edit, use very loud audio from the engines of the cars, and include suspenseful build ups before the race takes place.

The conventions listed above will be used throughout the project. For example, a nighttime car meet, trash talking competitors, modified vehicles, and a countdown before racing. These conventions give instant recognition for the audience as to what type of genre they are looking at. The back alley part exchange also give off the underground culture typically associated with street racing in films.


Also, we challenge the normal format of the race. In most films featuring racing, the takeoff is an event that shows speed and dominance. In the case of our film, the car will immediately stall at the beginning. The audience will not see what they expect through the combination of action and comedy created by the instant loss of acceleration.


We portray car culture within our movie, with a slightly exaggerated but not necessarily in a way that will look bad and forced. Although we do use competitive language in the dialogue, we also use humor and avoid violent or aggressive behaviors.


In general, this research demonstrates that the film will utilize genre conventions but at the same time challenges some of those conventions. We will use common elements in racing films to identify our genre. With respect to car culture, we are trying to represent car culture both competitively and confidently but without going to the extent of being overly exaggerated or harmful.