Friday, 28 March 2014

Feminist theory poster analysis

Jennifer's Body 

In this poster, it stereotypically uses a young, sexual girl wearing red color lipstick, top and heels. This symbolizes love, sex and danger. Also the film name 'Jennifer's body' sounds very sexual and is done purposely under the stereotype of the feminist perspective. A feminist would believe that the victims in the film are young attractive a sexually portrayed, however this film uses a paradigm shift to show that the woman is the killer not a man. Women are more likely to be portrayed as weak in films, however Jennifer is portrayed as extremely powerful.
The girl who is Jennifer's friend threats Jennifer telling her she will finish her and Jennifer replies "you cant even finish gym class'. This portrays women as weak and physically incapable.

Prom night analysis notes




Prom night
Layout/ order of film
Beginning- Challenges the conventional structure, starts with the disequilibrium
The male gaze, the girl’s friend has a low cut top and as she runs away her dress rips.

Characters
Blond girl with a pink jacket and a cheerleader, typical victim character. Empathise with the character because she has gone through a traumatic period and is vulnerable.  The young couple are in love, typical group of characters all young and naive.  
The villain wears a discise by cutting off his hair and wearing a hat.

Location
Where the initial horror takes place it’s in an isolated house.  To make the feeling more trapped she is hidden under a bed. When a person walks around the hotel room the lights are always off, this way the viewer can’t see what’s coming next, this builds anticipation.
One of the victims are in a basement of the hotel, the visibility is poor and makes it hard for the viewer to see what is happening, this makes the viewers imagination run wild.

Props
Blood on hands
Knife, guns

Sounds
Police sirens
Loud vibrant music at the prom reflecting the positive and uplifting atmosphere, when the camera is on the villaions face the prom music fades and its replaced with eerie string music slowly building. This is showing a shift in the atmosphere.
Creeking floor boards show she isn’t alone, building of footsteps hightens the anticipation

Editing
Slow motion of the plate smashing shows the significance of the bad, black out insertions used during the killing of the butler. This creates confusion.

Camera angles/ shots
Slow pan into the name winn who is the hero of the film (detective).during the prom scene many of the caera shots are midshots t show the scenery and the characters facial expressions. When she is alone in her room the camera pans around to follows showing she is being watched.
When the first girl is killed the camera cuts quickly making the viewer disorientated, in addition the camera is in an extreme  zoom position which means the viewer is unable to see the rest of the scene allowing their mind to guess what’s happening with builds the anticipation.
 An extreme low angle is used when the killer attacked the first girl, this shows that he has the power in the situation. When the girl (victim) is running away from the killer a hand held shake camera is used. 

Treatment for the final trailer

A new day, its 8.30am South East London. Rita's first day at her new school, Plumstead manor, just down the road from her new house. There are school children getting off the busses and walking into the school, staring at the new girl. Rita's presence defines her innocence and enthusiasm to learning.

Her first lesson is media studies. Surrounded by a small class of careless class peers, throwing paper, making paper areoplanes, and a attention seeking girl. There is a new media teacher who started on the same day as Rita. 

He introduces himself and explains the subject outline. As a class they are asked to film a horror trailer. He shows a slasher horror trailer which the students believe is a good idea, so they urge to film something similar. 

It's a Friday night, they visit the woods to film their setting. Without parents informed, Paula's proactive self leads her deeper into the woods in urge to find signal to text her boyfriend. whilst lazy boy Zak refuses to help because he is tired and others preparing to film, there is a disturbing scream. Paula is killed and brutally stabbed.  

The students run for their life. Hearts pounding with fear. Rita is helpless, not able to drag the dead body with her. With Abdullah stressing that Rita's life is more important right now, she is distraught and scared. Zak is gone, so desperate to save his own life, a false hero. 

Rita looses Abdullah and is eventually on her own in the dark forest where no help is to be seen. Hiding with fear, sobbing with tears she is alone. She see's haunting shadows skimming past her, fearing to even blink her eyes confused about who is killer. 

The killer turns out to be the media teacher who is secretly a serial killer murdering students from different schools. However, nobody finds out until the crime scene is investigated after several bodies are found in a hidden property.   




Thursday, 20 March 2014

Night shooting

After editing our horror trailer we had come to a conclusion that we did not have many scenes in the clip as it was the same throught. It was a suggestion to add darker shots such as shooting in the night time. Therefore we had taken our own time out and filmed some more shots to add in our trailer which made it seem as if there were more scenes and different times.

Preparation for filming



Actors 



A group of young adults were used to play the role of students as in a horror film convention, teenagers are seen as vulnerable and weak. The results from my target audience said that they would prefer young characters such as teenagers/adults to play the characters in a horror film.



Props 


A tripod and camera was used in terms of filming, as the trailer shows a group of students going out to film. This automatically setts the narrative.  


 Headphones and cigarette was used for the actor who was also known as the 'false hero'. He was presented stereotypically was a lazy boy who wasn't any help. This can relate to props theory as  his personality crashed with the rest of the class mates as he's not bothered and makes only little effort and avoids helping. The headphones represent his lack of concentration which builds his character, also the cigarette also represents him as a 'bad boy'. 

 

A Student ID card and a scarf. The student card and a scarf was used as a prop as a form of evidence which which creates a sense of mystery and builds tension within the audience. Its used to show that something has happened as there I evidence to support the idea of the mystery.


 

Blood. Blood was used on a white t-shirt as it would stand out. Blood is a very important aspect during the making of a horror trailer as again it automatically sets the horror genre representing fear and danger.

A mobile phone was used as a prop as this was the main reason of why the first killing had happened, (because she went to find signal). The mobile phone was used as a trigger to the scene which leaves the audience cliffhanging.  

Newspaper article




Due to my recent editing of missing people audio, I had discovered that a News paper article would be ideal to fit into our editing, making it seem more intense and in the moment. I had included pictures of the actors into the news article and also writing a bit about the scene.

Tuesday, 18 March 2014

Sound editing

In preparation for our trailer, I had done some research on what would be ideal in a horror trailer. I came to a conclusion that news reports of missing people would be ideal as this makes the scene more serious and real. So therefore i had researched some news reports and videos off the internet and had downloaded them into final cut pro. After playing around with a few clips, i had created and merged  my own clip using parts of real life events which could be used in our final horror trailer.









         



Friday, 7 March 2014

Research into horror film magazine posters
















              

Whats in the posters? ;What makes them scary?
  - The posters i have researched all involve young women which from a feminists view gives the effect of vulnerable women who are seen as an easy target and also the main target. Also the majority of posters I have chosen involve the setting in a misty forest which is also the main setting in my a2 horror trailer piece. This gives the effect of a cold, dark setting which is an isolated place where no help is found. This therefore is automatically done through the settings in the picture.

Where will you find them?
You will find them in magazines, posters, on buses, and newspapers aimed at teenagers or young adults 15+
Many posters can be found online on may different media aspects. For example, the guardian which is a newspaper also have a website where you can find many different films and posters on. also other independent websites such as www.shocktillyoudrop.com is another film website which informs you of different horror movies there are and which ones were the best.