Exemplar sentenses

Paragraph 1 - The media production I am going to write about in relation to genre is my favourite piece from the whole course which is my horror teaser trailer.

Paragraph 2 - Steve Neal said that ‘genre is a repetition with an underlying pattern of variations’ which meant certain generic features had to be included and repeated which in my case was the use of a creepy location of the woods as well as hand held camera and restricted narration to cause disorientation and suspense within our trailer.

Paragraph 3 - Editing and mise-en-scene is really important to genre and reflects very quickly certain moods and atmospheres.

Paragraph 4 - Genre is the ideas that collectively make a particular recognisable style that draws in its existing target audience.

Paragraph 5 - In my trailer we also used an iconic symbol of...

Paragraph 6 -The generic conventions we chose to use were all important to the success of our product and since distributing it on YouTube we have over 4000

Paragraph 7 - Genre places a media text into a grouping giving it an identity which can be recognised by the mainstream society and I believe my product is successfully fitted to the horror genre using the narrative that todorov argued was important to the horror genre by following an equilibrium at the beginning then a problem

Exemplar essay

1. Explanation, analysis, argument - pink
2. Example - blue
3. Terminology - yellow

1b)

The media production I am going to write about in relation to genre is my favourite piece from the whole course which is my horror teaser trailer.

The genre of the trailer is obviously ‘horror’ and this in itself allowed us to be creative with narrative etc but limited us because we had to stick to a certain amount of generic conventions in order for it to be recognised by it’s existing target audience. Steve Neal said that ‘genre is a repetition with an underlying pattern of variations’ which meant certain generic features had to be included and repeated which in my case was the use of a creepy location of the woods as well as hand held camera and restricted narration to cause disorientation and suspense within our trailer. However, the pattern of variation Neal describes also links to my horror teaser trailer because we were able to creatively push the boundaries by twisting some generic features in order to make the trailer interesting and therefore cause the audience to want to watch the full movie. For this my group chose use a female psycho killer I order to subvert the stereotypical male dominated role. This female identification through point of view shots etc captured our female audience because were providing them with power and this is unusual for the horror genre although it is known for its forward thinking approach as it often attempts to focus on subcultural views instead of targeting the mainstream. Genre encompasses many parts and the trailer links to it in more ways than one. Its use of enclosed location and the fact the woods attempts to reinforce our society’s fear of loneliness and isolation which the woods creates when the three friends get lost. In these sections of the trailer we used a lot of heavy cross cutting between the female victim who is running anxiously through the woods in order to find her friends and get home safely. We also used the Kuleshove and collision cutting methods as the pace began slow as the friends head our in the car unaware of the danger before them and once they are in the woods we deliberately quickened the pace of editing to cause tension and to show that something is not right, keeping the audience on the edge of their seats.

Editing and mise-en-scene is really important to genre and reflects very quickly certain moods and atmospheres. Levi Strauss and Roland Barthes argued that the horror genre like many others used ‘binary oppositions’ in order to show the contrast between good and evil in order to force the audience to be constantly questioning the trailer for example; in my trailer I used light and dark to connote their happiness and carefree attitude in the daytime and the darkness to emphasise their fear and reliance on their senses. This is particularly important to the horror genre as characters are often shown in high angle shots to appear vulnerable and therefore under threat.

Gore or ‘body horror’ is also a common generic convention used by most horror films that we studied including Dawn of the Dead by George A. Romero who used it to make the audience feel sick by forcing them to see extreme violence. In my own trailer we were inspired to use gore differently by showing a hanging scene in slow motion to create tension and the centoring in on the face and neck which had been broken and this was shown by the rope burn we had made from latex and the blood pouring down her chest. This shot moves clockwise and slowly zooms in to force the audience to see what the hang (woman) has done. In our final two shots we finish the trailer with the male anti hero being lifted off the ground with blood pouring out of his mouth which causes the audience to assume no one survives because the final girl is stabbed by her friend accidentally which quickens the pace and adds tension but she is the survivor who as Carol Clover suggests will be terrorised throughout the film and finally overcome the monster. This plays with the audiences emotions and links back to the horror genre well by creating our own style of horror. Andrew Sarris argues because it encompasses so much and is key to explaining a film. Genre is the ideas that collectively make a particular recognisable style that draws in its existing target audience. My horror trailer had expressionist camera angles as the female victim desperately trips over the camera and we see her running above it as well as close ups of her facial expression that causes us to identify with her fear and therefore makes us scared. This meant the audience also were forced to objectify the female victim from the high angle camera shot down her top in which we can see her breasts slightly after watching other Hitchcock movies which use the male gaze theory by Laura Mulvey to force us to take a male’s viewpoint.

In my trailer we also used an iconic symbol of the noose because obviously as a hangwoman she needed the prop but also as a female the circular shape suggested female power and this is something the horror genre often does but for male characters using guns etc as phallic symbols which we also used as the male anti hero takes out a knife and stabs his friend frantically when she walks up behind him. The horror trailer was made much darker in Final Cut Pro using the brightness and contrast menu and also dragged the saturated colours towards the blue in order to create a dark, dusky night time atmosphere a generic convention of horror trailers.

The generic conventions we chose to use were all important to the success of our product and since distributing it on YouTube we have over 4000 which I am really pleased with and gives me the confidence that we obviously stuck to the genre enough to capture our intended target audience but were creative enough to make people want to keep watching the trailer and virally sharing it with others.

Genre places a media text into a grouping giving it an identity which can be recognised by the mainstream society and I believe my product is successfully fitted to the horror genre using the narrative that todorov argued was important to the horror genre by following an equilibrium at the beginning then a problem which in our case was the male anti hero playing a joke on the soon to be female victim making jump running after him causing their separation then a pathway to resolution – as they attempt to find each other and then a new equilibrium at the end which we deliberately left as an open ending to capture our audience effectively.

EAA 10

EG 10

Term 5

(24/25)

Total Section A 45/50

Stuart Hall presentaion

Stuart hall

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Media theories

Copycat theory

This theory puts forward the idea of recreating a violent act such as murder or suicide from a media text in real life. The film 'Child's Play' has been associated with a few 'copycat' crimes: In December 1992, four people who tortured and killed a 16 year old girl were said to be influenced by one of the 'Child's Play' movies. Furthermore, during the torturing, the perpetrators were said to have taunted her with quotes from the film.

Desensitization theory

This theory puts forward the idea that because people are so exposed to violence in the media, violence no longer has a strong emotional impact upon them. By watching violent films, a viewer will not become upset when watching others as they have become desensitized or used to it.  However, the debate surrounding this concept is whether people will also be desensitized to real life violence. If a person watches a violent film, and then sees a real dead body on the street, will this person still experience desensitization?

Cultivation theory

Cultivation theory focuses more on how people's attitudes are impacted by the media, rather than just behaviors. It therefore theorists focus more on how people think rather than what they do. Much of this research involves comparing the attitudes of heavy media users, moderate media users, and light media users.

This is England and Quadrophenia poster comparison

I will be looking at the comparisons between the posters of ‘This is England’ and ‘Quadrophenia’. Both posters are representative of the British youth culture, ‘Quadrophenia’ being that of the 70s looking particularly at the Mods subculture vs. that of the Rockers of the 60s and ‘This is England’ representing the Skinhead subculture in the 80s.

The main differences of the characters shown of the poster are that of their hair and clothing as they both represent the different subcultures: The Mods choosing fashion including, for the boys, tailor made suits and pointed shoes whilst the girls chose a boyish look with shorter hair and darkened eyes. This is different from the Skinhead subculture in ‘This is England’ as they wore designers such as Ben Sherman and Fred Perry, the boys having 2 or 3 grade haircuts reflecting the skinhead name.

Both sets of groups have adopted a similar pose in the posters. This shows that both subcultures have a strong group mentality both uniting to be different and rebel against the establishment. The locations of where the characters are in the posters is similar, the background of both being a fence. This could have been used to represent the poverty of both groups of youths as both films are set around housing and industrial estates.

The colour choices of the posters have many obvious similarities, the first of which being the use of blue, white and red in the titles. In ‘Quadrophenia’, the choice would have been to demonstrate the Mod culture having used of its sign on the letter ‘Q’, a sign which The Who, one of whose albums this film is based around, chose to adopt for themselves.  However in ‘This is England’, the colours correspond to the Union Jack, reinforcing the sense the British pride of the Skinhead subculture and helping to highlight the underlying themes of racism.

The background colours present differences between the two posters as ‘Quadrophenia’ is in black and white. This is reflective of the mood in the film as it possibly depicts the depression of the youths as employment was at an all time low. Whereas the ‘This is England poster’ is predominantly blue, the connotations of which are freedom, strength and a new beginning. This is slightly ironic due to the tragic ending of the film.

The ‘This is England’ poster shows many of its reviews such as ‘winner best film’ and ‘deeply impressive’ placing great emphasis on just how much success this film received. This makes the poster immediately busy and chaotic helping to demonstrate and foreshadow the events that occur in the film. This contrasts to that of the ‘Quadrophenia’ poster as it has little reviews written on it making it seem a lot cleaner perhaps helping to symbolise the simplicity of lifestyle of the characters.

Youth groups through the decades

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An anthropological introduction to YouTube

• The web is about linking people
• YouTube is about expressing your identity
• It can mediate human relations which are constantly changing
• Strongest presence of YouTube uses 18-24 year olds
• Loads of videos are addressed to the 'YouTube community' - is this due to a loss of community in everyday life?
• You are able to play with identity - remove, change or exagerate what is real
• You can be anyone on YouTube - you are able to play with your identity
• Videos on Youtube that are not real sparked a debate of whether or not this should be it's use
• Anonimity andphysical distance allow for the freedom and comfort to say what you want to about other videos which may lead to a deeper connection
• Issue of leagality of lifting material