Friday, 11 May 2012
BRIEF
For this advanced project my aim is to create a main product being the trailer alongside the ancillary texts which is the film magazine and poster. Before I can get to this stage a lot of planning and narrative study has to be taken place. In class we studied about the narrative codes giving us ideas on how to form our trailer. Through this knowledge we are able to gather up ideas and write a synopsis of the storyline. We have given out questions to our target market to find out what they want from the film, whether they can afford it and special features that needs to be added. We are in the process of creating call sheets, storyboards and edited it into a trailer with music to calculate the pace, time and angle shots. For the magazine and poster I will creat templates to give me ideas on the colour scheme and positioning. All the planning of the trailer, magazine and poster is to allow me to keep focused on my task and produce a product in which I know my target audience will appreciate.
Thursday, 10 May 2012
Wednesday, 9 May 2012
Tuesday, 8 May 2012
Monday, 7 May 2012
REPORT ON SLASHER FILMS
Why do we watch horror films? We watch horror films as they fulfil a purpose in our society by reinforcing the rules and restrictions and also telling tales of those who contravene. Thrill and the adrenaline rush is what the audience seek in horror books, tales and films. As the years have gone by what has been considered as frightening has differed. In 1940 the part-man, part-wolf was considered as terrifying for that set of audience. But now we may look at this so called “bogey man” and see him as a mythical beast. A famous quote by Stephan King, “if movies are the dreams of the mass culture… horror movies are the nightmares”. This suggests, even though the audience themselves would not consider to be in startling situations such as the characters in horror films, the audience would still have the audacity to sit and watch someone else go through it although the outcome is that the audience themselves would sometimes experience paranoia. Moreover Johnny Sullivan who has worked on multiple horror projects has been writing features since 2002 and this year he is looking to find out why people love horror films. He says ‘I think there are two audiences. Audience #1 is the casual, older moviegoer that doesn’t realize that the movie is a cheap, most-likely-not-particularly-good direct-to-DVD flick. The cover looks good. There’s some recognizable ‘stars’ above the title. I call this the ‘My Parents’ audience. Audience # 2 is made up of genuine horror fans. Die-hard horror fans who know full well that the flick is probably crap, but, hey, it’s a horror movie! They gotta see it! It’s not like they’re going to get to see a ‘Christian Slater fights a giant crab’ movie in a theater! Also, teenage girls. And maybe hipsters trying to be ‘ironic’ by spending money on something named ‘Piranhaconda’.
Horror/ Slasher films are usually made with a low budget as the producers receive low funding from a major studio or private investor. The reason being as there is a lack of audience, or the film maker is young and new to film making.
Films are categorised at their very existence from screen write, to your local store, to how their impact on cultural history is assessed. Companies such as Netflix or LoveFilm rely on genre categories in order for their consumers to take their pick, this is very important for marketing of movies.
The most important and straightforward approach to analysing film genre is descriptive; this involves looking at a film and placing it in the category of which it genuinely belongs in. The film is alleged to have common aspects in which it shares such as structure, theme, or visual style. Moreover other films in this category is analysed reasonably allowing an portion of genre paradigms, or recognisable elements such as costume, location, character, archetypes, shot transitions, or plot content. The descriptive approach involves putting a numerous number of films into small groups challenging this kind of stiff categorization. If two films are similar and placed in the same genre, the audience are likely to reject it as it is unoriginal.
The second approach to genre is functional as the film is perceived as “Collective expressions of contemporary life that strike a particularly resonant chord with audiences”, (Experience and meaning in Genre Films BK, Film Genre Reader 1986). The repetition that occurs in genre films are questions we ought to ask ourselves such as: what is frightening, or what possibilities do we fear? (Horror films), what is criminal? (Gangster films), what is morality? (Melodramas), what is acceptance? (Romantic comedies), what is alien? And what is future (science fiction).
Through genre hegemonic values are either reinforced or shift to the side as genre films are a product of their socio-historic context. This is seen in slasher films when the final girl is mainly obedient, virginal, studious, quiet, timid, serious and not impulsive, plain and sensible. This character sticks a chord in our society as she fits in with the Dominant Ideology of Western (capitalist) Christian Patriarchy. This is when the western society has permitted a capitalist ideology where mainly white middle class male are usually seen as authority in top businesses, churches and politics. In addition the societies we live in perceive that the more money and materialistic things an individual may own this must mean they are powerful and in some extend these people are respected. However this cannot be avoided as this ideology is all around us. Furthermore we are a subject to hegemony through oppression via consent even though we do not necessary agree with. In slasher films, as the final girl is obedient this portrays a message to the viewers that women and girls should be obedient to the male dominant society. This ideology is represented in the film Halloween as Lorrie is everything a final girl should be, and also she is masculine so the male audience can identify with her. In my own slasher synopsis codes and conventions were broken as the female is the subject to the killing rather than the victim. The reason for this is to show the audience that female also have the ability and strength to achieve the same skills men can.
Furthermore there are different types of genres being subgenre and genre hybirds. Telling a similar story within the same set of genre paradigm can become boring as there are really only limited number of plots anyway. A subgenre can be successful when it successfully crosses traditional genre boundaries and which pushes genre paradigms in response to external socio-historic factors. This is evident as the current uproar of global warming has allowed filmmakers to create films about recession, from Sam Raimi’s- Drag me to Hell (horror), to Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story (documentary). In addition genres need to be unsolidified, have a sense of flow, and consistently sprouting set of paradigms otherwise cinema would deteriorate and people will begin to lose interest in the films. Even though there are mainly just seven plots, the film makers need to present those plots to the audience in fresh genre arrangements. As Horror films are one of the most favoured genres, film makers will therefore add in a set of horror paradigms to create interest for the audience before adding other genres in the mix. This is known as the genre hybrid: Horror Romance (e.g. Twilight), Horror war (e.g. R-Point, Dead Shaw), Horror Historical Drama (e.g. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) and Horror ROMCOM (e.g. Shawn of the dead).
Narrative in genre films is the way of organising and arranging events in time. There are several theories we could look at that demonstrates this. Tvzetan Todorov suggests narrative is simply equilibrium, disequilibrium and new equilibrium which simply suggests in every narrative there is a beginning and an ending to a film although it does not necessary have to be in that particular order. Vladimir Propp was a Russian critic who examined 100 of folk tales and found out the similarities in all of them they each consisted of eight basic characters and thirty-one character roles. The eight character roles are: 1- the villain(s), 2- the hero, 3- the donor- who provides an object with some magic property, 4- the helper who aides the hero, 5- the princess- she becomes a reward for the hero and she’s the object of the villain’s schemes. 6- her father- who awards the hero, 7- the dispatcher who sends the hero on his way and last but not least, 8- the false hero. These character roles can be applied to all sorts of narrative in the media such as the news on the television we often witness the ‘hero’ and the ‘villain’. Finally Claude Levi-Strauss brings forward the constant creation of conflict/ opposition propels narrative. Claude focused and looked at narrative structure on binary opposites. A great example of this is through science fictions. This is evident: Earth- space, good- bad, humans- aliens, past- present, normal- strange, known-unknown. Moreover there are also Binary opposites in slasher/ horror films as this genre can be interpreted as social themes. Some of these binary opposites are good Vs evil, male Vs female, group Vs evil, virginal Vs sexually repressed, dream Vs reality. The reality is to stay awake as the monster is very sexually aggressive whilst the heroine is virginal. On the contrary because my slasher synopsis has broken some of the codes and conventions, some of the binary opposition will have also changed. Some of the binary opposites are female Vs male (instead of having a male sexually aggressive we have a woman. This shows women can also be as dangerous as men in any part of society), light Vs darkness (most of the crime is done darkness rather than broad day light).
In conclusion, slasher film does serve a massive purpose for our society whether being positive or negative through hegemonic values. Although they are made with low budget, there is still a target market for the film makers. Some people notice the cheesiness and low quality of some of the horror films but they still indulge in it, and some just like to watch horror for the excitement of feeling frightened but at the same time knowing you are much safer at that time then the characters in that specific film. Producers need genre films as that’s the way the audience can identify with the film they are watching even though at times the outcome may become obvious. To obtain the films from becoming tedious film makers use genre hybrid to bring an unexpected but original and recognisable film to the audience.
Sunday, 6 May 2012
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