Key codes and conventions.

Each genre of film has there own key codes and conventions to follow in order to allow the audience to know what is going on. Knowing all the key code and conventions for each genre is really important because if you are thinking of doing a horror film for example and you add a little bit of slapstick commedy then the film wouldn't make sense and this can lead to a film being unsuccessful. So I have done some research and looked up the key code and conventions for each genre. The first genre I looked at was Sci-Fi because there are some short clips that I watched from this gnre and I thought it was very creative and interesting. I reseached on what the codes and conventions are for Science Fiction because theseb are the things that they use in the films to make it Sci-Fi. Science Fiction is a type of media whereby the premise is that the events being described are taking place in a reality other than the one you are currently experiencing. For example Long Time ago (Star Wars), Alternate Present (The Terminator, Twilight Zone, Independence Day) or Future (Dark Star, Silent Running). Science Fiction usually deals with hardware and technology, compared to Science Fantasy (also SF) whereby there is more concentration on non-technological aspects of the events being described, for example - The Lord of the Rings. A lot of the target audience get drawn to the genre of Sci-Fi due to the high technology that is happening today. A lot of audience think that things such as flying cars or spaceships could happen in the future. for example our mobile phones today were predicted in 'Star Trek' from 40 years ago.

The other genre I looked at was horror. Horror is one of the biggest genres because a lot of target audience's tend to watch horror film. Horror films code and conventions are so precise and obvious and makes the audience want to watch more of it. Horror is a genre that strives to educe fear and apprehension from their viewers by colliding supernatural into reality situations. Everything a normal society values is systematically destroyed throughout the film. It often can be completely paranormal without any reality whatsoever and are based on classic literature of the gothic/horror genre. They can also incorporate elements of other genres such as science fiction (sci-fi), fantasy, black comedies or thriller. Modernized horrors usually contain graphic violence or bloody gore. Horror films differentiate due to the years and so it is much harder to compare or group them largely and so contrasts between them become very clear. For example Paranomal activity is one of the biggest horror films out now. A lot of its traget audience went to see it and the code and conventions were very good because there was a lot of supernatural things in it and it did have the audience wondering if it was real or not. Here is a link to the trailer of the film paranormal activity. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSSqxrh5kp8

This image is the front cover of the horror movie 'SAW'. as you can see the cover is following the key codes and conventions of a horror. The Red writing signifies blood and death which a lot of horror films have. The picture itself of the scary looking face tells the target audience that this film is going to be scary. Also you can notice the slogan they have on the top hand left. 'You will wish it were just a movie'. This kind of slogan plays with the audience's minds to think that what is happening in the movie could also happen to them. It draws the audience in the film.

I did some research on what code and conventions make up a documentary. Documentaries are very unique to other genres becaue they use real footage of events. Documentaries are essentially seen as non-fiction. A convention of documentaries are that all events are presented to us are to be seen as real to the target audience. Documentaries make a big deal and go to great lengths to convince the audience that all footage is real and unaltered in anyway. For example I watched a clip of a bbc documentary called 'The Birth of Isreal' which i found was very fasinating. Documenatries are more like facts and deal with real pictures and use their own music to educate or to teach people about things. Here is a clip of the documentary 'The Birth of Isreal' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8hE6WN9xRU