genre decision blog

 Genre one: Mystery 

As we discussed before, the mystery genre often revolves around a titular character, that being the detective. The detective is almost always investigating something like a murder. The suspects for this murder are usually trapped in one location like a boat, mansion, or island. From this location the detective must solve the murder before the murderer can complete their plan. This is, of course, not always the case. Sometimes, the detective can be more than one person. Other times, the conventions are completely thrown out the window for a more unorthodox approach. In certain cases, the mystery isn’t even about a murder, but instead about something else like a disappearance 

 

Genre two: Action 

Lots of action movies feature most of the same elements/characteristics. You can often tell that a movie is an action movie when it has common conventions such as explosions, gunfire, or there is an adrenaline rush situation. Lots of movies include these specific features and add onto it with a character getting into a situation where he needs to complete or do something by a specific time otherwise something bad will happen to something or someone, they are invested in. Lots of action movies also have superheroes and feature the same exact characteristics that I just mentioned. A lot of times, action movies also have very similar Mis-En-Scene to other movies. Usually, action movies feature a subject wearing a tight spandex suit and some kind of weapon that fits them. Acrion movies also commonly take place in similar environments being either some kind of high-tech lab or some destroyed cityscape or a mixture of both. Although many action movies have many things in common, explosions and things being destroyed probably fit the stereotype the best. 

 

Genre three: Crime 

Like action movies, crime movies seem to also share many things between each other. For example, crime movies typically feature dark lighting, and stereotypical characters such as detectives, mob bosses, criminals and drug and arms dealers. Crime movies also share similar costumes between these stereotypical characters like for a drug dealer they would use some raggedy, tattered outfit. The criminal would most likely be wearing some kind of disguise and then have another outfit of their choice. Crime movies usually take place in urban environments like dark alleys, crowded and filthy taverns and run-down apartment complexes. Crime movies also commonly feature weapons. Most of the time the characters are skilled with the weapons but their familiarity and comfortability with the weapon usually represents their skill with it. A lot of the time there is a new guy who doesn’t know what they are doing and makes mistakes and is led by the most experienced whatever group they are in. 

 

Decision: 

Out of these three genres we decided to use mystery for our video. Perhaps the most major indicator, our pitch used the word mystery, which we had not even considered until we decided the mystery genre would be one of the three to pick from. On top of this, the group of friends, while they are not one person, could be considered detectives unraveling a mystery. We had also decided that action didn’t fit. The action genre would not only be too loud and rambunctious for our pitch, but would also be far too difficult for us to film with our current skills. Finally, we felt that while it fit better than action, crime is still too focused on different elements and tropes than what we were planning on using. Overall, mystery fit our pitch perfectly from the start. \