In today's lesson we looked at genre- a possible topic that could come up in the exam. The first question we thought about was if texts are defined by genres. We looked at each other's thriller openings and decided what made it suitable to be considered as a thriller genre. The most popular ones were iconography (most had a weapon, or relevant clothing) and for ours, film noir. Film noir made our opening a hybrid genre- which makes it a flexible genre and so more likely to be enjoyed by the audience- as said by Richard Maltby.
Every text uses a genre, whether it be horror, thriller, romance, action or drama. Genres sort films into categories, which makes it easier for someone to find what sort of films they enjoy. It also means that similar films will be made in the future, because film makers know that audiences enjoy films from all genres. The purposes of genres are to categorise films and to make viewing easier for audiences. It's not always easy to tell what genre a film is, as it may either be a hybrid genre or a hidden genre. An example of a hybrid genre would be Scream or Scary Movie- it combines horror with a comedic element.
Iconography is one aspect that helps define what genre a film is. Mise en scene and plot/storyline are other aspects that help define a genre. Iconography is things like props and objects used in a film, and what people associate the item with. For example, a weapon would usually be a horror or a thriller film. Mise en scene is everything from costume to set design used in a film which normally helps identify which genre a film belongs to.
For example, black clothing would be commonly associated with a horror film, and the set design of a dark forest, or abandoned house would be a thriller or a horror.
The way in which directors help to continue progress of different genres is by coming up with new, creative ideas to ensure that people keep on watching their specific genre, but at the same time by coming up with similar ideas, because they know what people enjoy watching. As Steve Neale said, the audience demand will always be there, and the industry is always ready to produce new productions. In addition, he also said that without different genre's there would be no variety, and if all the films were the same genre it would be boring for audiences.
Our thriller opening we did for our AS coursework could easily be identified as a thriller. This is because of iconography, mise en scene and sound effects. Iconography helps identify a genre- this is through the props used in the opening. For example, in our thriller opening, we used the killer's hat and we used blood splatters to help identify it as a thriller opening. By using mise en scene we were able to help identify it as a thriller because of the colours used and the costumes worn. The killer wore black clothes, to help him blend in with the darkness- this was a huge part of our thriller opening as we wanted the audience to feel scared. Combined with the costume, we also used lighting. We used dark lighting to help scare the audience and hide the characters. This helped identify it as a thriller genre because the audience could not easily see the killer and so kept the tension running. The sound effects helped do this too, because the sounds we used were quite scary. We used sounds such as thunder, footsteps, a door creaking and scary music. These sound effects are all typical sound effects used in thriller openings.
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