Tuesday 1 May 2012

media and collective identity choose this question for section B and choose one of the two given
answer 1a and 1b

section a 1b
theoretical evaluation of production
worth 25 marks each
 you will choose to evaluate one of your pieces of coursework in relation to a media concept
in the exam one of the following areas will be selected for you to write about
genre
narrative
representation
audience
media language
only talk about one of your products that you have created

macro- narrative, genre, audience, representation, media language

micro- mise en scene (location, props, location), lighting, camera angles ( movement and position), editing sound, 

GENRE-
genres are categories or types of media text. genres are recogniseable through the repeated use of generic codes and conventions: iconographics, narrative, representations, ideologies. audience expectations. how you have represented the hero or the villian in your horror trailer. They all link together.
genre theroies
steve neale
douglas pye

genre and audience
genre offers audiences a structure of frame work
audiences gain enjoyment from "spotting conventions" ( repetition) and making comparisions with other films of the same genre
if a text deviates ( challenged your audience) from the convetions it can confuse us, but at the same time we enjoy seeing the rules broken
audiences like the anticipation of waiting for the predictable features.
how did yolu use genre to offer your audience a framework. do you think that your ttarget5 audience enjoyed spotting the conventions or seeing the rules broken?
did you use stereo typical items or not?

NARRATIVE
you should apply these theories
prop- 8 character roles ( different fairy tales villians doners character roles.)
todorov-  equilibrium- disequilibrium- new equilibuim ( in films you get introduced to normal life, something bad happens and then the actors try to return to normal life or over come the disaster. In the exam only takl about the equilibrium ( begging life before)  then the disequilibrium ( the distrubtion) but only briefly talk about the new equilibrium ie life going back to normal or over coming the new disater)
barthes- 5 codes ( action, enigma, cultural, symbolic, semic)
levi strauss- binary opposites ( light and dark)


all media texts tell a stories. the structure of these stories is called the narrative.
a story must have verisimilitude ( appear to be real how have you created reality in your media texts) in order to engage us.- how does your cw have verisimilitude
stereo type, conventions, codes,  create verisimilitude with in the diegesis ( whats not real- ie eastenders) use film to apply narrative too.

REPRESENTATION
everything in the media ai representation everything we see is being represented eg. regions/ locations, individuals, groups, places, nations, ideas

questions we would ask when analysing representations:
WHO or WHAT us being represented
HOW is the representation created
WHO created the representation
WHY is the representation created in that way? what is the intention
WHAT is the effect of the representation
use theories for section B


AUDIENCE
consider: age, gender, demographic profile, socioeconomic group, exsiting/ new, lifestyle, values, attitude
categories A,B,C1,C2,D,E
is your audience mass or niche
what would the three reactions to your c/w. use Stuart hall

MEDIA LANGUAGE
you masde lots of decisions regarding the following micro aspects
camera
editing
lighting
sound
lighting
sound
mis en scene
special effects

exampler esaay question 1b


Macro words
Micro words
Own examples
Theory
Relevance too existing media

 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 sub-cultural 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 Kuleshov 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 centring 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 hang woman 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 10/10
EG 10/10
Term 5/5
(24/25)



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