Research on "Genre"

What is "Genre"?

The word "genre" is a French word which is translated to "type". A lot of people believe that genre is a way of grouping films together that have similarities but the key concept of genre is a lot more complex than that; grouping films together is only a brief definition of genre.

Genre links into audience before the film has even been produced, film producers and directors want to please the audience and majority of the time, audiences get bored of the same genre being repeated over and over again, this is why producers and directors want to think about genre and be able to change it slightly to attract and please their target audience. This links into Hybrid/Mixed Genres which is what is being done a lot in the modern day of film production. It basically means merging two genres together to make a better film on the whole, for example taking the horror genre and mixing it in with comedy to create a Comedy Horror (Scary Movie, Shaun of the Dead... etc.)

Genre also allows production companies to be able to follow generic conventions of previous genres, this is so the films genre is easily recognisable by audiences, meaning the film would actually be viewed in cinemas and would sell once it is on sale in retail stores. Eventually some production companies become specialised in certain genres, such as "Lionsgate" are now specialised in doing horror/thriller due to the fact that they already have links with directors that do horror films as well as the actors and the equipment.