Genre analysis is where you take different scenes from a film and analyse them separately using the seven key points of Genre Analysis; the three I believe to be important would be the characters present in the film, codes & conventions and the iconography. An example of genre analysis being the codes and conventions present in Action/Thriller films like James Bond; they always have guns, explosions, fast paced action sequences, Exotic Locations, beautiful women and men wearing sharp suits. Auteur theory is when a director takes a generic genre and twists it into something unique placing their fingerprint on that genre. There are also seven key sections to Auteur theory; but the three I believe to be the most important are whether the film is for artistic merit instead of commercial value, has an individual style & theme and the filmmaker solely creates meaning/ideological message. 
An example of Auteur theory being the Quentin Tarantino films such as Reservoir Dogs (1994) is a unique type of Heist film. Tarantino not only directed Reservoir Dogs but he also starred in and wrote the film, this is also a signature of an Auteur. Like all of Tarantino’s films Reservoir dogs breaks away from the conventions set by the genre, unlike other Heist films Reservoir dogs doesn’t show the actual heist just the aftermath and is only set in one location the warehouse, although it cuts to other locations the shots are usually very short only a few seconds or minutes long. Contrasting with other films Reservoir dogs is set in one location that isn’t very big as the audience only sees two of the rooms in the warehouse, the warehouse itself is dirty and urban while in other heist films like Oceans 11 (sequels) is set in exotic locations like the Caribbean.
There are seven key sections to look for in a film when you are using Genre analysis; whether the characters and location are what you would imagine from a film of that genre an example being a western, you would expect it to be set somewhere hot and sandy but not exotic, the most common locations for western movies are places in America like Texas or Mexico. When watching a western you would expect to finds cowboys, spurs and all, as they are the stereotypical character of the western genre. Westerns always have the same three characters a sheriff, reluctant hero and a bandit (bad guy); although a lot of directors have tried to mix things up by making the bad guy the sheriff or the bad guy actually being the good guy at the end there is always these three characters; whether they are separate people or one person that takes on two or all these characteristics. This is proven in films like The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (Dir. Sergio Leone, 1966) and True Grit (Dir. Henry Hathaway, 1969) both of which have become classic examples of the western genre. If you were watching an action film there would be three types of characters you would expect to find; a villain who is often a psychopath, a good guy 
and an innocent female victim. Conventions are what you would expect from this kind of film; guns, explosions, fast paced action sequences, men in sharp suits and beautiful women are some of the codes and conventions you would imagine to find in an Action Thriller. What is the narrative of the film and does it have an ideological message. Not all films have an ideological message but one example would be Apocalypse Now (Dir. Francis Ford Coppola, 1979) which has a very strong anti-war message, this is depicted in a well known scene that cross cuts between the US army soldiers preparing to attack to a small village populated by Vietnamese women and children. There is a large contrast between the shots which profoundly established the anti-war message in the film, the scene begins with US army soldiers in the helicopters preparing to attack it is a very masculine shot and with the diegetic music playing it also very loud & almost harsh in the way it builds up the suspension this shot then cross cuts to a small Vietnamese village full of women and children unlike the previous shot it is quiet & tranquil. Is there any iconography present, an example of iconography in a film being the cars used in the James Bond films where the Aston martins represent British power as they always come out on top in fast paced car action sequences. 
Having been a fan of Sci-fi since I was a kid I’ve learnt how to recognise the genre; which is easy when using Genre Analysis. When watching a science fiction film some of the codes and conventions you see are futuristic weapons and technology like the lightsabers in the Star Wars (Dir. George Lucas, 1979) Saga & spaceships, as well as Aliens whether they’re creatures from another planet or humans with special abilities like the character River Tam from the film Serenity (Dir. Joss Whedon, 2005). Science fiction films often follow the same narrative of there being some kind of alien invasion for example Skyline and Independence Day. The locations used in many science fiction films are usually urban cities/towns or a large expansive spaceship, the locations are contradictory because if the film is set on a spaceship it is usually empty with only a small number of characters aboard whilst the urban location is usually densely populated with multiple characters. After watching Cowboys and Aliens by Jon Favreau, a hybrid film that is both a Western and Sci-fi, I was asked whether I believed Jon Favreau to be an Auteur. In my opinion, after watching some of his other films as well as Cowboys and Aliens, I don’t think Jon Favreau is an Auteur. Although Favreau’s films always have high technical excellence and he takes on multiple roles, a well known aspect of an Auteur, in addition to directing; for instance he usually plays a small part in the films he directs, an example being the character ‘Happy Hogan’ he portrayed in both Iron Man (2008 and 2010) films. Favreau has never been the principal creator of a film he has directed, they are often adaptations of graphic novels/comics like Iron Man and Cowboys & Aliens or were written by somebody else (co-written by Favreau and other writers). None of Favreau’s films have a unique meaning or ideological message behind them and there is no specific individual style that can be seen throughout his films. They are what you would expect to find in multimillion dollar blockbusters; general drama, comedy (often adult humour) and a lot of the time fast paced action sequences some other examples of block buster movies with a similar style to John Favreau’s work being Thor (Dir. Kenneth Branagh, 2011) and The Change Up (Dir. David Dobkin, 2011). When it comes to John Favreau he chooses to create films for their commercial value instead of artistic merit, a big part of being an auteur is that the director makes for film for artistic merit instead of commercial value.
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