Genre

Genre 

Genres are the different types of films we have and normally people have favorite genres of film depending in what types of film they like. There are eight different types of films and are listed below:

• Comedy
• Romance 
• Adventure 
• Horror
• Sci-fi
• Thriller 
• Animation
•  Documentaries 
• Action
• Western
• War 

Some film producers also mix these categories of films to make different films, for example you have Rom-com, action adventure, costume drama, science fiction/ fantasy, hospital, teen, soap opera, comedy and crime. These are called sub-genres.

Genres are useful to audiences as they need to be able to recognise the type of film before watching it. This is because audiences already know what type of film they like and like to be able to know what is going to happen, so the basic plot. There is also audience pleasure were we like to be able to recognise the film story, we also like the anticipation, expectation and prediction in film genres and knowing whats basically going to happen. For example in romantic films we know two people are going to meet and fall in love but in un- suitable circumstances so cant be together but by the end live happily ever after.

Genres are useful for institutions because when they come to creating a new film, they can aim their film at the right target audience and already have a plot on wheat they story can follow. The institutions will also know if their is a big or small target market for their specific genre of film and if it is a popular genre if film. They are also useful for institutions as they are a short-hand of how to encode marketing materials so that the audiences can identify the film easily.

Genres have a fixed set of elements, known as the Repertoire of elements, these consist of narratives, characters and iconography. This means all genres have to have these fixed elements in them. The narrative means how the story begins and ends so for example in a romantic story two people find each other and fall in love and by the end have concord all bad and live happily even after. The characters in most genres have to have a protagonist and antagonist which are normally the main two characters. Then you also have to have the stock characters, these are the minor characters that you would associate with the genre. Iconography means a set location for a certain type of genre. For example a Sci-fi film would be set in space, this makes it easier for the audience to recognise the genre of the film.  Also with iconography you have the props and costumes associated with it, and again the audience should be able to recognise the gender of the film by these props and costumes. For example a western film would be recognised by the actors wearing the cowboy hots. Audiences could also work out the genre of the film by the main characters, this is called the star system. For example Johnny Depp is known for action adventure films and Hugh Grant and Keira Knightly as romantic actors.