Monday, 12 March 2018

Unit 1: Genre, Codes & Conventions

Genre

A genre is a way of categorising films. It is where a media product has a common set of distinguishing features - features that are associated with a specific genre (such as jump scares in horror films).

Films are often marketing using a specific genre as this helps find a group of people that will like the film (different people like different genres).


Codes

Codes - A thing that creates meaning, can be divided into 2 categories - technical or symbolic.

Technical codes are where equipment is used in a way to help tell the story. Such as anamorphic lenses in Sci-Fi films (gives the film a look that looks slightly different to reality), handheld camera in horror (makes you feel like you are there) and slow-mo in action films.

Symbolic codes are things that we see in the film that are typical of a genre. Such as alliens/strange creatures in Sc-Fi, big strong 'invincible' character in action etc.


Conventions

Conventions are the generally accepted ways of doing things in a film - the ways things are typically done in different genre of films.


For example: the technical code of lighting is used in all films, but the conventional use of blue/green tinted light is used in Sc-Fi to achieve a certain look.

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