Applying the concept of Genre to our film

After much consultation with my group, we decided we would make the genre of our film, 'Gritty Drama'. This entails a number of different topics such as isolation, crime, abandonment, violence and sexual abuse etc. As a result of this, our film will raise much empathy and concern among the audience due to Veronica's compelling story. Furthermore, we wanted realism to be a huge aspect of our film, as we wanted to depict some parts of our society accurately. This is so we could embed a social message within our film, which eludes to the fact that many people are forgotten and abandoned in our society.

In our film opening we tried to include much of the above (topics) as possible. The text includes a dim and urban setting with life and death situations and compelling characterisation. We also included a chase which would fulfil much of our criteria (abuse, violence, crime, isolation etc.) and raise nerves, tension and engagement in the audience. As I have already stated, the mise en scene is dark, eerie and dim scenery which will help to reflect Veronica's emotions and gage sympathy from the spectator. To include an aspect of crime in our piece, when editing we added in sirens (diagetic).

'Land of the Free' incorporates a handful of different genres including the obvious ones such as 'crime and gangster', 'drama' and 'horror'. However, in order to get a greater understanding of our own genre we must look at the less known genres. Our film does not have a happy ending; thus includes aspects of the genre 'a slice of life', a genre which depicts events of everyday life (hence the inclusion of the word 'life'). As a result of this, our film could be compared to the French film 'Cache' (Hidden) which has the most sudden and anti-climactic endings I have ever seen. Nevertheless it is a great film and could be seen as symbolic, as it's sudden and un-conventional ending, reflects the reality of life. Our film could also fall under the biographical genre, as it gives great detail of one persons life. The two above genres are reinforced by the fact we used a handheld camera, an everyday camera used by the masses (nothing special).

As you can see we have developed and integrated genres whilst keeping some level familiarity. This is too ensure we have met the audiences expectations yet included some originality also. We believe that our film is a modern adaption and incorporation of a handful of genres.