Starting The Research

Mr Michie and Mr Ford decided to put us into our groups on Tuesday. This meant we found out who we would be making our thriller opening with, and who we would be researching with. They tried not to put us in our friendship groups, as this would make things harder and they wanted to get the best work out of us. My group ended up being me, Averielle, Alice W and Rhiannon. I think this is a good group because we can all bring different skills to the team, making working easier and hopefully, the outcome better.


We found that we had to research a lot more than we thought we’d need too. This got split up into a few different categories. Firstly, at home we each decided to find something different including things about the thriller genre, the conventions of a thriller, the codes of a thriller – such as misè-en-scene, lighting, costumes and camera, and also the BBFC. The BBFC is the place where it tells you whether your film can be a 15 or an 18, and what you must do to stay within this category.


I had to find out more about the Misè-en-scene and the lighting. I found that the Misè-en-scene refers to everything that appears before the camera and its arrangement such as composition, sets, props, actors, costumes, and lighting. Misè-en-scène also includes the positioning and movement of actors on the set, which is called blocking. I also found out about the lighting in a thriller. I found that most of it is shadowed and dark. This is because it’s tense and needs the lighting to be like this.


Averielle was researching the BBFC, and Alice W was researching the thriller genre, and Rhiannon researched the conventions of a thriller, however this changed and she helped me complete things on the codes of a thriller, finding out about costumes and camera.


When we went into the lesson, we decided that we didn’t have enough research, mixed it around and all went off to research a different section.

Creating a New Genre

  Nicole, Amy and I found that it was difficult to make a new genre, although at first glance it looked easy. With our research, we found that we didn't do enough. We only asked two questions - 'What's your favourite genre? and 'If you were to watch a film, which would you choose?' and continued to give them a list of a few films that would fit into our genre. Our research gave us negetive feedback and this meant that we couldn't change our genre even when we found out that what we'd chosen wasn't the popular choice - the popular genre was 'comedy'. The process of regenrification was one that film makers use to change the genre of a film thats already been created. This is also a form of hybridisation, and that is where a film maker will put two genres together to create a new one.

  We found that we chose a genre before actually looking at lists of what had recently been popular. This meant that we didn't know what was popular at that time, and were guessing about what genre we were going to do. This was really risky as we didn't want our film to 'bomb'.


  We also found that our group asked brief questions when we were researching, which limited us to a specific genre as we couldn't change it up. We found that we didn't ask a wide age group, so we only discovered that our type of film wasn't popular with 16/17 year olds, but may have been popular with another older age group.


  What I've learnt about genre is that you need to research a lot more about it before you continue to do it. This means that when I start my coursework I will use an entirely different approach to the topic, and will make sure that I research more before I jump in to choosing my genre. I learnt that film directors are able to manipulate the audience into believing a film is a certain genre, when infact it is the process of regenrification that was used to help genre the film.


  Included here is the video that was taken for our work. Nicole, Amy and I created a 'romantic thriller' and this is what we learnt.

The Concept Of Genre

   Genre is both a description and a form of classification. It is a set of conventions that are usually recognisable through the use of iconography (visual imagery). It is a style of representation that is never static and changes between the audience and the industry. Films, books and music can all be categorized into different genres.

   So far what I understand about genre is that there are no specific types. This means that genre has evolved over the years and nothing fits into one type anymore. To place a film into a genre, we must be able to describe the individual film, and we must be able to explain the principals on which it can then be connected with other films of the same genre. A genre was made to target a certain audience, but now the genre is not fitting for one category. Films are now categorized in more than one genre and suit more than one audience. Audiences recognize genre through conventions. These conventions include:

• ·         Visual Imagery: iconography
• ·         Plot
• ·         Characters
• ·         Settings
• ·         Modes of narrative development
• ·         Music used and the star.

   The differences between each genre allow audiences to be identified and catered to; however because of the repetition of the films, the genres have generally blended into more than one genre. This could be known as a hybrid, such as ‘comedy romance’ when the genre is a mix of the two, or a subgenre, such as ‘psycho thrillers’ which is a separate genre but put into the type of film.

   I learnt that genre is something used by film producers for audience identification – for instance people who want to go see a ‘horror’ film know what they are going to see and aren’t disappointed. Film producers use genre as a setting point, and then the film will evolve from that point.