Post 7a: what is genre?

Film genres;

Film genres are identifiable type, categories, classifications or groups of films that have similar techniques or conventions;

• content
• subject matter
• structures
• themes
• mood
• period
• plot
• settings
• recurring icons
• stock characters
• narrative events
• situations
• motifs
• styes
• props
• stars

Convention:

What you expect to see or hear in any given media product e.g in Action we expect heroes vs villains.

Conventions and Paradigms?

Genres function according to sets of rules and conventions, which govern their capacity and range.They respond to these rules and conventions by developing formulas and patterns (paradigms). Overtime, these formulas and patterns may acquire not only typical, but even archetypal force, dominating ways of seeing and of representing the world around us.

Link to paradigm website: 

http://users.aber.ac.uk/dgc/Documents/S4B/sem03.html





These paradigms may be grouped into those relating to:

Iconography (ie the main signs and symbols that you see/hear)

Structure (the way a text is put together and the shape it takes)

 Theme (the issues and ideas the programme deals with)

Why do we categorise films?

Genre grew with the evolution of the film industry, but was developed in Hollywood in the 1920's/30's when the big named studios were established. The producers wanted a new way to make profit and too attract the audience. Through the use of marketeers they found out which different kinds of audience liked what type of film. Genres thus became formulas consisting of predictable conventions that audiences liked.

Positives and negatives of genre:

 Classification by genre is seen as both positive and negative. On the one hand, rigorous conformity to established conventions (or paradigms) while giving the audience what they want, can actually lead to stagnation of a genre as a "they're all the same" judgement is passed. This is what happened to the traditional Hollywood western and musical - once many profitable examples of these genres were pumped out by the studio each year.

 

  Do genres change over time?

  Censorship- jaws has gone from an 18 to a 12 certificate.

 

 changes in technology:

 invention of the steadicam which allowed the camera to appear to float and enabled the stalking shots so important in horror films, developments in digital video editing techniques which led to fast paced editing and exact pacing of music with on screen action. Special effects has improved vastly.Technical advances in the field of animatronics and liquid and foam latex meant that the human frame could be distorted to an entirely new dimension, on screen, in realistic close up.


James Cameron 3D

George Lucas surround sound.