key words steve neale

Steve Neale – Steve Neale states that genres all contain instances of repetition and difference, difference is essential to the to the economy of the genre. Neale states that the film and it’s genre is defined by two things: How much is conforms to its genre’s individual conventions and stereotypes.

predictable expectations – something that happens that you could guess

reinforced – strengthen or support (an object or substance), especially with additional material.

amplify – enlarge upon or add detail to (a story or statement).

 repertoire of elements – Repertoire of elements is essentially features of a film that are repeated within a genre. … The audience expect to see them when watching films and they can be key in helping the audience to grasp the genre of a film.

corpus – body

verisimilitude– the appearance of being true or real.

realism – ealism, in the arts, the accurate, detailed, unembellished depiction of nature or of contemporary life. Realism rejects imaginative idealization in favour of a close observation of outward appearances. As such, realism in its broad sense has comprised many artistic currents in different civilizations.

 construction of reality – part of those observations and experiences come to us preconstructed by the media, with attitudes, interpretations, and conclusions already built in, then the media, rather than we ourselves, are constructing our reality.

historically specific – something from the past that is recognisable.

sub-genres – a subdivision of a genre of literature, music, film, etc.

 hybrid genres – A hybrid genre is a genre that blends themes and elements from two or more different genres. Hybrid genres are not new but a longstanding element in the fictional process

Genre theory


Genre is a type of music, film and anything which can be performed in different ways throughout media. There are differences and similarities, predictable or expected. It should also be unpredictable. Different people see genre in different ways- people who consume it.

Genre should be predictable and go along with the typical genre conventions but should also be innovative and unexpected. Genre is important to the people who make it (INSTITUTION) and the people who consume it (AUDIENCE).

Genre is a way of thinking about media production and media reception.

It helps identify how media texts are classified, organised and understood, essentially around SIMILARITIES and DIFFERENCE. Media texts hold similar patterns, codes and conventions that are both PREDICTABLE and EXPECTED, but are also INNOVATIVE (different) and UNEXPECTED.

. . . 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 
. . .

Scorcese, A personal Journey through American Cinema (1995)

Institutions : Early Hollywood (an still today) revolved around large corporations which could be identified by certain styles and genres.

 “genres are dependent upon profitability”

language of moving image

Overview

In this post I will look at some of the conventions and key terminology associated with moving image. It would be useful to look at this post together with my post on Narrative. In this post moving image refers to Film, TV, adverts, animations, installations and other moving image products.

Moving Image Conventions

Different MEDIA FORMS have different MEDIA LANGUAGES as an introduction it is worth looking overall at what constitutes the LANGUAGE OF MOVING IMAGE – in other words, key terminology – which also suggests that there is a GRAMMAR or CONVENTION or set of rules

The following recognised conventions should help students to deconstruct key moving image media texts and will also help students to create their own moving image products, working within or against these conventions. Remember the key is to know what the rules are before trying to break them. It is also worth pointing out that when students make their own products, they often struggle with aesthetic concepts of SPACE, SIZE and SCALE and I have another post which looks at this in more detail.

As alluded to, when looking at moving image products, it is useful to make a link to NARRATIVE THEORY as most often the key ideas, codes and conventions that are put to use for moving image products, are usually put together to serve ideas around NARRATIVE. For example, character, theme, motivation, empathy, ideology and so on.

The first and most distinctive tool of a moving image product is the camera. The camera is used to create images and although I write about photography and a more detailed use of the camera in another post, I would just like to re-cap some of the key features of the camera in terms of creating a moving image product.