LULU- Propp and our narrative

Propp!

We looked at the work of Vladimir Propp and how he analysed a series of Russian folk tales around the 1920's.  He noticed that the same characters and events  kept being repeated in each one of the stories and wrote a book about it titled "Morphology of the Folk Tale" that was published in 1928.

The characters that are repeated and are also present in our Secondary Task are:

The villain- the stalker 
The hero- Hannah
The helper- Hannah's friend (Cesca)

The events that are repeated and are also present in our Secondary Task are:

Our hero is pursued (by the stalker)
The hero ignores the interdiction (don't talk to strangers/you have to be 18 to use a meeting website)

LULU- Secondary Task: Plot and Actors

Secondary Task: Horror 2 minutes clip

For our secondary task we had to choose our film's genre and film the opening for it that had to be two minutes to two minutes thirty long.

Title: FearOnline

Genre: Horror

Actors: Hannah S, Francesca Quince

Set: Westonbirt School

Plot/Story arc: 

Hannah lives in Westonbirt’s boarding school. One night Hannah and two of her friends decide to stay up all night together and to have fun they sign up on a meeting website. The girls start a conversation with a 45 year old man from their own country. The girls pretend to be an older woman and to be interested in the man, the girls are having fun teasing him, until he realises and starts to threat them by saying terrible things, even though the girls know nothing could happen to them they are so shocked by what the man said that they disconnect and delete their fake profile. The next morning Hannah wakes up to the sound of a text message. The nightmare begins.

Script

Cesca: Hey!
Hannah: Hey!
Cesca: How was your run earlier?
Hannah: Good! But you know that feeling that you get when someone is watching you..?
Cesca:Yeah
Hannah: I had that
Cesca: That's so weird

Cast

 Hannah Southam as Hannah 

Our protagonist had to be a good looking teenager, with a gentle and innocent face so that the audience would have grow fond of her immediately.

The Stalker

Not shown in order to create mystery and suspense.

Francesca Quince as Cesca 

The character of “the friend” had to be a face that transmitted calm and trust as this character is the protagonist helper so someone she can trust.

The Set

Westonbirt School

Gloucester, England

LILY- Task 6- Typical Traits of Horror Films

Our genre for our opening two minutes of a film is horror, so as a part of research I have decided to look up, further typical traits of horror films. 

• TITLES: When it comes to the opening titles of horror films, they usually appear in white or red colours. However in some cases another colour is used which represents what the film is about. For example in 'Halloween' the titles are in orange.

• SOUNDS: Sounds in horror movies- ambient sounds are used along with music. Diegetic is used to make things which would not usually be scary, scary! For example footsteps, breathing, or the telephone ring in scream. Music is also used to build tension, usually it begins slow and soft, but builds up as tension increases. Music can make or break a film: take a look at this famous scene from Jaws, the iconic music replaces with one rather different.

• SETTING: Common settings for horror films include: desolate places, which can be urban or in the countryside, along with by lakes, in a haunted houses, abandoned warehouses and many more. 

  

  THE WALKING DEAD IS SET IN AN ABANDONED FICTIONAL VERSION, OF THE CITY ATLANA, GEORGIA, AMERICA.

  
  

  

  AN ABANDONED HOUSE ACTS AS THE SETTING FOR THE FILM 'THE ABANDONED.' 

  
  
• CAMERA WORK: The shots used in horror films tend to be very cliche. They usually contain high and low angled shots to create drama along with point of view shots from the villain's perspective, showing them stalking the protagonist or target. Horror films also often contain an establishing shot, to show location. As well as plenty of handheld camera's to make the shot less smooth.

ESTABLISHING SHOT IN THE WOMEN IN BLACK TO SHOW LOCATION

POINT OF VIEW SHOT

THE BLONDE VICTIM IN SCREAM 

• EDITING: Horror films usually contain a variety of editing styles. Some being slow editing containing simple, long pans. Whereas as suspense builds, the editing gets quicker, flicking between shots at a greater speed.

• CHARACTERS: The representation of characters in horror films are very stereotypical. For example the victim is usually a girl, who is blonde and attracts male viewers to the film. Whereas the hero of the film is usually a hunky, man who is handsome and saves the day.

  

  THE GIRL BEING SEXUALISED IN 'JENNIFER'S BODY' TO ATTRACT MALE VIEWERS.

  
  

  

  THE HUNKY MALE HERO IN THE AMITYVILLE HORROR
• TYPICAL SITUATIONS: Situations that tend to happen include: power cables being cut, a car not starting, victims hear a sound and then go to look for it, the audience knowing something the victim in the film does not, along with many more.

  

  DOLLS ARE OFTEN USED IN HORROR FILMS AS THE ANTAGONIST.

LULU- Audience Research

Media Studies

Audience Research

During my research I found out that people who watch horror movies are usually aged between 15 and 25 years old. 
Horror movies are most aimed at men are most likely to interact with the characters on screen as most of the time the protagonist is a man.
Also people would rather go watch a scary movie in groups than on their own.

According to statistics on the internet movie db these are the 8 most popular horror movies of all times (not in order):

1. The Exorcist 1973 William Friedkin

2. Shining 1980 Stanley Kubrick

3. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 1974 Tobe Hooper

4. Psycho 1960 Alfred Hitchcock 

5. The Thing 1982 John Carpenter

6. Rosemary’s Baby 1968 Roman Polanski 

7. Halloween 1978 John Carpenter 

8. Suspiria Dario Argento 1976

LILY- Target Audience Questionnaire and Research

The film industry's prime focus is making money. Therefore a key factor in insuring they do this is knowing your target audience.
That way trailers and other ways of advertising are targeted towards that specific audience, to try get them to watch the film.

As a part of audience research I decided to conduct a survey on who would be our target audience.

Here are the questions asked:

1) What gender are you?
2) What is your age?
3) Do you like horror films?
4) What is your favourite horror film?
5) What is it about that one you like?
6) Would you pay to watch horror films regularly?
7) When you watch horror films who do you usually watch them with?
8)  Do you like gore in horror films?

You can fill out the survey here:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TZF9K9Q

This questionnaire is short and easy for people to fill out, but will equally tell me a lot of information about our target audience.

Based on research I have collected using the internet and the information gathered from the questionnaires I did, I have discovered that:

• Men: according to research I found on the internet, males tend to prefer action films, and are much more likely to watch a movie containing gory scenes.
• Where as females are less likely to enjoy this, on the whole, but would prefer to watch a romantic-comedy or a 'chick-flick.' However they do prefer horror movies without gore.
• Younger people, aged 14-30 are much more likely to enjoy a horror movie compared to people above this age, who would not enjoy the thrill as much.
• Similarly, young couples also appear to watch horror movies, as women prefer to watch with a male figure.

LILY- Institutions That Make Horror Films and Filming Update

It was important to have a good understanding into the institutions that commonly distribute or make horror films. Therefore I did research into the sort of companies that did so.


20th CENTURY FOX:

• 20 Century Fox is a major American production company
• Films produced by it are mainly family focused, or in the genre of comedy
• However it does have some successful horror movies under its name; Jennifer's body, however it is mainly the distributor of horror films as-suposed to the producers.

WARNER BROTHERS:

• Warner Bros is another major American film institution.
• Warnes Bros. produce films often in a wide range of genres, for example Sex and the City, the Dark Night and Slum Dog Millionaire.
• However In comparison to 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros. to have more successful horror films under their belt, for example Friday the 13th, The Orphan, and House of Wax.

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TWISTED PICTURES:

• Despite not being one of the most known film institutions, Twisted Pictures has managed to gross half a billion dollars with horror films
• The most infamous one being the Saw series along with Texas Chainsaw Massacre 
• Twisted Pictures was formed after the success of Saw in 2004, which lead to a nine picture distribution deal with Lionsgate. It then continued to produce 6 sequels to the Saw series as well as other films.

LULU- Film Distribution

Film Distribution

5 stages

Standard release

Standard release is the model of distribution most used of the five.

 This type of distribution consists in:

1. Having the movie’s release first in cinemas 

2. After approx. 16 weeks and a half releasing it on DVD. 

3. After a few months make it available on Pay TV services. 

4. At last after approx. two years after the movie’s theatrical release make it available on free TV.

Simultaneous release

A simultaneous release is when a movie is made available on many different media (cinema, DVD, internet, TV etc.) at the same time or with very little period of time distance one from another.

 This release method has both positive and negative aspects:

POSITIVES

1. The audience can choose the type of media that most suits their needs

2. The production studios only have to run one marketing campaign.

NEGATIVES

1. The product might not get substantial investment or promotion.

Straight-to-video release

A straight to video release is when the distributors don’t consider the “theatrical window” and immediately release it on DVD.

Internet release

This method is still new to the film distribution platform.

Shrinking of the theatrical window

The theatrical window was originally conceived for a six months duration while today been reduced to little more than four months.

This happened in an attempt to make up for the substantial losses in the DVD market they've been suffering from.

Ex. When Disney announced that Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland  would have been made available 14 weeks after the movie's release date (instead of the usual 17) in order to avoid competition from the 2010 World Cup. Theatre owners made threats not to show the movie on their screens,[18] but later reconsidered their position before the movie was released.