Genre

Genre 

Genre pleasures

Genre allows audiences to make choices about what products they want to consume through acceptance in order to fulfill a particular pleasure. Theorist Rick Altman (1999) argues that genre offers the audience ‘a set of pleasures’.

Rick Altman – semantic/syntactic approach - 

Semantic -  This is concerned with the conventions of the genre that communicate to the audience such as characters, locations, props, music, shooting style and other signifiers.

Syntactic -This is concerned with the relations between these elements and the structure of narratives in genres.

There is emotional pleasures, visceral pleasures (refers to internal organs, gut instinct) and intellectual puzzles (thrillers and mysteries).

What genre is your media text?

My genre for my media text is a horror film trailer. A trailer is a series of extracts from a film advertising the product (film) but trailers are abbreviated to avoid spoiling the plot of the film but leaving enough to entice the audience to see more, therefore creating hype amongst the audience. Some trailers are made of special shoot footage which is made for the trailer as it gives nothing away to the audience but making the audience hooked and engaged with the film, thus making the audience want to see the film.

The structure of trailers is made up of three parts. The first part consists of the introduction of the plot of the film, introducing the setting and the main protagonists to the audience. The second part further includes more of the plot to the audience which tends to end with a climax. The third part is normally a visual montage of the best and emotional moments of the film. Some trailers may include a voice over or a narrator which can support the plot of the film and what is happening on screen be given in the format of a trailer, which also creates a stronger connection between the trailer and audience as the narrator is talking to the audience, making the audience more engaged with the film.

The type of trailers are teaser trailers which last from 10 seconds to 30 seconds, which is done for the purpose of announcing the product’s existence to the audience making them aware of the product and possibly making them more enticed to see more of this product through curiosity. A teaser trailer shows some of the main protagonists normally, a famous actor/actress to engage the audience even more with the product. The next type of trailer is a follow up of the teaser trailer which is a theatrical trailer which has a longer duration than the teaser trailer which lasts for a maximum of two and half minutes which gives the audience more information about the film and what the film may consist of.

 

How does the genre make you feel?

The genre makes the audience feel exhilaration, fear in which causes discomfort to the viewer in which the viewer may experience dread, anxiety, making the viewer panic thus causing an increase in heart rate, creating new fears or reliving fears, shock the viewer, and the viewer being entertained through a fearful way. This is done through typical fears being reinforced which are common amongst the audience which are: death, fear of the unknown, isolation, phobias and vulnerability.

The overall effect of horror films is like a rollercoaster ride for the audience as they will experience adrenaline and fear through built up tension and intense pacing of the film, which is why the target audience enjoys horror films.

The pleasures that the audience may have is visceral pleasures as it is the stimulus given from the film which creates the response of emotional pleasures which may be fear, anxiety and exhilaration from what the audience sees on screen or by the pleasure of intellectual puzzles which the trailer of the film may create mystery and therefore making the emotional pleasures as a response.  By the trailer being short and containing a lot of intellectual puzzles it makes the audience more enticed to see and creates hype through the fourth gratification of information and learning, which as a result may lead to viral word of mouth as people will be talking about this film.  

What are the main codes and conventions of your genre?

The codes and conventions for the horror genre – camera angels/ shots

Camera angles/shots – The use of high and low angle shots makes the characters either more superior or inferior, the use of point of view shots is to make the audience see through the eyes of the antagonist or even the victim in which the audience can put themselves in the victim’s shoes and empathise with the victim when they are in danger and also makes the audience experience fear and intensity. The use of hand held camera movement makes the audience feel the danger of the situation and it also creates a sense of unease which an example of this is The Blair Pitch Project and REC franchise in which constructs this convention well. Also the use of tilted/canted shot is used to create a sense of unease to the audience, which is also to create an unsettling atmosphere. 

For my theatrical trailer, I will want to include the use of hand held camera movement as it creates a feel of distortion to the situation which will make the audience feel the visceral pleasure (Altman) of unease and a sense of danger which will reinforce the negotiated and preferred emotion (Stuart Hall) that I want the target audience to feel when watching. I will also want to include in my theatrical trailer the convention of mystery as to what has happened? and why it has happened? within the narrative of the theatrical trailer to create intellectual puzzles (Altman) for the audience as it will sustain the target audience's engagement to the text, this can be achieved by using narration to help guide and implant preferred and negotiated thoughts within the audience's head. I will not include a montage as I feel it will disrupt the eerie and mysterious feel that I want to create as I want to reinforce the conventional theme of isolation as the theme is main convention used in all films and trailers within zombie apocalyptic horror genre.