Unit 11: Film Studies Tiarnan Sweeney

Unit 11: Film Studies

Contents
Task 1-2 (LO: 1.1 and M1, M2, M3, D2, D3)...............................................................................1
Task 1 .........................................................................................................................................1
Task 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................1
What is genre? .......................................................................................................................1
Arguments against genre .......................................................................................................2
Arguments for genre ..............................................................................................................3
Final thoughts ........................................................................................................................3
Bibliography ...............................................................................................................................4

Task 1-2 (LO: 1.1 and M1, M2, M3, D2, D3)
For this assignment you are required to research and explain how meaning is constructed in
film through analysis of visual and technical signification. You are required to choose a
Genre topic to develop and show your understanding of visual and technical signification.

Task 1
Research the usefulness of Genre as a critical tool for understanding how meaning is
created in a cinematic medium. Gather appropriate research material, articles in books,
magazines and other e-resources in the library or online and reference URL links used in
bibliography. (Essay 1,000)

Task 1 Introduction
During this report I will be looking at both sides of the argument involved in the "Genre"
debate. Once I am done looking at the arguments I will come to my own conclusion. Firstly I
would like to look at what is genre and the original idea behind it.

What is genre?
Genre is a category system that allows people to pick and chooses what they want to view,
for example if someone decided they wanted to watch a film that would scare them they
could look up a horror film and watch it, without genre this would be much more difficult to
do. But the way we identify what genre a film belongs too comes down to the genre's
conventions1, this can also sometimes be referred to as paradigm's2 of a genre. These genre
conventions are the similarities between films of the same genre for example in a horror3

1
Elements that the audience expect from the genre
2
A typical example or pattern of something
3
Film genre that tries to scare the audience

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film these conventions can come down to the dark colours or the standard characters seen
in every horror movie. But during Dapper Mr Tom's (Tom) video he splits the genre
conventions down into four sections and they are character and story, set, technical and
audio, this I feel is a great way to break down genres conventions for example an action
films4 conventions when broking down into these sections would be
Characters and story: Fast paced story with a typically more "manly" hero.
Set: The set of an action film or location can be anything, but I manly notice they
taking place in packed city's.
Technical: During action movies shaky hand held camera shots will be used to instil a
sense of urgency, they will also use a lot of quick fast cuts during major action
scenes.
Audio: During action movies they will normally use large explosions, ringing in the
ears, exaggerated gun shots and when it comes to the music normally its either
roaring epic war like beats or techno style fast pace beats.

Besides all these main genres there are also sub genres which are genres within a genre and
they are normally more specific than normal genres for example a supernatural horror film5
is a sub genre of a horror film and therefore will have its own genre conventions, while
these conventions can be very similar they can also change the entire film. The original idea
behind genre was to give people an easy way of looking for what they want although it has
caused problems in that people now feel that they do not wish to go outside a genre they
like. There have been arguments for and against genre for years and I will be highlighting
the key points below.

Arguments against genre

In Daniel Chandler's article "An Introduction to Genre Theory" (Chandler) he highlights the
point that many theorists6 have argued that there are many more genres than we already
have, which is a strong point to make against genre because for the films or books that do
not belong to any genre are normally left to the side with people who believe they are only
into fantasy or even horror leaving these stories out and besides the people consuming the
media many of the companies that create it will ask questions such as what genre does it
belong too and if the creator can't answer this they will normally be turned away because
either it doesn't sell or even the companies think the person doesn't have the idea
developed if they can't say what genre it is a part of when in reality they can't because it
can't be defined by any genre, and on the point of companies, some companies will refuse
to release certain genres because they are seen as not in right now and therefore will not
make them any money. On top of companies doing this people might refuse to see a certain
genre because maybe they had one bad experience with it and now are shutting themselves
down from viewing anything else. In Daniel Chandler's article (Chandler) he also highlights
Robert Stam and his four key problems with genre labels
Extension: Which he argues is how a genre can be so large and take up so many
labels as can be seen in the case of drama, or how a genre can be so small and
includes every specific titles such as in westerns.

4
A genre were the protagonists ends up in a series of challenges
5
A horror film with supernatural elements
6
A person that develops abstract ideas

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Normativism: Which is argued that knowing what a genre is will give preconceived
ideas of criteria for the genre, for example in a coming of age film guideline must be
meet before it is even considered a coming of age film.
Monolithic definitions: Where he argues that most films do not belong to one genre
and it's ridiculous to think so..
Biologism: Which states that genres evolve and change through its life.

Further Arguments can be seen in Mark Lawrence's blog post "genre is stupid" (Lawrence)
which he states " Labels are too small for novels. A good book, whatever its page count, is a
vast, sprawling thing, a work of intellect, poetry, insight, fun, enthusiasm, loves, tragedy,
questions and more questions." While he is talking about novels the same can be applied to
film as most films are too large for genres and they need some room to breathe because I
feel that genres are almost crushing the creativity out of film by making people stick to strict
guidelines that only work to hold the story and technical side of films back not push them
forward because the idea of "this is an action film now so it must have at least %50 of the
screen time dedicated to action" is damaging to a film. But from this I move on to the
arguments for genre in film.

Arguments for genre

Firstly, from a consumer standpoint genre is great because it allows the consumer to pick
what they see and pick what they most likely would have enjoyed, genre being consumer
friendly is great because it allows people to spend their money where they want. Besides
consumers genre can also be good from a critical standpoint because while guideline can be
restricting they also ensure a degree of quality that would not be there without genre, and
the argument could be made that a great write, director or cinematographer can create
great works of art with these guidelines in place. Genre is always changing so it's not stuck
following old rules it changes year to year, even week to week as can be seen with horror
films. In Daniel Chandler's article (Chandler) he makes the argument that despite
traditionalist7 literary who tend to show texts as non-generic, that it's impossible to produce
anything that bears no relationship to genre and that there is no genre-less text. This shows
that genre will happen no matter what the situation so I argue instead of putting genre
down and demanding a new system or lack of system be put in place that genre is improved
which it has been over the years with the idea of sub genres that seem more and more
common compared to the early years of cinema. Genre also ensure that films do not get to
complex or have too much in it such as have a tearful drama and comedy mix together and
what if the creator wanted to add in action? At least with genres the film will come out with
a standard quality.

Final thoughts
My final thought on genre come down to that genre is great from a consumer standpoint
but critically as a tool for understanding the meaning behind film it is horrible due to the
fact that it is restrictive and I see in my day to day during college with students saying am
going to make a horror film next or an action film and then they go of looking at other films
in that genre trying to make their film like that. I am not saying we should remove genre

7
An advocate of maintaining of tradition

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from film but we should refine it and make it into something that will over all benefit any up
and coming writers or directors.

Bibliography
Alberhasky, M. (n.d.). Genre Theory. Retrieved from Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOqyxoOnUec
Chandler, D. (n.d.). An Introduction to Genre Theory. Retrieved from Visual Memory:
http://visual-memory.co.uk/daniel/Documents/intgenre/intgenre.html
HeworthMedia. (n.d.). Genre theory. Retrieved from Slide Share:
https://www.slideshare.net/HeworthMedia/genre-theory
Lawrence, M. (n.d.). Genres are stupid. Retrieved from mark---lawrence.Blogspot:
http://mark---lawrence.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/genres-are-stupid.html
Tom, D. M. (n.d.). What is Genre? | Let's Talk Theory. Retrieved from Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2vOhTNmRrA