GENRE.

The genre of the film has to be clear in order for the audience to understand and enjoy the film to its full potential.

Genres tend to be formulaic-meaning they all stick to the same conventions.

This is due to the audience having specific expectations of the genre, and producers want to fulfill these so that the audience feel like they are satisfied with what they are watching.

Although the audience may know what will happen within a film, such as: in a chick-flick, they can predict that a relationship or love complication will occur, but they still want to find out HOW things happen and what the final outcome will be.

Each film is unique and different; however genre classifies and joins each of these films together. They key ingredients to setting up a films genre, is to take in to consideration what the typical traits, conventions and characteristics are of the genre you want to produce.

A quote from Steve Neal says: “Repetition but different” is the language of genre.

Here are examples of films in the chick flick genre: ‘Crazy stupid love’ and ‘Love actually’. As they are both chick flicks, the audience have certain expectations of these films, both of which will be similar to each other.

As the audience we expect these two films to include the theme of love. This is also displayed in both of the titles of the films as the word love has been used. We also expect a female protagonist and a possible love interest that features a lot too. However we expect a problem (agent of change) to occur which creates a ‘quest’ in order to resolve in equilibrium at the end when a possible relationship will feature.

We also expect music which mentions love, either slow paced at a romantic moment or fast paced during the ‘quest’ so that the correct mood is set.

Here is the plot of a chick-flick film: ‘Crazy Stupid Love’…the typical chick-flick traits are highlighted in pink.

Cal Weaver gets the surprise of his life when he learns that his wife Emily cheated on him with a coworker, David Lindhagen and wants a divorce. After moving into his own apartment, Cal begins talking loudly about his divorce, until he attracts the attention of a young man named Jacob Palmer- a womanizer who successfully beds women each night, although a young woman named Hannah recently rejected his advances. Taking pity on Cal, Jacob agrees to teach him how to pick up women. As they spend their evenings at the bar together, a friendship begins to blossom. Cal- a father of two, has transformed and is getting women quite easily, whereas Jacob now only has one girl on his mind…Hannah. After many attempts to win back Cal's wife, Emily realises that after all this weird behaviour from Cal was just an attempt to get her back. They get back together. Jacob reveals his love to Hannah and starts spending time with her, however a coincidence occurred as Hannah is Cal’s daughter. To much of Cal’s disgust of this womanizer-so called friend, is going out with his daughter. However, Emily and Cal have to allow their daughter to date Jacob as they realise that they are actually in love. Jacob had changed his ways. Two relationships were the outcome and they had become a family again.

Here is the plot for love actually… the typical chick-flick conventions are highlighted in pink:Set almost entirely in London, England during five frantic weeks

before Christmas follows a web-like pattern of inter-related, loosely related and unrelated stories of a dozen or more various individuals with their love lives, or lack of them. The central character is the new bachelor prime minister David who cannot express his growing feelings for his new personal assistant Natalie. The prime minister's older sister Karen slowly grows aware of her husband Harry's flirtation with an office worker named Mia. Karen's friend Daniel is a recently widowed writer whose 11-year-old son asks for love advice about a girl he has a crush on. Meanwhile, Jamie is another writer who leaves his girlfriend after catching her cheating on him and travels to France to write a novel where he pursues a possible romance with his non-English speaking Portuguese maid Aurelia. Also, Harry's American secretary Sarah questions a romance she pursues with the office hunk Karl, but her personal family problems get in the way. Other secondary characters involve a photographer who pursues his best friend's new wife Juliet; a pair of movie stand-ins, named John and Judy, who grow closer after their simulated love scenes; a libidinous chum who wants to travel to Wisconsin, USA to score with women; and a burned-out former rock star named Billy Mack who is the main connection between all stories involved.

As you can see, both of these films include similar traits that make them feature in the chick-click genre. Each film fulfilled some/most of our expectations such as: love interests, complicated situations and happy resolutions.

Films within a specific genre can be seen as formulaic and traditional, however each film and plot are unique, but abide by the conventional traits that the genre entails.

As you can see, this chick-flick film has used many typical conventions so they the audience are clear on the genre and their expectations are fulfilled.

As I am producing a chick-flick, my film will be influenced on these two examples, ensuring that I use generic traits such as the themes of love and unrequited love and ‘quests’ to get to desired outcomes.

The idea of having the key information on the credits and titles written in red will also influence my ideas as the colour red connotes with romance and my film is based predominantly on the idea of love. This would created a clear link between the title and the content of the film, just as these two examples do.