Understanding the difference between Genre and Technique and how to apply this thinking to the types of Visual Content you produce…

Genre - originally a French word meaning "kind", "sort" or "type"; has been used since the advent of cinema to refer to a class or type of film (i.e., westerns, sci-fi, etc.) that share common, predictable or distinctive artistic and thematic elements or iconography (e.g., bad guys in Westerns wear black hats), narrative content, plot, and subject matter, mood and milieu (or setting) or characters. 

Film makers, critics, students and avid film viewers the world over have for nearly a century now largely understood that genre is distinct and different from film technique (a recognisable group of conventions or devices used by filmmakers to add visual appeal, meaning, or depth to their work) that can be applied to any genre.

These techniques used by traditional film makers for enhancing the particular form of storytelling include things like: Animation, Steadicam, Masters, Tracking Shots, 3D, Greenscreen (or colour separation overlay as it was once affectionately known), Visual Effects etc…

In the world of Visual Content (and in particular Visual Content Marketing) people often confuse technique with genre and vice versa.

This is often furthered by the lack of education of the marketplace provided by most traditional production companies who are only interested in reacting to an opportunity rather than developing a genuine understanding of what a client wants and needs to achieve.

Clients will often say “I want an animation video” … Not “I want a change management video” or “I want a drone video” not “I want a property video that shows off my new site”.

Understandably for someone new to producing Visual Content these can be difficult waters to navigate particularly if you don’t understand the categorisations and lingo used to describe the different genres (and there are literally thousands) you have to choose from when making your Visual Content.

So… How do you make this easy?

Firstly, stop thinking about technique… Technique comes much later… Worry about technique with your Visual Content Agency or Production Partner once you have a brief in place and you know what you want to achieve… And always keep in the back of your mind that there is always the distinct possibility that the technique you are thinking of isn’t even right for the kind of Visual Content you want and need or the audience you are trying to reach…

Then start thinking about your objectives… What is it that you want to achieve with your visual content? For instance, “I want a video that educates my staff about a change to a process” or “I want a video that makes the features and benefits of my product relevant to my audience”.

Then start thinking about the tone you want to strike and put that into your objective for instance “I’m looking for an entertaining video that educates my staff about a change to a process by showing why the previous project didn’t work by exaggerating the problems through humour and then showing how we are solving the problems through a new process”…

From here working with your visual content partner (or your visual content team if you have one in house) you can start to derive the techniques that might be used to achieve this brief… And in the instance above it sounds like this could be achieved successfully through a form of animation (which as we've now established is a technique not a genre) often referred to as an explainer or explanimation.

As a client be you an agency, brand, business or organisation thinking about a new piece of visual content you should always try and think about the audience first and the objective you are trying to achieve in communicating to that audience… Once you’ve got that solved… The appropriate technique will come naturally to how you execute your content.

As always if this or any of my other articles was of interest to you and you’d like some advice or just to chat further… Send me a connection request or drop me a direct message.

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