Comparison & Repetoire Of Elements

Comparison Of Shrooms
After storyboarding our trailer we had a group discussion in class about similar real media products that we could compare with our own media product and as a group we came up with the horror film 'Shrooms'. This film shares many similar traites to our film Sleep Tight, the setting of a dark forest is apparent in both which emphisises isolation and vulnerability. The main characters in both films turn out to be the actual monsters, this challenges the typical conventions of a horror film as they are female, and are usually stereotypically male.





Repetoire Of Elements

There are eight key elements of genre, which I have discussed below and made them applicable to our finished product.

• Iconography - noose, hanging feet, dead body, screams of pain/terror


• Style- Darkness, black and white lighting to show dream situations, low key lighting


• Setting - Forest which is conventional, civilisation - home and school, contempary - bed psychiatric unit


• Narrative - monster- human with psychological disorder, audience are deliberatly misled


• Characters - monster, friends (community) , newsreader, mother (family)


• Themes - violence, isolation, threat, danger, pursuite, conflict


• Audience Response - frightened, nervous, shocked, intellectul puzzle


• Target Audience - females as they can empathise with the female victims and monster.

Titles for Trailer

All the way through the planning stages we were certain that we were going to have titles in our trailer as we thought it would subtly give the audience information without having to have a voice over as we thought this would be more of an effective way. At the beginning of the task the titles were going to be:

• She was a normal girl by day...


• But at night...


• Things change...


• What would you do if your nightmares...


• Became Reality?

We then thought that the titles were quite simple and not very original as they are what is expected from a typical horror film containing bad dreams, so we then thought that it would be different to create a poem. This giving an extra edge to the trailer as the audience will have to think about the words. This is similar to 'Sleep Tight' as it is an intellectuall puzzle the audience is kept in suspense and is left to work out the story as it unfolds. We decided that the titles in poem form were going to be as follows:

• She knew nothing but normality
• Until dreams destroyed her reality
• So awake into the dark she stares
• Posessed and afraid of her nightmares
• The rope is tight , the knot will reap
• No one knows and the worlds asleep
• GTA Productions Presents
• SLEEP TIGHT
  

My Copy Of a Film Magazine Cover ( not including images)

We were given an hour to re create a film magazine cover of our choice. We were to use adobe in design to create it. Below is the original copy of an issue of Empire magazine which i chose to copy.

And below is the copy of the cover I created on adobe.

Film Magazine - Textual Analysis

1. What are the functions of a film magazine?
A Film magazine exists for guidance, information , amusement and entertainment. A film magazine will promote films thorugh adverts throughout, along with features such as reviews which creates discussions between film fans. Film magazines are able to give positive and negative feedback from trusted critics and fans as to what their views of different films are, this enables readers to have a brief idea as to what the film is like and whether it appeals to them or not, this may act as a promotional device.
2. How do film magazines target an audience?
Film magazines target an audience through specific genres of film, actors and different characters. Magazines target niche audiences and develop strong bonds where by the reader relationship is like that of a 'trusted friend'. By targeting a specific type of audience editors can adapt the magazine features, adverts etc to be appealing towards their niche audiences.
What are the key codes and conventions of a front cover music magazine?
I have analysed two front covers of music magazines and with each explained the key codes and conventions:
In order for a magazine to be appealing and to target an audience the codes and conventions must be right. I decided to analyse a total film issue.
The masthead is the title of the magazine, here being Total Film, here the masthead is one of the main focal points of the page and is the first thing the readers will see as it is very big and in a very clear and bold font. This allows readers to easily recognise the issue.
The strap line is the writing above the masthead which is considerably smaller than it as not to draw attention from it.
This usually gives information on features inside the magazine, to help encourage the reader to want to read and buy it.
The main image takes up the whole of the background, this emphasising the fact that this is a big feature in the magazine. There is no sub images either as this may draw attention away from the main feature.
Total film also has a slogan just below the masthead, 'The Ultimate Movie Magazine' this showing the audience that it is a very successful and popular magazine.Sell lines are there to entice the reader, and give the reader an idea as to what the magazine includes, this partuclar
cover has four sell lines with one being most eye catching, a sell line has been purposely placed in the middle of the page below the image and has been made considerably larger, this compliments the picture and draws the readers attention to that particular feature. The main image and the main sell line also another smaller sell line all are promting information on the main story of the magazine.
The magazine cover also includes the date, price and bar code.

The second magazine i chose to analyse was EMPIRE January 2009 issue.
The Masthead here is Empire, this being the main feature of the page as of its colour which contrasts to the rest of the page as it is red and the rest are quite dull colours.
The strap line which again is sitiuated above the masthead says 'WOLVERINE has returned for...' this cliff hanger intreagues the audience as to what is information is inside the magazine.
The Main image is central to the page and purposely obstructs the view of the masthead. This like the previous cover I evaluated also hasnt got any sub images, emphasisng how big the main feature is. There are 8 sell lines on this particular cover giving the reader an idea as to what the magazine includes.
There is also a slogan below the masthead stating ' The World Biggest Movie Magazine' again showing the reader that is a succesfull magazine which will make them trust the brand.
The magazine also includes reference to the magazines website, showing that it is also online aswell as print. It also includes the date, issue, price and date.
Discuss the relationship between film magazines and the film industry?
What is the relationship between film magazines and the readers?
How do film covers represent social groups?
What is the mode of address of the front cover of the film magazine?

Storyboard & Animatic of Sleep Tight

We developed our 500 word overview of our imaginary film by discussing together in our group our ideas and made suggestions as to what would be achievable and the most effective plot for our imaginary film. Having decided to go with my story of A normal Girl Libby May with a dark secret, we altered it slightly giving it an original twist that would be attainable and effective in a trailer. We then together worked on the 500 word overview on it so we were clear as to what changes had been made, having completed the overview we then had something to work with when it came to our storyboards. The whole point of a storyboard is so that during the production stages we always will have something to refer to, other than our 500 word overview. It makes the production stage alot easier, as well as being able to create an anamatic from it, and therefore seeing whether we need to make any changes and if the shots we have put into it are going to work together effectively or not. We had to make key decisions whereby we had to decide how many shots we were going to use, and what shots would work the best, here we had to visualise them in order for our storyboard to become effective.

Having decided on our film genre and completing our storyboards the next stage was to create an animatic for our trailer. This task iinvolved taking basic photographs of each shot in out storyboard ( not including the final costumes props etc.), this task will be useful to us as when it comes to the point where the photographs are all taken and ready for the editing stage by putting the titles along with the transitions in also,like the storyboard it will give us a good idea of how our trailer is developing and whether the shots we have chosen to use will be achievable. It will also give us a rough estimate as to how long out trailer will last as during the editing stage we will be able to make the photographs last how long our shots would last in our actual production, giving us the option to plan and add more shots if we think necessary.

`Genre and Film

In class we discussed theorists and their relevant fields of study, and how they related to our projects.

Tzvetan Todorov - Narrative Structure
Vladimir Propp - Character Functions
Claude Levi Strauss- Binary Opposites within narrative.

Todorov

The Bulgarian theorist Tsvetan Todorov talked about the idea that stories have a beginning, middle and end. He suggested that this consists of the following cause and effect pattern:

• A state of equilibrium at the outset of the narrative
• A disruption of the equilibrium by some action
• A recognition that there has been a disruption
• An attempt to repair the disruption
• A reinstatement of the equilibrium.
  

In our production the equilibrium at the start of the narrative is the fact that Libby May is a normal teenage girl in school with her friends, the disruption of the equilibrium is the 'dreams' she experiences, the recognition that there has been a disruption would be the fact that there has been a murder, and she tells her mum about it who refers her to a psychiatrist, which would also be seen as an attempt to repair the disruption as at this stage the audience are not aware of the fact it is in fact Libby carrying out the murders. There is not however a reinstatement of an equilibrium as Sleep Tight does not have a conventional ending.

Propp

Russian born Vladmir Propp isolated the narrative pattern of over 100 Russian Folk tales, he drew up a list of 31 functions to describe narrative transformations and although all texts did not have to include the function, the order in which the functions appeared was in variable.

He described the movement from one function to another as 'Sphere of action'.
Examples of spheres of action or functions include:

• Hero
• Villain
• Donor
• Helper
• Princess
• Dispatcher

Levi Strauss

He suggested that binary oppositions structure our understanding of the world. For example we cannot experience hate if we haven't experienced the feeling of love. It is arguable that one of the functions of narrative is to help reconcile these oppositions to make it easier for us to live with them.
Oppositions in narrative are usually represented by the functions of hero and villain, the hero representing what the film is deeming to be good and the villain representing evil.
The oppositions in narrative in our film trailer production are, sane v insane, dream v reality and good v evil. Sane representing the character of Libby as she perceives herself, and insane as she is not aware of the way in which her dreams are reality, similar to good vs evil, we see the character of Libby as Good to begin with but as we become to realise she is the one who is in fact murdering the victims we then see her as evil.

Plot synopsis of imaginery film 'Sleep Tight'.

For our main task each of us in our group were asked to go away and come up with a synopsis of a made up film of our choice, which we would then base our main task of the teaser trailer on. We then decided to go with my idea of the Sleep Tight Story,adding and changing parts slightly to make the best possible synopsis. We then together came up with the final 500 word plot synopsis.

A 17 year old girl called Libby is a regular student with a normal life, until she begins to have unusual dreams. One night she has a dream about one of her classmates getting abducted and murdered in a forest she lived close to. She woke up and went to school that day, to find a media storm about the classmate’s death. Obviously she was disturbed by this but kept the frightening dream to herself.
Two weeks passed and Libby’s life returned to normal, until one night she encountered a similar dream about a teacher’s daughter experiencing an excruciating death. Once again, she arrived at school to find her dream had come true; the teacher’s daughter was dead. This time Libby knew it wasn’t a coincidence, she confides in her mother who dismissed the problem, saying it was down to Libby’s grieving. Libby, however was increasingly disturbed by her dreams and had a feeling she was controlling these tragic events. Libby became terrified of sleeping and worried herself to a crazed state of mind, begging her parents to help her. Finally, her parents take her to see a psychiatrist who prescribes her sleeping pills and tells her to stop thinking and reading about the deaths.
However, after begrudgingly taking the sleeping pills, Libby experiences another nightmare. She begins to have a dream about her little sister; a crazed shadow in her dream abducts her from her bedroom and takes her to the same forest she had seen before in her dreams. Her sister screams for help but Libby is asleep and powerless, she dreams about the “abductor” preparing to hang her sister by tying a rope around a tree. In Libby’s distress she falls out of bed and awakes. She runs to the forest, knowing the nightmare was real. As she arrives at the scene, she hears her sister scream and sees her drop with a noose around her neck to her death. Libby blacks out. The film cuts to a scene of Libby in a mental hospital that her parents admitted her to shortly after her sisters death. Libby is now the prime suspect of the murders as she was the only person seen at the death of her sister, and her fingerprints had been found on the rope.
That night, Libby has the most disturbing nightmare yet. She dreams about a stranger inside the mental hospital coming to murder her, in desperation she tries to escape from the hospital. In a panic, Libby sneaks into the staff kitchen and sets fire to the hospital, knowing it was the only way to free her. She runs to the forest by her house, the exact place where the deaths had all happened. There is a noose hanging from a tree. She stares at it for a while, whilst having flash backs from each murder. In the flash backs, she sees herself preparing for and killing the 3 girls. In a mental craze, she ties herself in the noose and finally hangs herself.