Task 2.4 (Generic Conventions)

The four different genres I have chosen to investigate the generic conventions and iconography of are, Action, War, Comedy and Horror. Generic conventions are specific features of a film that allow the film to be put in a specific genre, it is also what people expect to happen in the film. Iconorgphy is the different things you expect to see in different genres for example props, mis-en-scene, costime or even plotline.

Generic conventions of an Action genre are that there is a car chase or chase with expensive vehicles by the protagonist and the antagonist and example of this would be a james bond film whereby almost every film this occurs. This usually results in one veichle being destroyed. Explosions are also common in action films and can be invloved with the car chase or other buildings Another generic convention is fight scenes which usually involve weapons or old fashioned "punch ups".



Iconography of an Action genre are guns, fast and expensive cars and attractive women. For example the film 'Italian Job (remake)' is of the action genre, there is a long car chase with three mini coopers and a helicopter also hand guns are involved and an attractive lady played by Charlize Theron.



Generic conventions of war films are usually based on true life events which may have been altered to make the film a little bit more pleasing to the audience. Usually in a war film there is a situation where a western power intervens to solve a problem. Whilst solving that problem there is usually another sub problem which occurs an example of this would be in the film ' Black Hawk Down' where the American task force is sent in to try and overthrow the Somalian war lord whilst in the process of doing this two helicopter get shot down causing another problem.

Iconography of the war genre is pretty straight forward, people expect there to be weapons and veichles from the time of which the conflict is taking place, e.g the M16 being used in 'We Were Soldiers' in Vietnam another example would be the Hummers used in 'Black Hawk Down' which were used in Somalia.



A comedy is generally a story that tells the audience about a series of funny or comical events, intended to make the audience laugh. Some comedys can also mock other films in the way they are made an example of this would be Johnny English which is mocking James Bond. In a comedy there is generally a well known charecter who is known for being funny and has appeared in comedys before.



Generic conventions of Horror are easily distingusiable, there is usually a supernatural or non-supernatural being that is trying to murder people and the victims usually get killed one at a time. A good example of this is the Saw films, in each film there is the protagonist who has captured a group of people and then he picks them of one by one.

Iconography of Horror is also very easy to distinguis because it is very different from the other genres, blood and guts is the most obvious one. Others include attractive females 'damsel in distress', dark and creepy locations and the killer may have some abnormal physical apperance or they are disturbed.