Genre in Short Film

What Is Genre? Genre, is simply the style of a work of art, it defines the characteristics in which you would expect to see within the piece. Examples of genre within film Include Romance, Horror, Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi and many more…Although genre is developed to gain an understanding of audience it is not Binary, many films fit into multiple genres, for example American Beauty which exemplifies genres such as Dark Comedy, Psychological Thrillers and Romance

Sub-GenreSub-Genre is the categories within genre they can be used to differentiate different styles within genre this can be seen predominantly in Horror and Thrillers.

Genre In Short Films Short films almost directly share their genres with the rest of film however some key aspects in relation to audience are conveyed. The audience of a short film is more likely to seek an overall message within a short film appose to just purely watching it for entertainment. This makes particular genres appear more often within short films Such as Comedy appose to genres such as Sci-Fi as these tend to deal with less gritty messages. This also may be the case because of budgeting however I believe both play a key role in the frequency of specific genres

Genre FluidityGenre within short film also often tends to be less obvious, this is partly due to the length of the film and the prioritisation of story but also due to the idea that a large majority of short films genres are based around key themes. For example the short film ‘Two Cars One Night’ the themes within this film are around the development of friendship, this is obvious throughout, however genre is less obvious, but on closer inspection it can be argued that the genre in which it fits into can be Comedy, Drama and even experimental. This shows the way in which Genre is used within Short Films is somewhat different to the rest of film.

Summary In summary, genre within short film shares the key categories and sub-categories with film on a whole but the way in which it explores and sets these are slightly different. For example categories such as Experimental being fore frontal in the genres within short film it shows the difference in the distribution of categorisation compared with other types of film. It can also be argued that short film is a way of exploring and re-defining genre as we know it.