Genres and Sub-Genres (RESEARCH)

A genre is a type or category of a product; in this context, a film. It helps us to categorise a movie in terms of 'Tropes' (recognisable visual or plot features) that they share, and establishes codes and conventions that the makers of films use to achieve a certain effect and get an audience. They usually contain smaller, more specific sub-genres - for example, 'supernatural' is a sub genre under the general genre of Horror. Sometimes a film may contains a large amount of tropes that exist in more than one genre - this is a hybrid genre, such as a 'Rom-Com', a combination of Romance and Comedy.

These easily recognisable 'Tropes' help us identify a film genre, even through still images containing key characters and a setting. Some of my favourite genres can be easily identified through still images, such as the following:

• We can work out that this film is a Thriller without much difficulty, due to the darkness of the shot and the suspicious behaviour of the character. These Tropes contribute to the reason I like this genre, as the tension is obviously very exciting and the suspense makes the plot incredibly interesting.

• It's explicit from just this one still image that this movie comes under the genre of Action, due to the obvious speed of it (hinted to by the car chase), perilous danger that the character is in, and the crazy stunts that they perform. This makes the genre extremely exciting and makes sure you leave the cinema still hyped up about it, despite its lack of realism.

• The genre of this movie is a bit less obvious, but we can still make a decent guess using this still image. The gun and the apparent detective apparel suggest that it is purely a police-action film, but the comedic dancing and main character infamous for his humour eventually leads us to believe it is a hybrid; a mixture of Action and Comedy, under the Sub-Genre of Police-Comedy. It is debatably one of the great genres of the last 20 years due to its great action element but more than that, its top-class comedy that will leave you on the floor. Also, Chris Tucker is amazing.