Genre

1) Do you think genres are timeless?
Yes because ultimately you can never change a genre that has already been created and there will always be enough people in the world to be interested in any given genre, even if they discontinue creating them, they will always still exist due to people's memories and old films.

2)Why do you think hybrid/sub genres are becoming more common?
Hybrid films are becoming more common because the audience always wants something new and exciting. The demand for hybrid films is higher because of the sheer amount of films available to audiences, we all want something that we haven't seen before and lacks the predictability of single genre films. Many companies compete for the biggest audiences/profit, so there will always be competition with other companies to make the biggest film and the most profit.

Sub-genres are virtually the opposite of hybrids in that they are very specific and are aimed at a niche audience, as opposed to hybrids which are aimed at the most people possible.

3) Choose one of your videos - how does it conform to or challenge genre conventions? = THRILLER
Our thriller both conforms to and challenges genre conventions.
Janet Steiger - If we were to continue the film, a romantic sub plot would have evolved through the (female) hacker and one of the Government agents linked with the case. Our film is in accordance with Janet Steiger's 'Social conventions method' as we tried to follow what we perceive a thriller to be, and what society expects. This included things like the costumes and the misc-en-scene. However we broke some of the conventions as we had a female lead.

Robert Stam - Through the use of amateur actors, the audience would not be expecting certain characteristics of their characters. This left our plot options wide open as there were no preconceived expectations. However were we to use well known actors for our film, in accordance with Janet Steiger's theory, we would use actors relevant and known for film of our genre. For example, for the major Government leader we would use Morgan Freeman as he is well known for playing a power figure. However the audience has an expectation that Morgan Freeman would play a powerful, but nice character, so to play on this, we would subvert it to make him the antagonist as a twist at the end, assuming we would have created the full plot.

John Turby -