Friday, 3 May 2013
Friday, 12 April 2013
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Conventional teaser trailers normally last between 30 and 60 seconds, and they give small snippets of information about the film which is going to be released. They are designed to persuade and draw the audience into watching the film. I have scrutinized my trailer to come up with a detailed summary of the ways in which it uses, develops or challenges forms and conventions of real life media products.
1) Green band rating card - with regards to horror trailers, it is highly conventional for them to commence with this card at the start to present to the audience the suitability of the film for different audiences. We decided to use this rating card at the start of our trailer to emphasize that it is advertising something rather explicit with regards to extreme violence.
2) Fade out/ black screen - Conventional horror trailers normally fade out into a black screen for 2-3 seconds after the opening rating card. This is normally done with transitional order or an immediate cut into a scene afterwards. We decided to use this particular convention at the start of our horror trailer. Following the rating card clip, we used a fade out to a blackout before our first real shot on the trailer. This was a good way of separating the rating card from the main part of the trailer itself and it also made our establishing shot of the young child on the swing in the park more highlighted. We have presented a recurring trend of black screens throughout the course of the trailer as we found that this is done in practically all horror trailers which we researched during the pre-production and planning stages.
3) Establishing shots - When looking at a series of horror trailers during the pre-production and planning stage, our group realized that a series of establishing shots had been used to make the audience become aware of where the horror is actually taking place. For certain parts of our trailer, we decided to challenge this convention and leave out the feature of an establishing shot as we thought the whole fear of the unknown would make it appear more creepy and it would create an enigma. We did this for the clips of the anonymous person reading the scroll to create a mystery location so that the audience would wonder if anything unexpected and jumpy is going to take place. For the woods setting however we used an establishing shot to show that the teenagers were entering into it. We did this because our horror trailer was based solely on the woods with a 'teddy bears picnic' theme; therefore it was one of the main parts of the narrative.
4) Woods location - Both our horror trailer the Cabin In The Woods trailer and House of Wax are set in a forest. We decided to use this particular setting as it is a convention of horror films for forests are generally viewed as places to get lost due to the lack in urban landmarks. The fact that the woods is such an isolated place, causes a feeling of solitariness; therefore one is more defenceless against any form of evil or threat. Although the vast majority of horror movies have the location of a woods at night-time to make the fear of the unknown more evident, we had ours in more of a sunset time setting which challenges the conventional horror movies. We wanted to do this so that it would emphasize a contrast from the fast shots of the person reading the scroll of paper as these shots were also very dark.
5) Close up shots - close up shots of character faces or certain objects are known to be one of the key concepts of horror trailers as they show to the audience the fear generated in character's faces as a cause of the killer. When only part of something is presented, it makes the audience want to see the full picture. It is a good way of keeping them interested to see what is going to be revealed. Within our horror trailer we have tried to follow this convention as much as possible with the use of close ups. We used some close ups of the final girl to present to the audience the fear on her face when obviously coming across the killer. We also used an extreme close up of the killer walking towards the camera which we did to make the audience feel intimidated and uneasy; the fact that he is staring directly into the lens reaches the audience at more of a personal level as it makes it appear as though he is communicating with them through sincere eye contact.
6) Introduction of protagonist character - We introduce the main protagonist character with a series of random shots, particularly close ups and one POV shot which is supposed to be from the killers perspective, of her looking extremely vulnerable and fearful. Our protagonist character is the 'final girl', and our portrayal of her in the horror trailer clearly follows conventional horror trailers as she is shown to be dressed quite masculine compared to the other characters in the trailer.
7) Introduction of the villain - the shot of Jake (killer) coming out from the bushes as though he had been following and watching the other characters portrays him as the villain. This is the first proper shot of the killer in the trailer. Although we aren't entirely sure that he is the killer at this stage, we are given quite a good clue, as his whole appearance due to his attire and the objects in his hands makes him seem quite deluded.
8) teenage characters- Generally, within the horror genre, teenage characters are portrayed to the audience as very disrespectful and reckless. They are also shown to drink a lot and be sex driven. These portrayed flaws of theirs gives them cause to be punished within the horror genre, and it is why these types of characters never make it out alive. Within our horror trailer, we have followed this convention of portraying the teenage characters as bad people, drinking in the woods.
9) music and sound effects- Music is one of the key elements within a horror trailer. It has the power to manipulate the audiences emotions and create an atmosphere. Within our trailer, we have used music and sound which creates quite an eerie effect for the viewers. We haven't however been very good with changing the tempo and dynamics of the music and sound like most horror trailers do when it reaches the climax.
10) Binary Opposition - Another convention of the horror genre which I developed was the use of binary oppositions. We have portrayed the use of good vs. evil, quite clearly in the long shot where the killer walks up behind the teenage boy as he is sitting innocently playing on his mobile phone. We have portrayed the contrast in characters here through the height difference. As the innocent boy is sitting down and the killer is standing up, it makes the boy appear to the audience as the more vulnerable one out of the two. Also, the fact that this killer is walking up behind him, ready to hit him over the head with a bottle further emphasizes his power over the boy. The killer is shown as the evil, yet superior force. The boy's body language presents to the audience a sense of vulnerability and insecurity on his character.
11) Final Girl - The 'final girl' theory, thought up by Carol Clover, appears to be one of the most conventional theories that is used within a horror movie in this day and age. We decided to include a final girl in our horror trailer who stereotypically becomes the last survivor. We thought this would be a perfect for our horror trailer seeing as we were basing it on a group of teenagers drinking and having sex. We could therefore show a clear comparison between these misbehaving teenagers and the sensible girl who doesn't get involved in what her friends get up to.
12) Fast Editing- Another convention is a fast editing pace which creates suspense for the audience. These fast editing clips normally show a trend in most horror trailers about three quarters of the way through for the climax and then it suddenly ends following this climax. We also used this in our trailer nearing the end as the audience wouldn't be able to stop on any one image, therefore the speed would get their heart racing. It is a good way of building up tension. Within our fast editing clips, we used a series of random shots which don't follow our story in the narrative order. This is a very recognizable convention within trailers and especially teaser trailers as they don't always show to the audience footage that will be appearing in the film.
13) Gore and Blood - The vast majority of horror trailers that we viewed in the planning stages included an element of gore and blood, due to the obvious associations of pain and fear. Our group decided to challenge this convention by including no gore elements within our horror trailer. We came to an agreement of making our trailer into a psychological horror trailer as, in our audience questionnaire, the vast majority of people admitted their biggest fear being the 'unknown'.
14) Lighting - We didn't really aim to follow any conventions of real life horror trailers to assist us with the different lighting in our own. For the first location of the child on the swing, we played with the black and white filters to make the clips appear more old to the audience so they would know it was set back in time. We also toned are images down so they were a lot darker which does in fact follow conventional horror pieces however we didn't take this idea from any particular horror trailer. It is normal for any horror trailer to include darkness as we immediately associate it with fear- the inability to see is cause for the victim to feel defenceless.
15) Production Company- In 99% of any type of film trailer, the production company will be mentioned at the start. One of the most famous production companies within the horror genre is 'Hammer Films' who were the most successful horror production company during the 'golden age' of horror'. After the downturn in horror film popularity they folded as a company but are now coming back with 'Let me In' being a successful new film by them. I believe the success of that film was due to the production company being popular, which demonstrates the impact that they have on a horror film. We have issued the name of a production company at the start of our trailer, just after the shots of the child on the swing.
16) Inter-titles - While researching a series of horror trailers, we found that the vast majority had the characters dialogue telling the story of the film to the audience. We decided to challenge this convention by using inter-titles throughout to tell the audience the narrative. We thought this visual aid would help to draw their attention in more and it also makes the genre of our film easy to distinguish from the start as these inter-titles describe the killer and his background. We also thought it would make it easier for the audience to understand and take notice of the narrative if it was in written text on the screen.
17) Title of film - Every trailer we looked at in the planning stages showed a trend of presenting the name of the film towards the end of the trailer as it is more likely that they will remember it and will therefore higher there changes of going to see it in the cinema. We therefore followed this convention as we wanted as many audience members to remember the name of the film. We put a clip of the film's name on its own so that it stood out and there would be nothing to distract from it.
18) Length of trailer - our trailer overall is about one minute in length. We wanted to keep it as close to a minute as possible as we read in the pre-production and planning stages that conventional teaser trailers generally last between 30 and 90 seconds. As they are typically designed to 'tease' the audience but not tell; we thought that making it as short as possible while still giving sufficient clips and information to raise their awareness, would make it effectively 'tease' them.
19) Coming Soon - Most ordinary trailers include the exact release date of the film; however teaser trailers don't yet give the date away as they are generally released before the release date is defined so that they can give a small taste of the film to the audience. They therefore use the text 'coming soon' which is what we have decided to follow to emphasize the fact that our trailer is a teaser.
20) Name of director - Director's names are normally used in the conventional horror trailer is they are well known and respected for previous works they have done. Within our trailer, we have challenged this as we haven't included the director's name; however this is still done in real life horror trailers if the director isn't known as he/she is normally used as an advertising technique.
1) Green band rating card - with regards to horror trailers, it is highly conventional for them to commence with this card at the start to present to the audience the suitability of the film for different audiences. We decided to use this rating card at the start of our trailer to emphasize that it is advertising something rather explicit with regards to extreme violence.
2) Fade out/ black screen - Conventional horror trailers normally fade out into a black screen for 2-3 seconds after the opening rating card. This is normally done with transitional order or an immediate cut into a scene afterwards. We decided to use this particular convention at the start of our horror trailer. Following the rating card clip, we used a fade out to a blackout before our first real shot on the trailer. This was a good way of separating the rating card from the main part of the trailer itself and it also made our establishing shot of the young child on the swing in the park more highlighted. We have presented a recurring trend of black screens throughout the course of the trailer as we found that this is done in practically all horror trailers which we researched during the pre-production and planning stages.
3) Establishing shots - When looking at a series of horror trailers during the pre-production and planning stage, our group realized that a series of establishing shots had been used to make the audience become aware of where the horror is actually taking place. For certain parts of our trailer, we decided to challenge this convention and leave out the feature of an establishing shot as we thought the whole fear of the unknown would make it appear more creepy and it would create an enigma. We did this for the clips of the anonymous person reading the scroll to create a mystery location so that the audience would wonder if anything unexpected and jumpy is going to take place. For the woods setting however we used an establishing shot to show that the teenagers were entering into it. We did this because our horror trailer was based solely on the woods with a 'teddy bears picnic' theme; therefore it was one of the main parts of the narrative.
4) Woods location - Both our horror trailer the Cabin In The Woods trailer and House of Wax are set in a forest. We decided to use this particular setting as it is a convention of horror films for forests are generally viewed as places to get lost due to the lack in urban landmarks. The fact that the woods is such an isolated place, causes a feeling of solitariness; therefore one is more defenceless against any form of evil or threat. Although the vast majority of horror movies have the location of a woods at night-time to make the fear of the unknown more evident, we had ours in more of a sunset time setting which challenges the conventional horror movies. We wanted to do this so that it would emphasize a contrast from the fast shots of the person reading the scroll of paper as these shots were also very dark.
5) Close up shots - close up shots of character faces or certain objects are known to be one of the key concepts of horror trailers as they show to the audience the fear generated in character's faces as a cause of the killer. When only part of something is presented, it makes the audience want to see the full picture. It is a good way of keeping them interested to see what is going to be revealed. Within our horror trailer we have tried to follow this convention as much as possible with the use of close ups. We used some close ups of the final girl to present to the audience the fear on her face when obviously coming across the killer. We also used an extreme close up of the killer walking towards the camera which we did to make the audience feel intimidated and uneasy; the fact that he is staring directly into the lens reaches the audience at more of a personal level as it makes it appear as though he is communicating with them through sincere eye contact.
6) Introduction of protagonist character - We introduce the main protagonist character with a series of random shots, particularly close ups and one POV shot which is supposed to be from the killers perspective, of her looking extremely vulnerable and fearful. Our protagonist character is the 'final girl', and our portrayal of her in the horror trailer clearly follows conventional horror trailers as she is shown to be dressed quite masculine compared to the other characters in the trailer.
7) Introduction of the villain - the shot of Jake (killer) coming out from the bushes as though he had been following and watching the other characters portrays him as the villain. This is the first proper shot of the killer in the trailer. Although we aren't entirely sure that he is the killer at this stage, we are given quite a good clue, as his whole appearance due to his attire and the objects in his hands makes him seem quite deluded.
8) teenage characters- Generally, within the horror genre, teenage characters are portrayed to the audience as very disrespectful and reckless. They are also shown to drink a lot and be sex driven. These portrayed flaws of theirs gives them cause to be punished within the horror genre, and it is why these types of characters never make it out alive. Within our horror trailer, we have followed this convention of portraying the teenage characters as bad people, drinking in the woods.9) music and sound effects- Music is one of the key elements within a horror trailer. It has the power to manipulate the audiences emotions and create an atmosphere. Within our trailer, we have used music and sound which creates quite an eerie effect for the viewers. We haven't however been very good with changing the tempo and dynamics of the music and sound like most horror trailers do when it reaches the climax.
10) Binary Opposition - Another convention of the horror genre which I developed was the use of binary oppositions. We have portrayed the use of good vs. evil, quite clearly in the long shot where the killer walks up behind the teenage boy as he is sitting innocently playing on his mobile phone. We have portrayed the contrast in characters here through the height difference. As the innocent boy is sitting down and the killer is standing up, it makes the boy appear to the audience as the more vulnerable one out of the two. Also, the fact that this killer is walking up behind him, ready to hit him over the head with a bottle further emphasizes his power over the boy. The killer is shown as the evil, yet superior force. The boy's body language presents to the audience a sense of vulnerability and insecurity on his character.11) Final Girl - The 'final girl' theory, thought up by Carol Clover, appears to be one of the most conventional theories that is used within a horror movie in this day and age. We decided to include a final girl in our horror trailer who stereotypically becomes the last survivor. We thought this would be a perfect for our horror trailer seeing as we were basing it on a group of teenagers drinking and having sex. We could therefore show a clear comparison between these misbehaving teenagers and the sensible girl who doesn't get involved in what her friends get up to.
12) Fast Editing- Another convention is a fast editing pace which creates suspense for the audience. These fast editing clips normally show a trend in most horror trailers about three quarters of the way through for the climax and then it suddenly ends following this climax. We also used this in our trailer nearing the end as the audience wouldn't be able to stop on any one image, therefore the speed would get their heart racing. It is a good way of building up tension. Within our fast editing clips, we used a series of random shots which don't follow our story in the narrative order. This is a very recognizable convention within trailers and especially teaser trailers as they don't always show to the audience footage that will be appearing in the film.
13) Gore and Blood - The vast majority of horror trailers that we viewed in the planning stages included an element of gore and blood, due to the obvious associations of pain and fear. Our group decided to challenge this convention by including no gore elements within our horror trailer. We came to an agreement of making our trailer into a psychological horror trailer as, in our audience questionnaire, the vast majority of people admitted their biggest fear being the 'unknown'.
14) Lighting - We didn't really aim to follow any conventions of real life horror trailers to assist us with the different lighting in our own. For the first location of the child on the swing, we played with the black and white filters to make the clips appear more old to the audience so they would know it was set back in time. We also toned are images down so they were a lot darker which does in fact follow conventional horror pieces however we didn't take this idea from any particular horror trailer. It is normal for any horror trailer to include darkness as we immediately associate it with fear- the inability to see is cause for the victim to feel defenceless.
15) Production Company- In 99% of any type of film trailer, the production company will be mentioned at the start. One of the most famous production companies within the horror genre is 'Hammer Films' who were the most successful horror production company during the 'golden age' of horror'. After the downturn in horror film popularity they folded as a company but are now coming back with 'Let me In' being a successful new film by them. I believe the success of that film was due to the production company being popular, which demonstrates the impact that they have on a horror film. We have issued the name of a production company at the start of our trailer, just after the shots of the child on the swing.
16) Inter-titles - While researching a series of horror trailers, we found that the vast majority had the characters dialogue telling the story of the film to the audience. We decided to challenge this convention by using inter-titles throughout to tell the audience the narrative. We thought this visual aid would help to draw their attention in more and it also makes the genre of our film easy to distinguish from the start as these inter-titles describe the killer and his background. We also thought it would make it easier for the audience to understand and take notice of the narrative if it was in written text on the screen.
17) Title of film - Every trailer we looked at in the planning stages showed a trend of presenting the name of the film towards the end of the trailer as it is more likely that they will remember it and will therefore higher there changes of going to see it in the cinema. We therefore followed this convention as we wanted as many audience members to remember the name of the film. We put a clip of the film's name on its own so that it stood out and there would be nothing to distract from it.18) Length of trailer - our trailer overall is about one minute in length. We wanted to keep it as close to a minute as possible as we read in the pre-production and planning stages that conventional teaser trailers generally last between 30 and 90 seconds. As they are typically designed to 'tease' the audience but not tell; we thought that making it as short as possible while still giving sufficient clips and information to raise their awareness, would make it effectively 'tease' them.
19) Coming Soon - Most ordinary trailers include the exact release date of the film; however teaser trailers don't yet give the date away as they are generally released before the release date is defined so that they can give a small taste of the film to the audience. They therefore use the text 'coming soon' which is what we have decided to follow to emphasize the fact that our trailer is a teaser.20) Name of director - Director's names are normally used in the conventional horror trailer is they are well known and respected for previous works they have done. Within our trailer, we have challenged this as we haven't included the director's name; however this is still done in real life horror trailers if the director isn't known as he/she is normally used as an advertising technique.
Wednesday, 10 April 2013
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
In order for a film to have a successful release and be a big hit for its target audience, a clear distribution plan has to be formed. The film's distributor holds the responsibility of maintaining the popularity of a film. Through the use of a wide variety of media platforms, such as posters, billboards, cinema ads, television ads and website ads (through it's own website or on other websites through advertisements), a distributor will advertise and promote the film. Distributors also have the job of analyzing a new film's target audience. They have to do research into the audience's gender, their age, their media consumption, and also which social networking sites they use via the internet. Furthermore, a distributor has to look into its audiences overall lifestyles. Knowing this will be of a great benefit to the distributor as they will know how to impress and attract their target audience when advertising a film.
Audiences are often known to change their interests; therefore it is normal for them to become fed up of the same type of film being produced over and over again, using the same conventional story-lines or the same genres. Distributors have no choice but to take this into consideration when producing a new film as it has to be appealing enough to the audience to remain on the market.
When a poster is created to advertise a new film release, it normally follows some set conventions. The examples are that it should-
I had to produce my own poster for one of my ancillary tasks. Trailers and posters work together in a co-ordinated fashion to become a kind of brand identity for the film as well as being the central advertising images; therefore it is important for them to both match up with regards to themes, colours, fonts, images etc. so that they are effective in combination. I do believe that my poster is both successful in coinciding with the themes and conventions of a typical horror film poster and my trailer...
This is the poster for the horror movie "Friday the 13th". This horror poster was what inspired a number of ideas I used during the creation of my own horror poster.
Comparing this my own poster to the professional one shown above, there are many similarities regarding the conventional horror themes and the layout. In the professional one above, a rather large and intimidating man is placed in the centre as the main subject of the poster which can suggest that he is possibly the killer in the movie, as he is in possession of a sword, which is similar to what i have done. For my poster, I have used an image of a young child, who is supposed to be a representation of the killer when he was younger. The professional poster shows blacked out edges which fades into a lighter colour, emphasizing the subject in the centre, which is similar to what I have decided to do with the image of my poster. This makes it appear more eerie and more like a horror.
Within my poster, I have conventionally used a tagline which relates to both the film's title and story line however I have only placed one at the top of the page, ascribing "If you go down to the woods today, you're sure of a big..." which works as an introduction to the film's title and the poster as a whole. I have also contained a clue as to when the movie is going to be released, with the writing 'coming soon'. This tactic is used to keep the audience aware about the release and want to find out the official date of release. I have integrated credits to present everyone involved within the film's production, contained within the billing block. Beside this, I have given evidence of the age certificate of the film, which is also very conventional. The title of my horror film I have made very clear for the audience. It is in red so therefore stands out against the background which is black, thus drawing in attention. This use of red has also been used to connote a sense of darkness and danger to my audience.
In terms of the image I've used for the poster and the the clips within the horror trailer, this particular snapshot of the child on the swing is also used at the start of my horror trailer to introduce a step back in time. I thought it would be effective to use this particular image on my poster and have it being the first shot in my horror trailer as it made both media platforms work coherently together to create a unified advertising message for the film. I thought this image would work well as the audience aren't supposed to know during these first clips of the horror trailer that this child is the killer; therefore this poster doesn't give anything away the he is going to be the killer either. Both products work together to make this character appear very mysterious at first. A further way my horror trailer and ancillary task of the poster could be combined is through the choice in colours. Throughout our horror trailer, we made use of a series of blackouts and for a great deal of our scenes which involved extreme close ups, we put a darker shade around the edges to draw more attention to what the extreme close up was of. This is exactly what I have presented in my poster. I have tried to give it a sort of half blackout effect to coincide with some of our clips. I have also kept the black and white effect for the image on my poster to make it look older, just like what we tried doing at the start of the trailer. The use of white coloured writing has proved to be a recurring factor in both our groups' horror trailer and my own horror poster. White has been used for every piece of writing in both tasks as everyone found that it stood out the most clearly on a black background. My poster and the groups horror trailer also coincide together through the use of the writing "coming soon." We used this to present to the audience that both media platforms are advertising teasers; therefore are not the main advertisements. The reason I used a shot of someone from behind for my horror poster was because we included so many close-up behind shots of characters in our horror trailer. We did this in the trailer as we found it created a further mysteriousness to the work in not seeing character faces; therefore I wanted to create a similar sort of effect on my poster to loosely combine the two.
Other ways in which I could have combined my main product and ancillary task would have been through first and foremost, including the same tagline on one of the inter-titles in the trailer that I used on the poster. This would have presented a much clearer combination between the two products. I feel I could have also used the same style font for both titles; however because of the number of people in our group, it was difficult to include aspects which suited each person's need. I could have also connected my poster to the group's trailer by using a billing block which stated the same production company/director/actors and so on. This also proved difficult due to the number of people within the group.
Producing the advertising material for the cover of a magazine would not be something a distributor would create. The distributor would try to generate favourable publicity and might send a press pack to the magazine publisher.Within this press pack, usually there involves information regarding the movie, basic information regarding the duration, a synopsis, an interview with the director, some still images during the progress of filming, some quotes from the movie, a list of credits and some notes about inspiration. Press packs are useful as they give information about the whole film. They don't however reveal any clips from within the movie. This is why distributors also make trailers and posters.The magazine cover I decided to create was also was also influenced by previous professional magazine covers dedicated to horror movies. I took a look at a selection of magazine covers and decided that, for mine to look as conventional as possible, I would have to-
This is an image of a "Total Film" magazine. This particular magazine was what inspired a number of ideas I used during the creation of my own film mag.
Before commencing work on my film magazine, I had a good look at a number of different professional film magazines on google from "empire" and "total film" so that I could get a better idea of how to do my structuring and layout. I found this one extremely appealing to help guide me through my own creation.
When I look back at these two magazines together, it is clear to see where I got my different ideas. I would say that with this ancillary task, I also followed the bullet points above to make it as conventional as possible. My magazine uses an extremely bold masthead which stands out due to the bright colour choice of red which I have used. The coverpage mainly contains a variety of four different colours, which are red, white, black and green. The feature article has a different font and colour as the other cover lines which I decided to do as it is the main story on the page; it will therefore stand out to the audience. The justified cover lines round the edges of the main article on the magazine gives information about a series of other film releases which fall under different genres to horror. I chose to include extra films that were non-horror related as I wanted the magazine to be portrayed as an 'mixed-genre' magazine, instead of just horror to follow Total film's conventions. This would also attract a bigger target audience. I have included really famous actors names on the front which will interest the audience as these actors will be so well known, therefore well respected in the film industry. I have used an image of the 'final girl' of our groups horror trailer on my magazine; however this isn't made clear to the audience. They will be able to tell that she has something to do with our film "Surprise" as the name of the film is covering over her, which is similar to what the vast majority of professional magazines do. I have chosen to use a black background for my magazine cover as I feel that this particular colour, having mysterious connotations and being associated with fear and the unknown, ties in most adequately with the horror genre.
I tried to create a combination between my film cover and the horror trailer; however this proved to be an extremely challenging task to undertake as I felt I had to make the magazine less personal and less focused on my one film. I thought this because it obviously isn't the job of the film's distributor to create the magazine cover; therefore it advertises a lot more than just one thing. To make the magazine remotely combine with both the poster and the trailer, I decided to maintain the themed colour trend of black and white (and also a little bit of red). These colours again were used particularly with the writing and background. To try and maintain a further link between the magazine, the poster and the trailer, I also used a black background behind the subject on the magazine front cover which I was hoping would link in with the recurring theme of blackouts in the trailer and obviously the also black background in the poster. There was also a link shown between the characters as both the magazine and the poster included an image of a protagonist character from the trailer; therefore the audience would hopefully be able to recollect where they have seen them before. I do however feel that I could have combined the magazine more clearly with the trailer by having a different character from the trailer on the front cover; possibly an image of the killer to make the magazine look more like a horror themed magazine. I would have also liked to have included the protagonist actors names from the horror trailer on the magazine so that the audience would be given a little bit more information about the film being advertised.
In hindsight, I do strongly feel that the co-ordination of my three products could have been better created, and had I have gained a deeper understanding of the functions of a distributor before starting work on the tasks, I feel I would have shown clearer links as I wasn't aware beforehand that distributors have to follow the same themes and trends throughout all of their advertisements. I think that all three of my products do contain recurring themes, colours, fonts, images etc. however these recurrences aren't made very obvious. It is therefore more difficult to make the film appear an identifiable and memorable one. This goes to show just how much importance a film's advertisement has on the eventual credited success of the film itself.
Audiences are often known to change their interests; therefore it is normal for them to become fed up of the same type of film being produced over and over again, using the same conventional story-lines or the same genres. Distributors have no choice but to take this into consideration when producing a new film as it has to be appealing enough to the audience to remain on the market.
When a poster is created to advertise a new film release, it normally follows some set conventions. The examples are that it should-
- present the new releases title
- include a release date
- have a unique feature to set it apart from different movies coming out at the same time
- present the genre of the movie
- have a tag-line which links in with the movie itself
- use images linking to the film
- a list of credits to present those involved in the production of the piece
I had to produce my own poster for one of my ancillary tasks. Trailers and posters work together in a co-ordinated fashion to become a kind of brand identity for the film as well as being the central advertising images; therefore it is important for them to both match up with regards to themes, colours, fonts, images etc. so that they are effective in combination. I do believe that my poster is both successful in coinciding with the themes and conventions of a typical horror film poster and my trailer...
This is the poster for the horror movie "Friday the 13th". This horror poster was what inspired a number of ideas I used during the creation of my own horror poster.
Comparing this my own poster to the professional one shown above, there are many similarities regarding the conventional horror themes and the layout. In the professional one above, a rather large and intimidating man is placed in the centre as the main subject of the poster which can suggest that he is possibly the killer in the movie, as he is in possession of a sword, which is similar to what i have done. For my poster, I have used an image of a young child, who is supposed to be a representation of the killer when he was younger. The professional poster shows blacked out edges which fades into a lighter colour, emphasizing the subject in the centre, which is similar to what I have decided to do with the image of my poster. This makes it appear more eerie and more like a horror.
Within my poster, I have conventionally used a tagline which relates to both the film's title and story line however I have only placed one at the top of the page, ascribing "If you go down to the woods today, you're sure of a big..." which works as an introduction to the film's title and the poster as a whole. I have also contained a clue as to when the movie is going to be released, with the writing 'coming soon'. This tactic is used to keep the audience aware about the release and want to find out the official date of release. I have integrated credits to present everyone involved within the film's production, contained within the billing block. Beside this, I have given evidence of the age certificate of the film, which is also very conventional. The title of my horror film I have made very clear for the audience. It is in red so therefore stands out against the background which is black, thus drawing in attention. This use of red has also been used to connote a sense of darkness and danger to my audience.
In terms of the image I've used for the poster and the the clips within the horror trailer, this particular snapshot of the child on the swing is also used at the start of my horror trailer to introduce a step back in time. I thought it would be effective to use this particular image on my poster and have it being the first shot in my horror trailer as it made both media platforms work coherently together to create a unified advertising message for the film. I thought this image would work well as the audience aren't supposed to know during these first clips of the horror trailer that this child is the killer; therefore this poster doesn't give anything away the he is going to be the killer either. Both products work together to make this character appear very mysterious at first. A further way my horror trailer and ancillary task of the poster could be combined is through the choice in colours. Throughout our horror trailer, we made use of a series of blackouts and for a great deal of our scenes which involved extreme close ups, we put a darker shade around the edges to draw more attention to what the extreme close up was of. This is exactly what I have presented in my poster. I have tried to give it a sort of half blackout effect to coincide with some of our clips. I have also kept the black and white effect for the image on my poster to make it look older, just like what we tried doing at the start of the trailer. The use of white coloured writing has proved to be a recurring factor in both our groups' horror trailer and my own horror poster. White has been used for every piece of writing in both tasks as everyone found that it stood out the most clearly on a black background. My poster and the groups horror trailer also coincide together through the use of the writing "coming soon." We used this to present to the audience that both media platforms are advertising teasers; therefore are not the main advertisements. The reason I used a shot of someone from behind for my horror poster was because we included so many close-up behind shots of characters in our horror trailer. We did this in the trailer as we found it created a further mysteriousness to the work in not seeing character faces; therefore I wanted to create a similar sort of effect on my poster to loosely combine the two.
Other ways in which I could have combined my main product and ancillary task would have been through first and foremost, including the same tagline on one of the inter-titles in the trailer that I used on the poster. This would have presented a much clearer combination between the two products. I feel I could have also used the same style font for both titles; however because of the number of people in our group, it was difficult to include aspects which suited each person's need. I could have also connected my poster to the group's trailer by using a billing block which stated the same production company/director/actors and so on. This also proved difficult due to the number of people within the group.
Producing the advertising material for the cover of a magazine would not be something a distributor would create. The distributor would try to generate favourable publicity and might send a press pack to the magazine publisher.Within this press pack, usually there involves information regarding the movie, basic information regarding the duration, a synopsis, an interview with the director, some still images during the progress of filming, some quotes from the movie, a list of credits and some notes about inspiration. Press packs are useful as they give information about the whole film. They don't however reveal any clips from within the movie. This is why distributors also make trailers and posters.The magazine cover I decided to create was also was also influenced by previous professional magazine covers dedicated to horror movies. I took a look at a selection of magazine covers and decided that, for mine to look as conventional as possible, I would have to-
- use extremely bold types of writing which stands out
- present a colour scheme, consisting of no more than four different colours which are appropriate to the horror genre
- names of the protagonist stars appearing in the movie to interest the audience
- a central image which would tie in to the style of magazine and which would link in with the horror movie
This is an image of a "Total Film" magazine. This particular magazine was what inspired a number of ideas I used during the creation of my own film mag.
Before commencing work on my film magazine, I had a good look at a number of different professional film magazines on google from "empire" and "total film" so that I could get a better idea of how to do my structuring and layout. I found this one extremely appealing to help guide me through my own creation.
When I look back at these two magazines together, it is clear to see where I got my different ideas. I would say that with this ancillary task, I also followed the bullet points above to make it as conventional as possible. My magazine uses an extremely bold masthead which stands out due to the bright colour choice of red which I have used. The coverpage mainly contains a variety of four different colours, which are red, white, black and green. The feature article has a different font and colour as the other cover lines which I decided to do as it is the main story on the page; it will therefore stand out to the audience. The justified cover lines round the edges of the main article on the magazine gives information about a series of other film releases which fall under different genres to horror. I chose to include extra films that were non-horror related as I wanted the magazine to be portrayed as an 'mixed-genre' magazine, instead of just horror to follow Total film's conventions. This would also attract a bigger target audience. I have included really famous actors names on the front which will interest the audience as these actors will be so well known, therefore well respected in the film industry. I have used an image of the 'final girl' of our groups horror trailer on my magazine; however this isn't made clear to the audience. They will be able to tell that she has something to do with our film "Surprise" as the name of the film is covering over her, which is similar to what the vast majority of professional magazines do. I have chosen to use a black background for my magazine cover as I feel that this particular colour, having mysterious connotations and being associated with fear and the unknown, ties in most adequately with the horror genre.
I tried to create a combination between my film cover and the horror trailer; however this proved to be an extremely challenging task to undertake as I felt I had to make the magazine less personal and less focused on my one film. I thought this because it obviously isn't the job of the film's distributor to create the magazine cover; therefore it advertises a lot more than just one thing. To make the magazine remotely combine with both the poster and the trailer, I decided to maintain the themed colour trend of black and white (and also a little bit of red). These colours again were used particularly with the writing and background. To try and maintain a further link between the magazine, the poster and the trailer, I also used a black background behind the subject on the magazine front cover which I was hoping would link in with the recurring theme of blackouts in the trailer and obviously the also black background in the poster. There was also a link shown between the characters as both the magazine and the poster included an image of a protagonist character from the trailer; therefore the audience would hopefully be able to recollect where they have seen them before. I do however feel that I could have combined the magazine more clearly with the trailer by having a different character from the trailer on the front cover; possibly an image of the killer to make the magazine look more like a horror themed magazine. I would have also liked to have included the protagonist actors names from the horror trailer on the magazine so that the audience would be given a little bit more information about the film being advertised.
In hindsight, I do strongly feel that the co-ordination of my three products could have been better created, and had I have gained a deeper understanding of the functions of a distributor before starting work on the tasks, I feel I would have shown clearer links as I wasn't aware beforehand that distributors have to follow the same themes and trends throughout all of their advertisements. I think that all three of my products do contain recurring themes, colours, fonts, images etc. however these recurrences aren't made very obvious. It is therefore more difficult to make the film appear an identifiable and memorable one. This goes to show just how much importance a film's advertisement has on the eventual credited success of the film itself.
Tuesday, 9 April 2013
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Following the first screening of the teaser trailer, our group was given initial reaction feedback from each member of the class about what worked well and what had clear scope for improvement. Our feedback was given in written notes by each class member with both a positive and negative column. This feedback proved to be extremely reliable as it was given from students within the age bracket of 16-18; therefore fitting in to the typical target demographic for horror movies which is 15-25. They were therefore able to consider what interested them in a horror trailer, and apply these thoughts to what they saw in our trailer.
More criticisms than compliments were raised regarding our groups horror trailer. This proved that we had a tremendous amount of work to do to get it up to scratch. The fact that the vast majority of the group picked up on similar good and bad aspects they found within the trailer, meant that the feedback was completely honest and reliable. This helped us to shape our final product into a much more convincing and realistic teaser trailer for the final draft. Aside from the classroom feedback, I also asked members of my family and my friends to take a look at the trailer to gain further feedback; however the responses were somewhat mixed. Target audience feedback is highly significant information to obtain for the production of any film. This particularly applies to the film's distributor as they need to get an idea of what scenes to retain or cut out so that the film is able to receive its full potential when being placed on the market.
Flash lighting
Regarding the editing side of the media spectrum, the audience said that the short, snappy scenes of the anonymous person reading the scroll of paper were extremely effective as we used flash lighting, making it really stand out. This flash lighting would have therefore worked well in the trailers advertisement as a few people stated this to be a good 'eye opener'; therefore we decided to keep these short clips in the trailer and also make them recur more often throughout. The flashing up of these clips was actually unintentional at first; we came across it while we were playing around with the program to learn new features.
Fast paced shots
Many said that they liked the way in which our group had placed a series of fast paced shots together, as they were really fast, creating alterations in tempo which made it more exciting for them. They stated that they liked this because the vast majority of horror trailers on the market do this same thing to create a climax and to get the audiences heart racing. They said that a number of the shots worked really well together within the sequence with the type of clips we decided to coil together. Although we greatly appreciated this feedback, it didn't make us decide to include more fast shots as we thought that we had definitely used sufficient to grab the audiences attention.
Past Events
A lot of the demographic feedback stated that the grey-scale filters and the speckled filter effect we created at the start of the trailer (where the child was swinging on the swing) was very effective and aesthetically pleasing as it clearly showed them that it was supposed to be set back in time. We were happy with this feedback as we had spent a lot of time deciding how to portray to the audience that the trailer was presenting a skip back in time without it looking like just a random piece of footage.
We also messed around with the brightness and contrast features a lot here as we were trying to get an ideal old fashioned effect. Based on this audience feedback, it obviously paid off.
Good camera shots
The opening and establishing shots of three of the characters entering and walking through the woods was very popular with the audience. They stated that it appeared as though we were being followed by the killer at these points as we filmed the characters with a hand held camera walking from behind. A selection of the audience were also impressed by the extreme close up shot of the killer running. For this shot, we took a close up of his feet and added a flash light to it, similar to what we did for the clips of the person reading the scroll of paper. The audience thought this was extremely effective as the shot was very quick. They described the extreme close up focus of the feet as a very unique shot which they would never have thought of using.
Music and sound effects fitting in with shots
There were a select few people who spoke very positively about the way in which our sound effects worked extremely well with the visual aspects of the trailer. For our sound effects, we used a scratching noise, which was repeated about every seven seconds throughout the course of the trailer. According to the audience feedback, these scratching noises fitted in perfectly, thanks to how we timed them on the sequence. As we were given a mixture of positive and negative reviews regarding the different sounds, we decided to just work on the music that went along with these scratching sound effects as we feel that the actual music was what was letting us down for being too samey throughout.
Presentation of killer
More than one person stated that he/she didn't fully approve of the way in which we presented the killer in the trailer. It was stated that he didn't look terrifying enough, and that they wanted to see cuts and bruises on his face as it was normal and conventional to see that sort of thing within the horror genre. We weren't sure whether we entirely approved of this piece of feedback as we wanted our trailer to be a psychological horror, without gore and blood being a feature.
Killer appearing too much
Further negative feedback was given regarding the killer, in that the demographic were saying that he appeared too many times within the trailer making it non-scary. They said they liked certain shots with the killer; for example, the medium long shot of him from behind getting ready to hit one of his victims over the head with a bottle. They didn't however approve of the shots where they could see his face as there was nothing mysterious about it and his identity had already been given away. After hearing this feedback, we agreed immediately; however at the time of filming we took a "this is a horror" attitude, therefore always wanted to include the scariest protagonist character in most of the shooting. Recently, after taking the audiences feedback into consideration, we have cut out 3 shots of the killer to decrease his time on screen.
Too many fast paced shots
Although a great deal of the people watching our trailer stated that they liked our use of fast changing clips to create a climax and to get the heart racing while watching it; others disagreed with this idea to a certain extent. A few members of the demographic said that we had used too many fast paced shots, therefore they couldn't really find where the climax within the horror trailer was. They wrote that it was difficult to completely tell what was going on in the story-line as a cause of this. They wanted to see a few longer shots at the start to get a better view of the protagonist characters and of the different locations, and then see the climax of fast paced shots about three quarters of the way through.
Music and sound too repetitive
Although some of our demographic stated that they enjoyed our choice in music and sound, others that it was too repetitive as it stayed pretty much the same throughout and there were no clear alterations with the dynamics and tempo. Before screening our piece to the audience, our main concern was in fact about the sound effects and music as we had had so many issues getting the sound to work on Adobe final cut pro. We therefore had to work with what wasn't in fact refusing to play; potentially compromising our overall grade.
More criticisms than compliments were raised regarding our groups horror trailer. This proved that we had a tremendous amount of work to do to get it up to scratch. The fact that the vast majority of the group picked up on similar good and bad aspects they found within the trailer, meant that the feedback was completely honest and reliable. This helped us to shape our final product into a much more convincing and realistic teaser trailer for the final draft. Aside from the classroom feedback, I also asked members of my family and my friends to take a look at the trailer to gain further feedback; however the responses were somewhat mixed. Target audience feedback is highly significant information to obtain for the production of any film. This particularly applies to the film's distributor as they need to get an idea of what scenes to retain or cut out so that the film is able to receive its full potential when being placed on the market.
Positive feedback
Flash lighting
Regarding the editing side of the media spectrum, the audience said that the short, snappy scenes of the anonymous person reading the scroll of paper were extremely effective as we used flash lighting, making it really stand out. This flash lighting would have therefore worked well in the trailers advertisement as a few people stated this to be a good 'eye opener'; therefore we decided to keep these short clips in the trailer and also make them recur more often throughout. The flashing up of these clips was actually unintentional at first; we came across it while we were playing around with the program to learn new features.
Fast paced shots
Many said that they liked the way in which our group had placed a series of fast paced shots together, as they were really fast, creating alterations in tempo which made it more exciting for them. They stated that they liked this because the vast majority of horror trailers on the market do this same thing to create a climax and to get the audiences heart racing. They said that a number of the shots worked really well together within the sequence with the type of clips we decided to coil together. Although we greatly appreciated this feedback, it didn't make us decide to include more fast shots as we thought that we had definitely used sufficient to grab the audiences attention.
Past Events
A lot of the demographic feedback stated that the grey-scale filters and the speckled filter effect we created at the start of the trailer (where the child was swinging on the swing) was very effective and aesthetically pleasing as it clearly showed them that it was supposed to be set back in time. We were happy with this feedback as we had spent a lot of time deciding how to portray to the audience that the trailer was presenting a skip back in time without it looking like just a random piece of footage. We also messed around with the brightness and contrast features a lot here as we were trying to get an ideal old fashioned effect. Based on this audience feedback, it obviously paid off.
Good camera shots
The opening and establishing shots of three of the characters entering and walking through the woods was very popular with the audience. They stated that it appeared as though we were being followed by the killer at these points as we filmed the characters with a hand held camera walking from behind. A selection of the audience were also impressed by the extreme close up shot of the killer running. For this shot, we took a close up of his feet and added a flash light to it, similar to what we did for the clips of the person reading the scroll of paper. The audience thought this was extremely effective as the shot was very quick. They described the extreme close up focus of the feet as a very unique shot which they would never have thought of using.Music and sound effects fitting in with shots
There were a select few people who spoke very positively about the way in which our sound effects worked extremely well with the visual aspects of the trailer. For our sound effects, we used a scratching noise, which was repeated about every seven seconds throughout the course of the trailer. According to the audience feedback, these scratching noises fitted in perfectly, thanks to how we timed them on the sequence. As we were given a mixture of positive and negative reviews regarding the different sounds, we decided to just work on the music that went along with these scratching sound effects as we feel that the actual music was what was letting us down for being too samey throughout.
Negative feedback
Presentation of killer
More than one person stated that he/she didn't fully approve of the way in which we presented the killer in the trailer. It was stated that he didn't look terrifying enough, and that they wanted to see cuts and bruises on his face as it was normal and conventional to see that sort of thing within the horror genre. We weren't sure whether we entirely approved of this piece of feedback as we wanted our trailer to be a psychological horror, without gore and blood being a feature.Killer appearing too much
Further negative feedback was given regarding the killer, in that the demographic were saying that he appeared too many times within the trailer making it non-scary. They said they liked certain shots with the killer; for example, the medium long shot of him from behind getting ready to hit one of his victims over the head with a bottle. They didn't however approve of the shots where they could see his face as there was nothing mysterious about it and his identity had already been given away. After hearing this feedback, we agreed immediately; however at the time of filming we took a "this is a horror" attitude, therefore always wanted to include the scariest protagonist character in most of the shooting. Recently, after taking the audiences feedback into consideration, we have cut out 3 shots of the killer to decrease his time on screen.
Too many fast paced shots
Although a great deal of the people watching our trailer stated that they liked our use of fast changing clips to create a climax and to get the heart racing while watching it; others disagreed with this idea to a certain extent. A few members of the demographic said that we had used too many fast paced shots, therefore they couldn't really find where the climax within the horror trailer was. They wrote that it was difficult to completely tell what was going on in the story-line as a cause of this. They wanted to see a few longer shots at the start to get a better view of the protagonist characters and of the different locations, and then see the climax of fast paced shots about three quarters of the way through.
Music and sound too repetitive
Although some of our demographic stated that they enjoyed our choice in music and sound, others that it was too repetitive as it stayed pretty much the same throughout and there were no clear alterations with the dynamics and tempo. Before screening our piece to the audience, our main concern was in fact about the sound effects and music as we had had so many issues getting the sound to work on Adobe final cut pro. We therefore had to work with what wasn't in fact refusing to play; potentially compromising our overall grade.
Not enough locations
Further criticisms arose, regarding the lack of different locations within our horror trailer. I would say that approximately 90% of the demographic who watched and scrutinized our trailer said that there was a substantial lack in locations and that it was mainly just filmed in the woods. We didn't entirely agree with this feedback as we thought that the woods were key to the story-line, as it was loosely based on the teddy bear's picnic.
Inter-titles and no voice over
Widespread criticism escalated over the inter-titles we used during the trailer. The audience thought that the font we had chosen was very boring and didn't have a 'horror' effect to it with blood dripping off the letters or any kind of distortion. In conventional horror trailers, they had been used to seeing more unique styles in font which caught the eye more. They also said that there were too many of the inter-titles and it bored them having to read so much in the trailer as they preferred more visual and audio aspects. A number of people followed on from this with a suggestion that we add a voice over to deliver the text instead. Our group had mixed opinions about this due to our problems on the 'Adobe' program with audios. Following further audio problems, we then decided to stick with the inter-titles but tried making them look more interesting for the final draft. Furthermore, the audience stated that although we used so many inter-titles, they still had issues with following the narrative of the piece as what was being said in the inter-titles didn't seem to have 100% relevance to what was happening on the screen.
Our demographic response overall was not the most pleasing as there was clearly wide scope for improvement on the trailer. I think that if our group had seen eye to eye a little bit more and everyone had put in the same amount of input into the creation of the horror trailer, we would have achieved something a great deal more aesthetically pleasing. The group, as a whole became somewhat unorganized and began to lack in motivation due to others trying to take over and make it their own trailer. I couldn't agree more with a vast quantity of the audiences feedback; for example I feel that the aspect letting us down most was the narrative of the piece. I don't think we really knew what was going on in the story line enough; therefore we didn't let our imaginations run away with us like we should have done through the editing part of the horror piece. We were possibly trying to be too safe in the editing stage. I feel that this audience feedback has been of substantial help for our group. We have been able to listen to the opinions of the demographic and make improvements to match the specific needs and interests of our target audience. With regards to fitting in with the conventions of the horror genre, I believe our group could have included some more 'jumpy' shots which would take the audience by surprise. Using the killers face too many times within our horror got rid of the whole shock factor and could have possible led members of the audience to feel as though they had watched a whole film in a single trailer.
Sunday, 7 April 2013
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Evaluation question 4 from bmoll1
Here is my fourth evaluation, representing the variety of different technologies our group used to create our teaser trailer and the other final products surrounding the trailer. Without all of these highly professional technologies, I wouldn't have been able to have created a coursework project for Media Studies. The fact that our media technologies were up to such a high and remarkable standard, meant that we had the opportunities to produce extremely good quality work. Blogger made it possible for us to present all of our work in an online portfolio. We were able to use a video camera for the shooting of the whole trailer, and of course our still photographs. YouTube was crucial for the research and planning stage where we needed to look at typical trailer conventions. Google proved to be most helpful for uploading images and finding general information out about the world of film. For the planning and research, the website Survey monkey came in useful; creating audience questionnaires. Slidshare also aided me through my general presentation of the work as it kept my slides together, making them easier to be viewed. Adobe Final Cut Pro was probably the most significant media technology we used for the creation of our horror trailer. This program worked as the editor for everything, giving our trailer that desired 'horror' effect. Photoshop played an important part in the production of our ancillary tasks, editing about still photographs. Garageband made it possible for our group to explore a wide variety of different sound effects and music which would work with our trailer. In my opinion, spending such a vast amount of time adopting a web 2.0 approach for this media portfolio has made me gain a lot more confidence and knowledge about the latest technologies. This is extremely beneficial for me, as the vast majority of things in this day and age are operated by technology.
Here is my fourth evaluation, representing the variety of different technologies our group used to create our teaser trailer and the other final products surrounding the trailer. Without all of these highly professional technologies, I wouldn't have been able to have created a coursework project for Media Studies. The fact that our media technologies were up to such a high and remarkable standard, meant that we had the opportunities to produce extremely good quality work. Blogger made it possible for us to present all of our work in an online portfolio. We were able to use a video camera for the shooting of the whole trailer, and of course our still photographs. YouTube was crucial for the research and planning stage where we needed to look at typical trailer conventions. Google proved to be most helpful for uploading images and finding general information out about the world of film. For the planning and research, the website Survey monkey came in useful; creating audience questionnaires. Slidshare also aided me through my general presentation of the work as it kept my slides together, making them easier to be viewed. Adobe Final Cut Pro was probably the most significant media technology we used for the creation of our horror trailer. This program worked as the editor for everything, giving our trailer that desired 'horror' effect. Photoshop played an important part in the production of our ancillary tasks, editing about still photographs. Garageband made it possible for our group to explore a wide variety of different sound effects and music which would work with our trailer. In my opinion, spending such a vast amount of time adopting a web 2.0 approach for this media portfolio has made me gain a lot more confidence and knowledge about the latest technologies. This is extremely beneficial for me, as the vast majority of things in this day and age are operated by technology.
Saturday, 6 April 2013
Paranormal Activity 3 film analysis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90r3CnPI0AM
I have decided to base my second horror film analysis on paranormal activity 3 which is an American supernatural horror film produced in 2011. It is the third film that has been created of the Paranormal Activity series and it supposed to serve as a prequel to the first two films, being set as though it happened 18 years before the events of the first two films. The whole Paranormal Activity series has been a big hit on the screens, breaking financial records upon release. This film was directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, with the production side being handled by Jason Blum, Oren Peli, Steven Schneider and Akiva Goldsman. The main stars of this film include Chloe Csengery, Jessica Tyler Brown and Christopher Nicholas Smith, which aren't names I have come across before in films or any other screen performances; however the inimitability of this particular work makes it a must see for viewers. It interprets every day life, making it possible for the audience to engage with the complete realism of the work. The distribution company responsible for the marketing of this film is Paramount Pictures.
The narrative structure of this particular film does, a great deal of the time, follow Todorov's narrative structure. For example, as the film commences an equilibrium is shown where the film recapitulates over the first two works. This gives the audience the ability to understand completely what is going on and that the film has skipped backwards in time. The film commences with a birthday party of one of the protagonist characters, showing everyone to be content and enjoying themselves, further demonstrating the equilibrium. I find that the equilibrium is disrupted after not very many minutes into the film at all where the audience are shown the sister of Kate, called Christy, communicating with herself (later revealed as a poltergeist) in the house. This possibly presents the first sudden disequilibrium as it makes the audience aware immediately that there is something very wrong. There is then a further disruption to the calm where the poltergeist is seen for the first time. This shows the audience that there is something further wrong with the certain happenings inside the house. The fact that Christy tells her mother that she has secrets from someone named Toby presents to both the audience and the characters that Toby is the ghost within the house. Following this, a link is shown towards Todorov's theory who believes the next stage is the recognition. The film presents the recognition when the mother and others in the household start placing video cameras around the house to try and catch footage of the spirit by camera. They have realised that something is wrong and they are trying to do something about it. Todorov believes that the next stage within a typical horror film is the stage of trying to repair the disruption caused. I find that Paranormal Activity 3 however challenges Todorov's view here as the poltergeist defeats and completely takes over the family. This is where a new equilibrium within the film presents itself.
The audience would expect Paranormal Activity 3 to be follow the same typical conventions of Paranormal Activity 1 and 2. They would expect it to contain similar supernatural elements so that it is more realistic and not as though a completely different film has been created. Also, to make it follow the previous two, the same setting would be used which is inside the house. This will make the audience appreciate the realism of the film even more. The fact that this movie is filmed in the style of "found footage", where the couple in the film set up the camera in an attempt to catch the ghost makes the film even more like real life, and no music is played, causes the audience to feel more involved and therefore making it easier to scare and shock them. The audience would probably expect the ghost to be the one defeated in this horror movie, like he/she is in the vast majority of horrors out there; however it is actually the ghost who wins which will possibly annoy the audience as it isn't very conventional and they won't be used to it.
It's difficult to place Paranormal Activity 3 under what year it best suits in horror film history as it is so inimitable; however in my opinion it works with the 1960s-70s horror decade with the use of ghosts and Satanism in that vast majority of works. I find it works well with this particular decade in history as this was when paranormal incidents began making an appearance within horror. It would appear that numerous ghosts started to make an appearance within these ten years of horror. Paranormal Activity 3, to be successful, has to use certain aspects which other horror films use to make it fit in properly with the genre. I find that it does this well as it includes a great deal of shock elements, where the characters are unexpectedly and suddenly dragged down in their house. The fact that it is so realistic with the way it has been shot as though the characters are filming it is very effective and it creates eeriness due to the natural sounds used instead of effects, further highlighting that it is a horror.
This film, yet again, is a tough one to link in with Vladimir Propp and his theory of character roles. I would say that there is only clear evidence of a villain within the film, who is obviously the ghost, Toby. Some may look upon the Grandmother as a villain as well as she is the one who kills the mother, her own daughter and the children; however one could argue that it is because of the ghost's influence that she has done this, therefore he is even more of a villain. I wouldn't say there is evidence of a hero within the film as everyone is defeated.
With regards to Binary Opposition in horror, I would say that Paranormal Activity 3 does present a clear boundary between the good and the evil. The evil, quite clearly to the audience, is the poltergeist, Toby. The good are the innocent humans whose lives are being taken over by this evil poltergeist. However, the grandmother does turn evil at the end which portrays that possibly the divide isn't actually very clear, as one would not be anticipating this to happen.
To conclude, in my opinion Paranormal Activity isn't a very conventional horror piece as it seems to create its own style of genre which isn't directly similar to any other film I have seen. I find that this makes the work even more scary for the audience as they won't be used to it, Also, the fact that it is so much like a real story taking place with the "found footage" and natural effects, makes the audience feel as though they are there and experiencing it themselves.
Let The Right One In film analysis
I have decided to base my third analysis on the Swedish romantic horror film "Let the Right one in". It has been based on the 2004 novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist, following the same title. This film focuses on a boy called Oskar, who is overlooked and bullied; however finds love and revenge through Eli, a beautiful but peculiar girl who turns out to be a vampire. The director of this Swedish masterpiece is Tomas Alfredson, with producers Carl Molinder and John Nordling. This particular film involves a series of actors who I am of course not familiar with as they are of Swedish origin. The protagonist actor of the film are Kåre Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson and Per Ragnar. The company responsible for the distribution of this particular film to get it out there and up on the market was Sandrew Metronome. It is a scandinavian film distributor Sandrew Metronome which is one of the biggest distributor companies in the Nordic countries. Sandrew Metronome is currently the Nordic distributor for films by Warner Bros.
It could be argued that this film follows Todorov's theory of an equilibrium as the film commences. It begins, focusing on the boy Oscar going to school, leading an every day life. At the start, not a lot is revealed so as far as the audience are concerned there is nothing wrong. I would say that a disequilibrium is caused, altering the calm, when it is first revealed to the audience that the boy is being bullied by people at his school. This shows that the boy possibly isn't very happy. He therefore befriends a young girl, Eli. This could be portraying a further disequilibrium as, although they are fine at first, it is later revealed that she is a vampire which isn't good news for the boy as she is his only friend. Her being a vampire is obviously a great threat in case she gives in to her temptations when being around him. The next stage of Todorov's theory is the recognition stage. I would say that the recognition stage in this particular work is the same as the disequilibrium stage, where the boy finds out that the girl is in fact a vampire. After this recognition, he remains her friend and they agree to be boyfriend and girlfriend. Also, the finding about about killings of people within the film by the vampire is another point of recognition I would say that the film continues to follow Todorov's theory as there is an attempt to repair this disruption of the boy finding out and of the killings of innocent victims as the girl Eli moves away from the area for a little while as it people are becoming increasingly suspicious. The film concludes with a final equilibrium where the girl Eli returns and kills all of the bullies who are harming Oscar. They then leave the area together, showing a great sense of happiness in both characters. The final stage is Todorov's theory is of a new equilibrium being presented, therefore this film completely abides by his view.
I believe that the audience, when watching this film, will empathize with the characters of Oskar and Eli and understand what they are doing and why they are doing it. Oskar doesn't have any friends, therefore the audience are going to feel sorry for him and want him to find someone to spend time with. The fact that the girl kills all of his bullies will make the audience feel uplifted because of the way the boy is treated by them. The audience will expect and want both Eli and Oskar to make it out alive at the end and end up staying together as they are both presented as very lonely characters in the film. The fact that this film is a romantic horror film makes the audience expect to see a love relationship between one or more of the protagonist characters. This is why Oskar's relationship with Eli is presented as very strong.
I would say that the aspects which put this film within the horror sub-genre is the use of the vampire who commits a series of killings throughout the course of the film. As the girl is a vampire, it would be expected that there are elements of gore within the film. I find that the gore elements are very evident when the character Eli kills her prey for blood. Some of the scenes show her actually taking the blood from the corpses which is quite shocking from the audiences perspective. There are a number of aspects of this film which are quite shocking and take the audience by surprise. The part when Eli's 'father' is in the hospital, close ups are shown of his face which is extremely unpleasant as it has been completely torn apart. Following on from this scene, when Eli sucks the blood from her 'father' and he falls out of the hospital building and onto the ground outside is extremely shocking as it is something that the audience were not expecting at all. A great deal of blood is shown within the movie, highlight the horror aspect.
#This particular film quite clearly fits under horror from the time period of the 1950s to 1970s. The name given to this period was 'Hammer Horror'. This style of horror basically focused on the use of vampires and other supernatural creatures killing innocent victims. For example, Dracula was a film created within this time period which was one of the first films brought out which set off the Vampire trend in horror movies. The film of Let The Right One In is unusual as it is the first horror I have ever seen where a female character is the killer. This film is extremely different in comparison to movies that have been brought out in the last decade due to the killer being a young female. Because of this, it also contrasts to Hammer Horror in the 1950s to 1970s as there were no films created in this time period which I have heard of that had a female as the predator. It could however be reflecting the issues caused with hammer horror in the mid to late 1900s. This was the time period when great uproar was caused through the belief that violence in Hammer films was impacting antisocial behavior among infants. The fact that a young infant is playing this role could be a representation of a young child's bad behavior. I think this film has set its own type of genre as it is so inimitable in comparison to any other horror film I have seen.
With regards to Vladimir Propp's theory where he suggested that within a horror movie there is stereotypically a hero, a villain, a donor, a helper, a father, a princess, a dispatcher, and a false hero, I would say that Let The Right One In doesn't portray very many of these character types. There is no real hero; however it could be argued that the Vampire Eli is in fact the hero when she kills the bullies who almost manage to kill Oskar by drowning him. I would say that the villains are obviously the bullies. Oskar and Eli's father could both be regarded by the audience as the helpers for they both help and stand by Eli during her quest.
With regards to binary opposition, I would say that there is a clear portrayal of good and evil. The evil are clearly the bullies of Oskar, while the good unexpectedly is the Vampire Eli and Oskar. The way in which these characters are portrayed make the audience see them as good. One is able to understand Eli and that she has no choice but to take others lives to protect her own. Both Eli and Oskar are very young which shows a degree of good and innocence within their characters; therefore they are seen as complete opposites to the bullies.
Overall, I would say that the romantic horror movie of Let The Right One In is very unconventional compared to the vast majority of horror movies out there on the market. It has been widely credited by general audience and critics ever since its release. I personally find this horror movie very interesting as it challenges the norm. The aspect which I find the most interesting about this horror movie is that younger people are used to play the protagonist roles. I like the fact that the killer is a young girl as it is very controversial and it takes the audience by surprise. It is interesting that the killer is revealed so early on within the horror, yet it still manages to scare and shock the audience.
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