Film Genres

The genre of a film is the type of category the theme falls under. 

Action
Action film genre typically includes a series of challenges that require physical adventures, extended fights and frantic chases. It includes a character that will have to challenge against odds, which may involve life-threatening situations, an evil villain, and/or being pursued, with victory achieved at the end after difficult physical efforts and violence.  Explosions, fist fights, gunplay and car chases are all typical institutions of the action genre. Subgenres for action- action comedy, action horror, sci-fi action as well as others.
Examples of action genre- Die Hard, Jurassic Park, 48hours
Origins of action
During the 1920s and 1930s, action-based films were often adventure films in which Douglas Fairbanks wielded swords in period pieces or Westerns. In the 1970s, detective stories and urban crime dramas began to combine themselves with the new "action" style, which lead to others such as maverick police officer films, such as those defined by Bullitt in 1968.

Horror
Horror Films are unsettling films designed to frighten and panic, cause dread and alarm, and to invoke our hidden worst fears, often in a terrifying, shocking finale, while captivating and entertaining us at the same time in a emotionally stunning experience. Horror films effectively centre on the dark side of life, the forbidden, and strange and alarming events. They deal with our most primal nature and its fears: our nightmares, our vulnerability, our alienation, our dislikes, our terror of the unknown, our fear of death and dismemberment, or loss of identity. Subgenres of horror- Comedy horror, gothic horror, natural horror, science fiction horror.
Example of horror genre- Friday the thirteenth, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street
Origins of horror
Horror films go back as far as the onset of films themselves, over a 100 years ago. From our earliest days, we use our vivid imaginations to see ghosts in shadowy shapes, to be emotionally connected to the unknown and to fear things that are unlikely. One of the first origins of supernatural events appear in several of the silent short film created by the film pioneer Georges Méliès in the late 1890s; and since then has developed and evolved into the modern horror films.

Romance
Romance film can be defined as a genre wherein the plot revolves around the love between two main characters. This genre usually has a theme that explores an issue within love, including but not limited to: love at first sight, forbidden love, love triangles, and sacrificial love. The tone of Romance film can vary greatly. Whether the end is happy or tragic, Romance film aims to evoke strong emotions in the audience. Subgenres of romance- RomCom(Romance comedy), Romantic action, Romantic thriller.
Examples of Romance genre- Ghost, As good as it gets, Notting Hill
Origins of romance
Romantic movies have a long history which has started since 1890s. Even though silent films were majority in the earliest days, filmmakers described romance, desire and sex. Then romantic films described some painful love from 1920s to 1950s. After this period, a variety of unusual pairs appeared on the screen from 1960s to 1980s. Furthermore, unusual love has been often expressed in romantic films since 1990. There are several periods of romantic movies and each describes different types of love.

Melodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behaviour, or events which resemble them. It is usually includes music that is slow or emphasizes the more emotion provoking situations that the character experiences allowing the audience to feel empathy.
Examples of Melodrama- Far from Heaven, Rain Man, Sling Blade, Ryan's Daughter, Breaking the Waves and many more.
Origins of Melodrama
Beginning in the 18th century, melodrama was a technique of combining spoken narrative with short pieces of accompanying music. The first full melodrama was Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Pygmalion, the text that was written in 1762 but was first staged in Lyon in 1770. English melodrama was really evolved from the tradition of populist drama established during the Middle Ages by mystery and morality plays, under influences from Italian media as well as German drama of the post-Revolutionary period.
Why we chose melodrama
For our film opening we decided to choose the genre Melodrama, the reasons for this decision was that we liked the feelings that it portrays to the audience and our group thought that this genre made us feel more captured to the storyline and provoke us to watch more. We also thought this would be an easy genre to portray in the opening. By including slow music to show drama that will emphasise the sad emotions, maybe showing a character grieving so that the viewer feels empathy and drawn into the film making them want to watch more.
Film inspiration from a Melodrama
After researching into Melodrama's and looking at films under that genre, we came across the film 'The Flood: Who will save our children'. This film we particularly liked due to many reasons. The first was that the opening was very effective as it was typically joyful with happy families bidding goodbye to their siblings and children, which we thought was very good foreshadowing (I reviewed this opening in more detail under 'Film opening reviews'). Also that the film was based on a true event, this we thought was very effective as the audience will be able to imagine the grief of the families as they know it actually happened. Also the loss of a child is very sad as they are still young and innocent this will also be very effective for the audience. Losing a family member is very common and due to this the audience will be able to relate to this, meaning they will get more emotionally attached not just to the characters but also the storyline. Although these are all typical occurrences in Melodrama as they are emotion provoking and dramatic, but we hope to reflect this greatly in the film opening. This way we are sure to grab our audience's attention and they will definitely want to see how the event affects the rest of the film. We want to include possibly a death in the opening and maybe the accident is by a natural phenomenon or something that is a common death. We would also want the characters to be young as this also will play on the viewer's emotions as they are perceived as being more helpless and young.