Genre

What did you learn about genre and film from this video?  Why is it important to a film?

    From this video, I learned that word genre comes from the french word for "type" and in film it is used to categorize all the different kinds of movies and stories that exist, e.g., comedy, sci-fi, horror, western, etc. Genre is important to a film because it affects three major areas: production, distribution, and consumption. The genre of the film dictates a lot of what needs to go into the production; the setting often revolves around the genre and thus different costuming, set design, etc. will be needed depending on what the setting (which fits the genre) is. For example, a western film often takes place during the time of the Wild West which was a period in American History of westward expansion. Many of these take place in rural areas, most often that not deserts, in a specific era which will impact the different production elements. Although westerns can have different settings, because of the nature of the genre, most of them will share a similar setting. Because of this connection to what will be needed in for a production depending on a genre, it makes it much more convenient for every aspect of production as there is going to be some kind of framework that can be followed for creating designs, casting, and writing. Distribution is affected by genre as financing and distributors are able to predict how well a movie may perform based on the genre as there are characteristics which attract audiences. This also applies to the consumption as it makes it much easier for a consumer to find a new film that they are likely to enjoy because many films share commonalities with others in the same genre. So to summarize, genre is important to film because it increases the convenience for every side; the filmmakers, the distributors, and the consumers.