Altman: Genre

Rick Altman

(b. 1945 - )

(Charles) Rick Altman is a professor of cinema and literature. 

What is Genre?: 

In his book "Blood Money", Richard Nowell defines genre as:

"a system of communication comprising two components, the label and the corpus. A name is assigned to a number of films because they are considered to share similarities that distinguish them from other films, thus bringing order to relative chaos."

The term was revised in Altman's 1999 book "Film/Genre". In short, genre is categorised through "similarities and differences". While consuming a media text, and audience has a repertoire of elements, or expectations of the film depending on its genre. If a film is too similar to others they have seen they will be dissatisfied, but they cannot be too different and stray from audience expectation. 

Altman lays out 4 criteria a film pattern needs in order to be categorised as a genre through the film cycle; the producer (blueprint), the distributor (label), the audience (contract), and the student (structure). 

The producer (blueprint): With the producer, genre is used to minimise risk of film production, through analysing popular films and trends (film cycles) of the time. This is known as the blueprint for a production. 

The distributor (label): To communicate what is being sold, the label uses genre codes and conventions within the marketing of a film to easily communicate about the product with the audience.

The audience (contract): The audience signs an unseen contract, using their understanding and conventions/codes of the genre to set their expectations for a film. This is used to understand the text, but if it subverts expectations, the contract is broken and audiences are left ungratified (UGT).

The student (structure): The student compares various media texts in order to identify and study a film genre. Using the repertoire of elements, texts are grouped and defined as a genre. 

What is the Repertoire of Elements?: 

The repertoire of elements is a structure allowing for genre to be identified. This is seen through; iconography, camera, editing, sound, narrative, values, performance, colour/lighting, fonts, wording, and representations. 

Regarding the repertoire of elements, in his book "Blood Money", Nowell says:

"only by treating film-types (genre) as complex networks of elements designed to provoke diverse types of audience engagement and fulfill different commercial objectives, can the conditions underwriting production and the mobilization of content be identified."

Resources:

https://cpb-eu-w2.wpmucdn.com/blogs.grammar.sch.gg/dist/a/4/files/2013/11/Altman-Handout-1s9r2m3.pdf

Audience Survey

To grasp a better understanding of our audience, we started by creating a digital survey on Google Forms. 

The overall aim of the survey was to analyse the attitude towards horror films, as well as see any correlations or patterns due to age and gender. 

The survey was anonymous. We had a total of 28 participants, where 1 was 15 and under, 24 were aged 16 to 25, and 3 were aged 36 to 55. This showed that most of the views resulting from our survey would be from a young age group, however, 15-24+ is the primary target audience for our slasher opening. 

An important factor of our survey was gender, the majority of the participants, being 17 out of 28, were females. This was followed with 10 of the participants being males, and 1 person choosing not to specify their gender. 

Below is our video summarising the survey findings using the green screen:

We started by gaining an understanding of the audience's viewing habits: 

An interesting finding was that the 2 participants who selected 1 (not at all) were female while the 2 responders who selected 10 (very much) were male.

Does this mean that horror is unappealable to women? 

It is also interesting to note that no contenders in the age group of 36 to 55 showed much interest in the genre, their answers being 1, 2 and 4.  

Box Office Analysis: 10 Horror Films

Media 10 Horror Films by Laura Fagan on Scribe

 

In conclusion: 

I found that films with lower age ratings or part of franchises performed better at the box office. The majority of the films had similar MPAA R or BBFC 18 ratings as they are violent. There was also a large difference in the age ratings between the US and the UK, with the US being more harsh. 

Practice Productions (Continuity and Genre)

PRELIMINARY TASK: Continuity Edit

In this post I will discuss and evaluate my first shooting task. 

TASK 

Our task requirements were:

- 2 characters

- a filming outside of and including a door

- engaging in a conversation including a shot-reverse-shot sequence and respecting the 180 degree rule

- film over 20 shots

- use of narrative enigma within the story

PLANNING

We created a basic shot list sheet as a rough guide, and a script. We created two characters of a director and actor as the Proppian hero and villain, but wanted to blur their roles. 

Equipment wise we used:

- monopod and tripod

- dolly tripod extension

- SONY A58 DSLR camera

- 2 lenses

- focus and zoom rings

We based our opening sequence on Hitchcock's "hand of god" technique seen in Psycho (1960). This helped us create a solid base for the opening as well as experiment with the equipment. 

THE SHOOT

As a group, we all took turns shooting and directing as well as having equal input into the shots and planning. I spent time using the camera specifically in the dolly shot and window zoom, and acted in the ending scene. 

THE EDITED FILM

We downloaded the clips off the SD cards, and then each separately edited, I used FCPX and chose to not use sound apart from the dialogue to focus on the continuity and footage. 

Here is the final continuity edit: 

REFLECTION

In this video I discuss my overall evaluation of the process and result, as well as what I would do to improve and what I have learnt through the shoot. 

PRELIMINARY TASK: Genre Edit

For the genre edit, I chose Horror as I found it was the easiest to adapt the footage for. I used the opening music of Psycho (1960) and a black and white filter for intertextuality and to cement the Hand of God technique. I also added diegetic sounds such as footsteps and the tripod thud to create more suspense.