Genre

The genre may be considered as a practical device for helping any mass medium to produce consistently and efficiently and to relate its production to the expectations of its customers. Since it is also a practical device for enabling individual media users to plan their choices, it can be considered as a mechanism for ordering the relations between the two main parties to mass communication. – Dennis McQuail

Action a film genre in which the protagonist is thrust into a series of events that typically involve violence and physical feats

A major Die Hard plot hole was just explained... 29 years later
Die Hard (John McTiernan, 1988)

Adventure – a film genre that contains an exciting story, with new experiences and exotic locations

The Mummy (1999) - IMDb
The Mummy (Stephen Sommers, 1999)

Animation – a genre that utilises the method of photographing successive drawings, models, or even puppets, to create an illusion of movement in a sequence

The Incredibles | Full Movie | Movies Anywhere
The Incredibles (Brad Bird, 2004)

Comedy – a genre that uses humour to situations and characters, to appeal to audiences

School of Rock' scene goes viral for its message of body positivity
School Of Rock (Richard Linklater, 2003)

Crime – a genre that fictionalises crimes, their detection, criminals, and their motives.

Scarface: Where Tony Montana Went Wrong | Den of Geek
Scarface (Brian De Palma, 1983)

Documentary – a non-fictional motion-picture intended to “document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education, or maintaining a historical record”

Summer Of Soul (…Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised)': Sundance  Review | Reviews | Screen
Summer Of Soul (Questlove, 2021)

Drama – a genre intended to be more serious than humourous in tone

The Social Network' 10 Years Later: A Grim Online Life Foretold - The New  York Times
The Social Network (David Fincher, 2010)

Fantasy – a genre involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore

The Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers - Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) screaming  during Helm's Deep battle | Iconic movies, Movies, Improvisation
The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers (Peter Jackson, 2002)

Historical – a genre showing past events or set within a historical period

Hidden Racism | Sojourners
Hidden Figures (Theodore Melfi, 2016)

Horror –  a genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes

Another Scream movie is on the way
Scream (Wes Craven, 1996)

Musical – a genre in which songs by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, usually accompanied by singing and dancing

Tick, Tick... Boom! review: Lin-Manuel Miranda salutes his hero Jonathan  Larson - Polygon
tick, tick…BOOM! (Lin-Manuel Miranda, 2021)

Mystery – a genre that revolves around the solution of a problem or a crime

Zodiac And 10 Other Suspenseful Movies On Netflix Right Now | Cinemablend
Zodiac (David Fincher, 2007)

Romance – a genre that focuses on passion, emotion, and the affectionate romantic involvement of the main characters

The Best Part of the Crazy Rich Asians Fashion Is the Revival of the  Getting-Dressed Montage | Glamour
Crazy Rich Asians (Jon M. Chu, 2018)

Science Fiction – a genre which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel universes, and extraterrestrial life

Independence Day (1996) | Radio Times
Independence Day (Roland Emmerich, 1996)

Sports – a genre in which a sport, sporting event, athlete, or follower of sport are prominently featured

Inside the 'I, Tonya' movie magic that made Margot Robbie an Olympic figure  skater - ABC7 Chicago
I, Tonya (Craig Gillespie, 2017)

Thriller – a genre designed to hold the interest of the audience by the use of a high degree of intrigue, adventure, or suspense

Shutter Island Review | Movie - Empire
Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese, 2010)

Western – a genre set primarily in the latter half of the 19th Century and the early 20th Century in the Western United States, in the style of the ‘Wild West’

The Hateful Eight (2015)
The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)

Film/Series Synopsis

A girl discovers her brother has been murdered in the street and tries to hunt down his killer. Categorized as a mystery/thriller, the film/series will be in an unchronological sequence with flashbacks to before her brother died.

For my film/series, I will create two different posters. These will give the potential audience an idea of what they would see if they watch it. For this, I am going to create one with mysterious elements, such as a silhouette of a looming figure, and another with hints towards the plot, such as a picture of the girl’s brother covered in blood.

Paul Gilroy – Post cOLONIAL THEORY

Brought race into the societal divide and changes in the 1980s through his book ‘There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack’ ; he highlighted how black youth cultures represented cultural solutions to collectively experienced problems of racism and poverty

Racial Otherness

  • His book highlights the anxieties of regarding immigrant behaviour in the post war period.
  • He suggests the that the public’s association of the immigrants which the living conditions produced a series of racial representations.
  • `Media Stories began associating the black community with assaults, muggings, and violence during the 1980s and 70s
  • Such representations stigmatised the immigrant black community – constructing them as a racial ‘other’ in the predominantly white world of 1950s Britain

Legacy of the British Empire and Identity

We live inmorbid culture of a once-imperial nation that has not been able to accept its inevitable loss of prestige’ – After Empire, 2004 – Gilroy

  • Gilroy argues that the British are undergoing a national identity crisis as a result of the fall of the British Empire
  • The immigrant population has become a symbol that constantly reminds the UK of its loss of global power – they are a visual representation of what Britain once was and once had

Genre

Genre is area of media language

how media texts are classified, organised and understood, essentially around SIMILARITIES and DIFFERENCE. In that media texts hold similar patterns, codes and conventions that are both PREDICTABLE and EXPECTED, but are also INNOVATIVE and UNEXPECTED.

Genre as ‘Textual Analysis’

Ed Buscombe notes that the ‘kind’ or ‘type’ of film is usually recognised “and largely determined by the nature of its conventions”. You can use genre to predict particular elements around: characterssettinglightingdialoguemusicsoundsmise-en-scene etc. Then should be able to elicit key characteristics (codes and conventions).

Notion of CREATIVITY. The way in which new ideas (creativity) emerge from the predictable and expected. 

SUB-GENRE film (a genre within a genre) or a HYBRID GENRE (a combination of two genres).

 “genre is a system of codes, conventions and visual styles which enables an audience to determine rapidly and with some complexity the kind of narrative they are viewing” -Turner

“saddled with conventions and stereotypes, formulas and clichés and all of these limitations were codified in specific genres. This was the very foundation of the studio system and audiences love genre pictures“