Media Genre

Genre
In this blog I will talk about what I have learnt in my AS Media lessons at sixth form.

Genre is way of  categorising films or other media products that have similar techniques or conventions such as content, structures and themes.

there are many different examples of media genre such as:
action, horror, thriller, comedy, war, rom-com, adventure, drama & documentary.

Action
An action film is film genre where one or more heroes are thrust into a series of challenges that require physical feats. They often include fistfights, gunfire, explosions & car chases. action films are one of the biggest source of income for movie studios 

Horror
Horror is a genre that aims to create a sense of fear, panic & alarm for the audience. These films are often unsettling and rely on scaring the audience through a portrayal of their worst fears and nightmares which means that the films incorporate a lot of violence and gore into the plot. Horror films usually centre on the arrival of an evil force, person, or event and often include mythical creatures such as ghosts and vampires.

Comedy
Comedy films rely on humour as the driving force of the film & they do this by creating laughter from the audience through entertaining characters and stories. A comedy film is the most likely to slip into other genres as humour can easily be incorporated into other genres. comedy films attract huge audiences creating vast profits for movie produces however the success of a comedy film is usually reliant on the success and popularity of one star. 

Adventure
Adventure is a genre that revolves around the conquests and explorations of a protagonist. The purpose of the conquest is usually to retrieve a person or treasure, but often the main focus is simply the pursuit of the unknown. These films generally take place in exotic locations and incorporate on historical myths. Adventure films incorporate suspenseful puzzles and intricate obstacles that the protagonist must overcome in order to achieve his/her final goal.








Genres function according to a to a set of rules and conventions, which govern their capacity. they respond to these set rules by developing paradigms (the over all pattern created by a film that helps to categorise it)& over time these formulas and patterns may change or influence the ways of seeing and representing the world around us. 
the categorisation of films grew with the evolution of the film industry, but was particularly developed in hollywood in the 1920s/30s when major studios where being established.
these new studios wanted to attract large audiences to films to create a large profit. to do this companies needed to establish what films people liked and produce them in larger quantities. marketers could then give films a label so audiences knew what to expect and genres became formulas consisting of predictable conventions that audiences liked. 

the producers or marketers of films use genre so that they can work out what films are most popular so they can produce more of them. they also use genre so they can correctly market a film meaning the right type of audience to produce more profit. 
another reason that film marketers need to categories films so that people have the right expectations of the film when they go and see it, if the marketing is done correctly and successfully then people will be more likely to recommend the film and result in a larger profit for movie makers.