Genre Analysis

1. PRE-PRODUCTION:
TRAILERS
AMOS MUKOMBERO

2. WHAT ARE GENRE
CONVENTIONS?
A genre is a style/category or a classification group of a
product which may be art, literature, films, music.
Genre conventions are smaller elements of that specific
genre to make the plot fit the classification group of that
product. Elements can be characters; how they are seen. So
this could entail what they wear, the make up they use, how
they articulate themselves to the audience. Another element
could be the theme of the product, setting, technical and the
narrative itself.

3. GENRE CONVENTIONS OF A HORROR
• For a horror small communities, or claustrophobic places where
everyone knows one another are a convention. Usually horrors are very
dark, there is always a scene in a narrow ally way with minimal lighting,
run down ghost towns. These conventions have a sense of being
isolated or being alone.
• Examples of locations are haunted houses, lakesides, woodlands, farms
and barns or somewhere where there are lots of objects that can be used
as weapons.
• Camera work is distorted a lot. It is never in its natural setting; except at
the start of the horror when the setting of the movie is being set. POV
shots are important as they give the audience an insight of the
characters perception. Handheld shots are also generic, as they leave
the audience in suspense as they are usually hard to work out what is
happening.
• Camerawork and editing go together, the usual intention is to make a
unsettling tense, spine tingling .

4. IMPORTANCE OF
GENRE
Genres are important and should established in the trailer.
This is purely to attract the attention of the audience the
studio targets their actual film/product to.
Without an audience, there is no profit to be made. As a
trailer is an advertisement it’s important that it’s effective.