Metz believed that they are always certain strutures that go into the constitution and pleasure of the cinematic spectator.
He believed that genre developed in Four stages:
- Stage one: Experimentation - Early stages- setting up for future texts of genre. This is when the generic codes and convention are developed. E.G Frankinstien (1937)
- Stage Two: Classsic- Texts which become seen as iconic of the set codes and conventions E.G Saw (2004)
- Stage Three: Media texts mock codes and conventions of genre becoming farcial E.G Scary Movie (2006)
- Stage Four: Deconstruction- Texts which begin to unpick the will established codes and conventions to form hybirds and often 'unconventional' text forms the genre.