Genre essay - improved

The concept of genre can be defined as the type or style that helps to target an audience. Knight said 'Genre may offer various emotional pleasures such as empathy and escapism', meaning we enjoy imagining ourselves living the characters lives.
My production group created a film opening called 'Impact' of the genre; teen drama. My film opening is centred around a teenage girl called Sophia with depression and how she deals with the struggles she faces in her life. We were inspired by the film Girl,Interrupted directed by James Mangold and Johnathan Kahn as this film begins with a sad beginning, as the main characters are expressing how bad their lives are just like Sophia is.

For our film opening to be classified in the teen drama genre we had to abide by the codes and conventions that a teenage drama films have. It is typical for a teen drama film to be set in a school environment due to the age of the audience being the same. Evidence of this comes from the real life media text 'It's kind of a funny story' which is located at a school. For example, the majority of our film was set at Sophia's school so we could see her relationships with other students and how school life was for her. This element of the film opening hints that it is of the teenage drama genre.
Another example would be the iconography of the text messages coming up on Sophia's phone saying 'Everyone hates you', 'Nobody cares about you' etc. As this is also typical of teenagers to be using their phones as a form of bullying to bring others down which could be one of the issues affecting Sophia or the cause of how she feels. There has to be some kind of problem withing a drama film and this highlights an issue. - Don't know how to develop this?
 Also, the camera work in my film opening 'Impact' consists of about five different long lengthened in time shots, this is also a common feature of a teen drama film due to the simplicity of the editing required. Therefore, my production group conformed to the codes and conventions i.e. the genre of a drama film by using basic editing and a small about of shots. For example, this is evident in  'The Notebook' which has a relatively small number of shots, and slow pace editing. In comparison an action film would have more shots - this is a code of that type of genre film. - Unsure as to what media terminology i should use??

''Genres are instances of repetition and difference'' is a quote by Steve Neale who argues that a film has to have repetition of codes so it meets the genre, as well as differences that make it unique. In relation to my film opening 'Impact' a typical setting as well as a high school is a house/bedroom this setting is repeated throughout the opening as a code of a teen drama film. I also subvert Neale's theory as the main focus of  'Impact' is on the main character suffering from the mental health condition depression. If the film was to continue it would look at this in great depth just like it begins to do. Whereas in other dramas like 'Melancholia' depression is approached in a different way.
      
Another theorist my production group considered when creating our film opening was Rick Altman. He argued three approaches to genre, one being semantic - this is what we expect to see in a film of a certain genre. Another approach is called syntactic this takes the codes of a drama film for example and develops meaning through these. In relation to my film opening, it could be argued that my production conforms to the views held by Altman. As Sophia goes through crisis then develops better mental strength at the end of the film ; this is what we would expect to happen in a teen drama about depression.  Rick Altman later proposed the pragmatic aspect of a film, this is that it must include aspects that determine which genre it is so the audience can identify with this. However, we did not abide by this element of Altman's theory as we couldn't. For example, in 'Impact' we couldn't show scenes of Sophia self harming herself or attempting to commit suicide due to our target audience who may be viewer the film opening. It would be unacceptable to put young teenagers in the position to witness such trauma. This is why there are age ratings on films because they are not suitable for some ages. For example the film Saw would not be appropriate for a 8 year old to watch so it is not rated as PG instead an 18.

The genre of teen drama restricted my production group as having a young target audience means we cannot show certain things that would appear traumatic for the viewers as it wouldn't be suitable eg Sophia dying from suicide. Or scenes of a possible death of her parents, or any form of harm.
We made the teen drama our own by creating new characters and a new story line. Although the setting was the same as many other teen drama films and the ending of most films of this genre are the same. We subverted stereotypes by having a female voice playing the 'hero' role to try and help Sophia, when previously it is common for a male to play this role in helping a girl. - Struggle to know what to say