Genre Blog 
What is genre?- genre in a 'type' a type of film. Different genres (types) include horror, thrillers, comedy, romance, syc-fi, action; and many more. Music and film also are separated by genres so for music there would be genres such as hip-hop,rap,classical and r&b etc. Books would be split in to genres like non-fiction,biography,auto-biography,fantasy etc.
Name three different things that films within a particular genre might share in common?- In a particular genre they would obviously have to share somethings in common other wise they would not be grouped in to a 'type'. The things they would most likely share would be iconography; which is a symbolic representation relation to a certain meaning or subject a common convention of the genre. Another would be technical conventions which are the style of camera work and editing. The last one could be generic codes and convention which would be like say in a western the cowboy hats; sepia filters;saloons and guns. 
The Triller genre is different from most other genres because on the surface many of them look entirely different from each other.Identify a couple of thriller films that are very different from each other and point out some of the key differences between the two.-Thrillers are very different as a lot of them have sub-genres which is a hybrid between two genres like 'cowboys and aliens' which is a max between a western and a syi-fi. Two thrillers that our very different to each other are political/conspiracy thrillers and supernatural thrillers. These two on the surface look completely different from each other with different iconography and different mise en scenes; and mostly binary opposite narratives usually. 
What do these films have in common at a more basic level? in terms of characters, narrative structure?
Most obvios is that thrillers are there to thrill the audience; to leave them in suspense.The thing all thrillers really share is that there is there is always someone who opposes threat, some one who is under threat and someone who saves the day. The archetypes/characters in thrillers can be completely different but they can still have the same effect, like jaws and the psychotic serial killer in se7en they are extremely diffrent characters but still hold the same effect over the audience and create the same threat to the film; they have the same outcome of reaction.

All though the thriller genre as a whole is extremely varied, within the gente there are several sub-genres; within which there will be a high level of similarity- like in the three films 'Olypus has fallen' 'white house down' and 'independence day' are all films in the same sub-genre of political/ conspiracy thrillers. These films have alot in common as something is under treat and in the case of political and conspricy it is usually a high status landmark or the heirarchy in countries. They have the same sort of hero characters and usually the same steriotypical villians. The narrative mostly follows the same sturcture in this sub genre and they are very similar. 

list some sub-genres?- crime thriller, horror thriller, psychological thriller, super natural thriller. I favor in psychological thrillers as i like films to give me a new outlook on world for just a second and mess up your mind for an hour or two, and great suspensefull and thrilling sub genre and i will definatly look into using it for my thriller i will make.