1. Do film genres change over time? Has genre changed over time? Yes, I think it has and I believe it is still changing as time goes on. Genre can change due to a number of things, for example, audience and technology have changed, as well as narrative.Horror films have definitely changed over time. For example, older horror films would be based around people’s actual fears, the things happening in the movies would be things that could actually happen to a normal citizen, a good example of this would be ‘Psycho’ (dir Hitchcock, 1960), it shows a woman wanting to escape from her regular life, and running away to meet a partner, stopping in a motel on the way, which is obviously where the trouble begins. This was something that could just happen to anyone, there were no fictional monsters and everything was legitimate, meaning that it would’ve scared people by making them think it could possibly happen to them at some point during their lives. It is still named one of the most terrifying horror movies of all time, however it does have a ‘psychological thriller’ sub-genre, possibly adding more scariness to it. “Although it's one of the most frightening films ever made, it has all the elements of very dark, black comedy.”(Source: http://www.filmsite.org/psyc.html)Although this was said about Psycho (dir, Hitchcock, 1960) I think the main genre of the film was horror, because it did scare people and the thought of that kind of thing being able to happen to them did actually horrify them. Recent horror movies have many sub-genres to them and I feel that even though they do have some conventions from a typical horror, the ‘pure’ horror genre is rapidly disappearing. For example, most horrors nowadays have a mixed genre; torture films (Saw, dir Wan, 2004) thrillers (The Departed, dir Scorsese, 2006) and horror parodies (Scary Movie, dir Wayans, 2000) Horror parodies, links to the comedy genre, another genre I think has changed drastically over time. For example, in comparison to horror movies, comedies seem to be changing in the way that the genre is becoming very diluted, there is no modern romance films around that are just purely romance. For example, a majority of romantic films released recently will be rom-coms, a very popular genre. (The Holiday, dir Meyers, 2006)Comedy can also be mixed with other genres, for example even with the horror genre, resulting in spoof horrors such as ‘Scary Movie’ (dir Wayans, 2000) or ‘Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde’ (dir Pembroke & Rock, 1925) I think there are a number of reasons for the change in film genres. The first being a change in the audience and their expectation, i.e. as time has gone on, the older generation is dying out and the new, younger generation is dominating. This means that the expectations of the new generation will be different of that from the old generation. The modern audience who prefer comedies are going to find different things funny from a audience of 50 years ago. For example, modern humour revolves around sex, swearing, violence, whereas before it would have just been like, little human errors that made people laugh, such as tripping over something really obvious, or being forgetful, an example being old silent movies such as ‘Double Whoopee’ (dir Foster, 1929), in which Laurel and Hardy play the roles of a footman and doorman at an upper class hotel. One of the funnier scenes is one with an automatic elevator. A haughty prince tries to get on the elevator from the first floor. Simultaneously Oliver summons the elevator. For some reason the outer doors don't close and when the prince tries to step in, he falls into the elevator well. Oliver rides down in the elevator and disappears. The prince is pulled out of the well, all disheveled and dirty. He tries it again. This time Stan summons the elevator and the whole thing repeats. The audience attracted to horror films now expect more gore, and more fictional, jumpy storylines, two popular examples being The Mist (dir Darabont, 2007) and Jeepers Creepers (dir Salva, 2001.)Both films include fictional monsters, which we know do not exist in the real world, however both films are placed under the horror genre, because the modern audience find things like this scarier, more like a ‘fear of the unknown’ type thing.This leads on to a change in technology helping move genre along, again using The Mist (dir Darabont, 2007) as an example, the creatures would have been created on a computer, using very high tech pieces of equipment to make it look incredibly realistic. This wouldn’t of been the case back in the early 1900s, the filmmakers would have relied on genuine fear, rather than knowing they could just shock the audience with amazing CGI. Another example of a film where CGI works as a massive advantage is Saw (dir Wan, 2004) because without it, the torture would never look real enough to gross the modern audience out. The technology available now just moves the genre along so much because it helps to bring the horror genre to a whole new level – making them look more torturous or monster-filled, depending on what the director is aiming for. Narrative also affects genre, and contributes to the way it changes, because storyline will change over time, due to both audience and technology changing. Storylines don’t necessarily need to become more complex, because of the technological things available. Also, a modern audience know the codes and conventions of movies, for example the basic storyline of a horror and the basic storyline of a romance. They know what will happen and they know what to expect, yet they still watch it because this is what pleases them. Such as, in a horror movie, the audience know exactly when a scary bit is coming but they love it because it is what they watch it for, if it didn’t go the conventional way, the audience may not like it as much as a typical storyline. Overall, I believe genre has definitely changed over time, due to a change in three major factors; audience, technology and narrative. I think genre will continue to change as time goes on because as newer generations take over, their new and different interests will influence media productions.