Textual Analysis of short film: P.S

https://vimeo.com/75942374

P.S AWARD WINNING Psychological Horror Short Film from Richard Rodriguez on Vimeo.
The short film opens with the a non-diegetic voice recording of a man asking "ok, so how is your sleeping pattern?". This connotes that the character in the movie is unable to sleep or has nightmares, which also happens to a lot of the victims in horror movies. The actual scene does not open until this question has begun to be asked, therefore the images showing on the screen is not synchronous with the non diegetic sound. The scene shows a  handheld point of view shot in the dark. It looks as if the scene has been edited into a black and white filter in order to create the effect of the dark. Filming in the dark is a convention of making horror movies, and it also allows us to connote that the film will be scary, and that something bad is going to happen very soon. The audience would be able to recognise that it is a horror movie even if they didn't read anything which gives away what the movie is about.

The scene starts off with a blurred screen which gradually comes to focus. This connotes that we as the audience also do not know what has happened or what is happening. As it becomes focused it could connote that we will find out and know what the narrative is about.

The next shot is of a tracking shot from someone's legs up until their head. Through the shot we see torn up / ripped jeans and a lot of blood coming from the middle of the clear white shirt and his mouth. The connotations of white is pure and goodness, which shows that the person was attacked and before this attack with blood red stains on it, the person could have been living in peace.

The shot is now in colour instead of black and white, which shows that the setting is in the dark in the night. At first we do not know what age, gender, ethnicity or whoever the person is until they finish the shot at the top of the head. This is when we realise that the person is a  male with long hair. His voice again is still playing as a non diegetic sound. He is looking around mysteriously and we do not know why, perhaps he is still in danger.

The next scene shows a 90 degree shot of the man around a desk with make-up around it, whilst the non-diegetic conversation continues. This will lead the audience to figure out why there is makeup on the desk and what is the character doing. There's a close up shot of the character writing something, and just as the voiceover says the word "doctor", there is a mid-close up of the pills that a prescribed next to him. Since the pills are so close to him, it may mean that he is addicted to them, or that he needs them regularly, which creates a vulnerable character. If he is addicted then this represents him as the typical black ethnic that is 'bad' and are into drugs. However his costume countertypes this thought as he is wearing a check blue shirt instead of a hoodie and track suites that the media normally represents black people in.
As his hand is covering what he is writing, the anticipation for the audience increases to know what he is doing.

There is a close up of his face while he stares at the door. A conversation shot is established, even though there is no conversation. The shot of the door keeps fading to black ad then out, and flickering whilst a shadow of a demon/person/whatever is it moves. It moves until we see its figure. This kind of creates verisimilitude as normally when people see a shadow they get scared until they are sure of what the shadow is. The shadow turned into a person. The next scene is of flowers swaying in the wind and then a tracking shot of the character walking in daylight. We start t wonder where he goes as there is eerie yet kind of sad music playing non diegetically.

The scene is now filtered to a dark green hue. The camera is of a handheld shot as it is shaky. This creates the feeling of fear in the audience as they think perhaps the person is about to be attacked while they check their mail. Also, in most horror movies, the character is about to be attacked whilst they are doing something.

There is a close up as he opens his mail, and it is obvious that something is going to happen to him tomorrow, as his stalker put something there to scare him about 'tomorrow' with a little key. This connotes that the stalker wants to either meet him somewhere or take him somewhere to kill him. There is a two shot of someone walking behind him, it could be the person who put the envelope with the key there since the victim is not looking back. This could connote that the stalker was following him everywhere and to see if the victim got his message or not. This creates a sense of fear, as it is in broad daylight and nobody else can see this stalker. This scene could also connote that this is what happened before the first scene that we saw, where he was all bloody and was looking for a way out.

Whilst he is walking he gets a voice message from a woman who says "I hope you got my letter", This could be the woman that he wrote to at the beginning of the film. He checks his mail box again and this time the letter says "behind you" in capitals, which connotes danger and a threat. Stereotypically, he turns around and there is no one there, but when he walks away, again there is a two shot of someone behind him, the someone who put the envelope there. This creates tension and fear among the audience, as we think that he is about to get attacked.

The scene then fades into black to connote that something is about to happen to him. The scene re-opens at night time with a car coming towards the camera with it's flashlights on. He goes home and again there is another note, but this time in his letter box.

He goes back to check his mail and there is another note there.
The film ends with the man getting in his car and then suddenly someone or something attacks him. This creates a enigma code, leaving the audience to wonder what happens next to have anticipation as they want to find out more. This is a convention of most horror movies as they end with enigma codes. The continuous non diegetic sound of the letterbox opening only stopped when he got in his car. This connotes that something bad is going to happen to him.  Here, Todorov's equilibrium theory is also challenged as the film ends and finishes both with a disequilibrium and there is never an equilibrium.
The audience may think that the ending of this film is probably what had happened before the beginning of the film.

This short film was  just a repeat of the character getting threats in his mailbox, with eerie music and his stalker following him around.

The History of Horror

The first ever horror film was made by Georges Melies in 1896 which was called Le Manoir du Diable. This was meant to be an entertainment to it's targeted audience, however, because of the mise-en-scene, such as the costumes, it was recognised to be a horror film.
Slowly the conventions relating to horror include gore and supernatural aspects.
In 1910, the first version of Frankenstein was made by Mary Shelley.

There was a decline in movies during the war but by the time of the 1950s, movies were back in action again.
The thriller and psychological aspects of a horror movie came about in the 1960s mainly through Hitchcock's productions.
with better graphics and technology in the 1980s, movies could be created more graphically have more verisimilitude.

Timeline:

1896: "The House of the Devil"

1910: "Frankenstein"

1913: "The Student of Prague"

1920: "Cabinet of Dr. Caligari"

1920: "The Golem: Or How He Came into the World"

1923: "The Hunchback of Notre Dame"

1924: "The Hands of Orlac"

1925: "The Monster"

1926: "Faust"

1927: "The Cat and the Canary"

1931: ​​"Dracula"

1931: "Frankenstein"

1932: "The Mummy"

1933: "King Kong"

1934: "The Black Cat"

1935: "The Bride of Frankenstein"

1941: "The Wolf Man"

1942: "Cat People"

1943: "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man"

1944: "The Uninvited"

1945: "Dead of Night"

1945: "The Picture of Dorian Gray"

1948: "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein"

1949: "Mighty Joe Young"

...

Review: Orphan

I will be reviewing another psychological horror. 

Director:  Jaume Collet-Serra
Writers: David Leslie Johnson (screenplay), Alex Mace (story).
Released: 2009
Box Office: £41, 472, 886
Runtime: 123 minutes
Certificate: 15

The movie is about an 'orphan' who is adopted by a family who has just lost their baby. However she isn't really an orphan, she is some sort of woman in disguise looking for the perfect husband. We find out in the middle of the movie that she has killed most partners that she has been with and she has a rare condition that makes her look like a child, when in fact, she in an adult.

Now, she is after Kate's husband, John, which are both her adopting parents. She kills one of their sons, as well as the father because she's pure evil, and we as the audience can see that he found out there is something wrong with her. Typically, there is a semi-happy ending as Esther, the 'orphan' drowns under ice and is no longer a threat to Kate's family. But what about Kate's family? Her husband and son are dead and now she only has one deaf child to live with.

Overall, there are several thrills to the movie, with many jump scares to scare the audience, achieving their aimed reactions from their target audience.
In our short film, we can use scary and sudden jumps to keep our target audience thrilled.

I would rate this film 3 out of 5 as it fulfilled the satisfaction of a horror film but wasn't as scary as i'd expect it to be.

Poster analysis 'The Silence of the Lamb'

The Silence of the Lambs
Release date: 1991
Director: Jonathon Demme
Writers: Thomas Harris, Ted Tally.

Part 1:
Part 2:
(PowToon only allows a 5 minute video so this is the finishing of my sentence)
We don't know if the person in the poster is a boy or a girl, and so the audience will get intrigued, creating another enigma code.

There are also credits in small writing at the bottom of the poster with the actor's names. This would mean fans would recognise the actors and go and watch the movie, increasing in viewers.
Overall this poster is portrayed as a typical teaser poster, not giving much information away.

There are binary opposites in the poster as we can see the top left is really bright and the bottom right is the darkest. The way we would read the poster is from top left to bottom right and so this can enable the audience to know that there is not much more information about the film they can give in the poster, creating an enigma code and allowing the audience to wait with anticipation until the film is released.

The type of poster this is, is the main theoretical poster as it contains the information about the production personnel, the stars and the distributors.

The only way you can tell this poster is from the horror genre is because of the black and white theme where the face is mainly white, the background is black and the only pop of colour is of the devil moth on the lips. This creates a sense of enigma as we don't know why it is there and what it's significance is in the film.

After changing the image to black and white, it is easier now to add and intensify colours as there are advances and improvements in technology. For example, if it was edited using Photoshop, the editor could crop the pupils out and change them to a different colour as they did in the poster here.

I believe the unique selling point of the poster would be the unusual replacement of lips by a moth.
The font of the title is also very straightforward and simple and easy to read. This connotes that maybe the storyline is also easy to understand even if the poster isn't.
The poster is similar to our idea of a poster as we are intending to have it portrait with one side having dark shadows and the other side having white lighting.

The BBFC - How Films Are Certificated

The British Board of Film Classification, otherwise known as The BBFC, was set up in 1912 and  is administered by the Council of Management. The members of this Council are not allowed to make any classification decisions. The Council of Management is responsible for the other priorities such as senior appointments at The BBFC.

The BBFC's aims / missions:
"protect  the public, and especially children, from content which might raise harm risks

• empower the public, especially parents, to make informed viewing choices

• recognise and respect adult freedom of choice within the law

• respond to and reflect changing social attitudes towards media content through proactive public consultation and research

• provide a cost-effective, efficient classification service within our statutory remit

• work in partnership with the industry to develop innovative service models to provide content advice which support emerging media delivery systems

• provide an effective service to enforcement agencies"

In order to class a film/movie/whatever media content into one of the classification groups, there are examiners who have to look for specific things within the media content. For example they would have to look at issues such as drugs or horror and language. If the content had swearing for example, then it would not be suitable for children to watch, and therefore would not be a appropriate to class into a U film. The examiners watch the content from beginning to end until they can decided which age the content is suitable for. The BBFC says that they also consider DVDs as they are watched at home, so there may be a higher risk of underage viewing.

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What are the different certifications?

There are different certifications for media content for different ages depending on the content.

U - Universal, The media content is suitable for all types of audience.

PG - A general viewing but some scenes may be inappropriate so you would have to watch the movie with a parent / guardian.

12A and 12 - The content is suitable for people 12 years and over. No-one under this age should be allowed to watch the film. If parents would like to take their child to see the content with them then the parent should decide if the content is suitable for their child or not.

15 - No one under the age of 15 should see this content. Anyone under the age of 15 can rent or buy this content.

18 - No one under the age of 18 should see or be allowed to rent of buy this content. Only for adults.

R18 - specially restricted content to only be shown in specially licensed cinemas / shops and to adults only.

Since our product is a short Horror film, this tells us that our content is not suitable for children, and therefore cannot be classed as a U film. We would have to plan our product carefully an then classify it as a 15 age rated movie.

Case study: Alien

 (Click on image for larger view)

How do the BBFC regulate horror films?
Horror films aimed at younger audiences are treated with caution as some children enjoy watching scary scenes whereas others do not. In these films, the age rating decisions take into consideration factors such as the duration of a scary scene, the content and the horror effects including the sound in the movie. When 'The Lost World: Jurassic Park' came out in the 90s, the BBFC had to host a variety of screenings with audiences of children and teachers. After they analysed the audience's reactions, the BBFC certificated it as a PG film as the majority of the audience loved the film. Since then, similar movies has had similar experiences such as 'Harry Potter'.

Website used: http://www.bbfc.co.uk/

Case Study: Blumhouse Productions

This American television and film company produces similar films to our genre: psychological horror. It was founded by Jason Blum in the year 2000.
They have produce some of the most famous horror movies, such as 'Insidious', 'The Purge', 'Split', 'Get Out' and 'Paranormal Activity'. The success of Paranormal Activity marked the beginning of success for Blumhouse Productions, and they continued to produce further horror movie successes such as 'Sinister' (2012) which engrossed a gross profit (worldwide) of over $77 million, with only a budget of $3 million.
Blumhouse Productions produce movies on a low budget, which is similar to our production company as we need a low budget to create our film because we are students.
The company usually is independent but works with distributors such as Universal and Paramount Pictures to distribute their films. They worked with Universal for the film 'The Purge' which starred Ethan Hawke.
Usually they intend for their horror films to be low budgeted.
The head of production is Jeanette Brill.
The main certification of Blumhouse Production films are 15 and 18 which is similar to our production group as our aim of our target audience age is to be 15. If our content is more explicit, such as having footage of an actual knife inserting a body then it would turn from a 15 to an 18, simply because it is not suitable for a person at the age of 15 and to follow the BBFC regulations.

Where does Blumhouse Productions stand in the industry today?
Blum's first feature credit was in 1995 for his college roommate's first movie called “Kicking and Screaming.” Since then, Blum has worked on a variety of independent films, including the famous films that I have mentioned previously, such as 'Insidious'.They gain audience satisfaction by giving them the familiar faced actors and also by using a low budget, which they are known for. Currently, their recent movie 'Split' is also a huge success because of this.

A controversial film in my genre: Henry - Portrait Of A Serial Killer

I found this controversial film from the BBFC website.

The reason I chose to research this film is because it fits in the genre that we want to product our product in. It is a crime/thriller and a little psychological which is what our short Horror film fits in to. The movie is based on a real life serial killer - Henry Lee Lucas who recently got out of jail from killing his mother and now he has gone on a killing spree.
This is an 18 age rated movie directed by John McNaughton, released in 1986. The Box Office budget was estimated $111,000 but the gross was $609,939, which shows that the movie was clearly successful.

One screening took place on the 27th February when the BBFC's presidents and vice presidents viewed the cut version of the film. James Ferman said that the film was 'disturbing but no exploitative in this cut form' that the BBFC had made. This meant that the movie had to have further cuts and reduction. The film was screened again almost a month later with 2 psychiatrists and 1 psychologist to make sure that the film didn't influence dangerous actions. This links to the hypodermic needle theory as people would be injected with thoughts of committing dangerous actions eve for 'fun' when in reality it would be a crime and mentally unstable for them. A real life case study would be o the 2 killers of Jamie Bulgar who watched a Child's Play movie and committed a copycat crime as they copied what had happened in the film and murdered the toddler. After their decision on the final cut version of Henry..., it was decided to be released as an 18 rated film in 1991.

The rating fits with the BBFC criteria as there are explicit scenes of the killer killing the prostitutes and scenes which construct his identity in order to make the narrative flow.
The movie was originally uncut but caused controversy when the BBFC decided not to show it without being cut. They struggled to cut the movie because most parts led up to the big climax of the movie, and if those scenes were cut then the movie wouldn't make sense, and the audience wouldn't know how it got to the big scene in the first place.
When they did make the cuts it was then taken to the examiners whom thought that the cuts made were insufficient.
The run time of this movie was originally 83 minutes but was cut down to 75 minutes because it was being aired on television.

John McNaughton, the creator of this movie says "we as filmmakers entertain you with violence". This links to the uses and gratifications theory as he created the movie for people to be entertained and for escapism. He doesn't intend to hypodermically inject evil thoughts into the audience but only to entertain them. This links with Richard Dyer and he says that 'genres are pleasurable because they offer escapist fantasies into fictional worlds that remove the boredom of reality'.

The BBFC regulations had not changed but by 2003 they re-assessed the film and found that there were more brutal and sexually violent scenes and had to have further cuts, but by 2003 they re-released an 18 uncut version.

The reason why this movie relates to our intended product is because in reality, the real Henry Lee Lucas did have a bad childhood when he was growing up, and so did our main character. Our main character was bullied as a child up until her current age, and mentally she's suffering so she's had enough and decided to act upon it.

Website used: http://www.bbfc.co.uk/case-studies/henry-portrait-serial-killer
http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2003/04/15/henry_portrait_of_a_serial_killer_2003_review.shtml
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099763/

Genre theory reading

What I have learnt from these books:
Genre Theory: The Horror Film, An Introduction to Genre Theory by Daniel Chandler.

Horror films are ultimately dark and scary, they are supposed to scare and 'horrify' us, and create a fear of death as well as entertain us. Lawrence Grossberg created three genre theories, as the word 'genre' can be defined in many ways. The first theory defines genre "by a shared set of conventions" - Grossberg. The conventions that he means here are things like camera work, sound and lighting. f course, a common convention in the horror genre is low-key lighting, and the scariest movies are set at night time. The camera techniques are also important in 'creating fear' in the audience. For example, a low angled shot with lighting from the bottom onto a man's face would create a scary image, thus creating fear in the audience. Sound also helps to create fear and also prepares the audience for a 'frightening scene'. For example, eerie music followed by a crescendo.

The second genre theory is "the underlying structure of values that the genre puts into play" (Grossberg). This could mean that the audience essentially come to watch the movie with expectations. For example, they may expect there to be monsters or gory scenes. These expectations allow the audience to feel frightened as they are expecting to be frightened by specific scenes. With these expectations, the audience are both entertained and scared.

In Grossberg's third theory, he outlines the notion that "genres can be seen as articulations of text that define a particular set of intertextual relations". We can interpret this as genres being seen as the art of intertextuality. It allows us to recognise genres through meanings. Different elements are constantly being added to the horror genre and so it cannot be define easily.

Nowadays horror movies include the fears such as the end of the world; They consider human fear in order to create the 'horror' of horror movies.

I've learnt that genre cannot be defined easily. Genre has a set of meanings and it is widely defined by many people. It doesn't really have one actual meaning. Genres can be based on the content of the film / product, or it can be how the television and media want to put it.
"A genre is ultimately the abstract conception rather than something that exists empirically in the world" - Jane Feuer 1992). This can mean that genre again, is widely defined. The meaning can change and be played with. People can define genre however they want and in whatever way. It is all about imagination and creativity, and it is not something that exists in reality that you can physically feel or touch. The definition of genre is made in one's own mind.
David Buckingham also says that "genre is not simply 'given' by culture: rather it is in a constant process of negotiation and change". Again, the aspects of genre is always changing.
How we define genre can also depend on our purposes.

Specific genres however, can be easily recognised. For example, the comedy genre. Genres can be identified based on conventions. For example, horror and blood/gore, or comedy and jokes. There can be mixed genres such as comedy thrillers.
The features of a product can also define genre, such as the mise-en-scene.

Marxist commentators say that genre "positions the audience in order to neutralise the ideologies which are embedded in the text" (Feuer). This tells us that the ideologies represented influence the audience's perspective of things?

Overall, genre cannot be defined easily.

Textual analysis of short film: ABE

The short film called 'ABE' is about a robot who is built to 'love' and 'fix' humans.

The short film starts off with a dark, low lit scene with mysterious and eerie non diegetic music, which slowly zooms into a chain with fresh, water-like blood on it with a slow dolly shot. The blood connotes death and warning, and the fact that the blood is fresh connotes that the incident has happened recently. This allows the audience to immediately identify the film as the horror genre, as blood and darkness is the common conventional code used in horror movies, and also the killings happen pretty fast.

The image of the chain jump cuts to a handheld shot of a woman with silver tape around her mouth behind the plastic curtains, and immediately the audience will think she's dead. This creates a crescendo in climax, as we think we are about to witness something worse than this, as presumably we have already seen a dead woman. This is the director's intent for the audience to think this. This creates an active audience as we would think 'what will happen next, how did she die, who killed her? and so on' instead of passively watching the movie.

Just as the butterfly flutters away in the next shot, there is a pull focus from the butterfly to the woman's eyes fluttering open too, connoting that she is like an insect, like a bug, like an animal that humans like to test on. She opens her eyes realising where she is and tries to struggle her way out of being taped down. The conventional scream for help occurs with a high angle shot, showing us that there is dissecting equipment with blood n the tissue, maybe she has been operated on.

The woman's hair is a muddy blonde/ brown creating on of Propp's 8 characters- the princess, or the damsel in distress? This woman needs saving. The robot's mechanic footsteps are heard whilst the camera displays it's dark and skinny shadow.
The robot enters as the villain who is kind at first, asking if she is comfortable. This allows the first impression of the audience to be 'he's friendly and he can't possibly harm her' - but little do they know.
The robot says 'let us begin' like he is about to perform an operation whilst he picks up the dissecting equipment. It is shown with a handheld shot. This connotes that the robot has to experiment on humans like humans experiment on animals. This creates a sense of falseness as humans would think this will never happen to them, whereas scientists could think that in 50 years time the world would be run by robots. This is further backed up by when there is a high angle shot of the butterfly flying and he just kills it with a single slice in the air. This connotes that he will do this to the woman he has kidnapped. Additionally the sound links to the scene when he says human desires can all end in the "blink of an eye", with the diegetic sound of a slice in the air as he cut the butterfly without looking. This foreshadows the woman's death as she is being represented like a beautiful butterfly.

There is a close up of the woman's eyes for about 8 seconds to show us how she feels, the fear inside her and how the only image in her eyes is the robot.

There is a close up of the robot's hands with only 4 fingers on each hand as he says no body is perfect and if the humans don't love him then he tries to fix them, just as they tried to fix him. The woman's tears roll down, connoting sympathy for the robot.
He picks up the scissors  and the saw/knife and tells her that maybe this time he will get it right and fix her to make her love him.
The scene cuts back to the first scene but this time she screams and there is blood splattered on the curtain until the screaming stops.  This represents the gore of horror and identifies it as a horror film.

The next shot jump cuts to a lovely sunny day with a slow motioned shot of a woman flicking her hair. The robot says 'I wish I could stop bleeding' while this scene goes on which connotes that he is in actual love with a female human and that she could be his next potential victim, as he connotes that falling in love can make you do crazy things.