THEORIES and KEY TERMS I've learnt

TERMS AND THEORIES

• BBFC - British board of film classification ( was censorship ) - statutory regulator (created though law being passed, crime to ignore)
• MPAA - voluntary regulator
• Dier - proposed star system ( marketing a film is based of star power)
• Elberse - blockbuster
• Production cycle- production, distribution, exchange
• Vertical integration- when a company does production and distribution by themselves
• Chompcy- propaganda model- 5 filters (media is supposed to keep us in ignorance) 
• Badikian - wrote ‘the media monopoly’
• WUS - Warner, Universal, Sony
• Intelectual property- Intellectual property (IP) refers to creations of the mind, such as inventions; literary and artistic works; designs; and symbols, names and images used in commerce.
• 3D/ Max and home cinema
• ‘Specticle’
• Convergence - 
• Web 2.0
• Theatrical release (release of a movie in cinemas)- release window ( time period where a movie is exclusively in the cinema)
• Ddc - disruption, digitisation, convergence 
• mise-en-scene -props, clothing, weather...
• Denotation - stripping the details
• Audio bridge- When audio comes before the scene
• Serif/ Sans-serif - typer of fonts
• Signifier- a specific thing that is pointed out
• Co-production - 2 or more companies working together to create a film, very usual
• Auteur - the director
• Exposition - the background information the audience needs to know for the world of your story to make sense
• Narrative enigma - intentionally witholding information from the audience to create mystery
• Campbells heros journey - the journey that every protagonist will follow
• Anchorage - when you combine multiple signifiers pointing in one specific direction
• Preferred reading - how the text creators would like you to respond
• Polysemy - not being clear on what you mean (opposite of anchorage)
• Digetic sound - sound coming from within the scene
• Non-digetic sound - sound that is added to the scene e.g. music
• social realist - Refers to movies with a more realistic tone  and story which is meant to mirror society.
• Cross cutting - cutting from one sene to another
• Take - moment you start recording
• Verisimilitude - Creating a sence of realism
• Conglomerate - company that owns other companies 
• Counterype - oposite of a steriotype
• Architype - a very typical example of a certain thing
• Ellipis - a cut in time
• 4 quadrent strat - younger, older, male, female
• Male gaze - objectifying women, what a straight man would want to see (Laura Mulvey)
• Juxtaposition - two things contrasting each other
• Bechdel test - two or more women in a scene that have names talking about something other than a man.
• Normative - what is 'normal' e.g. a woman wearing pink or a man wearing a suit
• Counter- hegamonic - challenging normative ideas (Gramsci)
• Critic proof - if word of mouth is strong enough, it will overcome critic consensis
• Gant rule - a mainstream hollywood release will typically make 10 times the amount of money in the US box office than in the UK.

JOURNEY: EVOLUTION OF AN IDEA

My first idea:

Our joint first idea: 

Overview:

Our ideas definitely evolved and became a lot more structured when we tarted working together. we didn't end up going with this idea but it was a lot closer than my original.

From here we got to our sample scenes which then became our rough and final cut.

THE FILM INDUSTRY

Disney introduces first plus-sized female heroine in animated short Reflect

Disney debut their first plus-sized female heroine in a short film about a ballet dancer overcoming body dysmorphia and self doubt through channelling her 'inner strength, grace and power'. 

The animation artist Hillary Bradfield who had also directed 'Encanto' and 'Frozen 2' said her wish for the short was for the viewers to feel "more positive about themselves and the way they looked".

the film created some controversy and got mixed reviews online with some people loving it, with some saying how much they wished they had seen it when they were younger and how happy they are that things are finally changing, however some people criticising it for "promoting obesity" to their children.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/oct/28/disney-reflect-plus-sized-heroine

Smartphone camera films get new festival

In may of 2021 the guardian wrote an article on how smartphone film in 'no longer just a fun experiment'. Vanessa Thorpe of the Guardian wrote that although shaky phone images have fashionable for some time now smartphones are able so capture great detail and since the pandemic there has been a boom of smartphone feature making.

the article wrote that even leading directors have been drawn to smartphone filming, such as Steven Soderbergh and Paolo Sorrentino.  Some A list actors have also been in films shot with a phone such as Kristen Stuart and Sir Ian McKellen.

Shrine production company has also come out with 'A Very British Lockdown: Diaries from the Frontline'.

Mappelbeck the director of 'missed call' said, “I’ve been a self-shooting director for 25 years – my camera has gone from needing a bag the size of a small suitcase to fitting in my back pocket,” and “I love how it’s transformed my approach to film-making. It works in intimate settings, exploits grey areas of informality and allows for more dynamic and innovative shooting to bring out hidden and personal stories.”

Mappelbeck and Gee created a film festival around smartphones with the intention of showing that filmmaking is for everyone so matter their means of background. “We set up the festival around smartphone films because it enables greater access and diversity, as well as innovation,” Gee told the Observer. “Our competition categories cover all the genres, both scripted and unscripted. And there are no implications now about quality. You can have brilliant pictures and brilliant audio, and there are even new apps that give you more control, allowing for remote direction.”

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/may/09/films-shot-on-smartphones-herald-new-age-for-cinema-say-directors

Cats Film Overview

OUR TARGET AUDIENCE

Target audience survey

We had 11 responses total with 8 women, 3 men and 1 person preferring not to say. this means that the majority of our responses were from women.

Our age range was mostly 16-18 years old which is good because that was out target age range. we also had some over 18 year olds which is good for our secondary audience. we will try to appeal to this audience by having an older character for them to relate to.

 

Around 80% of the 11 people liked horror movies.

The overall top type of horror movie sub genre with most people picking it as their favorite was 'psychological horror'. Only 9.1% of people chose 'sci-fi' and 'gothic' as their favorite horror and the genre of 'slasher' came in 3rd place overall with 18.2% of people picking it.

Almost half of the people who answered chose 'body horror' as their least favorite genre.

100% of the people who answered recognised 'Scream', 'Nightmare on Elm street' and 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre'. 45.5% of the people had heard of 'Terrifier' and 72.7% had heard of 'The cabin in the wood'.

For this question although a lot of people said that they liked different things, multiple people liked the different angles we shot from.

We intend to make it more obvious who it killing who when we re film.

Multiple people thought that the fact that there was no music did not reflect the genre

Multiple people wrote that they thought the title and font we used for the credits reflected the genre.

0ur target audience

Our primary audience as shown above is mostly teenage girls from the ages of around 16-18 years old. Our secondary audience is and older audience of anyone who was a teenager in the early 80s to 90s.

We incorporated aspects in our film opening to appeal to both, this was done through sound, mise-en-scene and cast.  

Sound:

- For our soundtrack we decided to mostly target the older demographic (secondary audience) by making a lot of references to older horror movies which would have been popular when they were teenagers.

our main soundtrack was based off Scream, Psycho and Halloween which were all classic horror movies of their time.

A way we incorporated our primary audience was by having a younger sounding band sing the cover of "Every breath you take" by The Police ,this also incorporates our secondary audience because the song was written in 1983.

Mise-en-scene:

- For mise-en scene we added a Scream mask in the background of the kitchen which would hopfully be picked up by our older audience.

Casting:

 

- Most of our cast were 15-17 year old girls so for the '3 years later scene' we had an older mane so that our older male audience could have someone to identify with (uses and gratifications theory, social identification).

GENRE overview of key films etc

Horror openings:

 

Eden lake (Watkins 2008):

 

-       Roller-coaster films (indie)

-       18

-       optimum releasing (currently studio canal)

-       $2m – low budget

-       Michael Fastbender is in it (fairly big actor)

Opening:

 

-       Titles font is scary- they expand

-       No idents

-       Flickering image is effective in showing it horror genre

-       To create flickering in final cut use alpha mask

-       Non diegetic music – horror

-       Lots of red – horror

-       Short freeze frames

-       Sound each time a picture pops up (static, slashing, screaming)

-       Main title expands

-       Audio bridge of children

-       Children playing is foreshadowing (everything has to have some kind of exposition)

-       Both main characters are ‘final girls’ but they are also sexually active

-       Main woman has stylized hair, red glossy lipstic (highly feminine, nonative in gender representation) she is a childrens teacher which shows hpw she is caring – shes wearing a pink dress (stereotypical) its quite baggy and loose (soft and feminine)

-       Chelsie tractor – shows they are middle to upper middle class

-       Theres a lollipop lady + zebra crossing (verisimilitude that it’s a school)

-       Ellipsis

-       Lots of exposition in the diegetic sound

-       ELS

-       Very strong gender roles (blue and pink clothes) – staple of genre

-       Unusuall for there to be two main characters – good for marketing

-       Blurred lines between ‘final girl’ and ‘scream queen’

-       External and internal shot

-       Children on bikes (jump scare/foreshadoeing) – they are blurred (mysterious/narrative enigma)

-       Over the sholder shows is what they are seeing (makes us feel emursed)

-       We cut back to him and he is driving (gender roles) we look to him for reassurance

-       Binary opposition of the social classes – other woman are smoking and woman just slapped her child which shows they are working class

-       They call the beer ‘wife beater’ -prefered reading

-       ‘man or a mouse’ – gender stereotypes

-       Privilege pov – the main characters cant see the graffiti on the back of the sign

-       Gate saying ‘keep out’ and the gps saying ‘turn around’is foreshadowing

-       They're destroying the nature around them

-       Little kid capturing insects – foreshadows them being trapped and powerless

-       The main characters are framed on the side which foreshadows that something is going to talke up the rest of the screan (north by northwest has interesting framings)

-       Little kids (bad guys) break the jar

-       Woman has no armpit hair (highly normative)

-       He walks in an exaggerated manly way

-       Other kids are playing rap music (working class kids)

-       Slow opening

-       Opposite of usually slasher movie because we are routing for the adults

 

 

Bride of Chucky (Ronny Yu 1998):

 

-       $25m

-       15

-       Distribution by universal studios

-       Indie movie

 

Opening:

 

-       Ident with non diegetic music

-       Sound is a lot like Hitchcock movies (psycho)

-       Fast heartbeat style music could indicate a chase

-       The title is bubble font which connotes a humor aspect

-       Thunder and lighting (pathetic fallacy- francenstien)

-       Blue tint like in Halloween (1978) – connotes unnatural – can be made with color correcting

-       Lots of mise-en-scene to provide exposition

-       Many iconic horror signifiers

-       Dutch + low angle

-       Not showing his face

-       Music is a lot like (psycho and jaws)

-       Camera inside the locker (cool effect)

-       Ellipsis with the door slamming

-       We look at the bag and so does he – we identify with him

-       Figures of adult authority are seen as useless (normal in teen slasher)

-       Lighter foreshadows

-       ‘curiosity killed the cat’ foreshadows him being curious and then dying

-       Jump scare

-       Effect of his neck being slashed can be with a bag over the neck and then squeezing

-       Male gaze – first we see her legs then she files her nails with the murder weapon