Lights, Camera, Genre???

Movies or feature films have been a part of our lives now more than 100 years now.  Although no one clearly knows the exact start of films, but I guess the 1895 public screening of short films by the Lumiere Brothers can rightfully be considered as the breakthrough in cinematography. 

Movies today have a come a long way from the initial films that were black and white, without any sound and under a minute long, but then that’s just technology. Though it is safe to say that the advancements in the filed of cinematography gave rise to a multitude of genres in the film industry. 

As humans we are suckers for stories and the more dramatic the better!. From action and adventure to comedy to romantic comedies, from animations to biopics, musical to mystery, from film noir to horror, there are more than 20 movie genres today.  Each of these genres is a distinct story telling styles and caters to a plethora of human emotions, psyches and conditioning. 

Documentary films, though have gained a huge popularity in the last decade or so, are the real deal. They are not about fictional stories cooked up by a writers mind to capture the imagination of the moviegoers. Documentaries are all about the facts and the truth, as it exists. They don’t judge, they don’t draw inferences they just present the truth as ugly or as beautiful as it may be. 

The other genres of filmmaking are the exact opposite, though Biopics are quite similar in nature to a documentary as they are based on true-life events and focus on the life of someone who is famous or infamous as the case might be. Biopics are not documentaries, the basic difference being that they are shot like any other films. 

Romantic Comedies or popularly referred to as RomComs is perhaps one of the most popular movie genre.  These movies are generally light hearted, feel good movies about …. Well… Love! These movies generally have a basic story line. Boy meets girl, they fall in love, general mayhem ensues in which our hero and heroine separate and in the end love conquers all and they live happily ever after.  Romantic comedies are often simple, uncomplicated, lighthearted movies specifically made to leave to viewer feel good about love. 

Movies like Star Wars and star Trek captured the imagination of not just an entire generation but generations to come.  Space and what’s out there has always held a fascination for the human race and movies like Star Wars have not catered to that’s imagination but created a genre unto themselves. And if we are talking about space and aliens how can sci-fi far behind! This genre usually centers around the concept of technological advancements that are as yet unavailable. The story lines for these movies are generally around a concept and a race against time. 

There are many times when you could even find two different genres coming together to create a concept and message. Most of the movies based on dystopian or utopian societies are a combination.    

Comedy films are another really popular genre… these are usually in the form of spoofs that take popular films and create a comic angle on it, and what’s more the public loves it! It absolutely tickles our funny bone! But of course spoofs are not the only comedy films out there. Animations are often and can be classified under the comedy genre as well. 

But whatever the genre it might be, a movies’ success or failure really depends on how well the story is written. Is it any wonder that 90% of the films these days are more often than not based of popular books. If a film story, whatever the genre, is true to it main concept and is able to hit the right cord it will always do well. The right story is the first step to getting any movie popular. If the story is badly written with weak characters or even a weak concept moviegoers will always reject it.