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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.

The Crazies film analysis

The Crazies film analysis Does The Crazies follow classic Hollywood narrative? Classic Hollywood Narrative states that the film should conventionally start with the equilibrium. However, in the crazies, the film starts in the beginning of a disruption where a flashback to the equilibrium is followed. It is also conventional for a horror film to not end with a reinstatement of the equilibrium and we can see this from David and Judy being watched by military satellites. We see the couple walking to another town and from this we get a warning message on the screen saying ‘Initiate containment protocol’ which shows that what happened in ogden marsh will happen again in ceda falls, which is the town that david and judy were heading to. How many of Propps character types can be identified in the film? The hero of the film is David. We can tell this as he gets the most screen time throughout the whole of the film and he is one of the last people alive. The false hero of the film is the military. This is because they appeared to be helping the people of the town however the exterminated them in fear that they would spread the virus. The helper was russel and judy as the both assisted david during their escape. The villain could be the government as they are the ones that created the virus or it also could be the crazies as they were the ones who caused the quarantine in the first place. The final character was the princess who was judy as she was davids reward at the end. Binary Oppositions include: Hero-Villian Known-Unknown Power-Powerless Health-Sick Innocence-Corruption Identify the three durations and give an estimate of the time each duration covers. The plot time of the film is four days. We are able to know this from when David said that he was still healthy after 3 days when they spike the federal officer’s car. From then we see them walk to the truck stop at night and from there we see them in what seems to be the morning after that. The film lasts for 92 minutes, which obviously means that the screen time is 92 minutes. The whole story of the film cannot be predicted close as we do not know from when the government started creating the virus as it could have been years or months before. Give two examples of events that cause later events in the film but which occur when the film ‘starts’ One example of this is the plane crash. The film tells us that the plane crashed about a week from when the film starts from a farmer. The plane crashed which caused the water to become contaminated. If the water had not become contaminated, then the town wouldn’t have had to go into quarantine and everything would have been the same. Another example of an event is Judy’s pregnancy. This is because had she not been pregnant then she wouldn’t have had a fever and been taken away as she was assumed to be sick. If she hadn’t been taken away the David and Judy would have go on the bus with everyone else who wasn’t sick and they would have been killed by the military. List two events from the film that happen in a different time and space to the one we are shown. One event is Judy’s blood test as we didn’t see her get strapped to the bed. The other event that I can think of is when Russell is taken away. From this we are able to follow Russell’s story through what is said later in the film. From when Russell is taken away we then know that he is put into the fenced off areas where the people who are considered ill are kept. From Judy’s perspective we that this fence is broken w=from where we know that Russell escaped. From here we then know that he tried to drive to Ceda Falls but his car got spiked and rolled so he ends up going back to the police station where he met up with David again.

The Women in Black Marketing

The Women in Black Marketing 1. Who do you think the primary and secondary target audience is for The Women in Black? The primary audience for “The women in Black” is mostly males and females who are quite young, under the age of 25. The film includes Harry Potters Daniel Radcliffe which will attract a lot of Harry Potter fans to watch this horror film. The primary audience also includes those who are big fans of the horror film genre. The secondary audience would be middle class adults between the ages of around 25-45. This is because this film was originally a book which is commonly preferred to be read by an older audience as most young people prefer to watch rather than read. These adults may be interested in watching the film because of the book, they also would be interested as their children are interested. 2. How was The Women in Black marketed? The Woman in Black was marketed in a variety of ways. For example, pioneering ways such as social media. The distributors of the film created different media accounts on websites such as Facebook and Twitter. Setting up these pages helped reach out to the younger side of their target audience, which is the primary audience. Another way that The Woman in Black was marketed was through traditional ways such as billboards, posters, tv and radio adverts ect. This would have reached out to the older side of the audience as they would have a higher chance of seeing the billboards/ posters, but also the primary audience would also see this. The Woman in Black also had things such as teaser campaigns. These included posters and trailers. These are mainly made to create a buzz for the film to come out and for people to start spreading the word about the new film coming out through such things as word of mouth and word of mouse. After the teaser campaign comes the main campaign is released. This is where multiple trailers are released of the film and posters which created the main craze and excitement for the film leading up to the release. One big way that the film was advertised was through Daniel Radcliffe. Daniel wanted the film to get the most publicity it could to show that he could act in different films. This meant he featured on many different TV shows and interviews to publicize the film. 3. Do you think the marketing materials for the film were appropriate? Why? I think that the Women in Black was advertised as much as possible to spread the word amongst people to gain more interest. I think that using so much social to promote their film was a good way of marketing as almost all of the primary audience has an account to at least 1 social media website. However, I feel that the age rating for this film was too low. 12A for a film which contains a deep storyline and many distressing images was seen as wrong by many, as 100+ complaints about this were counted. Despite this, the film turned out to be very successful, majorly due to the main character being Daniel Radcliffe. 4. What kind of release did the film have? The film had a big release in the United States on the 5th of February 2012. On its opening weekend it made $20,500,000 and was showed on 2,885 screens. A week later it was released in the UK and was shown on 412 screens making £3,100,000. All together the film was shown in 2850 theatres across 46 different countries. 5. How much did The Women in Black cost to make? What was the industry impact of The Women in Black? The total cost to produce The Women in Black was an estimated $15 million. The film achieved a record in being the most successful horror film in British history. In the film charts, the film was at the top in the UK for 3 weeks and after those 3 weeks the film ended up with $47,729,196 from when it was first released. 6. Why do you think the film was successful? I think that the film was so successful because of the casting of Daniel Radcliffe. This attracted a much larger audience compared to what they would have had if they got someone else to take his place. Daniel Radcliffe brought the Harry Potter franchise's audience which is large and this is the reason why he was the main selling point of this film.

History of Horror