Post 4- Genre as a media concept

http://klsmediadepartment.blogspot.com/2010/09/genre-as-media-concept.html

Task: Think about these questions in relation to your AS coursework opening sequence. Create a post on your blog reflecting on your thoughts.

The first slide revolves around Robert Altman and his theories into genre.

• Genres are defined by producers and are easily recognised by the audience.- We as a class agreed that it was the producers who make sure that certain conventions are portrayed in certain films, causing us the audience to recognise those conventions with that genre of film. However we also noticed that sometimes it is hard to establish what genre a film falls into, as many films are now 'hybrid' films (a film consisting of more than one genre). Personally I believe that audiences can recognise genres, however you can always find conventions of other genres in that film. For our opening sequence we mixed two genres, that we believed hadn't been mixed before- Teen drama and Psychological thriller. As a group we believed that because we mixed two popular genres, our target audience would also increase.
• That texts 'belong' clearly to a particular genre in each case.-We as a class agreed that yes in some films it is very easy to say that's an action film or that's a romcom. However, as many producers have realised that the incorperation of two or more genres can potentially bring you a larger target market, more and more films contain a mixture of genres, making it a bit more difficult for the audience to decide which genre that film belongs to. Our opening sequence consisted of two genres- teen drama and psychological thriller. Our genres overlapped each other allot during the opening sequence making it harder for the audience to determine which genre our film really came from.
• Genres develop in particular ways.- Yes some genres develop in particular ways. Sci-fi and animation for example will continue to grow with technology continually developing. A development for example is many animated films now becoming 3-D.
• Texts in a genre share key characteristics.- Our class agreed that you can recognise certain traits or conventions in certain genres, making them distinctive and separate from the rest. However as more and more genres get infused together, it becomes harder and harder to define the certain traits within the film as they become mixed up with the other genre. In our opening sequence we mixed the conventions of teen drama and psychological thriller together, which did confuse some audience members.
• Genres are ideological- we agreed that its the producers who decide what makes a genre a genre and that they as high powered individuals decide what they want us to associate with that genre. This could apply to our opening sequence as we were the people in charge of choosing the genres and how to portray the genres to the audience.
• They are not specifically located through history- As a class and personally, I belive that throughout modern history you can pin point when a genre was most successful. For example the Western genre was incredibly popular during the 1950-60's. Now a days cause there is next to no market for the genre hardly any wild westerns are produced any more.
• Genre critics are distanced from the practice of genre, or its workings- Because genre critics normally have next to nothing to do with films for example, then who are they to question genre.

Slide 2:

• Might ways in which we label and divide objects, texts and people be constructed in ways that serve particular interests, rather than in logical, natural patterns? (Mcdougall J)
  We established that it is the producers that define the genres, that label and divide the objects, people and text. They do this so they are easily recognisable for the audiences. However they are not always true depcitions of e.g a subculture of people, just a stereotype. However it is because it is a stereotype that we recognise it to be that subculture.
• Should we read genre as a noun or a adjective ? - (Altman R)

Slide 3: Tomato Puree- Where would you find it in the supermarket?

• In class we used the example of tomato puree, much to everyones confusion. We then went to understand that many, many supermarkets supply the product, however as we discussed we couldn't agree on an exact location for the product, with some people saying with the condiments and some saying world food aisle. We then linked this back to genre. We agreed that becasue something is somewhere else, does that change the object in itself ? In terms of films and genre, different people focus on different code and convetions they have associated with the genre. Other people will focus on different aspects of that genre, however the genre is still the same.

Slide 4: For you take as students when considering genre is NOT 'how does genre work? But why does genre work ?

Why does genre work? I believe that genre works beacuse of how we as an audience recognise the labelling that is put forward to us and serves the interests of the producers etc. Genres are labelledbecasue they help make it easy for the audience to recognise what codes and conventions they are putting forward, but also for the producers becasue it helps them identify a gap in the market. This then helps them establish which genre is at its peak of popularity.

Slide 5: According to Neale (1980)

Post 3- Skills table

We were set the task of analysing the skills that we had developed over the course of the As media tasks. We analysed these skills by putting them in a table.



This section was read out by Rachael Davis. She explained the cognitive skills that were developed.



This is my section. I explain the skills developed in our interpersonal skills.


This is Anthony's section. He explains how our skills developed technically.




I think that the skills level that I had at the beginning of the course have improved dramatically. However me and my group from the first task have agreed that within our interpersonal skills we could have been more creative.

Targets that I aim to achieve by next year:
1:Be more creative when thinking of how to break from conventions with the characters and storyline of the story.

2: The overall organisation of the project. When planning the project this year, we didn't realise how long we had intended the opening sequence to be. Therefore when given a time limit we must keep to the time limit.

3: Working on my interpersonal skills so that the group works efficiently and without problems. As i have

4:Developing my creativity skills in Photoshop, although I have some experience already, I aim to develop these further by using the programme to its full potential when relevant.

5: Making sure that my blog is in chronological order, kept up to date as regularly as possible and all blogs completed.

Post 2: Creatvity

As I am a media student, I have to deal with many problems such as being creative when developing a project, e.g. a short film. However we often find it difficult to define creativity. Is it just random ideas that come into our head or is it us actually making those ideas come to life ?

To create this image we played a game called Consequences. The game involves a group of people making a sentence that have no meaning at all. Our sentence was 'The incredible house hopped the dead Anthony'. The game involves a group of people writing words down. The first person writes 'the' plus an adjective. The person then folds the piece of paper over, so that no-one else can see. The second person writes a noun and folds the paper. The third writes a verb, then folds it over. The fourth gives the game another 'the' and an adjective. The fifth writes another noun. Going by these rules we created the sentence 'The incredible house hops over the dead Anthony'. I think this is a very creative take on our word, as I have taken each word quite literally and infused the images together so that it depicts the sentence.

I used Photoshop to create my image. I decided the best way for my image to represent the sentence would be by taking the sentence literally. The incredible hulk represents the word incredible. The bouncy castle is the house. The coffin and the man ( called Anthony) represent the dead Anthony. And the black lines represent the house hopping. I believe that the Game of Consequences was a enjoyable experience as not only did it give us some enjoyment and also tested our creativity as we each had to depict an image representing the sentence.


This is our video on creativity. We were given free reign on what we could do, however we must include a pen in there somewhere. We decided to make the pen human like and call it Penny. We thought that Penny should walk thought the school and interact with people along the way. Not being able to think of a way to end the clip, we thought that Penny should be run over by a car.


Personally I believe that this was creative as we changed the pen from an object to a humanistic character. Seeing as this was our second attempt at being creative, we had a much clearer idea on what we wanted to achieve and how to do it.




This was my own personal creative piece of work. I decided to create a poster to a sequel of an existing film Rock'n'Rolla. Following the storyline from the original film, I based several images such as the money and bullet holes on the poster. I also used images of actors who were in the original film such as Idris Elba. I manipulated the images to create the poster using photoplus. I believe that this is creative as I manipulated the images to get the desired effect. I also created my own catch line- A new type of western showdown in London. I believe this is creative as its original and has a essence of the old wild western showdowns, but in a modern day London.

My Defenition on creativity:
Creativity is the ability to generate ideas that are original and appropriate (Linda Naiman) . Creativity is also the ability to bring the ideas from an imaginary thought to reality.

post 1: Defining skills

need to define the term skills as it will help us understand the skills we already posses and which ones we need to develop.

A skill is the learned capacity to carry out pre-determined results often with the minimum outlay of time, energy, or both.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skills

Skills: The ability to do something well, usually gained through training or experience
http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_/skill.html

Proficiency, facility, or dexterity that is acquired or developed through training or experience.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Skills

My definition:
A skill is a capability that we learn through many processes. Mainly the skill is learnt by being taught the specific skill. Most skills are used in day to day life and that we use these skills to cope with the modern world. Skills can be linked to the media industry because of the changing demands that media forces us to meet. This can be linked to our media production by myself learning how to use a piece of equipment, such as the edit suite or how to create something, such as an editied picture on the computer.