8. What is genre and what is a teen drama film?

The term genre means 'category' or 'type' and is useful when discussing film because it helps to group or organise different films according to what they are about and what they look like. This helps producers make and market their film to audiences

A theorist Altman says we can talk about film genre in 2 ways:

1. Semantic-the way the film looks (micro)
2. Syntactic- the stories the films tell (macro) 

The use of similar features in the films of the same genres are called codes and conventions. This helps us quickly recognise the type of film we are watching, to have some expectations about what we should see and what might happen

The main codes and conventions of Teen movies is seen to follow the concept of coming of age. It usually includes:

• adolescent central characters 
• conflict with an older generation 
• management of adolescence by families, schools, law
• peer group and friends 
• Romance 
• Sexually active characters

Teen drama title sequence institution research:

In general, mainstream teen movies with a big budget tend to have lots of credits as they were able to hire many people as part of the production. And independent movies have less credits as they have a lower budget. However this also means that they have a lot more producers as they need the financial support from them.