genre Theory definitions

Stephen Neale: UK film theorist, he said that genres use repeated types of features. Repertoire of elements and differences, views genre as a process

Repertoire of elements: Repeated features that are the same and recognisable as a specif genre. For example Comedy consists of: Jokes, stupid actions, puns and happy behaviour.

Corpus: Genres evolve as new texts are added to similar text. Slight changes are made to the audience, sound and text.

Hybridisation: The merging of different genres to create a sub-genre so that there can be more than one genre in a text. like a romance comedy rom/com.

Historic specificity: Genres that are associated with a specific time and were popular at a that time.

Repetition and sameness: Texts could get boring and repetitive if the they’re the same as other texts.

Variation and change: New things introduced in a text so the audience doesn’t get bored.

Narrative image: A story is told through moving images, and has a similar narrative structure to texts in that genre.

Expectations and hypothesis: Audiences predict what’s going to happen. For example, in a horror film you can tell when a jump scare is about to occur because the music turns into a crescendo or is silent.

Suspend disbelief : The audience must care about the characters in order for them to remain interested. This can be done by making them think a certain way and that something is going to happen to that character. This is known as Audience positioning.

Generic regime of verisimilitude: To make things the same so it’s believable.

 Conventions and rules: The certain rules and structures. Specific features that must to be included in a text to make it a certain genre. for example, suspenseful music to make it out like a jump scare will occur.


Sub-genre:  
A genre that has been derived from the original main genre, so it doesn’t contain all of the required features.



The Killing Vs The Missing

CATEGORY SIMILARITIES DIFFERENCES THEORY
CHARACTERS – The hero was a female.
– The victim was a female.
– The hero in the killing is a woman. However, in the missing the hero is a male.PROPP – Every character fits into a type.
NARRATIVE – The first episodes introduce the themes.– In the missing the victim dies so it can not be fully resolved.TODOROV – There is a beginning, middle and end. There will be a dilemma and at the end it will be resolved.
THEMES – The city is safe and the countryside is bad.– The killing someone dies so there is no hope about getting her back.
– Whereas, the missing the girl comes back and it is about the hope of finding out what happened to her for all those years.
LEVI-STRAUSS – there are 2 binary opposites (good or bad)
REPRESENTATION – The girl is the victim.
– The hero is the detective.
– The Killing has a woman detective higher up in power than the male detective; this is radical as typically the male detective would be in charge of the female detective.
– The lead detective in the missing is a male so this is reactionary.
SEMIOTICS
TECHNICAL CODES / LANGUAGE OF MOVING IMAGE (music, setting, props, lighting, use of camera, editing etc) – The first 5 minutes of the 1st episode shows us what happened before or shows the conclusion and it will work back from there. – The music in the missing fits well with what is on screen (mysterious and similar to music in a horror film.
– However, the music in the killing is more cinematic and upbeat. This contrasts to what is showed on screen.
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