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!).