Blog Post #7- Genre of my Short Film and Analysis of Example

 Any film will have a genre that it will fall into which can help audiences classify what they can expect from the film. My short film can also be classified by a genre and after some brainstorming I came to the conclusion that my film's genre is a coming of age genre film.

My reasoning for classifying my film as a coming of age genre short film is due to the themes of maturation that will be expressed throughout the film. This maturation is shown by the main character being influenced to make bad decisions by his environment of friends but the individual learns throughout the film that these aren't people he should hang out with which leads him to surround himself with individuals who make better choices and serve as good influences on him. Another detail that has to do with the genre is the age of the characters within the film. Most of the characters within the film will have an age of 15-16 and this is important because the main character will think about how as he's getting older, his actions have more consequences and he needs to be more mature and start making better decisions to avoid his life in the future being ruined. 

To have an example of how coming of age genre short films are made, I watched a short film on YouTube with the title "Words That Don't Exist" and took notes on how the theme is developed for this short film.

Within this short film, the main character named Miles is turning 19 and he recently moved away from his home town. He then is shown reflecting on the past of the life he lived at his home town. Within the short film, the audience is then introduced to a new character known as "River" who was Miles's childhood friend from his home town. He then starts to reminisce on the past experiences he felt with her and thinks about how experiences have much more meaning when spent with someone who you care about. After this occurs, the audience then gets shown that River was actually dead and Miles was just hallucinating due to intoxication. These events develops the coming to age themes expressed in the film because it shows the audience that Miles was deeply affected by this loss which caused him to move away from his home town and try to find a purpose in life to overcome the loss of his childhood friend. His realization based on a reflection of past experiences also contributes to the overall theme because it shows that as he is now older, he thinks that being around people you care for is much more important than simply surrounding yourself with large amounts of people without deep connections of love and care for each other.