Genre is a french word with Latin roots meaning type or kind this brings in the question "what kind or type of film do you like?". Studying genre is a way to examine the conventions of film through patterns and repetition, however the films are partly open systems which need to stay the same to survive but evolve and develop for the audience.A set of rules recognizable usually through iconography familiar mise-en scène, actors and style of representation.
Genre is never static but constantly renegotiated between industry, audience, a combination of familiar reassurance and new twists. This way people can go to watch films which they have an expectation to enjoy but it has to be different to keep the audience interested. Therefore, repetition variation and familiarity brings on the feel good factor viewers came for.
A creative strategy used by film producers to ensure audiences have an identification of what the movie will be be about so they can choose from their preferences to predict the risks of the movie. For example if an audience went to see a random film without knowing the genre and it was a horror and they prefer Romantic comedies they would be quite disappointed.
genre suggests reassurance because the bad is mostly defeated by the good so genre is a way of tidying up the mess of life.
Genres function is language - a set of vocabulary which organizes meanings. Therefore people understand what they are getting when they go to the Cinema.
This is when generic conventions are evolved or developed so much that they cross over into each other almost as though the boundaries no longer exist like Romantic comedies. A film that is an example of a hybrid would be "the Day After tomorrow" as it is a mash up of Romantic Tragedy drama fantasy and science geography fiction.
We did this activity to understand sub-genres is a type of genre - category and to show how many films we know and work out what films go into each sub-genre. I found that it was difficult to decide what hybrids fitted into for example Ground Hog day could be classed as a romantic comedy and fantasy film. Therefore, it was difficult to specify which genre the movie should go into.
This shows that most films are hybrids now, because they are movies with two or more sub-genres.
A sub-genre is a type of genre and a hybrid is the combination of 2 genre.
ReplyDeleteThus hybridisation is the erosion of genric conventions to a point where it can be argued that the boundaries that once separated them no longer exist