All films are classified into as many as 26 different types or genres. I’d like to tell you about the most basic 10 types of films.
These types are action, comedy, drama, romantic comedy, horror, science fiction, suspense (thriller), western, documentary (non-fiction). All these types can cross and create a movie that is more than one genre. For example, a movie could be a romance and a horror movie at the same time. The type assigned to a movie is based on the content within the film. For example, Titanic is an epic romantic disaster film, whilst Pacific Rim is an action, adventure and Sci-Fi film.
There are several key factors that define a successful film. One of the main components has always been the directing. A director is the person who shapes the film, who turns the script into the on-screen events, action, that makes people laugh, scream, feel compassion or - if the director is inexperienced - yawn during the film.
Unfortunately, we cannot forget about the money. Most mass-culture films are made to bring more money to the distribution company. A high-budget film would have a famous director, several star actors, first-class crew, and best prop and special effects. To get all this a producer must believe into the script. This brings us to the script, to the story that sets a start for any good film. If an author manages to catch the wave, and come up with a fresh new idea, it can lead to a very successful film. An example of such ideas would be the Terminator film (1984) or The Matrix (1999). However, for more than a century of film-making script-writers ran out of ideas. Most of valuable ideas from books had been brought to the screen. Lately we can see a lot of films based on not-so-well-known books (Where the wild things are, The chronicle of Narnia); remakes (Total Recall, Robocop), crossovers (Freddy versus Jason) or comic books (Spider man, Super man, Batman etc, etc). The latter becomes popular not only due to lack of ideas, but also thanks to the rapid development of special effects (SFX), in particular, CGI, which stands for “computer-generated image”. When 3D technology became widely available in the late 2000s, this led to the production of films which main feature was special effects (Tron: Legacy, 2010).
As it was mentioned earlier, film directors are the key people that can enhance a mediocre script or bring a great story down. The director's vision shapes the look and the feel of a film. They have almost the ultimate power during production of a film. But with great power comes great responsibility. Director plays an active part in adapting the script fir the screen. Director usually hires the cast (the crew is normally hired by a producer). Director is aware if the budget for the film and he is supposed to stay within the budget limits. He also tried to stay within time limits imposed by the studio for the shooting. After the principal filming is done, the editor and the director create a "director's cut" of the film. However, a director should be prepared that the studio or producers would want to make changes to this cut, making it longer or shorter, or alter some scenes. Nowadays the trend is to extend feature films to 2,5-3 hours, make them dragging (good example is the recent film The Hobbit, which turned from a 200-page book into a 9-hour film), whilst 30-40 years ago a standard feature film would last only 90 minutes.
I am a movie-goer; I enjoy films a lot, and dedicate a significant time to them. I must admit that I read less than I used to, mostly because it is easier and faster to watch a movie rather than read a book. However, I often feel deep dissatisfaction when I watch a film based on a book that I had read due to the high number of discrepancies I find. Film makers often change films based on their vision, available budget or simply because of the imposed length of a movie. This causes significant changes. After several cases I decided for myself that I'd rather pass on watching a film if I read the book, and vice versa. I like reading, but watching a film is more fun and less efforts.
My favourite film is Titanic, an epic romantic disaster film directed by James Cameron and released in 1997. I consider it one of the greatest films of recent decades, not only thanks to great directing, awesome special effects, impressive acting and famous music theme, but also because of great love story depicted in the film. It won eleven academic awards, including "best film" and "best director".
It stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as members of different social classes, who fall in love aboard the ship. The film's runtime is close to four hours, and in cinematography one page of script usually constitutes one minute if screen time, so 240 minutes of the film brings us to a 240-page plot! I don't think that I am going to retell the full story, however, I'll just touch the main aspects of it.