Genre:

Genre is a set of conventions that are recognizable to the audience usually through iconography familiar narrative, mise-en-scene, actors, and style of representation.  Genre is not static but constantly renegotiated between industy and audience; a combination of familiar reassurance and new twists. A creative strategy used by film producers to ensure audience identification with a film. Genre is an important way of working through important myths and fears by repetition, variation and resolution.


Genre also offers comforting reassurance in an uncomfortable world. Threats within a film are vanquished, outlaws become civilized, gangsters are punished. 

Genre functions like a language; there are a set of rules and a vocabulary with which to organize meaning. 

Audiences become accustomed to a certain genre and therefore look for there favorite genre of film when choosing what film to watch. However there are arguments and debates of the existence of genre. 


Genre is often hybridized so genre is easily misinterpreted. Hybridization means when two genres come together to create a new genre for example romantic comedy. 


There are also sub genres to main genres for example horror : slasher, psychological horror, gothic horror. 

Altman's argument:

Altmans argues that the relationship between the two links to how we can understand genre evolution and hybridization. Genre begins with the semantics and over a period of time evolve into genre after a variety of themes, issues, and plots have been explored. Thus it can take a while, what limits this is the shifting social ideologies that can affect themes, issues and ideas. 

Traditional theorists:

Schatez and Wright look at genre in a compartmentalized way, thus with no overlapping with specific ways of identifying the genre. Hybridization can be argued there is only a set of semeiotics no syntax. films influence each other. 

Analysing genre allows me to understand what target audience I should be aiming and the way in which genres can be changed and the different types of genre there are and the different sorts of genre that my group will be able to choose between when deciding which thriller hybrid or sub genre to choose for our film. Different theorists opinions on genre also allows me to understand the ways in which genre can be manipulated and the ways in which is can be changed.

By understanding these facts about genre will mean that whilst creating our opening we will be able to apply some of these things and understand that we are able to cross between genres through hybridisation and also by  sub-genres. When creating our film we can also consider the arguments between Altman's argument and traditional theorists.