Researching Genres

I think it is important to research slightly into each genre, to see which one is the best choice and to decide which one I wish to categorise my own short film in. Deciding a genre can help me within my planning for the short film and get me a good area to start at so I think this post will be very helpful. I am going to evaluate each genre I have chosen that I am interested in and come to a conclusion of which genre I am going with.

Science fiction
Science fiction can lead to a very creative and unique film as the sky is the limit. It doesn't have to be real as it is made up to whatever you wish. However with science fiction films almost all of it visually is special effects of some sort. Such as Jurassic Park involving dinosaurs, Avatar's whole film is animation and Oblivion with space ships. This is too time consuming and realistically isn't possible because I am not capable in these fields to pull it off. 

Horror
Unlike most, I am not very fund of horror as I prefer to watch things with action or comedy. I feel like horror is quite repeated and dull. However it is becoming very popular as people enjoy to be frightened and see gore and other scary things. Making a short film with horror could be fun but making something unique with horror is quite hard as it is overused.


Romance
Romance is great as when watching it makes you feel happy as it shows passion and love within it. It is hard to demonstrate this in a short film that would mean something to the audience. However, it represents realism, so I wouldn't need anything majorly mis en scene wise and no special effects is essentially needed so it is a genre that is possible to achieve.

Comedy
Comedy is one of my favourite genres, some of my favourite films and television programmes are comedy. Comedy is very hard to actually be funny and humorous which I think will be a challenge to myself as I have never had any experience writing anything comedic. Furthermore, you with comedies you typically see a group such as Pineapple Express or The Worlds End, this will be very hard to get a large cast especially with a low budget.

Post-Apocalyptic 
Post-apocalyptic is an up and coming genre that is quite new to the film industry, it is extremely popular now with many films and television programmes. It is quite easy to pull a post-apocalyptic film off as you do not need a very high budget. You normally only need 1 or two actors and not a lot of mis en scene is needed which is extremely helpful. The only problem is you can not be very creative as post-apocalyptic films are quite repeated narratively.

Musical
Musical is a very popular genre and some of the most known films are within this genre like 'Grease' and 'The Wizard of Oz' so there is a large audience already there for this genre. However this genre is in fact mainly for females as it doesn't appeal to males that much so that reduces a large area of potential audience already. Musical would also be very hard to make as you would need to find many people to sing and sing well otherwise it would come across very bad which is hard to pull off. It is hard to make it be realistic and make it seem naturally which is incredibly hard to do. Filming a musical would be very hard to make successfully and I do not think I am capable enough to as I am not experienced with this genre.

War
War movies are great, they are action packed so it keeps the audience engaged. The props and editing are very professional and look really realistic. It is a popular genre. It is however very hard to pull off for a short film budget. It would be very hard to get a lot of actors to fur fill the war effect, get realistic guns and the correct mis en scene. It seems like a very expensive genre to pick.

Westerns
Western is many peoples favourite genre. You could very easily get western props at a local prop store as its very popular. It is quite a tense genre and it is very suspenseful with fights and face offs. However the negatives outweigh the positives. Firstly, western films typically follow the same story line and nothing is insanely unique about them. Moreover, there is no place near me with the right scenery for a western atmosphere (typically a desert). The closest I have to this is a white sandy beach but it would be too difficult to not show the sea and promenade.

Choosing a genre
My main genre would be apocalyptic fiction as this is the most accurate representation to my short film as I am thinking my plot should be relating to the time following a nuclear war event and his story afterwards so this is the best genre for my product. Post apocalyptic seems to be the most reasonable genre for the facilities I have and my budget so it is the most smart genre to choose in my opinion.
My sub-genres would firstly be science fiction as this fits with the synopsis well as my plot is a major social and environmental change. Moreover, action and thriller would also be my sub genres as there will be a lot of action and thriller. This will defiantly be shown throughout my product because I am going to make the short film very suspenseful; and an anticipation leading to the end which should make them feel at unease due to the suspense.
In conclusion the main genre will be post-apocalyptic fiction which will be my main focus and I will be doing research on. However my plot also falls in with other genres too, being science fiction and thriller, I will not focus on these two though.