Questionnaire Analysis

Horror Magazine

Horror Poster

Horror Poster Analysis

Representation of women in the media facts

The representation of women within the media facts –

In 1992, a lady named Carol Clover wrote a piece in a book about a theory of there being a final girl in films.

 She wrote this on the book Men, Women and Chainsaws. There are 3 common traits of a final girl. These are being boyish, virginal and smart.

 Jeremy Tunstall done some research on how women were represented in 1983, he narrowed the type of girl down into 4 types. These were; Martial, Domestic, Consumer and Sexual.

 In 1992 research showed that men dominated women on screen by a 2:1 ratio. After research in all aspects of media, results revealed that the ratio of men to women was only equal in Advertisements.

 A talked about issue with these findings were that men were likely to be seen with an occupation and outdoors.

The 3 C’s when discussing the portrayal of women in some lifestyle magazines were Cooking, Cleaning and Caring.

The male gaze means when women are portrayed from what a heterosexual male would find aesthetically pleasing. An example of this is when Jules within Cabin in the Woods is dancing in front of the fire place.

Narrative Theories on Halloween and The Crazies

Classical Hollywood Narratives –
Tzvetan Todorov was a Bulgarian structural linguist and he came up with the idea of the Classical Hollywood Narrative. This term, abbrieviated as ‘CHN’, is a way of describing the structure of a narrative in a film or story and this is conventional to a high number of films narrative structures. It works by two opposing forces being in balance or equilibrium, but then an event causes disruption of the balance which then triggers a chain of events and problems that needed to be sorted in order to create a new equilibrium again, which means a new balance to the world in which the narrative is set. The CHN is useful because from looking at just the stat of the film and how the narrative plays out you can predict or tell whether or not the film is going to follow the CHN and then you can guess whether the film will have a happy ending or not and if the main characters will survive. This allows film makers and media analysts to place the audience where they want them and to incorporate stereotypes and conventions that gratify the audience more easily. Halloween follows the CHN as they the evil towards the end of the film. However, there is no new equilibrium as his body was not found so a new balance couldn’t be restored. The Crazies doesn’t follow the CHN because the first scene in the film is of the town destroyed, meaning that the film starts off with a disequilibrium and is therefore unconventional and does not fit the category of the CHN.
Propp’s Characters in relation to Halloween and The Crazies –
 Vladimir Propp was a Russian critic who examined 100’s of folk tales to see if the character types shared structure. He narrowed it down to 8 character types which are:
The Villain
The Hero
The Donor
The Princess
Her Father
The Donor
The dispatcher
The false hero
Understanding character roles and applying them to narrative in films is key because it allows us to understand what roles the characters will fulfil and what conventions and stereotypes they must then conform to. This helps us to understand a bigger picture of the film itself. In Halloween, the villain applies to Mike Myers, The hero is Laurie and The helper is Myer’s Doctor. In the Crazies, the villain is the government, the hero is David, The princess is Judy, the false hero is the military and the donor is deputy russel.
Claude Levi-Strauss and binary opposition –
Claude Levi Strauss looked at narrative structure and how it has binary opposites. Binary opposites are sets of contrasting opposite values in a narrative that represent different things. For example, good and bad. Binary opposition is important and useful to analysing and understanding media texts because it allows to dig deeper and find the arrangement of themes and contrasting values that different types of characters try to represent, this allows us to see what different characters stand for and what the narrative gives an ideology of what they represent in the plot. In Halloween there
are many binary oppositions, these include: Good and Evil, Innocence and Adultery, Mortal and Immortal, Aware and Unaware and finally powerless and dominance.
Bordwell and Thompson – 
Bordwell and Thompson said ‘a chain of events in a cause-effect relationship, occurring in time and space’. This means that events happen within the time and space of the run time of the film but which do not occur on the screen that we see, but we know that they still occur in the film because of the cause effect relationship these then have and cause in the future. This is useful because with the right narrative and dialogue the audience can visualise entire sequences that are happening off screen but have not happened on the screen. This is a very useful movie making method that allows for extra narrative and story to be crammed into the film and have certain events happen in the frame that could not have happened without a particulare cause in a differnet time and space. This is useful for understanding media texts also because it allws us to understand a narrative in a more detailed manor and to analyse how the screenwriter have created the particular story for the film.
For example, 2 events in the crazies that caused another event to happen were when deputy russel sacrifices himself allowing Judy and David to get out of the town and continued the narrative trying to escape. Secondly, when Judy visited the nursery of her unborn child which then causes David to get his hand stabbed whilst trying to save her from the Crazies that were present.
There were also events in the film that we knew that happened but didn’t see. Examples of these would be when the plane crashed and contaminated the water flowing into the town, we know this had happened because there are shots of the plane in the lake. Secondly, when Judy gets her blood tested, it is not seen but we know it happened as she mentioned it in the dialogue.

Analysis of three horror trailers

INSIDIOUS (2010) From the beginning we know we are in the horror genre as the font effects on the title are typical. The title slowly zooms in and the eerie, lighting connotes things going wrong, breaking down. We then fade up to a man in an arm chair and there is fear in the mans voice which suggests something isn't normal.slow zoom to the man's head is followed by a distorted suburban landscape, shot with a  fish eye lens, which again connotes normality going wrong. The introduction of a mother and child gives us two potential victims (innocence which will be corrupted) and the normal happy family scenes work to suggest that all this happiness will be destroyed. The music is contrapuntal and hints at this. In the second stage of the trailer there are many zooms and tracks and point of view shots; this constantly moving camera is typical of the genre and the POV shots put the audience into the position of the characters, enhancing our identification with their terror.  Shadows, weird angles (like the birds eye shot from the stairs) and the constantly moving, searching camera, which picks out frightening details like the rocking horse, all tell us we are in the territory of the classic supernatural horror film. The pace of editing speeds up steadily as our heart rate increases. The is a ticking sound in the trailer which suggests there is a countdown a builds suspense and increases panic as the speed of the ticking increases. ANNABELLE - The trailer starts with the conventional low-key lighting with a small house set in what seems like the middle of nowhere, instantly creating an eerie tone. Two potential victims are in the next shot which is followed by a panoramic shot of the street, and this wide shot is empty which creates a feeling of loneliness and isolation. The trailer uses silence and then a loud sound to increase heart rates of the audience, and a sudden movement of the potential victim makes the audience think for a second that it's the appearance of Annabelle. The lighting stays very low key and the music is contrapuntal which connotes scary things, or that they are not alone in their house. This is then evident that they are not alone when in the next shot there is a women in a white dress with a face that isn't visible appears holding a doll. This type of character is very conventional of a typical horror film. There is a whisper of 'I like your dolls' which makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, this also suggests that the household contains a lot of dolls which are considered to be scary by a lot of the audience. There is a quick sequence of short cut shots which create a feeling of panic and action. The production companies are listed in the middle of the trailer after this, and the production companies are well known for the right reasons, which will only attract the audience to want to watch the film more. The family move house after the haunted encounter and there is soothing music which makes it seem like everything is okay, until an evil doll (Annabelle) is unpacked which immediately restores the sense of fear and creates suspense. When the doll is placed on the shelf the camera focuses on it which allows the audience to realize the doll isn't an ordinary doll and that the new movers have made a mistake by bringing it with them. Typical doors slamming, children crying and old clocks ticking can be seen and heard.


  
  THE CONJURING - The first scene is of an old looking house in a rural setting, which is typical for trailers of the horror genre. The children seem happy but the dark surroundings can only suggest that something bad is waiting to happen. The trailer starts of with happy music and everyone acting positively. There is a scene of the long, old fashioned upstairs with a shadow of one of the potential victims which looks scary and there are shadows present which is very typical. The camera angles of the following shots become very unusual, some are point of view shots and others are handheld shots, which create a feeling of uncertainty and that things aren't completely calm. There is a noise coming from the wardrobe which is when the happy music stops. The characters are playing a game of hide and seek at this point in time meaning the person who is in the room at the time the noise was made probably isn't phased by the noise, which helps engage the audience of the trailer. The doors of the wardrobe then open by themselves, with no one inside the wardrobe. This creates a supernatural/paranormal feeling, the scene then changes to get the audience wanting to know more. The women is blind folded and walks towards the empty wardrobe and says 'I can hear you breathing' even though there is no one visible. This creates even more fear and raises the heart rate levels of the audience. The hiding child then makes herself visible from outside of the room which leaves the women confused as she heard something coming from the wardrobe. Contrapuntal music starts at this point suggesting that something doesn't quite add up. 'Based on a true story' is such a good thing to include in a horror trailer as it adds to the fear as what they the audience are seeing is actually realistic and feasible. A zoomed in shot of the old house looks very scary as it's in the middle of nowhere which is conventional. The door is open and there are also mirrors in the room which make the audience panic and wonder if anything is going to appear as scary laughing noises start to be heard.