This week marks the last week of exploding genre! So.. what is genre? this question was asked during the first week of the semester- my understanding of genre then was-  genre is used to categorise movies so that audience knows what to expect out of the movie.

After 11 weeks of intensive screenings, readings, discussions and working on 3 different genre sketch- we have covered, Western, Romantic Comedy, Science Fiction, Horror, Film Noir, Bottle Drama, Action, Musical and Hybrid Genres film. We’ve leant and identify different genre conventions and implying them into our genre sketch.  Genre are interchangeable and there are no fixed way of using genre conventions in story telling. As Rick Altman’s Film/Genre (1999) demonstrates, they are not objects that already exist in the world readymade but fluid and tenuous discursive constructions formed by the interaction of various claims made and practices undertaken by writers, producer, distributors, marketers, readers, fans, critics, and other discursive and material agents. It is up an individual filmmaker  to use this familiar troops/conventions to explore different narrative structure, character building and using different technical aspects to tell a story.

I have been focusing on film noir more then other genres, in fact both my PB3 and PB4 is on film noir. I’ve explored using noir as a visual style and noir elements to establish the state of mind of the protagonist.

Today, my understanding of genres is beyond categorising movies. It was fun exploding genre and I enjoyed every process of it ( yes! the essays too!).

This week, we learn about genre hybridity- how filmmakers plays with different genre troops with the synthetic approach. I find this lesson very helpful as most contemporary films has a mixture of different genre conventions. It is quite rare to find movies with a single genre. This lesson comes in handy with our project brief 4, as I will be exploring blending noir and western convention in my short film.

Cabin in the woods is a mixture of horror, slasher, thriller, comedy and maybe science fiction? The story line of Cabin in the woods is the main connection of the different genre troops. It brings to audience into two different world. When you are up in the woods, there is a sense of hopelessness- this is when the horror/slasher and thriller conventions comes into the picture. And when we are down at the “control room”, the tension and intensity of the film remains up in the wood. The entire movie feels like an emotional roller coaster ride.

After watching Cabin in the Woods, I realised the importance of narration in hybrid genre, with the story plot- horror and comedy actually made sense..

Action is not my favourite genre, I do enjoy some action films like the marvel movies. However, I find movies like James Bond, Bourne Identity, Mission Impossible a little overrated. There are too many sequels with the same narrative plot structure with a different story, the scenes are too predictable.

Ronin 

Like the characters in the movies, we do not know what will happen next. Most of the time, the characters are planning and plotting, there were a lot waiting as well. Most of the action scenes are car chasing scenes in the city, it is more like a thriller genre with action rather then action alone.

The readings also talk about action conventions- how car chasing scenes are shot and importance of sound and editing.Editing plays a huge role in action films-  Bordwell suggests that speed is a defining principle of contemporary editing, now that cutting has become inexpensive. – Today’s film are on average cut more rapidly that at any other time in US studio filming. Speed is a key element in action films, it keeps the narration moving. ‘The chase’ is an important sequence in action movies- the good chasing the bad vice versa.