The basic concept of "Genre" is to group or to classify media types (i.e. films). These are done by recognising various conventions (set rules), iconography and mise-en-scene.
Iconography us used so that when people so something/someone they will link into to a certain style. If you see a tumbleweed it is an iconic image of an western film, similarly if you see the actor Arnold Schwarzenegger he is iconic to action films so a link is made between the two.
Mise-en-scene is what you see on screen. An example of this being used in relation to genre would be in horror. Horror often contains many close up shots of the actor's face to show emotion and give the audience a real sense of what the director is trying to portray.
Genre Cycle
As films are made it comes a time where the audience are no longer interested in seeing the same style repeatedly again and again. This is where the 'genre cycle' is introduced. In this film makers will adapt their next films to change small aspects of the genre to keep it fresh to audiences. However the changes made are usually only small ones due to the fact they still want to maintain the previous audience, who will enjoy a similar style film.
Sub Genres
Sub genres are where individual genres are broken down inside that genre to form other types. An example of this can be "Back to the Future" This film would be classed as a Sci-Fi film (science fiction) however it could also be a film on time travel and that would be it's sub genre within its overall genre of Sci-Fi.
Hybrid Genres
A hybrid genre is where two or more genres are merged together, a popular one at todays time would be the romcom a mix of romance and comedy. Although most films are generally classified under one genre when looked under the microscope the majority of films contain lots of different elements of genre but are then put under the name of the most dominant of them.
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