Film Genre- Cover Work..

Unit 1:

• Genre is a critical tool
• Genre study allows a form of scientific method into media studies
• Genres are not fixed. In using genre our objective is not to allocate films permanently to a fixed category. Rather we use genre to help us understand films and the process of making them.

Unit 2:

• Genre is not a category with fixed criteria for entry into classification, it is dynamic.
  
• The definition of any particular genre is fluid, changing over time and across cultures.
  
• In the last 10 years genre theorists have began to refer to a 'repertoire of elements' from which generic descriptions may be constructed.
• Iconograpghy refers to objects or sounds, style refers to how they are represented.

Unit 3:

• Altmans game provides a useful way of introducing a central issue in genre theory- the before and after conundrum of the origination of genres.
• About half of the 60 films are Warner Bros each year were B films with lower budgets, second or third rank stars and more formulaic plots. Such films were given less critical attention and studio promotion.
• Early genre theorists tended to argue genres began as fairly loose groupings that gradually evolved towards a mature or classic period. after this genre began to decline.
• The concept of franchising may be replacing genre as a descriptor for major hollywood release. Each very high budget new film is an addition to an existing franchise or an attempt to start a new one.
• Producers recognise the value of genre elements in attracting especially young audiences, and are able to use these elements as part of the mix in mainstream films each of which is conceived as a separate project.

Unit 4:

• Stated simply genre are those commercial feature films which, through repetition and variation, tell familiar stories with familiar characters in familiar situations. they also encourage expectations and experiences similar films we have already seen (Barry Keith Grant, 1995)
• The study of film theatre began in the 1970s with apparatus theory, this theory argued that audience are passive recipients; the reading of film is imposed upon them by the films structure.
• The role of pleasure in film viewing is pivotal in the relationship between the audience and the cinema.
• The strongest elements of some genres are the emotional responses they are designed to inspire in the audience

Unit 5:

• Stars were an important part of theatre and show business generally in the nineteenth century but cinema created a new kind of star in the early twentieth century one whose personality could be experienced across the world without long gaps between personal appearances.
• Star power is an important feature of the film industry and dyer taking a sociological approach points to the economic importance of the star as a 'commodity', an important asset in the making ans selling of a film.
• Hollywood cinema tends to be generic but individual films are usually conceived with a particular star in mind.