Genre

Task 1: Genre factsheets

1) What example is provided of why visual iconographies are so important?

Someone sitting at a desk isn't genre specific however, if high-key lighting a screen behind the character and modern mise-en-scene creates an image we associate with a new broadcast.

2) What examples are provided of the importance of narrative in identifying genre?

In a soap opera it would not be unusual to see one of the story-lines follow a family having to deal with a domestic situation such as a member of the family having trouble with their boss at work. This type of story may also appear in a sit-com but the way the story develops and is dealt with will be different. The soap opera will take the situation more serious whilst the sit-com would use it as a device for humour.

3) What are the different ways films can be categorised according to Bordwell? 
Period/country, Director/star, Technical process, Style, Series, Audience

4) List three ways genre is used by audiences.
They use their prior knowledge of the genre to anticipate whether they will like it, they are able to compare a text through it's shared characteristics with another and they can use their knowledge of genre to reject a text.

5) List three ways genre is used by institutions or producers.
Genres can be templates for a producer to follow, genres can be used to attract an audience and genre helps with the marketing of the film.

Read Media Factsheet 126 - Superheroes: A Genre Case Study and answer the following questions:

1) List five films the factsheet discusses with regards to the Superhero genre.

Avengers Assemble, Guardians of the galaxy, Thor, Spiderman , Batman

2) What examples are provided of how the Superhero genre has reflected the changing values, ideologies and world events of the last 70 years?

3) How can Schatz's theory of genre cycles be applied to the Superhero genre?


Task 2: Genre analysis case study

Carry out your own genre analysis using the model provided by media theorist Daniel Chandler. Choose a film or TV text and answer the following questions - brief answers/bullet point responses are fine:

General
1) Why did you choose the text you are analysing?
2) To what genre did you initially assign the text?
3) What is your experience of this genre?
4) What subject matter and basic themes is the text concerned with?
5) How typical of the genre is this text in terms of content?
6) What expectations do you have about texts in this genre?
7) Have you found any formal generic labels for this particular text (where - try imdb.com if unsure)?
8) Which conventions of the genre do you recognize in the text?
9) To what extent does this text stretch the conventions of its genre?
10) Where and why does the text depart from the conventions of the genre?
11) Which conventions seem more like those of a different genre (and which genre(s))?
12) What familiar motifs or images are used?

Mode of address
1) What sort of audience did you feel that the text was aimed at (and how typical was this of the genre)?
2) What assumptions seem to be made about your class, age, gender and ethnicity?
3) What interests does it assume you have?

Relationship to other texts
1) What intertextual references are there in the text you are analysing (and to what other texts)? Intertextuality is when a media product references another media text of some kind.
2) In terms of genre, which other texts does the text you are analysing resemble most closely?
3) What key features are shared by these texts?
4) What major differences do you notice between them?