Research and Planning : Types of Genre

The Exorcist (1973)

Horror
These are some conventions you often find in horror movies:

• There is usually a villan and a victim within the film and sometimes are based on real events.
• stereotypical it's set at night time, urban environments or small isolated places.
• Cinematography usual uses P.O.V shots allowing the audience view the world from the characters eyes, also hand held camera work to creating unawareness.
• Using a score helps create suspense within the film, usual at the climax of the movie to keep the audience on the edge of their seats.
• Ambient diegetic sound, creating this sense of reality.
• Iconography often uses dark colours like red and black for representation of blood and death. 
• Use of popular conventions of  chase scenes, violence, blood, ghosts and deaths.
• Horrors always contain low key lighting and Jump cuts to keep tension within the film.
• Horrors have a tendency to give the film a high certificate of 18, this can be used as a marketing tool as people will create a synergy around the film thinking its a real scary movie to watch.

Comedy

Paul (2011)

Comedies are designed to receive laughter from an audience watching they are usual lighthearted and are made to entertain, amuse and provoke enjoyment from us. A comedy genre humorously exaggerates a situation, the language, action, and characters and they tend to always have a happy ending.There are many types of comedies, two examples of sub comedies would be Physical 'Slapstick' comedy and 'Cringe Comedy'


Physical 'Slapstick' comedy include

• Usually silent films where a character uses physical movement and gestures, where there was no use of sound to be effective. Slapstick comedy uses vision action and sight gags including 'pie in the face, chases, trousers or skirts falling down, this type of genre needs great timing and very good performance skills. Actors such as Charlie Chaplin was the history of these films, however today actors such as Jim Carrey and Robin Willams are associated with this sub comedy genre.

Cringe Comedy include

• Cringe Comedy uses awkward and embarrassing situations to cause audiences to feel uneasy, usually by using certain words or actions. British comedy uses this often and has been popularised by comedian acts such as Ricky Gervais and Harry Enfield.
• They usually contain high key lighting to set a warmer and brighter mood
• Are targeted at both male/female and a wide range of audience.
• Generally straight cuts are used throughout the film, allowing us to follow the story line with no problem.
• The protagonist is usually very popular within the comedy role in other films and usual has a stamp for doing comedies in the past, sometimes this can be a marketing tool for comedy films such as Adam Sandler and Eddie Murphy. 

Action

The Dark Knight (2008)

Action films are usual fast paced films where physical stunts and chases are used with this stereotypical two dimensional 'good guy' vs 'bad guy' that is used for audience escapism. Action films usually have a big budget, to use great locations and big scenes where battles and adventitious happenings occur. Certain actors are associated with action genre such as Bruce Willis,Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger.






Animation Nation

Finding Nemo  (2003)

Animated films are known to target young children and have a certificate U or PG, however this genre can be enjoyed by all age's and are usually very popular with a wide audience. Animation films are usually succesfull and tend to have sequels for example Ice Age, Toy Story and The Lion King. Films in this category tend to have a large viral marketing campaign, strong Advertising attracts a broad audience, they use merchandise to promote the film such as clothing, toys (Disney Store), stationary, food packaging and holiday resorts.A number of animated films have soundtracks that make the film more popular too. They are usually high concept films so that any audience will understand the story especially for the younger ones watching, the story will be lighthearted with a lot of colour and exciting characters that will make the film more appealing to the specific target audience.