Genres Class Work

1. Genres Class Work Anna Ryan

2. Originally, we mind-mapped some elements of the horror genre to start us on our genre work. Here are a few examples: Narrative Usually starts off with unsuspecting characters who live their lives; in school or moving into a new house Everything seems fine until something goes wrong Usually one survivor at the end, when everyone else is dead Someone always going into the attic where the loud noises are coming from Settings Somewhere scary-looking Somewhere abandoned Somewhere haunted – like a haunted house Somewhere safe like a school where everything seems fine until something bad happens The Schema of Elements

3. Stock Characters The villain/murderer/psychopath Unsuspecting main character who survives (like shown in Scream) Someone who gets killed/ kidnapped early in the film Some who knows what’s going on, but nobody will listen to them The alpha male/ leader of the group A misleading character who appears good at the start, but turns out to be bad Iconography Blood Colours of red, black, dark Dark lighting Screaming victim Binary opposites of good vs evil Weapons The Schema of Elements - Contiued

4. We tried to develop a horror story ideas based around three things; a rubber ball, a tree and a witch. Originally we had a story where a young boy is in a tree house. He can see an old woman’s garden from his tree house. He falls out the treehouse but manages to brush himself off, getting up to play again. The boy is playing with a ball. He accidentally kicks it over the fence into the old woman’s garden and jumps the fence to try and retrieve it. As it turns out, the old woman is, in fact, a witch. The witch kidnaps the boy and kills him. After having a solid horror story, we tried to create a hybrid genre, so our ideas changed to accommodate that genre. For example, we wanted to create a Sci- Fi genre. Therefore, we had an idea where the witch could in fact not be a witch, but an alien from space, who’s ship had crashed and she was stuck on earth. This idea changed our idea into a Sci-Fi, horror genre, as the witch would still kidnap the boy and kill him. We then changed our idea even further by changing the ending, so the audience wouldn’t know what actually happened to the boy. There would only be an ending shot of the ball rolling in front of the camera, the boy absent. This would create the hybrid genre of mystery. That would create a story of horror, sci-fi and mystery, which is more likely to draw in an audience and attract different audiences. Genre Change

5. Genre itself is a way to categorise different works, whether that be in written fiction, television, film or even music. Those are just a few examples. Genre is like a set of rules, agreed upon by fans of the genre. Hybrid genres happen when someone tries to merge one or more genres. An example of a modern, hybrid genre is Science Fiction and Fantasy. Avatar would be a good example of that. Another popular hybrid genre would be Romantic Comedy, which has been used so frequently, it’s almost become it’s own genre. Examples of that would be Pretty Woman, Love Actually and Bridget Jone’s Diary. Hybrid Genres

6. As a rule of genre, they all have common techniques, ingredients or features associated with that particular genre, where people can recognise the genre for what it is. Here are a few examples: Science Fiction With Science Fiction, you can always almost expect to find an alien of some sort. And an alien space ship. A lot of the time, it’s not set on earth. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy being an example. Lighting wise, the films are often quite bright and clean. Romance The Romance genre almost always focusses on two people who are in love. They usually both have families, who sometimes oppose their relationship, but they always end up together in the end, even if it means leaving their respective partners. You can always almost cry at a Romance genre. They usually have two attractive leads; stereotypically, a male and a female. Murder Mystery Someone always has to be killed. Usually more than one person is killed. There’s always a detective. It’s usually quite a dark film. For example, Sherlock Holmes. Genre Ingredients

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