To what extent are your chosen texts typical of their genre? (30 marks)

For this question I have chose the movie Sin City as my text. I believe that this film's genre is a hybrid of Film Noir and Comic Book. Some conventions of these that are shown in this text are certain characters and high contrast colours. Common characters in these genres are damaged protagonists and main characters, femme fatales, villains, and thugs and henchmen. The high contrast colours are a big part of the visual effects due to the nature of them. The very dark blacks and very bright whites make a big impact on the film as a visual text. Another convention is the weather; it is nearly always raining or damp, and there is sometimes storms involving thunder and lightning. Fighting and blood is also common in these genres.

One scene that I know which contains all these conventions is set in a deserted farm. Marv (the damaged protagonist) comes to avenge his lover called Goldie (his femme fatale) by killing Kevin (the twisted villain). In this scene is heavy rain and when the camera points to the sky, you can see and hear the flashes and sounds of thunder and lightning.

To what extent are your chosen texts typical of their genre?

The film Fish Tank fits in to the genre of Social realism, and it is very typical of this genre. The films contains many 'kitchen sink' moments, where the scene is based in the house, more specifically the kitchen, and the characters usually are just talking there. The film characters are working class, and the genre usually portrays them as heros even though they are not of a high class in society, and do not get a lot of media coverage. The shooting of the film consists of a lot of handheld cameras, and the shots are sometimes very long, and sometimes the film feels like a documentary. The locations are usually real places, and because the characters are working class, these locations are deprived areas. The only sound heard is diegetic.

One scene which contains a lot of these elements is a scene where Mia is in the kitchen dancing and then Connor, her mums boyfriend walks in. They talk by the kitchen sink in the small kitchen in their flat for about 3 minutes, and it is filmed by a handheld camera. There is no editing, it is just one long scene. There is music on but it is diegetic, coming from the TV.