LO3 Genre Theory

Genre is a type or another way to catergorize films based on their common elements.
These common elements are called generic conventions/characteristics/elements or tropes

• Horror
• Comedy (treatment)
• Romance
• Thriller
• Action - Adventure
• Social realism
• SC-FI
• Fantasy

6* Analyse how the production techniques are used to create meaning in a media product you have studied (worth 12 marks)

6* Analyse the concepts of 'genre' and 'representation' in a media product you have studies (worth 12 marks.

Life Of Pi is a Fantasy, Adventure hybrid.

Key Theory 1 : Barry Keith Grant (1995)

Suggests that all genres have sub genres that allow audiences to identify them specifically by their familiar and recognisable characteristics.

I dont agree with Barry K Grant's theory as my film is a hybrid of several different genres therefore doesnt have a relatable sub genre.

AUDIENCES LIKE GENRE AS IT HELPS THEM ASSOCIATE THEIR LIKES AND DISLIKES WITH A CERTAIN TYPE OF FILM

Key Theory 2: Patrick Phillips (1996)

Genre offers audience 'comfortable reassurance'. Genres fufil audience expectations to follow a familiar patterns.

My film is typical of the Fantasy/Adventure genre due to the fact that the audience are presented with things that do not happen in day to day life - things that are seemingly impossible which is a familiar characteristic of this genre. The film uses heavy CGI to create scenes fetauring wild animals and brightly coloured anomilies in the sky which again reinforces the adventure/fantasy house style.

Media industries like genre as it helps films become succsessful.

Key theory 3:Branston and Stafford (1999)

Genres:

1. Help to 'minimise risk and predict expenditure'.

2. Are a blueprint for success

3. Genre conventions also make it easier to market and sell products to audiences.

My film was marketed with this poster which gives a prospective audience a view of 2 characters conforming to genre of both Fantasy and Adventure due to the high key lighting and the presence of a Bengal tiger - the audience was told directly that this film is 'The Journey of a Life time'.

Sometimes actors are 'typecast' to play the same character in the same genre of film.

Certain genres provoke certain emotions.

Key Theory 4: Rick Altman (1999)

Genre offers pleasures.

1. Emotional pleasures:happy, sad, nostalgic ect.

2. Visceral Pleasures: 'gut' responses - excitement, fear, laughter ect.

3. Intellectual Puzzles: Makes the audience think.

The pleasures that Life of Pi has to offer are generally emotional and intellectual. When the boat is sinking at the beginning of the narrative, provokes an emotional response from the audience due to the fact we know the Main character has lost the entireity of his family. The insert shots and tracking shots provide not only intellectual but visceral pleasures because it lets the audience question and feel certain reactions stirring.

Key Theory 5: David Bordwell (1989)

said 'any theme may appear in any genre'

Theme= the ideas, ideologies, concepts , myths ect. that are encoded into a media text.

I partially agree with the theory as in Life of Pi, the narrative shows self fufilling prophecy and binary opposition between distopia and utopia. Overall the film is about friendship and how it can be found in the most unlikely of places for example man/beast which is relative to the genre due to the idea that fantasy is a sequence of unlikely utopian events. THEMES.

KTA 5

Into that defines genre + film

key theory 1 back up or challenge

key theory 2 back up or challenge

key theory 3 back up or challenge

key theory 4 back up or challenge

key theory 5 back up or challenge

Analyse the concept of genre in the film you have studied , use examples to support (particularly want to see the editing and sound techniques to support those ideas)