As a group, my partner and I decided to research the film genre--- Crime thriller for our 2 minutes movie intro.
"A genre is ultimately an abstract conception rather than something that exists empirically in the world,"claimed Jane Feurer.
Genre is a way of categorizing films.
-A good way to target specific and defined audiences
-Genre is separated into sub-genres and potentially super-genre.
-Any theme could be in any genre, it is the style and conventions of the genre that makes the theme stand out and unique.
-Bordwell asks "Are animation and documentary films genres or modes?" Genre is a rather vague concept and is viewed differently by different people, a mode could possibly be a type of genre and vice versa, a genre could also be a mode.
-The same movie could appear differently to audiences from different cultural backgrounds and age groups.
-(Bordwell 1989)Genre could be formed by:
The period of time of the movie (a 20th century movie).
Country (American movie, asian movie)
Director or star or studio, etc. ( A Universals movie, an HBO movie)
Series (007, Homeland)
Structure ( Narrative)
Ideology ( Plastic theatre)
Purpose (Home movies)
Audience (Children's movie)
Theme (Family film)
-(Robert Stam) Another way of categorizing films:
Based on story content (War film)
Borrowed from literature (Comedy, melodrama)
From other media (the musical)
Performer based (Audrey-Hepburn movies)
Budget-based (Blockbusters)
Based on artistic status (the art film)
Racial identity (Black cinema)
Location (the Western)
Sexual orientation (Queer cinema)
"Specific genres tend to be easy to recognize intuitively but difficult (if not impossible) to define. Particular features which are characteristic of a genre are not normally unique to it; it is their relative prominence, combination and functions which are distinctive."--- Neale
"genres are instances of repetition and difference"---Neale
Codes and conventions
Codes of a genre can be divided into 3 types: Symbolic codes, technical codes, audio effects.
-Symbolic: Setting, props/objects, costumes, body language, narrative/theme.
-Technical codes: camera angle, movement and shot type, editing, lighting.
-Audio effects: Sound effects, music and dialogue.
Repetition
-Genre can also lead to repetition of same conventions which could result in bored audiences.
-To avoid this and draw the audience's interest and curiosity, producers or directors would maintain some conventions and apply it traditionally but change the chronological order of the plot or change in actors, setting time period.
-Or to surprise the audience, Subversions are very effective in making the film seem intriguing.
Genres overlap, and there are mixed genres, such as crime-thrillers.
A crime thriller is a sub-genre of crime or thriller films. It is a combination of a crime genre and thriller genre. The plot tends to focus on a crime; a murder, hunt or a robbery. Where as thrillers use actions and psychological aspects to build tension and suspence, a good thriller would leave the audience in shock and possibily reflect on the movie for a while.
Examples of crime thrillers:
Us
I found that many shots from "Us" were very powerful and gave the chills.
Juxtaposition was very much used in this movie and it achieves bigger impaction the audience as there is a comparison.
It is something very interesting that we could explore in our shooting for the movie.
Here the tone of the shot is very cold and the colors present are mainly blue, black and white, the actor is placed in the middle of the frame creating a very symmetrical image, which further utilises the Kuleshov Effect and allows the audience to draw their attention to the facial expressions of the actor.
The lighting and color schemes of the shots challenge the conventional use of lighting in thriller and horror film (low key cold tone lighting or use of red color grading to generate a sense of bloodiness and alert). The common emotion evoked from the background mise en scène in 'Us' (warm tone low key lighting usually creates a sense of coziness) would be happiness, romance or nostalgia. In 'Us' the yellow tone lighting is used to create a stark contrast to the plot or the acting, making the scene more creepy and ominous.
Get Out
I find the editing and angles of camera more interesting in "Get Out"
This is a single, clean shot which is shot from a bird's eye's view which portrays the actor to be more feeble and small and the audience at a "God's" point of view which is an effective technique in thrillers/horrors which makes us feel more in power, presenting the actor as if calling out for our help and the fact that we cannot do anything for him makes us feel worse yet more emotionally connected with the character.
the silence of the lambs
Similarly, the editing is very effective in "the silence of the lambs" and applies slow zoom ins to facial expressions where the actor breaks the fourth wall and maintains their stare with the camera---as if staring right at the audience to create tension.
The editing of this part of the movie left me with a very strong impression. Unlike other thrillers or horror movies which use one long slow zoom in on a character's face to create tension, this dialogue scene is not presented in one shot. There is a cut between each zoom in on the actor's facial expressions. This scene, the 2 characters are cut simultaneously one after the other. This made it seem even more scary or tense as it was almost as if the doctor was creeping in on the audience, and you don't know what to expect...
Red Dragon
In both 'the silence of the lambs' and Red Dragon, there were symbolic objects that signified the serial killer's presence, usually the inspector or the character being present in the same scene as the killer is aware of these symbolic features and there is a moment of tension before the character realizes the presence of the killer.
In this scene, Hannibal Lecter gets stabbed and to show his confusion and shock as well as the uncomfortable feeling, this shot is hand-held as he moves slightly forwards. Handheld shots being a common camera movement used in action and horror films to generate a sense of urgency and chaos.
The high angle dolly tilt from the agent to the body of Lecter is smooth and slowly moves to the back to show Lecter's face, the angle and lighting it presents Lecter to be frightening.
THIS YOUTUBE LINK CONTAINS DISTURBING IMAGES
At this point, it is when Graham gets ideas about what the killer did, the sudden realization is both shocking and scary, an extreme close-up is used and there is a montage of different shots, the cuts are rapid and not all the shots are still so it creates a very tense feeling.
The transition from very quiet (almost no sound) to high-pitched suspenseful music is also shocking, creating a stressful feeling. There is also a sound of racing heartbeat that seems to almost encourage the audience's hearts to race. This conforms to thriller genre music conventions, violin as a typical instrument to generate high-pitched sounds to startle the audience, another famous example being the shower scene in 'Psycho'.
I really like the shot of Graham looking under the door as we only see a part of what is happening and so it makes the audience feel uncomfortable and nervous even though we know what will happen.
Black Swan
The editing for this scene is very effective, it mimics the effect of flashing lights in a club and collapses the colors of red, black & white and green which are colors of very different tones, and all create a sense of passion and wilderness(black & white represents rawness and extremist to Nina) since it is the point in the movie when Nina enjoys herself in a wild way. In between the shots of her face, there are images of her with the Black Swan Queen make up look, to foreshadow or symbolize the process of her metamorphosis. It foregrounds the idea that Nina gradually reveals her "other side" the more evil side to her. The sound is very rhythmic which juxtaposes the chaotic scene.
There were many hand-held shots to show the inability to control or predict a matter which is what Nina fears the most, the hand-held shots also illustrates the chaos that occurs when Nina panics or when she is running, creating an image of a vulnerable prey attempting to escape and survive. Furthermore, contrast in editing pace throughout the film represents Nina's emotional turmoil as well as her obsession with perfection, often the more chaotic and brutal, the faster the pace of editing in jump cuts.
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