Anaysis of Film Magazine Covers

Flickr analysis of two horror movie posters

Pitch idea for an idea for a new horror movie

A man aged about 46 named Frank Spellman is a loner who has, for some reason or another (perhaps he was abused) is a horrible person and takes part in illegal activities involving sexual abuse and murder. However, from doing so he contracts H.I.V, and because he is evil, starts to inject people in busy places (like nightclubs) with his blood. A woman who works in a particular club he goes to had been watching him and his actions for a while, rightly suspicious of him. When she discovers what he's doing, she attempts to stop him, but in doing so becomes his victim. He tries to kill her but she becomes the final girl and eventually overcomes him. "Dun dun dunnnn!"

Storyboards

Storyboard One

 Storyboard Two

 Storyboard Three

 Storyboard Four

 Storyboard Five

Above are the storyboards the group and I constructed as a way of presenting our ideas in a visual way, and at the same time enabling a structure to our trailer and therefore shooting of the shots. I found that this was a fairly enjoyable process because we had fun telling eachother what we meant when we said for example 'a scary close up of her face' (the girl), and then working together to really gain a more concrete tone for our trailer.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

In order for the film to be successful and be thrust in front of its target audience’s eyes, it needs to have a distribution plan which, using various media platforms, will advertise and promote the film.
Such include:


• TV Ads
• Cinema Ads
• Website Ads
• Posters
• Billboards
• Online- official website

As I had to produce a poster as one of my ancillary tasks, and I knew that the trailer and the poster work together in a co-ordinated fashion in order to become the sort of brand identity for the film as well as being the central advertising images, it’s important that they both match up in terms of themes, colours, fonts, images etc. so that they are effective in combination. Although I think the poster I created is separately successful in terms of coinciding with the themes and conventions of a film poster, it remains separate somewhat because of the lack of recurring fonts and colours etc. evident in my trailer. Examples of this include the way the title of the movie is presented. I found this font during the production of the poster, and really thought that the look of it not only went with the theme of the film but looked great, so it made sense to me to make use of it. I imagine a real distributor would go back and then cut the any new preferred fonts etc into the trailer, however this was something time wouldn't allow.In terms of the images I've used, once again, this particular shot of Ella wasn't used within the trailer, nor one like it, however I feel that her character is not necessarily easy to get confused about because of her age etc. I edited the photo in such a way so that it is quite abstract and artistic, as in the audience feedback we gathered it was mentioned more than once that the trailer had a sort of surreal nature to it and was enjoyed, so I attempted to translate that into my poster. In other ways I have successfully connected my poster to my trailer in that the billing block states the same production company/director/actors and so on. Another way I could have done so would have been including the same tag-line we have stated inter-titles of my trailer, but in a way I think the kind of simplistic style of poster I wanted (more just a main eye-catching image and title) would have been hindered by doing so. In terms of staying within the conventions of a horror poster in general, I have coloured the background black, used red in contrast to this to connotate darkness, danger etc. and included a rating certificate as well as the release date of the film. I found that the analysis of real horror movie posters helped me to structure the basic the layout of the poster and I feel that it therefore looks more realistic.

The other ancillary task we had to complete was a film magazine cover, an obvious product of a successful film and distributing, as well as a further advertisement. I imitated an already existing film magazine but created my own logo. I noticed that in some examples of actual Total Film magazine covers, instead of just having the actor as a central image from a film that is the main article, that sometimes an overall theme is exclusive to that particular issue. For example, sci-fi films. I decided this would be ideal for my version of the cover because I struggled to get a picture to use as a central image of Ella, and I felt that the image I used of the woods wasn't necessarily ineffective. This time, I used the same font for the title of the film on the poster on the magazine, because by this point, in theory, the film's obvious success which would equal a solid brand identity, and once again had I have had enough time I would have cut that font into the trailer. I maintained the theme of black red and white, which I think has been a feature of all three products. In retrospect, the co-ordination of my products could have been better executed, and although I was better at actually producing the texts due to prior knowledge of the programmes, I do feel my knowledge of the way in which distributors work could have been demonstrated better.

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Open publication - Free publishing - More burden

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

At the beginning of the project, the group and I constructed a questionnaire in order to find out what sort of horror film people felt most scared by/enjoyed with some inclusion of how people felt about horror trailers. We used the website survey monkey.
Here's a link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6MXMHGR

From the questionnaire results we could see that the most popular genre of horror were psychological horrors. As a group, we wanted to create a trailer that was less gory and obvious and more psychological, so the fact that we could both answer to popular audience response as well as create something of desire was pleasing. We felt that religion as a central theme was creepy and all films based on a similar concept were successful, also it appealed to us because of its originality. In order to ensure that the trailer and therefore film wasn’t purely a psychological film like Inception for example, we had to have a plot that included conventional horror genre techniques, such as the use of binary oppositions with the little girl being bearer of a hidden evil. To amplify this and make it apparent, we decided it necessary to include some gore in the trailer, as in our own experience, images of cuts and blood within a trailer are often effective. With the fact that the majority of our questionnaire responses agreeing that the trailer was a key part of encouraging them to go and see the film, it was vital that our trailer was effective. When showed to the class it mostly was, our audience mostly agreed that the fast paced editing was good and that our use of gore was scary and realistic, and the most popular response was the agreement that our typewriter like inter-titles were professional and aesthetically pleasing somewhat.

The film below is a compilation of readings from actual responses from my class who watched our trailer and gave us feedback.



Although generally our response was pleasing, clearly many things could have been improved, and I think had we have been slightly more organised in the editing process of our film we could have acheived this, as many of the things said we felt we agreed with to some extent. For example, the music we had chosen in some places didn't seem to necessarily flow with what film was being shown, and I think this was due to the confusing process of trying to edit two scores of music together. This comment was mentioned numerous times, along with the comments about the somewhat unclear narrative of our trailer. Although I agree more concrete evidence could have been supplied in order to demonstrate the relationships in the trailer, some of our feedback also states that this led to a mysterious nature, leaving more to be learned from and therefore encouraging a desire to see the film. A popular improvement suggestion was that a need for a 'jumpy' shot could have helped make our trailer more scary, as although it was agreed our trailer was 'surreal' and 'eerie', it wasn't very frightening. This, combined with a 'slower ending' and a more fitting soundtrack could have made our trailer better.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Please click the images to read my analysis of the conventions we used.

Evaluation Question 2, a photo by SophiaMccormack on Flickr.

ECU's are another common convention of horror movies, as not only does the camera shot allow you to identify with the victim, but the extremity of the close up also adds to the strangeness of the film, almost as if the camera shot is 'too close for comfort'. As you can see from the bottom picture taken from our horror film, having a close up to the final girl is asking the audience to relate to her, which coincides with the theory of 'the final girl' and also making it clear who the protagonist is.

Final Product: ancillary texts

Final Product: main product

Analysis of some horror trailers

The Role of the Distributor

The role of a distributor is to identify and deliver the largest possible audience for every film they represent. Research shows that most people that go to the cinema know what film they want to go and see, which is thanks to the distributors that have aroused interest in that particular film. The distributor has to launch and sustain films in the highly competitive market place.
Their challenge is to:

• Identify the films audience
• Consider why they would go and see it
• Estimate the revenue potential across all the formats of the films release
• Develop plans and partnerships to build awareness of and interest in the film
• Aim to convert as much interest as possible into cinema visits
• Persuade exhibitors (cinema operators) to play the film

After the film has left the cinema, it is released in a range of formats such as DVD, Blu-ray, Pay-per-view/subscribers television and free to air television, and the distributor is vital in order to maintain the necessary value of the film in order to be successful in the film industry. The distributors key jobs in the life cycle of a film begin with the development of a release strategy:

• Consideration of a release date and taking a delivery of a master print of the finished film
• Presentation of the film to exhibitors and negotiates bilateral agreements to have it shown in the cinemas
• Developing marketing campaigns aims to create a 'want to see' buzz among the target audience and launches the film 

The distributor closely works with the film maker and producer who are likely to have nurtured the project that is their film for years.

Narrative theory

After exploring the ideas of four narrative theorists; Propp, Todorov, Levi-Strauss and Boardwell and Thompson, as a class, we then applied these theories to the 1980's horror - The Shining.

Propp worked on Russian folk tales and created an idea of a set character and narrative functions. He identified eight character functions, these being;
1. The villain
2. The hero
3. The donor (who provides an object with some magic property)
4. The helper (who aids the hero)
5. The princess (the sought for person; reward for the hero and object of the villain's schemes)
6. The father (who rewards the hero)
7. The dispatcher (who sends the hero on his way)
8. The false hero

His suggestion is that all narratives, no matter how much their surface details may vay (characterisation, settings, plot) share certain important structural features. The most basic being the list of set charactes and actions. When applied to The Shining, not only is it not immediately obvious which character fits into which set character, but due to the small cast, often the same character fits more than one role. For excamples, the princess is Wendy, but she is also the hero at one point. It alternates. Whilst it's clear that Propps theory at first glance is merely partial when applied to The Shining, Propp argues that his claim is perhaps better defined as 'all narratives will at least be composed from the function list, and only from that list.'
It's apparent then, that the set characters are to be looked at as functions and only functions, as opposed to actual characters.

Tzvetans Todorovs theory is easier to apply any narrative to, as it's a description of the standard pattern of a narrative. Here is a graph to exemplify it;

Sigmund Freud's concept of "The Return of the Repressed"

Freud is best known for his theories of the unconscious mind and the mechanism of repression. Repression was the name given to the action that is disallowing yourself to access painful memories by burying them deep into your unconscious mind. Throughout Freud's investigation of this notion, he found that his patients all had varied levels of repression. He argued that the act of repression did not happen within a persons consciousness, therefore leading him to believe that a person was not then aware of the traumatic memories and experiences that they have repressed. However, there are signs that repression has taken place with such derivatives as not only symptoms but also fantasies, slips of the tongue, and parapraxes in general, and even certain character traits. This is why a person may be what seems irrationally traumatised, perhaps in a small way, by a certain scent, or image.
                      Reasons as to why the concept of repression may apply and thus be helpful towards the horror genre vary. It's clear that people enjoy horrors hence their popularity, even though the whole idea is that they are basically designed to be hard to watch, to scare the audience. This fact audiences go to the cinema and watch these films to be scared implies within all the people that want to watch a horror, lies a deeprouted fear that they themselves perhaps aren't immediately aware of, a repressed fear revisited. It could be that the fear we feel when watching horror films may not be necessarily all have undergone the same degree of trauma as those in the film, but they are reacting to the horrific representations of such things such as abuse, torture, abandonment, feelings of being trapped etc.
    The idea of 'returning' is useful and conventional of the horror genre as well, as not only does it open windows for the character type of the 'pyschotic killer' that returns on the anniversary of the last havoc he caused, but it also means that there is no end to the trauma, that although it's the end seems to be in sight, it's really not.
            

Analysis of 'The Hills Have Eyes'

The trailer for this horror film has many traits in it that coincide with the conventions of a horror genre. Immediately we see this as the beginning of the trailer informs the audience of nuclear tests in the deserts of New Mexico in 1945-1992. Straight away we can connote the beginning of a creepy nature to the film. The use of setting, being a desert. This is conventional as it is somewhere isolated and enables a community, if present at all, to be cut off from the rest of society. Not only does this allow an opportunity for anti-social behavior, but the fact that the the setting has a 'past' allows it to return. This can be in the form of a threat that was once removed returning, or in this case, having the past revisited by outsiders of the setting.
A main theme that is conventional in other horrors, is the idea of 'science being out of control', or 'playing God'. The use of nuclear testing has mutated lifeforms in that area, including humans, causing a hoard of demented killers, who seem to know no other way of life. This first became a theme in the horror genre through the film adaptations of Mary Shelleys' Frankenstein, the most famous being James Whales' adaptation, with Boris Karloff starring as the monster. The idea of a failed artificial life experiment that produced a monster became a major theme in the horror genre, and many films have been produced based on that idea, such as 'Flatliners' and 'Jurassic Park'.
The conventional character types are evident in this trailer include the 'monsters' with a hidden secret, or that have been made psychotic by an earlier event, in this case being the nuclear testing. Reasons for this kind of character type is that the monster seems to be completely deranged beyond repair, so much so that they almost lose any kind of identification from the audience, and are a mere representation of evil, rather than a character that can be related to. By doing this, it becomes a lot scarier, as the boundaries of their malevolence are non-existent. Also necessary and conventional of a horror genre, is the character of a 'final girl', the main protagonist thats a victim as well as a hero, made famous through the slasher films, such as Halloween.
The main theme that is presented through this trailer is 'Science out of control', the opening credits talk about the use of nuclear bomb testing and how it's essientially mutated any life form that is born. This is a key concept in horror as the reason why it's so scary is that it doesn't necessarily seem impossible, and that it's man-made.
Technical elements that make this horror trailer scary is the use of the siren sounds at the start, this is a well known sound that is scary because it meant the beginning of an air raid, a real and horrific situation. The start has footage that is old, showing that an event happened in the past (return of the repressed), and we see that in the same place, a shot it used to turn the desert from old broken film to new modern good quality film, showing that it is being revisited. The increasing pace of the film reiterates the intensity of the horror, and the final credits 'The lucky ones die first' is blunt and shows that death is a better option than enduring this horror.