Lois A2 Media: October 2014

Thursday, 30 October 2014

Carol J. Clover - Her body, Himself

The article of 'her body, himself' (extract) expresses how women are portrayed on TV and how it has changed over time. Women have gone from being the 'pretty' images on TV in which they are victims of murders, being killed off to becoming 'The Final Girl'/ Films such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and Halloween (1978) explore the aspect of the final girl. In the 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre'. Sally becomes the final girl, escaping from 'Leatherface' and in 'Halloween' Laurie, being the last one of her friends still standing, but Michael Myers still not defeated. I personally believe that women have come a long way on TV and in film and have definitely had a role reversal over time. The article explores in depth women on TV and how they are usually implicated by men. One suggestion from the article was that a man would rather see a pretty women on TV being murdered than an ugly women or a man. This could indicate that women are still being presented as 'sex symbols' on TV even though they are taking on a more masculine role, becoming the 'alpha female'. Some men would rather sexualise the heroine than see an ugly woman take on that role which I believe is unfair, women should be rewarded for their acting, not looks.

I still believe that it happens today as 'final girl' roles are usually depicted by good looking women. Films such as Psycho (1960) explore women being portrayed as inferior to men and men have authority and dominate women on TV.

Why do 'men act and women appear'?

Laura Mulvey wrote a very influential essay, 'visual pleasure and narrative cinema' (1975) suggests that the way women are viewed in cinema is 'unequal'. The camera necessarily presents women as 'sexualised', for the pleasure of men.

The Male Gaze

The look of the camera as it records the filmic event.
The look of the audience as it watches the final film product.
The look of the characters at each other in the visual images of screen illusion.

Voyeurism - Stemmed from Sigmund Freud. The compulsion to seek gratification by secretively looking at sexual objects or acts; the actions of a Peeping Tom. For example, in the opening of Psycho (1960), the camera pans into Marion Cranes bedroom which gives a sense of an audience watching something they're not suppose to be seeing as it is private.

Audience Theories

Hypodermic Model

It has immediate and powerful effect on its audiences. An intended message is directly received.

Copycat/Modelling Theory

It is modelled or inspired by an act which has been publicized in the media.

Cultivation Theory

Leaves people with a mis-perception of what is true in the world.

Uses/Gratifications Theory

Is an approach to understanding why and how people actively seek out specific media.

Desensitisation Theory

When media audiences' reaction grow weaker due to the exposure to violence and death etc.

Reception Theory

It emphasizes the readers reception of a text that can be read.

Paul Wells

In class, we looked at theorist, Paul Wells and reviewed his research. As you can see from below, I made some notes on his research in which he conducted.

41-55 years (1945-1974)

Conducted a small focus group study. (12 people)
Interest in horror whilst younger, rather than enduring with age.
Night and dark - reminded them of walking home in the dark as youths.
Real horror of World War 2 meant they didn't like imaginary horror.
Contemporary films showed good SFX.

26-40 years (1960-1974)

Slow disengagement with the genre, disliked silly predictability of films in 1980s that relied on certain conventions.

16-25 years (1975-1984)

Enjoyed the spectacle - blood-letting and gore. Engaged with extra-textual world of horror e.g. websites.
Horror watched socially.
The relationship to being frightened changes with age,
Audience between 1970s and 1990s are more anaesthetised to explicit special effects.
Young audiences are aware of artificiality and are becoming harder to shock.

Research Into Horror Trailers

Tuesday, 21 October 2014

Prelim Task - Prom Night Remake Trailer (2008)

After a couple of days filming, here is my final preliminary production. My group and I took it in turns to edit and film the work that we did. We didn't use any soundtracks, but used some digetic sounds such as the scream over the 'mom's' scream. We wanted the production to be menacing. I think that we were quite successful at doing so, but we could have done a lot more work to gain that success. Unfortunately, we didn't have a spare battery so our camera died on us and we couldn't proceed further. We had to use the footage we had to finish the story line with a cliffhanger. I personally would have filmed in different lighting or changed the contrast of the movie on iMovie. I also would have filmed a lot more if our camera didn't die on us. I think that the scene we remade could have been different, but we had so little time, so we had to be very prompt when making a decision of what scene/trailer we wanted to remake. Overall, I think that all of my group members worked well and I think that I worked well too. I think that this is a good starting point and we'll learn a lot from this. We will be able to look back at this task and see our infinite improvement.

Prom Night Opening

Prom night is a 2008 American slasher film. It is a remake of a 1980 Canadian slasher film. This is the scene my group and I are planning to remake as we felt that this scene of the movie was the most thrilling. The location we are planning to film in, is at Shari's (a group member) house. We decided to change a couple of aspects from the scene such as the characters, in which meaning excluding the dad and the brother in the scene. We plan to focus on the main character, Donna Keppel (named Courtney in our production), her mother and the villain. We personally believe that the remake will look quite successful, but being on a low budget, it will obviously not look as good as the original. Due to our low budget, we have to remove the blood and gore which will not make it look as effective. We plan to work very hard on this production, but are aware that this does not have to be such a high standard production as we will compare our future trailer to this prelim task and learn from what we've done to gain success.

Saturday, 18 October 2014

Genre Conventions Of Horror

As you can see, I created a diagram which shows the genre conventions of horror. I selected the fundamental aspects of horror, such as iconography. Iconography includes props and costumes. Props are normally notably with the villain in the movie. The iconography in this case is a weapon which can involve a knife or chainsaw. For example, in Psycho (1960) Norman Bates uses a knife to kill all his victims with and in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Leatherface uses a Chainsaw to butcher all of his victims with. I also spoke about the lighting and the villains characteristics. I personally believe that themes are a genre convention of horror as they explore different themes such as death, religion, good vs evil, depression, revenge, supernatural, insanity and the corruption of science. I believe that these are all significant aspects of the horror genre as a horror will not look as effective without them. Camera work and isolated settings are also genre conventions of horrors as they need to look effective so that the audience will feel engaged. Stereotypically, a horror film will be set in an isolated area, a haunted house, in the woods, dark streets or ghost town. These are all cliché, but this is what audience members get the thrill out of watching.

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

The Blair Witch Project is a 1999 American found footage horror film written, directed and edited by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez. The film relates the story of three student filmmakers, Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams and Joshua Leonard who disappeared while hiking in the Black Hills near Burkittsville, Maryland in 1994 to film a documentary about a local legend the 'Blair Witch'. The viewers are told three were never seen or heard from again, however their video and sound equipment was discovered a year later and that this 'recovered footage' is the film the viewer is watching. I found The Blair Witch Project very interesting as it wasn't a horror genre stereotype. In fact, many conventions they use in horror were not used in The Blair Witch Project which I found that this is what made it successful. The fact that the movie was shot like a documentary made it even more interesting. It was very realistic like the posters and the acting made the film seem real. The idea of the 'other' was made clear as it was a supernatural species the audience were never in contact with. The unknown was a prominent theme in the movie.

Alien (1979)

Alien is a 1979 science-fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott. The film's title refers to a highly aggressive extraterrestrial (object or being beyond the planet Earth) creature that stalks and kills the crew of a spaceship. I personally believe that Alien was an interesting movie. It had very little horror conventions, but the iconography was similar to the horror genre. Firstly, the isolated setting was prominent throughout the film. The fact that the people were on a spaceship connoted that they were in the middle of nowhere, possibly not aware of their surroundings. They obviously did not know the area well, which foreshadowed later events in the movie, in which being death or meeting the 'other'. The aliens in this case were the 'other' and the villains as the attempted to kill everyone on the spaceship. Fortunately for Ripley, she managed to survive the alien attack and be the final girl. This is a subversion as females are usually the victims, being the first ones to be killed off.

Thursday, 16 October 2014

Scream Review (1996)

Scream (1996)

Wednesday, 15 October 2014

Audience Reaction To Halloween (1978)

Here is an audience reaction to the American independent slasher horror film Halloween (1978). I found filming this audience reaction useful as I was able to notify who does and doesn't like horror. As you can see from all of the three girls reactions (Amber, Camilla and Holly), they were all scared from the clip that I showed them. This is convenient for me as I will therefore use all three of them for my horror focus group. Some feedback I got from the girls was that the masked villain is what made them jump and the ominous music. I will therefore use this iconography in my horror trailer because I know that particular aspect made people scared. This also will make my horror trailer quite successful because I'm looking for an audience reaction and I've already been given some I can use further. The girls also said that they were scared of the suburban setting on screen, as it wasn't in the middle of nowhere, but somewhere that seemed so residential and ordinary. This is another handy source of information I can use for my horror trailer. In this video, the girls are watching the scene in the movie where Laurie is hiding from Michael Myers in the closet. The link is below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IN5ue_1vTXI

Lois A2 Media