What is the mystery genre?
It all revolves around something or someone (a Casual Agent) who will provide a solution to a question, a puzzle, or a crime.
Fun Fact: this make so much sense since the word mystery means something that is difficult or impossible to understand or explain.
Why does it appeal to me as an editor?
As an editor on this production team, this genre appeals to me because the essential elements used in it are particularly attractive, in my opinion. They are designed to create a connection with the audience, leading them to analyze things more deeply, blending suspense, intrigue, and the pursuit of the truth. The mindset and reality behind each visual, sound, transition, and color have a specific purpose, and a small change can create a different expectation and reality in each person's mind. So this genre can make my role have a more direct impact, since every transition, cut and edition can "control" not only the environment, and the story , but also even more the audience expectations and reality, since I may or may or may not give them the necessary clues to solve the mystery, and have an answer for what happen or why it happen.
Why would I choose to incorporate this genre into our production?
One essential aspect of this genre is that it's included from the very beginning; you don't have to wait long to find something that doesn't fit, or something that makes you think twice about its denotative meaning through its connotative meaning. Without giving too much away, it keeps you on the edge of your seat, creating even more confusion. Which will support the Semiotic theory-Barthes that says that we make sense of the world through a series of signs that hold meaning (everything has a meaning) but also we can start with a direct break to the Equilibrium theory-Todorov since we start in a state of disequilibrium where nothing make sense and our structuralism sense can be completely gone since nothing is what we think it is or may be it is. (Structuralism theory by Levi- Strauss).
It must be say, that generally this genre is used with a combination of others.
This genre will be a good fit for us, since our goal is to create an opening scene of a maximum of two minutes, I consider this a feasible and realistic idea plus it leaves a big space for the rest of the production team to add their own ideas, creating a perfectly a non-force hybrid genre movie, furthermore we can discuss what story-telling we would like, and since the mystery genre has a great variety of story-telling sequences we can do easily do it, since we can start with the mystery or the solution, or the casual agent, or just a place, a song; the options are broad.
Media production example:
Tell No One (2006) proves the concepts that I mentioned before, this movie is considered a complex-hybrid categorized as Crime, Drama, Mystery, Romance, and a psychological thriller. But again every other side-genre that is apply in this movie, all moves around and plays with the main mystery in this case of the disappearing wife of the pediatrician, and we know this because in the opening scene they stablish the mystery, and all the relationship and events afterwards, goes from that central point. And we as audience want to keep watching, because we want to know what happen, and even our senses start being in a debate did the Dr. was responsible for the death of his wife or not? and all of this just in the first 3:00 minutes of the film. In the trailer you can see how every moment of what happen builds the mystery and how the abrupt editions, like straight cuts or fade to blacks, and the music changes, or the sound changes form dialogue to non, everything set up the mood to build the mystery.
-I wasn't able to find the opening scene as a video, so I can't directly put it in here, however I include a picture of the website where you can see where it says Scene 1, and the movie genre, to corroborate the information. Furthermore, I include the trailer of the movie for you to have a more specific understanding of the mystery genre, as I did.
Takeaways and lesson: I learned that the mystery genre is broad, that the production team has the power to control its degree of generality or specificity, and that it we can control the story, the audience thoughts, and emotions in a particular way. And therefore, with a great power comes great responsibility since we must be aware of everything or we can easily loss the track of the story that we want to tell. Moreover, I found this genre to be a valid, creative, engaging, adaptable, and ideal option, and the best part it's appropriate for all types of audiences!
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