Representation feedback - You have covered the basics of representation, outlining what it is. However you need to go into more detail talking about why directors use stereotypes etc. I would also like to see some discussion of the stereotypes in your genre and to use so me clips or images to illustrate your point.
Genre research feedback - again you have covered the basics, with some detail.
In order to improve you should:
You have looked at equilibrium - but you have not mentioned the theorist who came up with this idea. Look into Todorov and add research about his narrative theory to your work.
Add some images to illustrate your points.
discuss the history of your genre.
This work is at a level 2 - the above will help you move into a safe 3 or even a 4.
Friday, 7 November 2014
Thursday, 6 November 2014
Representation
Representation in Media
Representation in media is to represent or depict something that may have already been presented, for instance, things like class, age, gender, sexuality, disability, and ethnicity. Often these stand in for stereotypes which are represented throughout. Stereotypes help the audience know more about a character as soon as they have been introduced, make predictions about the character, and understand the character and who they are and what their opinions may be.
Although the media can be useful for helping us understand more about characters and their opinions, it's also a very negative medium and can spread negativity quickly. For instance, celebrities like Amy Winehouse, Amanda Bynes, and Lindsay Lohan have all been depicted in the media as negative role models due to drug use, alcohol, and mental health issues. This, in turn, creates a bad image for people going through these problems. For instance, people complained that the media representation of Amanda Bynes provided a negative stigma for mental health problems.
Directors use stereotypes to get across a personality of a character almost immediately, it helps the audience understand what kind of person they are and how their story will go. This is useful for a director because it helps them to not have to introduce the character as much. Along with costume, props, and setting, stereotypes are a useful way of the director giving the audience a little back story and personality without having to go into an excess amount of detail.
The media in different places reports things in different ways. This shows that people in different groups will react differently depending on who is witnessing the events in the media. For instance, in places of war, the media may spread propaganda to their people, whereas if the media reporting in this country told us about events in that country, there would be more liberal coverage of the situations.
Media is our understanding of the world, as the media control what we see and what we think; it shapes our opinions and beliefs on the world, however corrupted these beliefs and opinions may be. Representation may be a negative thing, as it leads people to believe whatever they cover.
In TED, directors and writers broke the stereotype of a nice teddy bear by making him a foul mouthed, drinking, drug abusive individual. Although he looks like your standard issue child's teddy, the disruption of the stereotype not only make a hilarious film to watch, but also helped build TED's character more and more. The more we saw, the more we thought about him, making this film almost limitless in possibilities for all the things and situations TED could get himself into. By breaking this stereotype, the director was able to open the audiences minds, and therefore come up with more and more outrageous things that could happen.
In my film, representation will be used to display stereotypes and issues in both positive and negative ways. For example, I want the two female characters to break their stereotypes and not conform to gender norms. I think that women are usually portrayed as weak and useless, or usually used as a sex symbol. I think by breaking these norms, the film will become even more developed and the characters will become more well rounded. I feel like this will also help the story to become more interesting and will surprise audiences as the female roles won't be generic and boring, this also stops sexism in the film as it shows the women as heroes, as in most horror films, women are rarely seen as the hero.
For the male characters, I wanted generic, but in no way boring characters. I wanted the male characters to be like real people, with confidence issues and underwhelming and overbearing personalities. For example, one character may be quiet and have low self esteem, while another might have a totally overbearing personality. Although this does conform to some genre conventions, I feel like a lot of characters in horror are very two dimension and written poorly, whereas I wanted three dimensional characters with actual layers of personality who were written well into their story.
Representation in media is to represent or depict something that may have already been presented, for instance, things like class, age, gender, sexuality, disability, and ethnicity. Often these stand in for stereotypes which are represented throughout. Stereotypes help the audience know more about a character as soon as they have been introduced, make predictions about the character, and understand the character and who they are and what their opinions may be.
Although the media can be useful for helping us understand more about characters and their opinions, it's also a very negative medium and can spread negativity quickly. For instance, celebrities like Amy Winehouse, Amanda Bynes, and Lindsay Lohan have all been depicted in the media as negative role models due to drug use, alcohol, and mental health issues. This, in turn, creates a bad image for people going through these problems. For instance, people complained that the media representation of Amanda Bynes provided a negative stigma for mental health problems.
Directors use stereotypes to get across a personality of a character almost immediately, it helps the audience understand what kind of person they are and how their story will go. This is useful for a director because it helps them to not have to introduce the character as much. Along with costume, props, and setting, stereotypes are a useful way of the director giving the audience a little back story and personality without having to go into an excess amount of detail.
The media in different places reports things in different ways. This shows that people in different groups will react differently depending on who is witnessing the events in the media. For instance, in places of war, the media may spread propaganda to their people, whereas if the media reporting in this country told us about events in that country, there would be more liberal coverage of the situations.
Media is our understanding of the world, as the media control what we see and what we think; it shapes our opinions and beliefs on the world, however corrupted these beliefs and opinions may be. Representation may be a negative thing, as it leads people to believe whatever they cover.
In my film, representation will be used to display stereotypes and issues in both positive and negative ways. For example, I want the two female characters to break their stereotypes and not conform to gender norms. I think that women are usually portrayed as weak and useless, or usually used as a sex symbol. I think by breaking these norms, the film will become even more developed and the characters will become more well rounded. I feel like this will also help the story to become more interesting and will surprise audiences as the female roles won't be generic and boring, this also stops sexism in the film as it shows the women as heroes, as in most horror films, women are rarely seen as the hero.
For the male characters, I wanted generic, but in no way boring characters. I wanted the male characters to be like real people, with confidence issues and underwhelming and overbearing personalities. For example, one character may be quiet and have low self esteem, while another might have a totally overbearing personality. Although this does conform to some genre conventions, I feel like a lot of characters in horror are very two dimension and written poorly, whereas I wanted three dimensional characters with actual layers of personality who were written well into their story.
Thursday, 16 October 2014
Conventions of Horror
Conventions: things we expect to find
Genre: the conventions that place a film into a category
Hybrid Genre: two genres for one film - romcom, etc.
Don't
Ignore
Setting
Technical Code
Iconography
Narrative
Characterisation
Themes
Creepy house, forest, somewhere dark, graveyards = dark, death, scary, bleak. Builds tension, more frightening, isolation builds an uneasy feeling with the audience.
SMEC - sound, mise en scene, editing, camera shots. Scary noises, wind blowing, cat screams, gory makeup, fast cuts, POV, handheld camera work, close ups.
Iconography - famous celebrities, religious symbols, weapons, knives, gore, demonic symbols. Visual things that symbolize genre, filters, colours, blue filters, etc.
Serial killers, asylums, new haunted houses - cliff hangers, psychological, sequel, etc. Never ending plot (Saw), Antagonist never dies.
Equilibrium
Event
Confusion
Resolve
New Equilibrium
Young people, people that appeal to demographic.
Genre: the conventions that place a film into a category
Hybrid Genre: two genres for one film - romcom, etc.
Don't
Ignore
Setting
Technical Code
Iconography
Narrative
Characterisation
Themes
Creepy house, forest, somewhere dark, graveyards = dark, death, scary, bleak. Builds tension, more frightening, isolation builds an uneasy feeling with the audience.
SMEC - sound, mise en scene, editing, camera shots. Scary noises, wind blowing, cat screams, gory makeup, fast cuts, POV, handheld camera work, close ups.
Iconography - famous celebrities, religious symbols, weapons, knives, gore, demonic symbols. Visual things that symbolize genre, filters, colours, blue filters, etc.
Serial killers, asylums, new haunted houses - cliff hangers, psychological, sequel, etc. Never ending plot (Saw), Antagonist never dies.
Equilibrium
Event
Confusion
Resolve
New Equilibrium
Young people, people that appeal to demographic.
- Protagonist
- Sex appeal
- Irritating guy
- Token black guy
- Comeuppance
- Unlikely hero
- Antagonist
Theme is a recurring element in the plot. Theme - mental illness, revenge, religious belief, etc. are always a theme in films.
Wednesday, 15 October 2014
Tuesday, 14 October 2014
Compulsion Opening Textual Analysis
In the opening of Compulsion (2013), the audience are shown extreme close ups of the fallen hero chopping vegetables and preparing a meal. The colours white and red are very prominent in this montage, which symbolises the clash of innocence, lust, and danger - which are also prominent themes in the film, such as Saffron's innocence and how she left behind her life as a child actress and is now trying to make her way doing writing. Lust and danger relates to Heather Graham's character, Amy, as she knows how to use her sexuality to her advantage, but also to get what she wants in terms of manipulation and violence, as she kills her husbands parrot when he cheats on her and supposedly kills Saffron, her new girlfriend, and feeds her to the detective at the end of the film.
In the opening, there are a wide variety of shots which display different types of cinematography, which makes the audience feel like they've been immersed in Amy's obsessive cooking, which is made to be something very intimate and attractive.
The voice over talks about how cooking is "supposed to make you feel something", which also relates back to the effect on the audience and how intimate and special cooking is to her. This also relates back to the lustful attitude Amy has with her husband at first and then later Saffron.
In the opening, there are a wide variety of shots which display different types of cinematography, which makes the audience feel like they've been immersed in Amy's obsessive cooking, which is made to be something very intimate and attractive.
The voice over talks about how cooking is "supposed to make you feel something", which also relates back to the effect on the audience and how intimate and special cooking is to her. This also relates back to the lustful attitude Amy has with her husband at first and then later Saffron.
Monday, 13 October 2014
The Call Opening Sequence Textual Analysis
In the opening sequence of The Call, we see a birds eye view of the city of Los Angeles, the camera pans over the city and establishes the shot, and we as an audience really get an idea of the sheer scale of the city, in context with the film, we are allowed to appreciate how many people and individuals there are in the city. The pans help to emphasise and truly highlight how much area the LAPD have to cover on a daily basic. The shots of the city are at night, perhaps foreshadowing the distress that is to come during the final sequences. The bright lights not only symbolise how many people are in the city, but also provide a flicker of hope in the bleak darkness of the city.
Over the top of the shots, we hear various 911 emergency phonecalls being made, this establishes the scene and gives us some context as to things like what our protagonist does as an occupation, what sort of things are going on in the city, and just how many 911 calls are made per evening. This helps us as an audience get to know and understand the protagonist even better, despite the fact that we haven't even
met them yet.
The opening titles are a green computer font, which also shows us the type of things a 911 emergency operator sees when doing their job. The font is also akin to films such as The Matrix, as the green colour and IT font really emphasises the technological features in the film.
In the end of the sequence, we realise that we have learned a lot about the protagonist, without even meeting them, and we are given clues as to what is to come in the film, and although these are very subtle, each small feature is effective in really showing the audience enough to entice them to watch further on.
Over the top of the shots, we hear various 911 emergency phonecalls being made, this establishes the scene and gives us some context as to things like what our protagonist does as an occupation, what sort of things are going on in the city, and just how many 911 calls are made per evening. This helps us as an audience get to know and understand the protagonist even better, despite the fact that we haven't even
met them yet.
 |
| Further on in the film, when we learn what our protagonist, Halle Berry, does as an occupation. |
In the end of the sequence, we realise that we have learned a lot about the protagonist, without even meeting them, and we are given clues as to what is to come in the film, and although these are very subtle, each small feature is effective in really showing the audience enough to entice them to watch further on.
Feedback - Miss Spencer
I can only see a little progress since my last feedback. I would like to see much more progress than this. Both of your analysis need the film opening to be embedded and screen shots that illustrate your points throughout. I am a little disappointed with your progress, and we will have a talk in the next lesson to discuss how we can ensure you don't fall behind in your work.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)