Generic Conventions

Generic conventions

What are generic conventions?

Generic Conventions are the features shown by texts that allow them to be put into a specific genre.  For example: Almost all Westerns use the Iconography of cowboy hats, six shooters, horses and spurs to place them in their genre.

Here is an example which shows a cowboy with a hat and a revolver in a town. if you looked at this image straight away you would know that it is a western film.

When making my film, I need to ensure that I know which generic conventions are involved in the genre I am doing so I can make sure to have them in my piece.

 

Horror:

• Set in isolated locations
• Lighting is low key
• ‘jerk’ who dies first in the film due to self-absorption
• Blonde- dim witted
• Usually common fears so the audience feel involved and scares them more
• Fast cuts- viewer can’t see every shot which makes it apprehensive
• Diegetic sounds such as footsteps, screams and echoes
• Lots of high and low angles used to show characters dominance

 

This is a trailer for the film Insidious. It contains lots of generic conventions for a horror film and this is used to put the audience on edge and scare them.

 

 

 

 

Comedy:

• Acting – usually characters are happy or exaggerate a certain type of role (e.g. an angry character overreacting more than usual)
• Lighting – Usually all scenes are bright and light is on the actors as they are normally the ones you need to see for the comedy
• Plot – usually a basic plot, designed primarily to make the audience laugh, normally with an underlying message such as friendship
• Sound – Most of the time the music would be light-hearted in sound
• Editing – Fast cuts for joke after joke based comedy and slower cuts between scenes for a build up to a punch line.

 

This is the trailer for the Hangover. It is a comedy and you can see from this clip and the Insidious clip the difference between a comedy and a horror.  

 

 

 

 

Crime drama:

• Guns- connotes danger to the audience
• Drugs
• Set in urban locations
• Blood
• Slow cuts- allows audience to understand the plot more
• Murder- shows the audience that no one is safe and it could happen to them so it makes them more on edge

Action/adventure:

• Protagonist against antagonist
• Usually heroes in Hollywood films are patriotic Americans.
• Antagonists tend to be drug lords or involved in criminal activity
• Uses a lot of special effects and stunt work
• Chase scenes to excite the audience
• Usually a female character who the protagonist will have to save
• Protagonist  always win

I have embedded this particular video into my work (Fast 5) because my group are doing an action opening so this means I would have to look into what generic conventions a typical action movie would have. I think this video is good because it shows a fight scene between a police specialist and someone involved in criminal activity and they are big built guys which are stereotypical.

Even though this clip isn’t the opening of the film, I think it is still useful to me because it is important I know the ins and outs of my particular genre.