Going into week 2 one of my goals was to research the possible genres I mentioned in my initial post for this project in week one. Those genres being: crime and horror. Now since I have already done a deep dive into the horror genre on this blog in the past (link here) I want to take a good look into the crime genre and its conventions to get a better understanding of it and hopefully to learn some things that can be used for my project. This will also help me and my group decide what genre we want to use after we understand it more.
What is Crime
To begin to understand the crime genre a basic understanding of what it is exactly is essential. The crime genre basically boils down to a quest to solve or commit a crime. The story will begin with a crime and the rest of the plot serves to solve the crime mystery.
Conventions of the Genre
1. The Inciting Crime - This event fuels the whole plot as it serves as a starting point for the story of the initial incident that will need to be resolved by the end. This part can include dead bodies, missing persons, or hostages to set up the crime as long as whatever the audience is shown will be what is being worked to solve throughout the plot. A key element in this is safety, more specifically the destruction of safety. This scene will work to make the audience feel like the narrative world is unsafe and also make them wonder how that sense of safety will return.
2. A Smart Protagonist and Antagonist - Both a smart protagonist and antagonist is necessary to make a crime story work. This is because part of the enjoyment audiences receive from these stories are the mental games both antagonist plays with the protagonist as he/she tries to solve the crime as well as the mental games the protagonist uses in order to get closer to solving the crime. A competent protagonist and antagonist makes the audience also feel like the crime is not an easy one to solve which adds to the dire nature of it.
3. The Clues Need to be Laid Out - A part of the engagement in these stories is aspect that the audience can follow along with the mystery. As the detective picks up clues the audience uses the clues to formulate their own solution to the crime. This keeps their interest throughout the film and leads to them enjoying it and staying invested with all of the twists throughout the process of solving the mystery.
4. Sense of Urgency - In these types of stories typically there will be a time limit to solving the crime due to some otherwards circumstance. This will sort of rush the investigation and make it seem like the detective needs to solve it quickly adding to the suspense as the investigation needs to be fast to meet the deadline while providing the correct results. This builds into the tension and roadblocks in the investigation really have an impact when a time limit is present.
Examples
Some notable examples of movies that exemplify the crime genre are:
Overall Thoughts
So from the research I have done on the crime genre I have learned a lot about it and its conventions. For a film opening a lot of the conventions will not be the most helpful but the convention of the inciting kill and the loss of safety will be something I will keep in mind and pitch to my groupmates to incorporate into our opening. I will also take a look at the film opening from these movies as a refresher on how they create mystery in something like this as well as horror movie openings. I will likely provide information of my finding and thoughts on my next blog. Until then stay tuned!
Sources used:
Crime genre conventions. Savannah Gilbo. (n.d.). Retrieved February 15, 2023, from https://www.savannahgilbo.com/blog/crime-conventions
Timgrahl. (2023, January 4). Crime genre: Justice and injustice stories of mystery and Intrigue. Story Grid. Retrieved February 15, 2023, from https://storygrid.com/crime-genre/
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