Producers use genre to cater to and meet the demands of pre-existing audiences. Christine Gledhill said that 'differences between genres meant different audiences could be identified and catered to...' meaning that there are audiences for each genre, and the conventions of the genres are used to cater to or meet the demands of the audiences in products. Following on from that, she says '... This made it easier to standardise and stabilise production' which means that producers can use genre to make products consistent and similar, using formulas within genres to meet the demands and expectations of the audiences. This leads audiences to want the same formulas, which could mean that creativity in production is suppressed or stifled as conventions are not developed or challenged by sticking to formulas, which doesn't allow for much creative freedom in products.
Another way producers use genres and genre conventions to merge and create hybrid genres, as said by Nicholas Abercrombie, who stated that 'the boundaries between genres are shifting and becoming more permeable' which I saying that there are less pure genres, as they are being merged and combined. Which is used to widen audiences as they can target pre-existing audiences of the genres being combined which is achieved by products using conventions or features of other genres. In addition, another reason for this increasing shift and permeability of genre into hybrid genres offer more variety by mixing conventions. For example, many films use conventions of many different genres, which as well as creating hybrid genres, may develop genres as well, possibly allowing for more variety and creative freedom within genres.
In addition, audiences use genre as a way of defining their identity. Christine Gledhill also says that 'genres permit the creation and maintenance of a loyal audience", which could imply that audiences use genre to form community, and from that, identity. As genres form loyal audiences and community, they also create communities against specific genres, as with people who define themselves to a genre, there are people who choose to define themselves against a genre. But either way they form their identity because of the genre, or possibly because of the audience associated with the genre, which may help continue to create and maintain an audience for the genre, of those who are interested in the genre.
In relation to our production, the song we have chosen to produce a music video for is a mix of genres, as it borrows elements from genres such as rock, pop and indie and merges them together to form a hybrid genre. The song mostly includes elements of rock than any of the other genres, with the typical rock instruments such as electric guitars, drums, and a bass guitar. As the song is a hybrid genre helps with marketing, as ways of appealing to audiences associated with rock, pop and indie can be reached with music video conventions and marketing conventions.
Sounds similar to the song we have chosen include artists such as Mitski and Cherry Glazerr. Mitski's 'Your Best American Girl' is a mix between rock and indie, with the acoustic elements mixed with rock instruments, as well as performance in the music video, which is an important convention of the rock genre. Cherry Glazerr mostly uses rock elements in their songs with the typical rock instruments, and in their video of the song 'Told You I'd be With The Guys' they use the common feature of rock music videos of band performance, which is used to promote the band's concerts and live performances. That is a feature we will use for our music video as the song takes a lot of elements from rock and indie, which conventionally use performance in music videos, and lip-sync for pop, with close ups of the singer. This will allow us to cater to pre-existing audiences by following the conventions of the genres.
