2. What is genre?
Genre is a type of media product to define a category of film in
the film industry. Within each category, there are certain specific
elements to help the audience understand the genre that they are
viewing.
Graham burton has created a theory to help define the genre with
an equation of conventions that make up what is in a genre.
KE = P+St Ch+Pl(StSi)+I+Ba+(De)+Th= Genre
Key
elements
Protagonist
Stock characters
Plot icons
Stock
situations
Background
and decor
Themes
3. Key Elements
All genres have specific key elements that are composed
to help define their own genre. However not all genres
may tick with the exact same key elements. For example,
Science Fiction is contains a mix of Science facts, but is
written as a story making it fiction. All of the key
elements are extremely important as they add up to meet
with the expectations of the audience on what they
expect to see from the genre.
4. Scream
One example f the use of key elements is the Horror
Comedy film Scream. This film purposely points out the
main conventions of a Horror film, which inevitably
happen to the characters who mimic these conventions.
Not only does it follow up to the key elements, it changes
the expectations of the audience because the characters
in the film are aware of these conventions that take
place.
5. Stock characters
Stock characters are those who are neither the
protagonists nor the antagonists in the film, they can also
be called background characters. Within these films, they
play minor role that the audience expect to know and
sometimes help the protagonist. Some films distort the
audiences’ expectations the films Hostel 2; the only
survivor was a Stock character being an arrogant male.
The audience did not expect the main character being
killed.
6. Icons
Icons are one of the most important elements to defining
genres because overall, they are what are seen to be able
to identify the genre immediately. Horror for example,
the audience is expected to see anything involving blood,
killings, and dark atmospheres like storms and rain. They
are a key symbol within genres and that people are able
to know what genre it is by jut looking at he icon that
belongs with it.
7. It is important for Audiences and
Producers?
Genre is important for audiences and producers because
not only does it give the target audience a choice of their
favourite type of film, for producers, they are able to
market the film based off the genres’ iconography and
marketing. Producers are able to market their Horror films
through the use of icons (Blood, death, killers, Screaming
etc.) and appeal to their audience with iconography. The
audience’s would expect certain conventions that a Horror
film would have (If it is a Horror film, they would enjoy
the anticipation of being surprised with the producers
changing expectations of the plot in the film.
8. Does the theory of genre work?
Each genre needs specific elements for it to become it’s
own genre. Nowadays, no genre can always have the exact
conventions due to the increase of genre hybrids and the
mixing of conventions from two or more genres. However,
the key elements that make a genre are more or less
correct as the theory covers all that is found and needed
for the audience to figure out what type of genre the film
is. Genres are figured out by the main conventions within
the key elements, but with genre hybrids, it takes a little
more to figure out its conventions.
