• lacks scientific precision
• genres can be blended & are not always clear cut
• convenient terms
• certain films resemble one another in significant ways

Genres are used to describe and analyze films not evaluate them as good or bad

• subject matter or theme (sci-fi, gangster)

• distinctive emotional effect (humor, tension, grief)

Films can straddle two genre classifications, fitting into both.

• Mixing genres can lead to new boundaries for genres and innovate new subgenres.

Some genres are too broad and may fit many distinct films that has conventions of its own.

• Subgenres are devised to further detail distinct and prevailing types within a genre.

Some films may not belong to any genres because they are so distinct and special.

Genres help producers decide what to make

• affects industry decisions on greenlighting profitable projects popular

Genre helps Advertising pinpoints target audience

• trailers and posters and entertainment reporters express how well a film fits the genre conventions

Genres are part of viewer's preferences and tastes

• Search functions for viewers: find the type of movies they want to see

Character Conventions:

• shifty informant, anti-hero etc.
  Plot Structures:
• rise and falls, musical numbers, revenge flashbacks etc.
  

• broad meanings & values that are summoned again and again.
• eg. loyalty, power struggles

Characteristic Film Techniques

• low lighting, slow-motion, emotional twist, music, rapid cutting, slow pacing

• recurring symbolic imagery that carries from one film over to another
• manifested in objects, props and setting (location)
• trapping–called costumes and props
• actors can also be iconographic
• Hollywood iconography used in art films

Genres begin by borrowing conventions from other media

• eg. musicals were from musical comedies and variety shows, melodramas from novels, comedy traced back to comic books etc
  Genres are shaped by technology developments
• synchronized sounds in musicals, special effects in sci fi

Cycles occur when ONE film achieves success and is widely imitated

• film begin to resemble one another and more films in the genre generates
• genres become ESTABLISHED
• entrenched subgenres appear after a short-cycle persists for so long

Genres rise and fall in prestige and popularity

• a genre may pass out of fashion but never dies
• resurfaces in new elements

Genre mixing and innovation can take place anytime when it is created

• good way to innovate and gain more target audiences
  

Genres Influence and mix with one another across cultures

• eg. Japanese samurai genre parallel the Western genre
• Filmmakers may take elements of two or more successful films, blend them and spin off an entirely new concept
• HOWEVER, audiences can still distinguish one type of movie from another despite this intermingling!

Genre changes by mixing its conventions with another genre

• blending (eg. musical melodrama)
• merging (comic touches)
  

Social Reflections: Social processes can be reflected in genre innovations and conventions

• social commentary/stories/imagery/themes in films harmonize with public attitudes at different points in history
• filmmakers deliberately adresss their films to current concerns or tastes
• As public anxieties change, new genres would reflect more up-to-date concerns
• violence is reduced when school shootings were blamed on cinema for being too violent

Rituals: affirms cultural values wiith litttle variation, in a predictable way

• eg. self-sacrifice, heroism, love
• catharsis from having emotions
• relatability

distracts the audience from real social problems

• escape disturbing aspects of real world

Genres may exploit ambivalent social values and attitudes

• arouses emotion by touching on deep social uncertainties
• channels emotions into approved attitudes

Genres respond quickly to broad social trends

• reflectionist approach, mirroring society and their attitudes/anxiety
• explains why genres vary in popularity at different times
• eg. comedy during economic depression

Origins:

• musicals were revues, programs of musical numbers with little or no narrative linkage between them
• technology synchronised recorded music with moving images
• performance-heavy
• when subtitles and dubbing solved the problem of a language barrier, complicated storylines emerged.
  

Subgenres:

• Backstage Musical: action centering on singers and dancers, who are in show-business
• Straight musical: people sing and dance in situations of everyday life

Backstage:

• dressing rooms, wings of a theatre,
• flats and backdrops of the stage
• dance floor
• characters recognizable by distinctive stage costumes

• plots that could motivate the introduction of musical numbers
• numbers often reflect a couple's courtship (dancing and singing together)
  

• musicals tend to attribute and accentuate the positive

• musicals are brightly lit, cheerful costumes and colorful sets and keep the choregraphy oof the dance numbers clearly visible
• contemporary musicals are cut very quickly because of the influence of MTV videos
• crane shots & high angles display PATTERNS formed by dancers and the complex formations

Stages of a genre

• Primitive
• Classical
• Parodic
• Revisionist
  not a strictly linear progression