Hybrid Genres

What is a Hybrid Genre?

A hybrid genre refers to when two or more categories have been combined within either a film, a book or other forms of creative arts. Hybrid genres can be used to attract a wider target audience, which can help a film gain popularity and even income in the end. The hybrid genres started as a form of boredom within the audience as they were tired of seeing films of the same genre, so the film industry decided to combine a number of genres to gain interest. This is because hybrid genres tend to explore new films and topics within the film. Hybrids within genres have developed hugely over time as directors have had to think of new ways of producing different movies or telling similar stories in various ways. They have achieved this is by including a genre hybrid throughout the film, which can catch the audience's attention. An example of a hybrid genre could be the film 'Shaun of the Dead', which includes the genres comedy, romantic and zombie all in one film.

Advantages of Hybrid Genres:

• It could help film institutions attract a broader audience.
• There are less restrictions of codes and conventions within a hybrid genre film.
• It may be hard to find the right actors for the film as it involves different genres.

Disadvantages of Hybrid Genres:

• Not all genres within one film could appeal towards the audience.
• The budget of a film could be much larger than one with only one genre within it.
• The plot could become much more complex throughout, resulting in the audience getting confused as they try to follow the plot.
• Script writing could be much harder due to the range of situations in the film.

My Short Film

We decided that we aren't going to incorporate more than two genres in our short film as there are quite a lot of disadvantages to the hybrid genre style film. We do not want our becoming confused whilst watching our film as our storyline is already quite complicated throughout. This could also cause problems with the mise-en-scene, sounds, editing and camerawork within the film as it has such a short length to fit more than two genres into it.