Genre: Development of understanding

As I had explored the importance of genre and genre theories for this lesson in pairs we had to create a film documentary show casing our research. 

The first step we took in pairs was draw a spider diagram and write any words that connect to the term "genre". We then explained key word for example, "categorizes". All genres are categorized into different group however some genre belong to more then one group, for example comedy and romance.  

The second step we did was produce a structure of a plan. This plan consisted of everything we would include for our film documentary, for example we would start of by typing "what is genre?", from there as you can see we would show different media text, and movies. We also included briefly the main point we would talk about for example "genre is ideological" and  "regulated variety". One of the strengths about making a structure plan is it enabled me to know what i'm going to do and when. This prevents any confuse meant and key points that are missed out can be added. 

This image represents a close up of one feature my structured plan has, it shows that my film documentary will end in a question. I thought this would be a good way to end the film documentary because it would make my audience be engaged. Furthermore, we then decided to write a script, according to the plan in detail. This enabled us to understand how we'd make each point come across for example, "what is genre" (type it - computer) . This meant the audience would see in the video, the computer typing "what is genre" in the search tab by itself. This made it much easier for us to know what exactly we had to do and how to do it when making the video, we also had an advantage as we knew what step to take after each point and how to approach it. Having done this, we then started shooting our different shots, and edited them on a program "Finalcut Express" which enabled us to put them together effectively. 


Image of our script:

This movie explains a brief explanation about my understanding of genre, and how it leads film producers to success. one of the factors we talk about in this movie is the audience, I explain how differant genres are catergorized for the audience to define what type of genre it belongs too. Furthermore, I explain how the audience identifies a certain genre therefore consume some expectations, for example, in an comedy movie such as "Hangover", the audience would expect the main characters to do something stupid, crazy and make mistakes. Moreover, in this video I talk about how genre has evolves, one reason for this is the audience. If genre stays the same the audience are more likely to get bored therefore, within a well known genre producers will challenge some convections to give the movie a twist. This encourages the audience to watch the movie again, as they do not intend to expect this, and gives a good word of mouth to other people which builds a reputation of the movie as well as the produce. This leads to the movie being a success and enabling the producer to gain profit. Also, I illustrate how some audience believe genre is ideological as some genre movies promote western films for example, "once upon a time to the west". Moreover, this video also explains a brief idea about what genre is, and how it has been challenged and developed overtime. 

Having done this activity I was able to expand my skills on "Finalcut Express" for example, I was unsure how to take images from the internet and put them on Finalcut with text. Moreover, I learnt a deeper understanding of genre for example, how genre has evolved, and why (hybrid). One way genre has been challenged is because movies consist of hybrid, that had developed which was a risk to take, to create something unique for the audience, producer and institution..Furthermore, another strength of this activity was having a script/structure plan. The reason for this was because every time I was unsure what to do next I could rely on the structure plan/script, which would guide me. However, if I had an opportunity to do this task again I would firstly include myself in the video. The reason for this is, because it would show me as a human on the video it would be more engaging to the audience as it would make them feel I am communicating with them. Secondly, because I had limited time and resources for example, I didn't have a tripod, I would make sure my shots are more steady and focused. 

As you can see this image represents what we focused on during lesson. Three main factors that enable genre to work efficiently are: 

1. Audience - an way of categorizing genre is by the target audience 
2. Genre 
3. Industry - for example the producers, directors/actors

Adam Buaton is a person who made a video about genre, from that video I concluded that Buaton emphasizes how some elements make genre successful.  One of the factors I learnt through his video is each genre can have a specific shot, for example, scientific movies usually consist of a birdseye view shot. Moreover, he also explains how significant filming is, for example one key point I learnt was the way you film something builds up emotion with the character and audience.