Conventions of the Sports genre

Lets start by examining the mise-en-scene for all sports genre products, sports films almost always are created following the life of a single athlete, relating to the audience as an image of themselves, taking an ‘anything is achievable attitude’, although on some occasions a team is implemented to portray a sense of teamwork, or belonging to a cause. MISE-EN-SCENE

Typical props, characters, settings and costumes. To go into detail about the props of sports genre films would be pointless as in fact, they are stereotypical, using sports equipment to make the product more authentic. The characters that can be used in a sports genre film can vary e.g. they physicality can range from big to small skinny to muscly etc. Their personal backgrounds either rich or poor etc. Once again the setting is stereotypical using sports venues, e.g. stadiums, sporting fields etc. Although depending on the characters story and background their setting outside of the main ‘laying fields’ can vary dramatically being either a poor background or a rich one, depending on the characters story or the plot/build-up of the film. There's no need to go into detail about costumes as theory stereotypical to sports e.g. jerseys (kits) etc.

Typical actors/ actresses Typical actors/actresses for sports films are stereotypically ‘fit’ e.g. in good physical shape to give the film authenticity, and to make the audience believe they can take part in that sport. Stereotypically sports films are made around males, due to men being the physical sports stereotype, although Million Dollar Baby was a “phenomenon”. For example throughout the rocky trilogy, Sylvester Stallone was portrayed training to build himself in order to beat his rivals, although in truth prior to the film his personal trainers already whipped him into shape. Him being seen in great physical form gave believability to the fact he could attain the Heavy Weight Boxing Champion of the world title in the film.

Institutional Details and Budgets Million Dollar Baby – 2004: Production Co: Warner Bros. Pictures, Lakeshore Entertainment, Malpaso Productions. Box Office: Budget: $30,000,000 (estimated), Gross: $100,422,786 (USA) Big Production company, average budget, huge profit, sucess. Rocky (1976): Production Co: Chartoff-Winkler Productions, United Artists. Budget: $1,000,000, Box Office Revenue: $225,000,000. Relatively unkown company, small budget, huge profit, success. Real Steel (2012): Production Co: DreamWorks SKG, Touchstone Pictures, Reliance Entertainment. Budget: $110,000,000 (estimated), Gross: $85,463,309 (USA). Big company, huge budget, smaller profit, made a loss, failure. The Fighter: Production Co: Closest to the Hole Productions, Mandeville Films. Budget: $25,000,000 (estimated), Gross: $93,571,803 (USA). LWK (Less Well Known) production company, small budget, huge profit, success. Coach Carter: Production Co: MTV Films, MMDP Munich Movie Development & Production GmbH & Co. Project KG. Budget $30,000,000 (estimated), Gross $67,253,092 (USA). Large production company, relatively small budget, huge profit, success. Remember the Titans: Production Co: Jerry Bruckheimer Films, Run It Up Productions Inc, Technical Black. Budget: $30,000,000 (estimated), Gross: ESP 243,785,332 (Spain). LWK company, small budget, huge profit, success.