AS Media
Progress tracker of AS Media project by Matthew Facer
Candidate Number: 7547
Genre Codes & Conventions:
At the start of the course, our class looked at several different genres and studied what was conventional of each of them; it was particularly interesting to see what common themes arose in each of them. This period of time was intended to be a way in which each group within the class could determine which genre they wanted to base their film around. Obviously, there are far too many cross genres to study for us to have studied every single one but we looked at the most common: romance, horror, action, comedy and thriller.
In terms of romance, we looked at how settings are stereotypically picturesque and brightly lit with characters being particularly physical like hand holding and kissing. We worked out, as a group, very quickly that romance would not be the genre for us as we would find it difficult to find a setting beautiful enough in our surrounding area (we were advised against using a beach as it tends to be overused by Media Studies students). Not only this but we would find it hard to find two actors/actresses that would be able to film freely that would also work in a mature fashion. We also decided it would be very hard to create a good enough feeling of romance considering we only had very limited editing experience and would find it hard to create good camera shots considering the poor quality our camera was; the common close-up shot found often in romantic films would prove to be particularly difficult.
Romance --> Typically romances include the following conventions:
-Beautiful settings. -Soft music.
-Primarily aimed at female audience. -Happy endings.
-Boy meets girl and falls in love. -Good looking actors/actresses.
-Lots of close ups and reaction shots. -Typically bright lighting.
Horror--> Typically horrors include the following conventions:
-Isolated and creepy settings. -Dark and mysterious music.
-Primarily aimed at male audience. -Usually violent or scary endings.
-Jump scares and potentially lots of gore. -Stereotypical characters; dumb blonde, the athlete etc. -Very low key lighting.
In terms of the horror genre, we looked at how these settings were vastly different to the norm. There are often secluded locations or forests of some kind; these locations then often use ambient or low-key lighting to create a tense or spooky effect. Again, our group decided to leave this genre alone because we worked out that it would be very difficult to create any kind of spooky tension considering our lack of filming experience and the lack of truly terrifying locations around us. We would also have struggled to come up with a creative character or any character with some degree of spookiness about them. For example, we didn't really have a concept of a character that would truly send shivers down the audience's spines.
When looking at the genre of action, we decided that this would be one of the easier genres to base our film on. We figured that almost any location could be used and most character profiles could be used too. It is also fairly easy to create suspense and tension through different camera shots and editing techniques. There tends to not be much dead time in action films but a fair amount of dialogue; it would probably be difficult for my group to integrate too much dialogue into a 2 minute opening considering openings are used to draw people into watching the rest of the film. On the whole, it would be difficult to have a lengthy action sequence in our film considering what few settings and props we had available to us in our area.
Action --> Typically action include the following conventions:
-Busy/city settings. -Fast-paced and tense music.
-Primarily aimed at male audience. -Long action sequences.
-A fair amount of violence/adrenaline rushes. -Probably not much character development
-Lots of tracking and hand-held/POV shots. -Probably ambient lighting.
When looking at the genre of comedy, we could see that there is usually a particular theme of jokes to go with and the audience tends to be families. As a group that has never made a film before, we would have struggled to master the art of comedic features and so very quickly decided to not go with comedy. There also aren't many comedic settings around unless we planned to use one of our homes and none of our homes are particularly big or feature anything that could be used as a gag in our film. We couldn't really get hold of anyone that had any drama experience either which would make it hard to make genuinely funny material or real life situations. Not only this but, as we are a group of friends, we quickly realised our dark brand of humour probably wouldn't appeal to a family-orientated audience.
Comedy --> Typically comedies include the following conventions:
-Social settings or bright areas. -Happy music.
-Primarily aimed at families. -Conflict & resolution.
-Perhaps slapstick comedy involving props. -Family characters or hopeless romantic.
-Lots of close ups and reaction shots. -Lots of dialogue and gags.
The final genre we looked at was thriller and we quickly realised it would probably be the easiest genre of film to make as we found that the most common convention of thrillers is a big build up to an action sequence. This meant that we could make an effective opening that built the action up to a cliffhanger ending. Thrillers generally use a whole host of locations and character types too so it left a lot of opportunities for us to be creative with the story and left a lot of scope for settings and props/costumes. Thrillers tended to be open to multi-genre films too which gave us an opportunity to do essentially anything.
Thriller --> Typically thrillers include the following conventions:
-Suburban settings. -Pulse-racing build-up music.
-Primarily aimed at both genders of audience. -Slow build up of action/tension.
-Evil plot revealed and foiled last minute. -Typical hero and villainous person/group
-Lots of tense sounds and perhaps jump scares. -Often chiaroscuro lighting.