Apply the concept of genre to one of your coursework productions.

According to Daniel Chandler, 'genre is a type' of film and is a way to categorise them. This categorisation gives audiences a chance to make assumptions about what a film would be like before they watch it. For our film opening, we chose the genre 'historical drama'. Our historical drama film opening was called 'Because of Them' and involved showing the parallels a modern-day woman's life with that of a suffragette.

To begin with, we chose the themes for our film and we decided to choose themes that involve attitudes that have changed over time so that we could show a distinct contrast when we change between present and past. We chose the themes of feminism, family values and women's rights. These are all things associated with women's suffrage and so linked perfectly with our genre. We used certain icons throughout the opening to portray our genre. For example, the 'Votes for Women' sash that the suffragette wears. This is a very iconic item of clothing associated with women of that time and so, when the audience sees this, they can quickly make many assumptions about the character, narrative and, most importantly, genre. We also used icons to make links to the themes of our film. The baby in the suffragette's arms and the work phone in the modern woman's hand shows the difference in women's family values and roles in society in these different times.

A genre such as 'historical drama' requires a great amount of attention to be paid to the mise en scene. We, therefore, had to ensure that we chose an appropriate setting for the basis of our mise en scene. We decided to an old house to shoot in that looked like a house from the 19th and 20th century. This meant that the audience could quickly tell that what they were watching was set in the past. When we switched to modern day, we tried to have settings that were more modern looking. This was difficult since the modern day woman lived in the same house. This is where other aspects of mise en scene became important. We needed to now play closer attention to props and costume to show the difference in the time periods. We dressed the suffragette in a long skirt and a bulky, long, fabric coat, accented with a 'Votes for Women' sash. In contrast, the woman from the present was wearing heels, skinny jeans, a blouse and jacket. This immediately shows that these women would be from different times. We then used props, also. The woman from the past held a cloth and was dusting the house and the modern woman held a mobile phone as she calls her employees. This also shows a difference in time as well as a difference in women's roles, linking to the themes of our film.

We used editing techniques to further represent our genre. We did this by highlighting the differences between the past and present. We did this by having the scenes that are in the past in black and white and the modern day scenes in colour. We decided to do this because it is very commonly known that old films and photographs are in black and white and so, now, people commonly make associations between 'old' or the 'past' and black and white footage. Therefore, this was a very easy method of showing a time difference between our shots and demonstrating the historical genre of our film. We also used straight cuts in our film as these are most commonly used in our genre since films that are historical dramas usually carry a serious vibe.