Friday, 3 May 2013
Friday, 26 April 2013
Wednesday, 24 April 2013
Evaluation 1
Evaluation 1
In what ways does your media product use develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real life media products?
When we created our
trailer we initially set out to a conventional horror trailer in every sense of
the word. We looked at previous horror films/ trailers such as the blare which
project, scream house of wax and a few others. We looked at these films
trailers and tried to understand what was traditionally in a horror trailer and
what codes and conventions we had to follow. One big convention we tried to
follow was starting the trailer off at a slower pace and gradually increasing the
pace until the big finale or “Killer Shot”. For example the shot showing the “others”
at the end of the house of wax trailer when developing the trailer always tried
to keep this in mind. While in practise we didn’t get this exactly right we
tried to follow the premise of this convention of horror trailer. Another
convention we were interested in from the get go was the concept of a clear “Final
Girl” in the trailer for house of wax(2005). We decided to challenge this
conventions in ways while there hints of a final girl in the trailer there is no
clear one so therefore challenging this convention
Another convention we were aware of was the
idea that the “monster” or antagonist is heard and saw throughout the trailer
but no showing the full image of him/her/it until the very final moments of the
trailer.
One convention we felt
was vital to follow was length of the trailer as we felt that if it is to short
then it would be hard to get people interested in it and if it was too long
people would become bored and not interested on our trailer. We looked other
horror trailers and found at that the average time for a horror trailer is
between the 1:10 to 1:50 so made sure that our trailer followed this convention
and it was in between those two times in terms of length.
Overall I feel we didn’t try to challenge the codes and
conventions in many respects and tried to stick the a the codes and conventions
of a traditional horror film the best we could. I felt that we achieved just
that as most of the codes and conventions we decided use is shown our trailer
in one way or another.
Tuesday, 26 March 2013
Horror Character History - Dracula
Like many Horror
Characters Dracula started off in a novel. The idea of Dracula was conceived by y a novelist
names Bram Stoker in 1897. Dracula himself was said to be inspired by a prince
named “Vlad the impaler”.
Over 30 years later
Dracula made his debut on the big screen in “Dracula” 1931. However before those 10 years ago Bram Stoker’s film
had already been made in film without his permission as “Nosferatu” which
suggests that Nosferatu is based on the Dracula character. Dracula however had a lot of different characteristics
than Nosferatu. For example like a lot of horror characters Nosferatu is
depicted as a grotesque monster who looks out of the ordinary along the lines
of future horror characters such as Frankenstein.
Dracula appeared as a sophisticated and didn’t look to out of the ordinary. This
is in great contrast to other Nosferatu and other horror characters which are traditionally
monsters. Back in 1931 the film was considered horrific as newspapers reported
that people were fainting in cinema’s watching it. The supernatural wasn’t something
that was used in many films back then so it was considered a big risk, but fortunately
it paid off with huge box office success.
Synopsis Dracula 1931
After a harrowing ride through the Carpathian mountains in
eastern Europe, Renfield enters castle Dracula to finalize the transferral of
Carfax Abbey in London to Count Dracula, who is in actuality a vampire.
Renfield is drugged by the eerily hypnotic count, and turned into one of his
thralls, protecting him during his sea voyage to London. After sucking the
blood and turning the young Lucy Weston into a vampire, Dracula turns his
attention to her friend Mina Seward, daughter of Dr. Seward who then calls in a
specialist, Dr. Van Helsing, to diagnose the sudden deterioration of Mina's
health. Van Helsing, realizing that Dracula is indeed a vampire, tries to
prepare Mina's fiance, John Harker, and Dr. Seward for what is to come and the
measures that will have to be taken to prevent Mina from becoming one of the
undead (Source IMDB))
27 Years later a new Dracula film was released by hammer
studios and was the first time Dracula appeared in colour on the big screen,
this was done with Technicolor. Like the previous Dracula film it was
considered a huge success and cemented Dracula firmly as a huge pop culture
icon.
In 1979 the 3rd rendition of “Dracula” appeared on
the big screen produced by Marvin Mirisch and Walter Mirisch. Despite getting
good reviews this is the first Dracula film not to take the box office by storm
as it only preformed ok at the box office.
In 1981 the Comedy horror “Monster squad” was released and
was the first that Dracula appeared in that was not one of his main films.
Monster squad features a bunch of universal horror characters lead by Dracula.
This showed the first big evolution of his character from an ominous dark
character to a more comedic character
Synopsis Monster Squad 1981
Dracula is alive. In fact, he plans to rule the world and that
is why he seeks the help of other legendary monsters. However, a bunch of kids
regarded by their peers as losers uncover the devious plan and prepare for a
counter strike. Source (IMDB)
The
first Entry to Dracula in the 21st century was offered by “Dracula 2000”
Which shows a more modern Dracula. it shows dracula in a modern setting so the current generation of movie goers would be able to realte to it more as it seems more fammiliar .However the film received a lot of bad reviews
and failed to make back the money it cost to make it.
Friday, 22 March 2013
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Thursday, 28 February 2013
Monday, 25 February 2013
Filming schedule
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Light Green = Planning days
Red= Recce/location planning days
Yellow= Filming days
Blank = other media work
Light blue = Editing days
Dark blue = Not at college
Audience Qeustionaire analysis
Questionnaire results
Male or female?
Male 8.3
Female 91.7
This was put out on on to the internet where anyone can awnser it so it was suprising to see a large majority of female's awnseer as typically the audience for a horror film
How often do you watch see
horror films?
All the time (1-3 Weeks) 20.8%
Often 20.8%
Not much 37.5%
Rarely 20.8%
Duration
50S – 1 minute 12.5
1 minute – 1 minute 30 45.8%
1 minute 30 – 2minutes 37.5%
2 minutes 4.2%
The Majority of the people went with 1 minute -1 minute 30 which was what we ended up aiming for.
Are teddy’s/puppets scary
Terrified 20.8
A little bit 45.8
Not really 29.2
No 4.2
This qeustion refers to are trailer which includes a teddy as a prob of the antoagonist. their is no defiente awnser among the people who awnsered weather teddy's are scary or not
Favourite Horror shot
Hand held 29.2%
Fixed 33.3%
Point of view 37.5%
Other 0%
Preferred victim in a horror
film (Victims die's hero fights and survives)
Female victim male hero 12.5
Female antagonist male hero 20.8
Male victim female hero 4.2
Male victim male hero 0%
All victims no hero
62.5%
Horror film History
Horror film history
Silent era
Horror in film started with silent film made by European
films such as “The Golem”. Most of
these early films were made using what is called “German expressionism”. German
expressionism was an artistic movement that started in Germany in the 1910’s
and was a direct result of the horrors of the First World War. This type of
expressionism was isolated in Germany because of the German government banning
imported films in 1916. This lead to over 5 times as many film being made in
1918 compared to 1914.International audience started to appreciate German film
by the time of the 1920’s due to hostility towards the Germans fading. When the
international import ban was lifted Germany was part of the international film
market.
A great an
example of a film that uses German expressionism is the “Cabinet of Dr
Cagliari” (1919).
1930’s
In 1930’s the factor of Sound came into movies changing a lot
of the narrative and technical features of the film. Sound
added an extra dimension to terror, whether it is music used to build suspense
or signal the presence of a threat. With the induction of sound horror films
moved away from the horror characters of the 1920’s and the monsters such as Frankenstein
came into play. 1930’s was also a decade of mad scientists representing the
dangers in the development of science.
1940’S
In the 1940’s during the war horror exports were banned
in Britain and were only aloud in America. A lot of the horror films in America
had a wolf-like antagonist as Hitler at the time identified himself with
iconography of the legend of the wolf. Also in this time universal studio’s
created a separate unit for horror films universal was slipping from relevance as
they were in decline.
1950’s
In the 1950’s ww2 had ended and communism was on
the rise in the east. Communist greatly affected American cinema as America
feared communism this was the undertone for films such as The BLOB and Invasion
of the body snatches. Another event that happened in the 50’s was the Roswell
incident where there is speculation that a “flying saucer” landed their which
inspired many sci-fi related horror films. Also in the 50’s was the rise of television
which pushed horror movies to b movie status as people worked on meeting the challenge
met by TV.
1960’S
In the 1960’s the way people lived was
revolutionised as conservative ideology lost its power because the post war era
had passed. With this ideology diminished what previously was a perceived as
scary by the public had been completely changed. In the 1960’s Alfred Hitchcock released a
horror/thriller by the name of Psycho which was odd for this time as horror
films were usually b movies at this time which would be similar to movies that
come in the future.
1970’s
In the 1970’s society took another hit as things
started to go downhill for the decade which greatly influence horror at this
time and arguably improved it. The seventies were about deep-seated paranoia,
and the fear that the moral shift of the 1960s had created a culture of
monsters. Therefore a lot of the films were about kids such as The OMEN or the exorcist.
Another Genre they rose uo in the 70’s (and 80’s) was the slasher movie which
often involved a murderer hunting down a group of people and murdering them in gruesome
ways. Usually it was women who died the most as the slasher film is the a
indirect response the rise of feminism.
1980’S
Horror movies of the 1980s exist at the glorious
watershed when special visual effects finally caught up with the gory
imaginings of horror fans and movie makers. Technical advances in the field of
animatronics, and liquid and foam latex meant that the human frame could be transformed
as they wish. Also in the 1980’s we had horror films that ere dubbed “Video nastiest”
which were horror films that went straight to video and were often very gruesome
as for a time they were not regulated by a rating committee. An example of a
video nasty would be the Evil Dead series. A
1990’s
It can be argued that the so-called psychological
thriller took precedence over horror in the first half of the 1990s, and
indeed, many dark, disturbing films of this period describe themselves as
thriller, not horror with such films like Slaughter of the lambs which could be
argued as a thriller but borrows many horror elements. It also highlights the
rise of serial killers in films. Also in 1996 we had the introduction of
postmodernism in horror films. We also had parody’s of older horror films such
as Scream.
Friday, 11 January 2013
Props/Chacter list
Props list
1.
.10-20 Teddy bears
2.
.Rope
3.
.Blanket
4.
.Tent
5.
.Documents
6.
.Alcohol bottles/cigarettes
7.
.Food
Costumes
1. Killer –Black Jacket/rags
2. Clyde-(Normal) – Everyday clothing
3. Kyle(panic) –Everyday clothes
4. Vicky-(Normal)-Everyday
clothing
5. Ruby (crier)-Everyday
clothing
6. Bianca(loud)-Everyday
clothing
7. Candice(slut)-Everyday
clothing
Character
Types- Clyde- Average teenager – follows social convention
-quiet
in the group
Kyle-
teases everybody about the killer- scared the most when action
starts happening
Vicky-
Average teenager –doesn’t drink/or smoke (final girl qualities)
Ruby
–Follows social conventions of a teenager. When action happens she can’t
Stop
crying (Wuss)
Candice-
the slut of the group –loud/drinks/smokes- will be the first to get killed
Killer-Mental/Loves
teddies –seeks revenge on people who enter “his” forest.
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