Monday, 8 May 2017
Evaluation Question 3
Evaluation
Question 3
Audience feedback is one of the most important parts within
any media product; it allows distributors to improve on any area that may need
some work. They won’t know specifically what the audience wants until it’s
released, even just teasers, and it’s important for these to be satisfied
otherwise the movie will earn no money from it. These are your main critics,
and they will have higher standards in the modern day, so a lot of research has
to go into how to appeal to the population. Having these feedbacks allows the
creators to develop on what they have and restore areas that have been
ridiculed as part of the evaluation on it, so the final product is nothing
short of the target audiences standards. Woman in Black is a key example of how
a lot of recognition and feedback prior to the official release gave the movie
the success it now has, based on correct marketing and distribution the movie
had a very large profit.
We gathered our feedback through a screening shown to the class;
this was the main form of feedback where our target audience were able to see
where we were up to in terms of creating the product. The target audience is
intending to be between 16-25 suiting to both genders, though the class
screened to was predominately female, though suited to both genders males seem
to be where the most of the attention is brought to. Aside from these, the
teacher has also given feedback, so we were able to get the opinion of someone
from a separate demographic, plus he has a larger insight due to him being professional
in this field and where to critique effectively giving useful criticism to work
on.
From the screening, we had a split in negative and positive
feedback. The negative consisted of the shots being unnecessarily too long, and
not enough footage, this is due to us having to wait in order to shoot certain
shots on a specific date so at that point it wasn’t all put together. We had to
do it in multiple screenings as there were a few errors surrounding ours, such
as rendering had affected our sound and black screened some visuals that
existed, so this needed a fix in order for us to show, so some of the feedback
had to be disregarded as it was technical fault rather than fault of our own,
but once it was working, it became apparent that the gaps in the trailer needed
to filled, some audio needed to be synced to a higher standard as they sound
out of line. Another main criticism was about the story, which is important to
a trailer, it ‘wasn’t apparent that the story was around the book’ mainly due
to missing shots and editing that made it unclear. Positive feedback was based
around camera shots, lighting, and quality of editing, so it was said to be
‘professional’, though we couldn’t get accurate feedback on the plot itself as
it wasn’t there.
We took this feedback and applied it extensively to our
trailer; we recorded all the footage needed in order to fill the gaps needed to
make a full trailer. In conjunction, we filled it with shots of the main
protagonist finding, reading and analysing the book, to show the significance
of it, this filled the gaps and gave a clear understanding on what the story
was about. Something else that was brought up was the pace of editing and
amount of clips needed at the ended, instead of dragging out shots, we cut them
down and included a lot of fast paced shots at the end to build suspense and
making it memorable, as the longer shots made it boring to watch simply, only
keeping them at the beginning then reducing them throughout to have a more
flexible pace of editing.
How our research influenced our idea
How our research influenced our
idea
When we
look back on what we have found out from our research, we knew we had to
incoorporate some of it into our movie trailer idea. For example, we knew that
our narrative had to have a particular structure and we had to show that
through our trailer. We had to have an equilibrium and a disruption, then we
had to leave the rest out in order to create mystery and suspense like they do
in other horror movie trailers, which is something else we found out when doing
our research, especially when analysing the three different horror movie
trailers.
On top of narrative
structure, we also had to figure out what sort of characters we actually wanted
in our movie and trailer, did we want binary oppositioned characters like good
and evil? Old and young? We ended up going for good and evil, including
characters such as the villain and the hero in our trailer in order to
introduce our audience to these characters.
Especially after looking at our audience feedback, we started to get an idea of what we really wanted our film trailer to look like. Not only did we have to consider target audience and what they were/ who they were, we had to look into what they were looking for in a horror trailer and what would get them to enjoy it and go and watch the full movie.
Trailer Analysis
Trailer
Analysis
The Conjuring
The first analysis I decided to look at was ‘The Conjuring’,
this 2013 horror story was based on a true story loosely surrounding the renowned
paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren; who in their career was
associated to over 10,000 events.
The trailer begins following general trailer conventions
where it displays the film productions logo, in this case Warner Bros and New
Line Cinema is displayed for a very brief time. This is commonly used mainly to
highlight the company, as especially Warner Bros, people are drawn due to their
prior releases being reputable, and they trust that they won’t be let down from
this release. Also through this the audience can tell what type of movie this
is, the style that its designed shows that this is a horror, given by the dark
atmosphere accompanied with clouds behind, even the logos are designed
differently and made darker to have the audience perceived what genre this is;
this is even complemented with a deep sudden noise that fades to attract the
audience.
Here the trailer introduces itself, with what is given by how
he is presented and his control over the situation, the trailer portrays the
first seen person as the protagonist. He begins by describing what he’s doing
and the line ‘we’re heading down in the cellar, where the door just opened on
its own’ gives the instant interpretation of a supernatural where unexplained
events occur and it also describes the groups roles as investigators, otherwise
they wouldn’t have the cameras, equipment and documenting their venture, the
professionalism gives off the working impression. The handheld camera work at
the beginning is seen in few horrors, but this convention is one that’s taken
upon as it seems as if the audience is there, looking around the cellar
investigating, it’s an inviting way of getting the audience more immersed into
the movie.
The equilibrium begins when the movie projector is cut out,
with the characters introducing themselves and giving formidable roles for an
audience, the setting here gives off the fact it’s an equilibrium with the two
presenters looking very successful, a brightly lit room, and a lecture hall
full of innocent students with intention on learning, this is backed up from the
student asking a question as soon as the film is stopped, giving eagerness
across also. Then the music begins through the equilibrium of acoustic guitar
and soft singing, even though the images shown have a dark theme with skulls
and graves, but this is what backs up the fades onto the shots with text
reading ‘based on the true story of the Warrens’. This line though seen often
actually seems like it goes against conventions as it even reads what the true
story is straight off giving that leeway for those interested to find out more
instantly, instead of reading only based on a true story, the text proceeding
introduces the story and that it will be about one of the cases they
endeavoured.
Then shows the event, with the student introduces a
frightened woman, which by her appearance and her seemingly look for help the
audience knows why she confronted the researchers. The music then begins fading
out, and replaced by sequenced eerie tones, seemingly imitating loud footsteps.
The screen displays more text reading ‘From the Director of Saw and Insidious’
which is something that’s seen in almost all trailers, due to the movies being
recognised as very impactful on the genre, this is what can attract the
audience viewing this to see the movie because of their adoration towards
either of those films. Here the shots begin to speed up in changing between,
this is a convention used in horrors as the pace of editing increases the
tension in the movie as many things are occurring in a shorter period of time,
however the trailer in general uses longer shots than other trailers as this
adds to suspense but this stagnates and doesn’t increase in pace noticeably
throughout, going against general conventions in a horror trailer as they
usually develop as it progresses.
This trailer uses a lot of dialogue throughout, with the
eerie tone playing constantly during the course of this trailer. A common line
that creates tension in this horror is ‘look what she made me do’, this is
whispered multiple times when the sound dies down, its ambiguous which draws in
the audience yet said in a scary tone that creates a chilling effect. The
trailer here just gives the story away but is rather vague compared to other
trailers where it doesn’t show any resolve at all or even hints to one at all,
just the bits that the audience were looking to see in order to attract them.
The trailer uses many dark environments especially due to its domestic setting,
and this shows that this could be something that could happen in any household.
The ending has a series of fast paced shots, which have screams, running and
panic from multiple people, this is followed as a horror convention, which is
then interrupted by the title; action is usually broken up suddenly with the
title or credits in a trailer. The title shows this is a horror due to the dark
background and ominous text style with a broken faded white font, a final scene
is played after this, silent apart from the dialogue, and the eerie whispered
‘look what she made me do’ leading to an unexpected jump scare to give the
audience the feeling they want in order to experience a horror film.
Paranormal Activity
The next analysis will be Paranormal Activity, a movie for
its time was qualified as the ‘Scariest movie of all time’, with a budget of
only $15,000 director Oren Peli hit box office records with $193.4 million
endorsed from this title. The profits mainly came through the lack of reputable
stars included, Oren Peli being the director as well as editor, writer, and
cinematographer, the absence of people included is what keeps the low budget. This
2007 American paranormal horror, started as an independent film distributed
throughout festivals, only later being picked up by Paramount Pictures and
modified, with an official release of this versions feature in 2009; the main
difference was the change of the official ending to the film.
The first shot is of the approval and age rating of the
movie, with general age guidance. Once the green screen has passed, it shows
the queuing of an audience recorded with a handheld camera from seemingly a
member in the queue documenting this event, introduces with text for the
audience to understand what is occurring. This seems to record what appears to
be an audience of those between 19 to late twenties, establishing a very
mainstream target audience for those watching this trailer this attracts an
interest from this group of people, this is seen to have been done due to the
horror genre trying to gain a larger interest from a new generation rather than
trying to appeal to those who have grown up with horrors but grown through it. For
more of an immersive feel the camera is placed within those viewing in the
cinema looking between their heads as if you were watching the trailer with
more people, which is a very unconventional trailer technique that’s not been
seen too frequently or not at all.
As the next scenes progress the continuous shot/ reverse
shots between the audience’s reactions and the trailer itself, the audience’s
reactions create suspense, their intense look and silence builds tension. As a convention there is only a quiet but
eerie soundtrack playing in the background, but edited in such a way that the
dialogue is heard clearly over this to understand the equilibrium and
disruptive event that leads into the movie, however, unconventionally from a
horror the equilibrium isn’t all that bright. It begins with the woman’s worry
about the foreshadowed issue surrounding the house, usually beginning where
everything is normal and positivity seems to be the general vibe surrounding
the characters.
The trailer as conventionally expected, began to become
scarier to show the parts that would attract those that are looking to see the
next horror of the year for say. But this in combination with the audience
gives across reactions of fright, disgust and curiosity; this is where those
watching the trailer can expect this film to give these emotions to them.
Throughout the proceeding scenes general horror trailer conventions begin to
appear, with screams, loud crashes, and sudden increase in the music’s tone to
amplify the frightful scenes. These scenes bring out the hand held camera style
of this movie, only static cameras being those planted on the walls to document
activity throughout the night, this is in order to show that the movie is
in the style of a ‘found footage’ film,
through the fast paced shots the camera seems more shaken to show panic and
intensity for a seemingly dangerous environment.
The fast paced shots is a common convention in horrors and
trailers in general, the suspense builds at a higher rate as none of the events
transition to anything conclusive leading more to watch, this induces a
psychological reaction. Throughout the series of fast paced shots towards the
end, the words ‘experience It’, ‘for and ‘yourself’ separate these, this is to
highlight the reactions from the audience, there are multiple scenes that we as
an audience do not see but the reactions of the audience still heightens
tension. The soundtrack intensifies when the action is at its peak, then gets
cut off by the glitch style font reading ‘Paranormal Activity’ this is where
the music dies instantaneously to silence, the quick change of tensions create
a mental fright that seems to linger more than a fade out, which
unconventionally is not seen often through this trailer as usually there are
many fades throughout. The trailer typically shows when the movie will be
released, however it shows specific cities, due to its low budget and low
expectancy the movie was planned to be released in few locations in order to
not make loss on the low budget that was originally assigned to this movie. The
trailer in general is shorter than many others at only 1:45, even its
predecessor is nearing 30 seconds longer than this, but this may either be due
to low budget or that they wanted to show a fast paced horror, as concluding
this trailer it was fast paced the whole way through, where the equilibrium was
vague and the horror plot had already begun with narrative from the protagonist
swiftly describing the occurrences.
Representation Of Women
Representation of Women
Particularly
in the horror genre, genders are presented in very stereotypical ideologies
thus of which are followed throughout, developing throughout time. In this
essay I will be analyzing the theories of three key individuals in the
representation of media, Carol Clover, Jeremy Tunstall, and Laura Mulvey, in
conjunction to this I will be comparing and assessing multiple horrors that
support these concepts and also those that go against these typical
conventions. I also aim to analyze the comparatives between modern to older
horrors, in order to grasp how these conventions have advanced, either diminishing
or becoming more established within the genre.
The films I
will be using as my examples will be ‘Wrong Turn’(2003), ‘Halloween’(1978) and
‘House of Wax’(2005), these all depict all aspects of the theories that I will
be discussing based on character roles within the film; in one sense or
another. The first theory I will be discussing is the ‘Male Gaze’ theory sought
out by Laura Mulvey, a feminist film critic with such works as ‘Citizen Kane’
and ‘Invention’, wrote an essay titled ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’
this 1975 piece was influenced purely on how females in movies are portrayed.
This is a very impacting piece when it comes to media representation, more
specifically feminist film theory. The ‘Male Gaze’ is the way in which the
camera is essentially the perspective of a stereotypical heterosexual male,
where the perception of the woman is often represented in an erotic light, for
the audience as well as the characters within the film. This makes the male
seen to have a dominant standpoint, where the woman is passively seen falling
victim to this, this often becoming described as patriarchal and manipulative.
Mulvey links this to Freuds notion of ‘scopophilia’, this is described as a ‘pleasure
that is linked to sexual attraction and scopophilic pleasure that is linked to
narcissistic identification’, so the egotistical visualization from a male
viewpoint is a factor in this instance. An example of this is ‘House of Wax’
this 2005 thriller, that’s taken the inspiration from the 1953 ‘House of Wax’,
in which Paris Hilton and Elisha Cuthbert are the direct examples that support
the notation of the ‘Male Gaze’ theory in which they are both inclined throughout
to wear provocative clothing, for the intention of the male pleasure. Many
scenes throughout give the impression of her being an object over a subject, in
one scene where Elisha falls into a pit in which all of her clothes become
covered in blood from carcasses resulting in her needing to change her clothes,
this scene is unnecessary to include in a horror sense, but was left in for
male satisfaction. Though this character was only shown in a sexual manner,
where she was the character with main intent of the goal that’s been set out,
playing into the structural consensus theory, contradictory to this is Paris’
character who is strongly presented as an erotic figure, with examples such as
her sex scene where she’s undressed to reveal her lingerie, and the notable
death scene in which lasts an extended period of time of her running around
with a very minimal amount of clothing covering her, she played into this
stereotype with the attractive, blonde, unintelligent portrayal, thus leading
her to death due to the stereotypes of sexual activity inevitably leading to
death, the only survivors being Elisha’s character and her brother; this is due
to the final girl theory.
The final girl theory was an ideology from Carol Clover, a
professor of film studies, where her works have been published widely in her
multiple fortes. This theory is seen to be
one that opposes others such as male gaze, in which male gaze the woman
is portrayed in a way the male wants to see them, though some of these
conventions are inherited not all are followed, as will show evident later. The
woman that follow this theory follow the goal in order to heed survival, come
across as courageous, don’t sexually invite themselves, often taken up some
masculine features in their characteristics also, as the name suggests these
are the ones that last through to the end of the film due to their focus on the
primary concern and not taken away by petty concerns or activities, even when
encountered with the primary antagonist. This ideology draws away from the
growing concern surrounding subjectivity in movies, especially considering this
is after the essay by Laura Mulvey about feminism in movies was published, and
her work did seem to make impact. As previously discussed ‘House of Wax’ has
Elisha Cuthbert’s character who follows this convention, who throughout is set
out on repairing the car, trying to escape as soon as possible, where many of
the other characters engage in sexual activity in one form or another in which
leads to death, though Elisha is seen under the ‘Male Gaze’ in some instances
and features, her personality and intention differs from the others especially
the other prominent female played by Paris Hilton who’s intention is her
boyfriend. Another film that highlights this theory expendably is ‘Halloween’,
the character Laurie Strode played by Jamie Lee Curtis follows every convention
of the final girl theory, she is focused on her education, she doesn’t even
have the intention of attending a date where instead she would prefer to stay
in, she comes from a middle class background, these ideologies are what was
conventional at the time of release. Justifying that they haven’t progressed
too much through the years as these are still influenced into horrors
especially, where Michael Myers would target those who are focused on erotic
activities and education over other key intentions, for example overlooking the
children, instead giving that responsibility to Laurie who successfully
protects them and her-self based on her dominant willpower, though she is saved
by a male character, she does still fall under final girl due to her surviving
throughout even when encountering the killer. Her character itself is seen to
have masculine qualities, deeper voice, and virile determination; even though
she rarely even bears any provocative light, other female characters do which
still keeps the ‘Male Gaze’ in the movie. The objectification of characters
such as Lynda who appears subjected due to her involvement with a sex scene and
skimpy apparel does give the ‘Male Gaze’ reinforcement throughout, but as
discussed it becomes evident she does get killed by Mike Myers, but this movie
does seem to be more from the eyes of the ‘Final Girl’ rather than the camera
which around this time was a growing concern in the feminism community.
The final theory is from theorist and author Jeremy Tunstall
with his concept being the ideology of women being based around 4 main roles,
these being: domestic, sexual, consumer and marital. These are what are
believed to be the roles that females pursue throughout the films, sexual is a
notation well depicted through the male gaze theory, domestic would be acting
in a stereotypical motherly way throughout. Consumer is one that arguably is
closely linked to the domestic role, for example ‘The Crazies’ have this role
in demonstration where Judy has already planned the babies’ arrival and
purchased many items in preparation for the child’s room, though she also takes
under multiple roles, where she being pregnant and married are very marital
behaviour. Though in some relations she challenges conventions in her suggested
earning more money than her husband, giving the impression she is highly
educated in being employed as a doctor, this independence that’s developed
throughout the movie does make her stray away from typical female roles.
Because more of these conventional roles are challenged frequently in modern
film, as during the time of Jeremy Tunstall publishing ‘The Media in Britain’
it was 1983 so these have slightly become outdated and not undertaken too often
due to the subjectivity of woman in film of recent times taking a higher
priority, this is what causes the independence within certain characters.
In conclusion, the theories, in my opinion are still all
viable, the camera more often than not have scenes on certain characters where
it still takes the perspective of a heterosexual manner, as there are many
sexualised female scenes. Also due to the media patriarchy surrounding males,
the females are presented as having stereotypical roles, though these theories
are being challenged more and more due to integrity women set on character
objectivity, these present them in an unconventional manner, for example the
‘Final Girl’ is a formidable example of how these are challenged in every woman
as these women follow the theory and survive, sometimes they can possess some
roles, such as Judy in ‘The Crazies’ taking on multiple roles due to her
relations, ‘Halloween’ Laurie Strode seems to be fairly domestic, though they
stray away from certain roles, predominantly sexual.
Narrative Theory
Narrative
Theory
The narrative theory is what structures any film; this
includes the theoretical standpoint on all stereotypes within character models,
location, and plot. These theory structures are hypothesized and developed
through key individuals relating back to the genre, this is the same for any
genre whether it is action or horror, each need a technical expansion.
Arguably
the most important of these theses is Todorov’s Narrative, a key structural
basis within the genre. Tzvetan Todorov a Bugarian born author, residing in
France until February 7th of this year, as well as literary theory
he had significant influence in sociology and culture theory. Todorov’s narrative
states that all narratives follow equilibrium, an event and a resolution. The
equilibrium is the section where everything is ‘balanced’ generally where the
characters seem happy and proceeding life as normal (moving to a new house as
family, going through school with friends, etc…). The event is what disrupts
this equilibrium either through, for example, hauntings, killings, etc… Then a
resolution, bringing the story together, giving closure to the whole story as
quite a few horrors are individual stories, however if a sequel is planned a
cliff hanger is generally left after the resolution to hint to where the
continuation of the story will proceed. This is just the rough reel of how the
structure is set up; the image located on the right gives a more detailed
aspect on the structural analysis of Todorov. In a modern sense, many films try
to break this narrative as a way of trying to put a twist on the genre, instead
of all following the same flow by leaving out sections in the cycle.
The next analysis will be on Vladimir Propp, a soviet scholar
who depicted folk tales to decipher narrative elements. He made the conclusion
that tales follow 31 functions, obviously some inverted, rearranged or replaced
in order to make each story unique; but they are all similar. What I’m
personally researching for my film is the character functions, in term was
created from the 100 folk tales analysed. There’s the hero, ‘who reacts
to the dispatcher and donor characters’, described as the character that
reacts to other characters so thwart towards the villain for example, and noble
towards allies, the natural born leader that’s set to lead the resolution in
the story and often times end up with the female protagonist. On the flip side,
the villain, a character with a cruel, immoral attitude, seeking to ruin the
hero’s quest.
Claude Levi-Strauss was a Belgian anthropologist, whose work
in turn was significant in the development of structuralism theories. He argued
that narratives are broken into binary opposites, for example weak vs. strong,
and mainly good vs. evil. This and most of his other theories come from myths
and their values, from then media has adapted these symbolic texts due to that
culture becoming an outdated belief.
These theories are what need to be observed and shaped in
order to suit my our groups horror movie, the development of all these are what
creates a well-structured movie, able to design each character to become more
relatable to the audience, and to design the story so it’s easy to follow and
to make it organised. Another couple of contributing factors include Bordwell
and Thompson, though it’s not a complete theory they came up with the idea that
the chain of events with a media form have an effect on the relationship that
happens in time, caused by flashbacks and speed changes.
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