1. Fall 2015 Session Three Assembly I: Movies Dr. Richard Nowell

2. 12:30 – 13:00 Exercise on Contestation and Flux (cont.) 13:00 – 13:30 Assessments, and talking (about) genre 13:30 – 13:40 Break 13:40 – 14:40 Assembly I: Movies 14:50 – 15:00 Break 15:00– 15:40 Exercise: The Producers Game in Action 15:40– 15:45 Q&A

3. www.complex.com/pop-culture/2014/10/best-slasher-movies-of-all-time/ How is Barone’s definition similar or different to Siskel & Ebert’s? How does his interpretation of these films compare to Siskel & Ebert’s? How does his evaluation of them compare to Siskel & Ebert’s? How does Barone use his discussion of these films to position himself?

4. Have you ever encountered a pure genre film; a film that is say just a Western – nothing more, nothing less? Have you ever experienced a fillm as a different genre than someone else did? Have you ever returned to a film some years later and seen it as a different genre than you recalled?

5. Films and Hybrid-potential Calculated Hybridity The Industrial Logics of Hybridity

7. Recognition of genres as mutable clusters of discourses led scholars to examine how stakeholders engaged therewith in reception documents This precipitated a shift away from principal texts like films, even though filmmakers engaged with the same discursive clusters as viewers What is more, we should not forget that without principal texts there would be no discursive clusters and thus no reception documents The re-centralization of principal texts in the study of genre need not mean a return to the essentialism of earlier genre scholarship however It might involve more pragmatic approaches to examining these artefacts from a combination of industrial, textual, and discursive perspectives

8. How does Altman suggest a film will invariably evoke multiple genres irrespective of its makers actions?

9. Altman offers a different way of seeing how film assembly leads to the patterns among films that are central to genres as discursive clusters In a general sense, he rejects the notion that a film can ever be pure, insomuch as its content is capable of invoking only one genre He suggests we might better approach films as complex matrices of content containing myriad little nodes each capable of evoking a genre After all, films do boast story points and plot points, spectacle, settings, characters, character actions, cognitive/emotional effects, themes etc… Each element can invoke multiple generic clusters, and each element can invoke several clusters simultaneously; hence films’ hybrid potential

10. In what sense does Altman suggest this latent potential is calculatedly realized by the actions of filmmakers?

11. Altman suggests why films of a genre evince both similarities to each other and a broad range of differences from each other On one hand, individual filmmakers are likely to draw material from the generic cluster in different ways than their peers might He also suggests textual patterns in American cinema derive from a hit based economy built on evocation and combination The Producers Game involves the makers of a new film evoking several recent commercially viable films by partially replicating their content These elements of content may be embedded into a framework provided by perceptions of the generic blueprint or comprise most a film’s content

12. Some scholars including Jancovich have argued that the concept of genre mixing or hybridity is conceptually problematic They are NOT suggesting that films are generically pure however, but expressing concerns about what terms like hybridity might imply To use these terms, it is suggested, is to give the eroneous impression that the genres in question previously appeared in pure forms in films This, they argue, begets the fallacy that hybridity is a new phenomenon born of a collapse in absolutes, when it is actually longstanding practice Yet, we might note genre mixing derives from filmmaker perceptions of earlier purity of genres, rather than any objective critical sense of purity

13. What does Altman suggest are the motives for deliberately assembling a film that evokes multiple genres?

14. The logics underpinning the Producers Game remind us that film genre is not a matter of making easy money from sure fire formulaic product In reality, producing relatively formulaic fare is a risky endeavour which must respond to perceived market realities and audience demands The Producers Game relates to minimizing risk and maximizing profit potential when years separate conceptualization from consumption On the one hand, it represents an attempt to emulate the content of films which have demonstrated high levels of commercial potential/viability It is also increases marketability by enabling multiple genres to appeal be pitched to various audience segments (demographics and psychographics)

16. Plot and Viewer Engagement Feature: withholds killer’s identity, works as whodunit Reason: An American Giallo is a moderate hit Spectacle and Engagement Feature: Replaces off-screen killings with setpieces Reason: Death spectacle surface in majot horror hits Tone/Characters Feature: Replaces girl-talk with male youth high-jinks Reason: Animal comedy generates two major hits Setting/Iconography Feature: Replaces small-town with a summer camp Reason: Films set at summer camps are hits

17. Plot and Viewer Engagement Feature: withholds killer’s identity, works as whodunit Reason: An American Giallo is a moderate hit Spectacle and Sound Feature: sequences of disco dancing/music Reason: Two disco films are major hits Characters and Iconography Feature: Magnifies female-centeredness Reason: Girl-centred film is a megahit Reference Point and Setting Feature: Replaces homes with high school dance Reason: One such horror fillm was major hit

18. How does Whalley suggest the Producers Game operated in an actual historical case?

19. Do you think Altman fails to address any other aspects of genre hybridity?

20. Altman helps explains much of how filmmakers draw from and contribute to generic clusters, but he does not fully explain all facets of hybridity Proximity The producers game tends evoke films from similar generic clusters or those which share targeted audiences – it is a bounded phenomenon Intuition Some hybridity is more about creativity than calculated profit-seeking Hierarchizing We can distinguish “structuring” and “localized” evocations in a film Speculation Blueprints sometimes represent attempts to serve untapped interest

22. Think of a recent Hollywood movie you know very well. Make a note of the genres it evokes. Use boxofficemojo to see if films evoking these genres fared well at the box-office in the years prior to the production of your movie.

23. The discursive turn in Anglophone Genre Studies resulted in principal media texts like films taking something of a backseat to reception texts Altman offers a more informed way of approaching how filmmakers engage with - and contribute to - generic clusters through their work Although he underplays it somewhat, filmmakers engage relatively subjectively with a cluster, giving rise to differences across similar films Filmmakers also bolster a film’s inherent hybrid-potential by playing the producers game; partially evoking recent commercially viable films These strategies are often used to spread risk, as well as to increase marketability and expand audience interest, as we will see next time …