As audiences clearly have a shared understanding of the codes and conventions of genres, it is clear why promoters of films use genre as a way of communicating with potential audiences. Genre is used in film trailers and film posters as a form of shorthand. Trailers are encoded with recognisable genre features that are decoded by audiences. Analysing audio-visual texts provides more challenge in relation to genre and marketing as now pace, editing, music, the use of a voice-over, aspects of dialogue can also contribute to a sense of the film’s genre. They also now have to consider more specifically whether the film can be categorised as a sub-genre and/or as a hybrid of different genres.
Watch the trailers again. Can you identify the genre? Give reasons for your answer.
| Trailer | Genre | Iconography/audio/visual codes |
|---|---|---|
| Mission Impossible:Rogue Nation | ||
| Fantastic Four | ||
| Trainwreck | ||
| Pixels | ||
| The Gift |
What additional features are added by the trailers in terms of genre? e.g. music, editing, voice-over etc.