These are our story boards that we created when considering what to put in our final project. We used these when filming.
Wednesday, 31 March 2010
Our story boards
These are our story boards that we created when considering what to put in our final project. We used these when filming.
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Friday, 26 February 2010
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Our target audience was teenage male, we previewed our trailerin our class which has a mixture of female and male students. The feedback that we gained from the preview of our trailer, we were able to see things that we could improve and the elements that they thought were good.
The points that they thought were good were horror conventions, such as the night shots and the use of creepy movements, such as the bed scene where you are unable to see anything but the hands moving under the covers as it adds tension. Also, our use of make up on the monster and crawling out of the wardrobe where we changed the speed of it so it moved in a weird and akward way, this impressed our audience.
Other points that were mentioned were to do with the camerawork and editing, these included blink shots in between some of the visual shots to give the effect of someone blinking and POV shots of the monster looking at the victim. We also used alot of close ups which work well with added fear and making it scary as you are unable to see the whole picture.
A good motif that we liked and also the audience said they thought was good was the lighting the candle at the beginning and it being blown out at the end. It is also creates an eery atmostphere and movitvated lighting.
However the points that they thought could be improved really helped us see what more we could do to the visual and audio edit. The points that they picked up on were, to do mainly the audio. Saying that they didn't like some of the sound effects of the screaming as they were out of place and genreally didn't fit. We hope that we change some of them so that they fit better and sound more realistic. The other audio that they didn't particularly like was the actual soundtrack, they thought it wasn't fast enough when the edits and narrative increased.
Other editing problems which we had were the brightness of some of the shots, so we are planing on putting fliters over the top so that they look more like night time scenes as some people in the audience thought it looked like two different stories going on at the same time. This also ties in with the fact of the narrative, people didn't understand it clearly and caused a lot of confusion in who was the victim and the monster as we had different characters playing them.
One thing that had mixed views was our intertitles, some people liked them because the background was like earth moving and because the beginning of our trailer was set in a graveyard it work, whereas others thought the backgorund didn't fit as it was a distraction to the eye and looked to much like something on an action trailer.
I also showed our trailer to and older, male and female audience, just to see if they wanted to see the film after watching the trailer and to also get their views on it. Generally they thought it was good but like the the younger audience, found the intertitles too distracting but all in all mainly the male audience said they thought the story line looked interesting and that they wanted to see the film.
Overall, the comments we gained were benefically and would help us improve our trailer, which we are looking into doing. But I am pleased that it was generally liked and majority of people said they would like to watch the film to find out the full story line.
The points that they thought were good were horror conventions, such as the night shots and the use of creepy movements, such as the bed scene where you are unable to see anything but the hands moving under the covers as it adds tension. Also, our use of make up on the monster and crawling out of the wardrobe where we changed the speed of it so it moved in a weird and akward way, this impressed our audience.
Other points that were mentioned were to do with the camerawork and editing, these included blink shots in between some of the visual shots to give the effect of someone blinking and POV shots of the monster looking at the victim. We also used alot of close ups which work well with added fear and making it scary as you are unable to see the whole picture.
A good motif that we liked and also the audience said they thought was good was the lighting the candle at the beginning and it being blown out at the end. It is also creates an eery atmostphere and movitvated lighting.
However the points that they thought could be improved really helped us see what more we could do to the visual and audio edit. The points that they picked up on were, to do mainly the audio. Saying that they didn't like some of the sound effects of the screaming as they were out of place and genreally didn't fit. We hope that we change some of them so that they fit better and sound more realistic. The other audio that they didn't particularly like was the actual soundtrack, they thought it wasn't fast enough when the edits and narrative increased.
Other editing problems which we had were the brightness of some of the shots, so we are planing on putting fliters over the top so that they look more like night time scenes as some people in the audience thought it looked like two different stories going on at the same time. This also ties in with the fact of the narrative, people didn't understand it clearly and caused a lot of confusion in who was the victim and the monster as we had different characters playing them.
One thing that had mixed views was our intertitles, some people liked them because the background was like earth moving and because the beginning of our trailer was set in a graveyard it work, whereas others thought the backgorund didn't fit as it was a distraction to the eye and looked to much like something on an action trailer.
I also showed our trailer to and older, male and female audience, just to see if they wanted to see the film after watching the trailer and to also get their views on it. Generally they thought it was good but like the the younger audience, found the intertitles too distracting but all in all mainly the male audience said they thought the story line looked interesting and that they wanted to see the film.
Overall, the comments we gained were benefically and would help us improve our trailer, which we are looking into doing. But I am pleased that it was generally liked and majority of people said they would like to watch the film to find out the full story line.
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
This is a montage of some of the different technology I used in making my main product and ancillary texts. I also used other programmes on the Mac computers, such as, garage band, final cut pro and live type at different stages during the project. They all had there advantages and disadvantages when using them.
I particularly enjoyed working on the Mac computers when creating and planning my trailer in my group as I learnt new skills in Final Cut Pro, such as adding sound from different programmes and adding filters to the video to change the look of the film. You can see the screen shot above of Final Cut pro, at the bottom of the final cut pro is where our timeline was, this is where we created our trailer sequence and put it into an order we liked and that worked well. In the top left hand corner is the browser, where we imported all the footage we took before cutting it and editing it onto our timeline. The two black squares are where we could preview what was in the timeline, the left hand one is where we added filters and changed the in and out points for the clip. As well as this on the Mac computers, we used garage band, where we created some of our own music to fit our trailer, we used the key board as a piano and made some of our own sounds to put over the top of a sequence that we took from a website. Once we knew how to use the programmes it became very simple to use, however there was alot more that we didn't learn.
Although I had previously used the programme, Photoshop, I still learned new skills when I used it to do my ancillary texts and research and planning when we created our mood boards.
We were using the Web 2.0 which refers to a new generation of internet where people can create their own websites and pages where you can publish, upload and share pictures and audio.
So using YouTube, where other people upload video and other people can view it and comment or embed it onto web pages helped us when it came to researching other horror trailers, if we didn't have it we wouldn't have been able to research other trailers to get idea and conventions of the horror genre or we would have had to watch a number of horror films, but this wouldn't have helped when making the trailer as the trailer is only a small sequence of quick shots to tease the audience and make them want to see it.
Having not used the websites, Flickr or Blogger before, websites where you can create your own accounts and add posts or upload images and annotate them, I was slightly apprehensive about using them. However, I soon got use to recording my progresson Blogger in the evaluation process of trailers as it was a lot easier than having to write an essay on paper, as we were able to use Flickr to upload images from our trailer and annotate them quickly and clearly and put them on our blogs, as it was much easier to add notes onto the image. Also, this method is a nice layout which is easy to read and simple to use and 100% free, I found it easy to get my ideas across using images and creating and developing my ideas futher.
I particularly enjoyed working on the Mac computers when creating and planning my trailer in my group as I learnt new skills in Final Cut Pro, such as adding sound from different programmes and adding filters to the video to change the look of the film. You can see the screen shot above of Final Cut pro, at the bottom of the final cut pro is where our timeline was, this is where we created our trailer sequence and put it into an order we liked and that worked well. In the top left hand corner is the browser, where we imported all the footage we took before cutting it and editing it onto our timeline. The two black squares are where we could preview what was in the timeline, the left hand one is where we added filters and changed the in and out points for the clip. As well as this on the Mac computers, we used garage band, where we created some of our own music to fit our trailer, we used the key board as a piano and made some of our own sounds to put over the top of a sequence that we took from a website. Once we knew how to use the programmes it became very simple to use, however there was alot more that we didn't learn.
Although I had previously used the programme, Photoshop, I still learned new skills when I used it to do my ancillary texts and research and planning when we created our mood boards.
We were using the Web 2.0 which refers to a new generation of internet where people can create their own websites and pages where you can publish, upload and share pictures and audio.
So using YouTube, where other people upload video and other people can view it and comment or embed it onto web pages helped us when it came to researching other horror trailers, if we didn't have it we wouldn't have been able to research other trailers to get idea and conventions of the horror genre or we would have had to watch a number of horror films, but this wouldn't have helped when making the trailer as the trailer is only a small sequence of quick shots to tease the audience and make them want to see it.
Having not used the websites, Flickr or Blogger before, websites where you can create your own accounts and add posts or upload images and annotate them, I was slightly apprehensive about using them. However, I soon got use to recording my progresson Blogger in the evaluation process of trailers as it was a lot easier than having to write an essay on paper, as we were able to use Flickr to upload images from our trailer and annotate them quickly and clearly and put them on our blogs, as it was much easier to add notes onto the image. Also, this method is a nice layout which is easy to read and simple to use and 100% free, I found it easy to get my ideas across using images and creating and developing my ideas futher.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
When putting together a campaign, a distributor aims to reach as many of their target audience as possible, also as cost effectively as possible. Audiences react to advertising in different ways and you can see advertising in a number of different places such as posters or on the internet.
Our audience for the horror genre was for younger male audience, they are more likely to see while promotion to a film online or bus shelter panels as posters.
As part of a promotional package, that the distributor has control of, the trailer and poster are part of the advertising scheme. This is to get the film known and so the audience know the film is soon to be released.
Other parts of the package are promotion and publicity, such as all the tie-in merchandising, for example, competitions where you can win to get freebies that promote the film like tshirts and bags.
Publicity is where the distributor tries to get the knowledge of the film into the press, they send packages with material, for magazine companies to make articles and reports on the film, this then causes word of mouth.
However, some films are not advertised in this way, the low budget films do not have the money to spend on this advertising of high quality trailers and posters and so they rely on word of mouth and viral campaigns on computers, this is known for the campaign for Paranormal Activity.
Poster
The poster for a film often contains the stars, theme/genre, billing block and a tagline to get the audiences interest.
In my poster, below, I have added one of the demons who is a star of the film, by placing the image in the corner it gives it a creepy feel and gives an idea of the horror genre. It could also give the illusion that the person is constantly watching you because I have made the eye brighter than the rest of the face, making it stand out.
I made a billing block which has all the stars, distributors and producers names, by using a tall thin font and changing the spacing on Photoshop, I was able to create the same style text as a billing block. Also, below this I created my own logos for distribution companies and I added the '18' Certificate that is normally given by the BBFC, where they feel that the content is not to be seen byu anyone under the age of 18 as it may contain drugs, sex, violence, strong language or something that could be of an criminal offence.
My tagline is placed under the title. The tagline is there to entice the audience into wanting to know more about the film, making them want to watch it. Using creative font for the title I was able to keep the the theme/horror genre style.
The importance of the release date is to get the best time for when the distributor thinks the audience will watch the film, such as kids films would be released in school holidays or films will be released with a theme in mind for the time of year such as halloween, for horror/scary films.
This is the poster for my trailer, I think it works as a promotional package, as I used the same font as the trailer. The only thing that I didn't like was the fact I could combine the necklace in some how. As you can see I have added my different posters where I have added the necklace and also added it as if blood is dripping from the necklace. I think having added the neclace and blood dripping it has over crowded the poster but with out the necklace it looks empty. so to increased the mystery of what was the film about I think my final poster is going to be with just the necklace in the corner.
Magazine
This is my magazine front cover, using Flickr I have added annotations.
Our audience for the horror genre was for younger male audience, they are more likely to see while promotion to a film online or bus shelter panels as posters.
As part of a promotional package, that the distributor has control of, the trailer and poster are part of the advertising scheme. This is to get the film known and so the audience know the film is soon to be released.
Other parts of the package are promotion and publicity, such as all the tie-in merchandising, for example, competitions where you can win to get freebies that promote the film like tshirts and bags.
Publicity is where the distributor tries to get the knowledge of the film into the press, they send packages with material, for magazine companies to make articles and reports on the film, this then causes word of mouth.
However, some films are not advertised in this way, the low budget films do not have the money to spend on this advertising of high quality trailers and posters and so they rely on word of mouth and viral campaigns on computers, this is known for the campaign for Paranormal Activity.
Poster
The poster for a film often contains the stars, theme/genre, billing block and a tagline to get the audiences interest.
In my poster, below, I have added one of the demons who is a star of the film, by placing the image in the corner it gives it a creepy feel and gives an idea of the horror genre. It could also give the illusion that the person is constantly watching you because I have made the eye brighter than the rest of the face, making it stand out.
I made a billing block which has all the stars, distributors and producers names, by using a tall thin font and changing the spacing on Photoshop, I was able to create the same style text as a billing block. Also, below this I created my own logos for distribution companies and I added the '18' Certificate that is normally given by the BBFC, where they feel that the content is not to be seen byu anyone under the age of 18 as it may contain drugs, sex, violence, strong language or something that could be of an criminal offence.
My tagline is placed under the title. The tagline is there to entice the audience into wanting to know more about the film, making them want to watch it. Using creative font for the title I was able to keep the the theme/horror genre style.
The importance of the release date is to get the best time for when the distributor thinks the audience will watch the film, such as kids films would be released in school holidays or films will be released with a theme in mind for the time of year such as halloween, for horror/scary films.
This is the poster for my trailer, I think it works as a promotional package, as I used the same font as the trailer. The only thing that I didn't like was the fact I could combine the necklace in some how. As you can see I have added my different posters where I have added the necklace and also added it as if blood is dripping from the necklace. I think having added the neclace and blood dripping it has over crowded the poster but with out the necklace it looks empty. so to increased the mystery of what was the film about I think my final poster is going to be with just the necklace in the corner.
Magazine
This is my magazine front cover, using Flickr I have added annotations.
Monday, 22 February 2010
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Below are nine still images taken from my horror teaser trailer, within our trailer we tried to include the man characters and showed some of the key settings for our film. We also tried to put a clear understanding of the storyline in for the audiences so that they could get an idea of what the film was about and so that it attract the adience that we interested in the horror genre. However, we didn't want to put too much in so that it wasn't a teaser trailer. The teaser trailer is only a snippet of a few clips just to get the audiences interested and to know that the film is coming out.
Using the website Flickr, I was able to add annotations to each image to describe how we use the connventions of horror in our teaser trailer. Please click the images to read my analyses.
Above are three direct comparisons to of our film to other teaser trailers.
The top images show the window scene, I think that these are effective. I prefer our darker still image because it adds to the mystery and you wouldn't expect anything to jump out at you. However, the lighter one is also good becuase you wouldn't expect to see something in the day time so it is more of a shock.
The second image are similar because it is an extreme close up of the eye. The close up creates tension and fear but also the the use of torches and lighting effects it creates shadows or highlights certain areas.
The last images are set in a graveyard, ours is a a darker setting but to blend in our trailer we need to make it alot darker as it is still too bright but we have the same effect of the as the seeting is a convention of horror.
Below are nine still images form existing horror trailers, such as 'Break' 2009, 'Seed' and 'House of Fears' 2007. I picked these images because I liked, either liked the way in which it shows a horror or it is similar to my horror teaser trailer.
Above shows conventions of the horror genre, because of the close up view of the character who appears to be the 'final girl', also the facial expression and blood on her torn clothing. The blurry, forest background creates tension and fearto the still image. The shot could aslo be a point of view shot of the monster looking at the victim.
This still image shows a woman in pain, it is clear to see this through her facial expression. The setting of the forest is a convention of horror. The blood stains on her face could mean thatthe film is a gore/horror.
This image appears as though it is a isolated place, which is a convention in setting of horror. The use of red lighting in the background could connote danger because a monster/demon is behind him, or it could mean fear or blood. Low key lighting creates an emphasis on shadows, the lighting in the background on the monster makes him stand out.
Above is a close up of the face and the viewer pays particular attention to the eye of the woman. The eye appears to show the woman in fear/distressed. Camerawork is a big part in creating the horror genre, normally the camera is canted to create a mystical feel. From this close up it is unclear to see if the women is leaningagainst a wall or whether she is laying down and the image has been turned, to give an unexpected view.
This is an extreme close up of the eye. Close ups and extreme close ups are commonly used in horror films to create suspence and fear, as you can not see beyond the picture, meaning eye line match edits can be used to create tension. The camera angle creates fear, also in this image you can tell it is from a horror film due to the amount of blood on the face and low key lighting.
The bright light shining into the camera gives the view as if the viewer is the monster, POV shot watching someone who is vunerable. A high angle creates more tension in the still image as the woman look small and weak.
I liked this image because it is extremely dark, which creates an eery feel and complies with the conventions of the horror genre. The silhouette of the two figures could be a POV shot as if the viewer is the monster looking at victims walking away. The figures appear to be in a graveyard and are close together which should be showing fear between then and creating tension to the viewer.
Another high angle shot, once again show vunerablity of the woman as she appears small and weak. To the left of her are chains hanging down, could they be used to for death? The expression that the woman has on her face also shows that she is scared of something, but because she is looking out of the screen it builds up tension because we, the viewer are unable to see what she can.
This low angle shot could connote the fact that the masked figure is superior to the guy in the bottom left hand corner, who is hard to depict because of the use of the torch which is shining in the opposite direction. The use of the torch also creates the perfect lighting on the face of the clown looking creature as it creates scary shadows on the face.
Monday, 15 February 2010
Images Ideas
Below are some images of the facemake up we hope to use for the demon in our trailer. With low key lighting and the use of photographic lamp it would create dramatic shadows and appear very spooky. I could also use some of these images for my ancillary tasks because I used good lighting, aslo I could added different layers on Photoshop to make it appear more horror.
This image below is of the necklace that we are going to in our trailer. I may also include this in my ancillary tasks as it is an important part of our teaser trailer.
These images below are of potential areas/settings that we could do the woodland scenes in. they are ideal as it is a covered woodland and has a sign saying to the church. The church is the idea we had for the beginning of our trailer. Ideally, we would film at night so that it fits with the conventions of the horror genre.
Monday, 23 November 2009
Our horror story... HEL
Sarah, a devout Christian, is at a graveyard attending her relative’s funeral. She wanders off and spots a highly decorative crucifix necklace upon one of the graves. Seeing that no-one is around, she removes the necklace from the grave and places it around her neck. Walking away, a brief glimpse of a shadowy, cloaked figure emerging from around the corner catches her eye, she brushes it off, thinking nothing of it. Unusual things begin to happen to her around college and in her neighbourhood as she constantly see’s this cloaked figure but no-one else seems to acknowledge it, she is the only person around who can see it. Is she going mad?
Nothing is safe anymore, wherever Sarah is, she is followed. But by what? Is it a ghost? No, she doesn’t believe in them, but what if they do really exist? Determined to find out what is happening to her she researches about ghosts, but ends up finding, that it is not just simply a ghost, but a demon that will bring her death. As time passes, things intensify. The demon stalking her can take form by possessing the bodies of her closest friends and family; it will use these as vessels of revenge to torture its victims into mindless insanity.
Her time is runing out as she becomes more and more insane and paranoid, she begins to realise that she must return the necklace to spare her own life. On returning to the church graveyard, she is yet to face the demon for the last time. What she thinks to be the last time that is. Will she be able to return the necklace in time? Or will it be the her last visit?
Nothing is safe anymore, wherever Sarah is, she is followed. But by what? Is it a ghost? No, she doesn’t believe in them, but what if they do really exist? Determined to find out what is happening to her she researches about ghosts, but ends up finding, that it is not just simply a ghost, but a demon that will bring her death. As time passes, things intensify. The demon stalking her can take form by possessing the bodies of her closest friends and family; it will use these as vessels of revenge to torture its victims into mindless insanity.
Her time is runing out as she becomes more and more insane and paranoid, she begins to realise that she must return the necklace to spare her own life. On returning to the church graveyard, she is yet to face the demon for the last time. What she thinks to be the last time that is. Will she be able to return the necklace in time? Or will it be the her last visit?
Thursday, 19 November 2009
Audience Research
In our groups we came up with a questionnaire to find out who our target audience would be and the type of horror films that they enjoy. We asked 50 boys and 50 girls, and we put our other results into graphs.
This is a bar chart showing the different age range of people we asked, as you can see the from the chart, most of the people we asked were 17 - 18.
These two pie charts above show how many male and females like horror films, as you can see the boys prefer watching horror films more than girls, with the males having 21 and the female 8. Generally girls don't like watching horror films. I think it is worth knowing the genders so that we are able to see who we are aiming our teaser trailers at.
This pie charty shows the how and where people watch horror films. As you can see from our results most people watch them on DVD, with 52% saying they do. The least popular place where people watch horror film is on the internet, with only 8% dong so.
This bar chart shows how often both male and female watch horror films, you can see that the percentage is the same for rarely and often (which we classed as weekly), however the majority of people watch film occasionally with 18 people.
Here you can see a bar chart for the different horror genres and how many people like which genre, we gave them the chose of 5. But from our results you can see that Psychological Thriller was most popular with half of our participant saying that they enjoyed them. The least favourite from our questionnaire was Religion, with only 3 people saying that they enjoyed that genre.
So, from our results that we gained, we can see that our target audience is males as they prefer watching horrors and aged around 17.
The ideas that we could use in our own trailer from the result, show that majority of them like watching a Psychological thriller, however other ideas in which we could include in our trailer could involve Vampires and Grore.
We also asked in our questionnaire what people found interesting in trailers, some of the replies we got were:
'lots of gore',
This is a bar chart showing the different age range of people we asked, as you can see the from the chart, most of the people we asked were 17 - 18.
These two pie charts above show how many male and females like horror films, as you can see the boys prefer watching horror films more than girls, with the males having 21 and the female 8. Generally girls don't like watching horror films. I think it is worth knowing the genders so that we are able to see who we are aiming our teaser trailers at.
This pie charty shows the how and where people watch horror films. As you can see from our results most people watch them on DVD, with 52% saying they do. The least popular place where people watch horror film is on the internet, with only 8% dong so.
This bar chart shows how often both male and female watch horror films, you can see that the percentage is the same for rarely and often (which we classed as weekly), however the majority of people watch film occasionally with 18 people.
Here you can see a bar chart for the different horror genres and how many people like which genre, we gave them the chose of 5. But from our results you can see that Psychological Thriller was most popular with half of our participant saying that they enjoyed them. The least favourite from our questionnaire was Religion, with only 3 people saying that they enjoyed that genre.
So, from our results that we gained, we can see that our target audience is males as they prefer watching horrors and aged around 17.
The ideas that we could use in our own trailer from the result, show that majority of them like watching a Psychological thriller, however other ideas in which we could include in our trailer could involve Vampires and Grore.
We also asked in our questionnaire what people found interesting in trailers, some of the replies we got were:
'lots of gore',
Saturday, 14 November 2009
What are some of the key conventions of the horror genre
We all have different opinions on horror films, some people love them, and some people are terrified. But what ever your opinion on them, the genre of horror has conventions so that the viewer knows that they are watching a horror, some of the conventions are setting, narrative structure and different character types. Horror films are designed to frighten and panic us, they invoke hidden fears. The fears in which we experience can be anything from, fear of death, nightmares and terror of the unknown.
The theme, horror, connotes many different ideas to me; the known against the unknown, monsters and demons, setting of old abandoned houses. There are a number of different ways in which a horror film can be themed on, such as binary opposites, things like, natural vs. unnatural or good vs. evil. This was the theory of Claude Levi-Strauss. Other themes include, the return of the repressed/hidden evil inside, this was Freudian theory, he said it is when a memory of a event, that has been blocked out or even been able to recall because it was either painful or traumatic, is trig
gered by particular smells or tastes, often many years later. Science out of control, one classic example of this is Frankenstein, where a mad scientist makes many creatures but one is misguided science and turns against the creator.
When you first begin watching a horror film, you can straight away tell what the genre is by the setting. Often, in the out of hours or night time and majority of horror films are set in small communities or places which are isolated from the inner city, set in rural areas as it offers more opportunities for the victim/s to be outsiders of the community or isolated. Or perhaps the community shares an old secret that is never to be told. This is not always the case, but even within the larger setting is an abandoned house or church in the community, that can have a number of floors, su
ch as attics and cellars, places for secrets and the unknown. One of the films we watched was Halloween; this is a good example of a small community, isolated, where the events take place in old three storey houses. Some other settings in which horror films are set is religious places, such as ‘The Exorcist’, or medical institutions, where the mentally ill live.
The signifiers that are present to us in the genre of horror are the colours black and red, these clearly connote darkness, danger and blood. Objects that are present in the mise-en-scene are bladed objects/weapons, blood stains on clothing and objects that represent religion, such as crucifixes. These are present in Eden Lake, the hoodies carry knives and their clothes b
ecome blood stained after attacking the boyfriend. Other iconography that we think of when we see horror film are the lighting, non-naturalistic, normally low key with an emphasis shadows and from unexpected angles to cast and create unknown shadows and to connote hell and bonfires. If the light is natural, it usually comes from moonlight or sunlight and normally from above. These were all clear in the films we watched, in Halloween, there are night time scenes where the moon light shines and gives a spooky feel to the film.
The technical codes, including camerawork, sound and editing are all very prominent. The camerawork is expressive with lots of high and low angles, this can show the shadows that are cast from the lighting and makes the shot look terrifying as the viewer. To make the audience disorientated, which is common, there may be canted shots and arcs. Along with these shots that confuse the audience, the victim is viewed in extreme close ups, so that the audience can identify with the terror and fear that the victim experiences, ECU can also be used for sudden shots on the monster which gives the feeling of personal space being invaded.
Another common shot is the POV (point of view), often subjective, is in the view of the monster watching the victim or from the victims POV and putting the audience in this position which questions the audience’s identification. However, during both films we have watched we see that the objective person at the beginning (victim) becomes the subjective and we see the film through their eye’s and experience and creates more fear.
The editing used in horror films is generally unsettled and jumps different shots so that it isn’t smooth for example LS to CU and cutting out the MS. Another section of editing that can create the effect of jumpiness and when something scary is about to appear is when the editing pace is increased.
Sounds are important, the sounds which you hear in horror films are normally diagetic, such as footsteps and heartbeats, and these are known as ambient sounds.
The different character types that you get in horror films are protagonist, monsters/villains and children/teens. The protagonist is the lead character ‘victim/hero’, and many times results in them being the survivor or the Final Girl. The lead character often fights the villain, which is the good vs. evil.
Vladimir Propp, a narrative theorist, examined 100s of examples to see if they shared any structures. He identified 8 different character roles, the villain, the hero, the donor (who provides an object), the helper who aids the hero, the princess (a reward for the hero) the princess’s father, the dispatcher who sends the hero on his way and the false hero. Propp said that one character may fulfil more than one role; this is very true for the film, The Shining. In this film the role of the hero is shared between Danny and Wendy, Jack is the villain and the Cook (Hallorann) is the donor and helper.
A classic Hollywood narrative structure, (normality-enigma-pathway to resolution-closure or hero-agent of change-quest-resolution-closure) these are marginally applicable to the horror genre, but the closure may be left ambiguous for the reason of a sequel to be made, this is based on Todorov’s theory.
Propp also proposed an outline on the basic structure of which indicates the development of the plot into 31 functions. The first 7 are broken down into the preparation, these first functions relate to The Shining, and reinforces the idea however it doesn’t follow the other points. After preparation is complication where the hero plans something against the villain, in the section transference the hero takes on the actions given by the donor and uses the object given to him. During the struggle section, the villain and hero fight one another and generally the hero is branded by a scar or a mark. The hero then returns and recognized, where as the villain is punished. However, this does not work for all the films we have studied.
These are just some of the key concepts of the horror genre, but with all the different makes a film that could the audience can identify with and feel the fear in which the victim feels.
The theme, horror, connotes many different ideas to me; the known against the unknown, monsters and demons, setting of old abandoned houses. There are a number of different ways in which a horror film can be themed on, such as binary opposites, things like, natural vs. unnatural or good vs. evil. This was the theory of Claude Levi-Strauss. Other themes include, the return of the repressed/hidden evil inside, this was Freudian theory, he said it is when a memory of a event, that has been blocked out or even been able to recall because it was either painful or traumatic, is trig
gered by particular smells or tastes, often many years later. Science out of control, one classic example of this is Frankenstein, where a mad scientist makes many creatures but one is misguided science and turns against the creator.When you first begin watching a horror film, you can straight away tell what the genre is by the setting. Often, in the out of hours or night time and majority of horror films are set in small communities or places which are isolated from the inner city, set in rural areas as it offers more opportunities for the victim/s to be outsiders of the community or isolated. Or perhaps the community shares an old secret that is never to be told. This is not always the case, but even within the larger setting is an abandoned house or church in the community, that can have a number of floors, su
ch as attics and cellars, places for secrets and the unknown. One of the films we watched was Halloween; this is a good example of a small community, isolated, where the events take place in old three storey houses. Some other settings in which horror films are set is religious places, such as ‘The Exorcist’, or medical institutions, where the mentally ill live.The signifiers that are present to us in the genre of horror are the colours black and red, these clearly connote darkness, danger and blood. Objects that are present in the mise-en-scene are bladed objects/weapons, blood stains on clothing and objects that represent religion, such as crucifixes. These are present in Eden Lake, the hoodies carry knives and their clothes b
ecome blood stained after attacking the boyfriend. Other iconography that we think of when we see horror film are the lighting, non-naturalistic, normally low key with an emphasis shadows and from unexpected angles to cast and create unknown shadows and to connote hell and bonfires. If the light is natural, it usually comes from moonlight or sunlight and normally from above. These were all clear in the films we watched, in Halloween, there are night time scenes where the moon light shines and gives a spooky feel to the film.The technical codes, including camerawork, sound and editing are all very prominent. The camerawork is expressive with lots of high and low angles, this can show the shadows that are cast from the lighting and makes the shot look terrifying as the viewer. To make the audience disorientated, which is common, there may be canted shots and arcs. Along with these shots that confuse the audience, the victim is viewed in extreme close ups, so that the audience can identify with the terror and fear that the victim experiences, ECU can also be used for sudden shots on the monster which gives the feeling of personal space being invaded.
Another common shot is the POV (point of view), often subjective, is in the view of the monster watching the victim or from the victims POV and putting the audience in this position which questions the audience’s identification. However, during both films we have watched we see that the objective person at the beginning (victim) becomes the subjective and we see the film through their eye’s and experience and creates more fear.
The editing used in horror films is generally unsettled and jumps different shots so that it isn’t smooth for example LS to CU and cutting out the MS. Another section of editing that can create the effect of jumpiness and when something scary is about to appear is when the editing pace is increased.
Sounds are important, the sounds which you hear in horror films are normally diagetic, such as footsteps and heartbeats, and these are known as ambient sounds.
The different character types that you get in horror films are protagonist, monsters/villains and children/teens. The protagonist is the lead character ‘victim/hero’, and many times results in them being the survivor or the Final Girl. The lead character often fights the villain, which is the good vs. evil.
Vladimir Propp, a narrative theorist, examined 100s of examples to see if they shared any structures. He identified 8 different character roles, the villain, the hero, the donor (who provides an object), the helper who aids the hero, the princess (a reward for the hero) the princess’s father, the dispatcher who sends the hero on his way and the false hero. Propp said that one character may fulfil more than one role; this is very true for the film, The Shining. In this film the role of the hero is shared between Danny and Wendy, Jack is the villain and the Cook (Hallorann) is the donor and helper.
A classic Hollywood narrative structure, (normality-enigma-pathway to resolution-closure or hero-agent of change-quest-resolution-closure) these are marginally applicable to the horror genre, but the closure may be left ambiguous for the reason of a sequel to be made, this is based on Todorov’s theory.
Propp also proposed an outline on the basic structure of which indicates the development of the plot into 31 functions. The first 7 are broken down into the preparation, these first functions relate to The Shining, and reinforces the idea however it doesn’t follow the other points. After preparation is complication where the hero plans something against the villain, in the section transference the hero takes on the actions given by the donor and uses the object given to him. During the struggle section, the villain and hero fight one another and generally the hero is branded by a scar or a mark. The hero then returns and recognized, where as the villain is punished. However, this does not work for all the films we have studied.
These are just some of the key concepts of the horror genre, but with all the different makes a film that could the audience can identify with and feel the fear in which the victim feels.
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