Do Generic Conventions Help or Restrict Film Makers?

S

My group argued that the conventions both help and restrict film makers. Our presentation consisted of reasons as to how the conventions do help, and reasons why they don't. We used examples of successful films and unsuccessful films which didn't follow the conventions.
The conventions helped because...
-film makers have an outline of what the audience expect and therefore they can work from this and use ideas from other films.
-films that do follow the conventions tend to be successful and earn more money.


The conventions are restricting because-
-film makers may be scared to push boundaries and come up with new ideas and therefore films of one genre become too similar and boring.
-it prevents film makers from including new and original ideas, films may not be as interesting if they are only one genre.

This research taught me that generic conventions can be good in some aspects, however they are also restricting for film makers. 

Binary Opposition

Binary Opposition is the way in which media texts are organised around a set of opposite values. An example of this would be hot/cold, good/evil or light/dark. 

We discussed whether it's possible to understand something unless you know the meaning and have experienced the opposite of this. Would it be possible to to know what hot felt like if we didn't know what cold was like? Words can only act as symbols and what the actual meaning is, the word is related to the meaning, however the meaning could change- we only know the meaning of the word because we have experienced it ourselves.

For homework I watched Spiderman and identified the binary oppositions within the film-

-male/female

-good/evil

-love/hate

-heroe/villain

-happy/sad

Explanation of some of the binary oppositions:

Love/Hate- we can see the love between some characters and their families, there's also love between the two lead characters, whereas we see hate between the heroes and villains.

Good/Evil- the majority of the characters are good, the police, spiderman, the main characters families, whereas evil is the villains and Spidermans enemies. 

  


Claude Levi Strauss and Roland B

Binary Opposition Essay

​

Binary Opposition in Titanic 

In this extract from Titanic, Cameron uses binary opposition to signify separation between the richer characters and the less wealthy characters. When each character is introduced we automatically know which class they are in, for example; the use of mise en scene connotes Rose's class through the use of costumes. She is dressed in an elegant purple and white dress which connotes that she is upper class and comes from a wealthy family. The lower class characters are dressed in dull, dreary, dark colours which symbolises that they aren't as wealthy as the characters dressed in bold, colourful outfits. The difference between classes is also connoted by the mise en scene by the use of lighting; when the wealthy characters are first introduced, it's light outside and they are shown in a bright light whereas when the poor characters are first introduced the setting is dark, dreary and smoky. The use of lighting gives meaning as the dark room and smoke connotes darkness and dirt, whereas the bright lights connote purity and cleanliness. We also see the binary opposition between the colours black and white on the exterior of the boat itself, the upper classes enter on the upper part of the boat which is painted white, this is juxter posed when we see the working class passengers entering on the lower half of the boat, which is painted black. The colouring of the boat reinforces the binary opposition of the lighting, bright and dark, as well as reinforcing the issue of separation between upper class and working class, opposing ideas have been used to denote the separation of passengers and denote the differences between classes. 

​In addition to this, Cameron creates a binary opposition between certain characters in order to show their differences of class, opinions and personality.The binary opposition between the characters Jack and Rose allow the audience to see the difference between class. Cameron uses mise en scene to connote the difference between Jack and Rose through their costumes. We can automatically see the binary opposition just by looking at the characters as Jack is dressed in dark, work clothes which connotes that he's working class. Rose is dressed in purple which signifies wealth, therefore connoting she's upper class, Jacks hair is long and loose which connotes his care free and fun personality, whereas Rose is wearing a large hat with her hair tied back, this connotes how she is restricted. In addition to this, Cameron presents a binary opposition between Jack and Rose's personalities. We see a contrast between characters from Rose's ungrateful attitude and Jacks's excitement and gratefulness to have tickets for Titanic even though they are third class tickets. Cameron uses facial expressions to denote each characters mood and opinions, when Rose is introduced we see her looking disappointed and she even comments on how she isn't impressed with the size of the boat. This denotes Her ungrateful attitude and disappointment whereas when Jack finds out he's won tickets we can see the look of joy on his face, this is reinforced though body language and dialogue as he is jumping and hugging people, opposing to Roses body language which is cold and stiff as she boards the boat. 

In this extract we can see a binary opposition between losing and winning. In some aspects it seems as thought the upper class characters are 'winning' as they have the more luxurious part of the ship, and have special treatment as we can see when they enter the ship. This could be seen as them 'winning' as it seems they a treated better than the working class passengers, the working class passengers could be considered to be 'losing' as they are treated almost like animals as they have to pass health inspections to be allowed on the ship. This adds meaning to the extract as the binary opposition allows the audience to see how working class people would have been treated, allowing viewers to have sympathy for them. However, you could say that the working class characters are 'winning'; through the use of iconography, we see these characters looking happy, smiley and waving to people as they get on the boat, whereas the upper class don't seem to have the same attitude or enthusiasm, an example of this is when Rose is first introduced. Rose is disappointed and feels as though the trip is a punishment, on the other hand, a working class character, Jack shows gratitude and excitement when wins tickets. The idea of Rose feeling punished and trapped on the boat juxtaposes with the fact that Jack wins tickets and is grateful for winning. Cameron creates this binary opposition in order to denote the differences between the two characters, and between the rich and poor classes.

​Furthermore, the music reinforces the binary opposition between Jack and Rose. When Rose and her family board, the music is calm, slow and classical which connotes Roses attitude towards going on the Titanic as there is no excitement or happiness in the tone of the music. The music also connotes the families wealth as it's music that would be listened to at upper class events. Opposing to this, when Jack boards the boat we hear Irish Folk music which gives a rushed, light hearted tone which symbolises Jack's freedom and care free attitude; similarly to this it connotes Jack's class as this is the type of music which would be played at working class events. In addition to this, the piece of music connotes Jack's gratefulness and happiness for winning the tickets, reinforcing a clear binary opposition between Jack and Rose. 

Main Task

 

For our media coursework, our main task is to create the title and opening of a fiction film. Maximum of 2 minutes, the video and audio must be original, with exceptions of copyright-free sound.
12.09.2012

Genre Recognition

 

Today I learned about the history of Science Fiction films and how they have developed throughout the years. This helped me understand how genres can change and be developed in order to entertain the audience at the time. Because audiences get bored of the same plots in films direcctors need to come up with different twists and different types of genres.

I learned how films are made to be current and to entertain current audiences, for example at the time of WW11, there were many war films made, another example of this is when there was a growing belief in alien life, there were alien horror films made to scare the audiences at that time.
 We can tell what the genre type is because of semiotics, semiotics help us understand the type of genre, for example signs and signifiers help us know what genre the film is, the setting of a Western film denotes the genre as a Western bar is an iconic sign for a Western film.

Schatz and Wright-
Schatz and Wright tried to prove that in terms of generic evolution, films don't have hybrid genres, they just build on the same genre, only changing things to keep the films fresh. However this theory can be argued as there is evidence that there were hybrid genres even in the 1950's. This is called regenrification.

Regenrification- Evidnece that hybrid genres were being made even back in the 1950's, an example of a hybrid genre is The Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Semiotics

 

In this lesson we learned the definitions of the words, denotation and conotation.

Denotation is the literal meaning of a word

Conotation is what the words implies or suggests.

We've also been learning about semiotics in media, which is the study of signs and symbols and their uses.

Signs are made up of two things; the signifier and the signified.

The signified is the concept that the signifier refers to.

The signifier is any material thing that signifies. For example, words on a page, facial expression or an image. The signifier is the actual meaning of the object.

There are three different types of signs:

Iconic,

Indexical,

and Symbolic.

An iconic sign is where the signifier resembles the signified for example a picture of a photograph.

An indexical sign is where the signifier is caused by the signified for example, smoke signifies fire.

A symbolic sign is where tghe relation between the signifier and the signified is conventional and culturally specific e.g most words.

Genre

In my Media lesson yesterday, I learned about the different types of genre, hybrid genre and sub genre.

I found about about a genre cycle, this is the process that happens when one type of genre becomes out-dated and is then replaced by a new type of genre; this cycle then contiunues- creating different types of genre styles to keep the audience interested.

Sub Genre- A sub genre is when one genre has a group of different genres within itself, for example- Science-Fiction can be broken down into catagories; aliens, time travel, space, robots ect. Sub genre allows you to catagorise films more specifically in order to identify them and compare them with similar films.

Hybrid Genre- A hybrid genre is when one genre is merged with another genre so it can be recognised for more than one convention of a genre. An example of a sub-genre is a Rom-Com (romantic comedy) this would be a film that has a storyline based on a romance, however it's also light hearted and features a lot of comedy throughout the film. By describing films by sub genres, it allows the film to be watched by a more diverse audience as it includes more than one genre.

Learning about genre has helped me understand how films can be catagorized and how to catagorize films myself. It's also helped me understand that can be catagorized into sub genres and hybrid genres, which has allowed me to think about how films can be classified.