Story Board

Essay two: Narrative Theories in relation to Halloween

                       

What I have learnt form my research

History of Horror- Through looking at the history of horror I was able to see how horror films have

changed and expanded with time. But horror films have always been popular, people have always loved to be scared but in the comfort of there own home or local cinema. Form books about ghost to vampires to Dracula becoming a box office film and a house hold charter. I was also able to learn about the genre change and the charter changes. From prime animals like the werwolf who was based of Hitler and the Nazis to slasher movies and the famous production company Hammer Horror. I also learnt about the sub genera and hybrid genres like action horror, apocalyptic, slasher horror and sci-fi horror, romance horror and wester horror. Learning about these also allowed me to see and analyse the code and conventions of different sub/hybrid genres.

Narrative structure- Tzvetan Todorov suggested that that there was three point to a narrative structure. It starts with the initial equilibrium which is when any potentially opposing forces are in balanced. Then there is a disruption which is the disequilibrium this then send off a chain of event until the disruption is sorted out. This then causes a new equilibrium. This is called the 'classic hollywood' or 'classic realist' narrative structure. I have been able to recognise these three points in horror films and state if film follow or breaks Todorov narrative theory. I have also leant the different charter types in narrative structure from the theorist Vladimir Propp. He looked at old folk tales and from then he was able to identified 8 different charter types. I also learnt about Binary oppositions that are sets of opposite values e.g: Good vs Evil, Known vs Unknown, Earth/Space. The theorist Claude Levi-Strauss looked at the narrative structure in terms of binary oppositions.      

Representation of women- I have also learnt about the representation of women in horror films. We have research two main theorist and there theories the 'male gaze' and 'final girl'. The male gaze is stated in the famous essay 'visual pleasure and narrative cinema' by `Laura Mulvey. The male gaze is the way women are portrayed like objects in films for the male pleasure. The final girl is the female survivor in a horror film. The final girl has protocolar trait, she will be a tom boy and normally have a unisex name, be and virgin and have relations with the main male protagonist.

Trailers- Last we leant about the conventions of horror film trailers. By doing this research I am able apply these conventions to make my own horror film trailer. Trailers must indicate the genre, name and production values of the movie. Horror film trailers must attracted there target audience straight away by showing convention of the pacific genera. They must set a scene and show the main protagonist and their relationship but with out giving to much away. By researching all these things I am able to analysis horror films/trailers and use the research towards my own horror film trailer.

Evaluation Question 2

How effective is the combination of my main product and ancillary texts?

Someone who marketed and advertised film is called a film distributor. I have made three different products a horror film trailer, poster and magazine all to promote and distributor my film. The jobs I have done also follow the ones of a film distributor. A film distributor would rather a bigger budget to me and would be distributing to a larger audience. They would also have better professional techniques then me and my group did.  For example there trailer would be distribute not only one youtube like our trailer, but  the cinema, on social media. There posters would be posted in outside camera and billboard and there magazines would be displayed and sold in thousands a shops. They also many chose to distributor films by using social media, blogs and other methods of materialistic advertisement. Using posters and magazines promote the film as people can just look at them and the title or images might stick in there head. This means the film gets to a wide audience if the products are made to a high stranded.  

Lots of trailers that are really popular go viral online which really increased the circulation of the campaign. Facebook is a common factor of this many trailers get liked and shared spending the around of people who know about the film. An  example of a film being well distributed is 'The women In Black' they distributed to the there main and secondary evidence. In label D there is a presentation on how the successfully made there film through the distribution of there film and knowing there target audience. A another example of this is the resent film 'Get out' it was circulated around face book due to the story line being different to any other horror film before as it hits racial issues as well as being scary. 

It is very important for a distribution company to make all the advertising products to a high stranded and portray the film in the best way they can. But they must also portray the film in the same way so the audience completely understand what the films is about and the genre. A good example of this is 'The Babadook' because the colour scheme of all there advertising is the same. In the trailer and poster you are introduced the the 3 main charters and the goos vs evil. In my poster I only introduces one charter as I believe it work effectively by only showing the evil/bad in my horror film. The Babadook posters and trailer always keep to the same isolate of the Babadook which is form the book within the film.

      

Films can also gain attention for there film review. This can be done in many way, film reviews on youtube many people look to film review to see where they should even consider going to see the film or not. This can also be done through premier night in which actors, directors, journalists and other media people go to watch the film before it is released to the public. They then spread the word on the film good or bad. These reviews get published in many way for the general public to see. These review can then be placed in the trailer, DVD cover, posters and magazines to be used as a persuasion technique  

Our film's target audiences demographics is 18-25 years old. We chose this target audience due to the contexts of our film would be stated a 18 by the BBFC. This is also is the common demographics for other horror films with the same genre like Paranormal Activity. This dose niche our target audience but my making our distribution products to the highest standard possible this should attract more people.

Evaluation Question 4

             

Horror Film Magazine

Evaluation Question 3

   

Evaluation Question 1

             

Essay three: Narrative Theories in relation to The Women In Black

               

The women in black is a supernatural thriller made in 2012, directed by James Watkins and is part of Hammer Horror Productions. The main protagonist Arthur Kipps who is played by Daniel Redcliff, is send to a remote house off a small village to sort the affairs of a deceased eccentric. His careers is in jeopardy due to recently losing his wife and his grief is effecting his work life. He needs to make this one big job work so he can provide for him and his little boy. Kipps soon works out that the house he is working on is still being haunted by the ghost of the women that use to live there. He also soon works out that the village is also being haunted by the women, she is killing there children to take revenge of the child that was taken away from her.  The women in black's target audience was Harry Potter fans and horror film fans. It had a big marketing distribution plan that payed off, making the film a massive success.   

Screen duration- 95 minutes
Plot duration- 1 week
Story duration- 30 years

The film clearly follows Todorov theory of the narrative structure. The film starts with an equilibruim where there two potentially opposing forces are in balance. At the start of this film the good and the evil has not yet come into contract (Kipps has not yet see the women in black). But the very first scene is the evil taking place killing three young girls but the evil (the women in black) has yet to meet the main protagonist. Then this is disrupted as soon as Kipps steps foot in the village and the house. This is the disequilibrium which then sets off a chain of events until there is a new equilibrium. The new equilibrium is the women in black killing Kipps and his little son to be reunited with his wife/mum. Underneath is a diagram of the 'classic realist' narrative structure and shot in the film that relate to each equilibrium. 

Vladimir Propp was a Russian critic who looking into folk tails who then was able to identified 8 different charter roles. In any good film audiences need to see strong character types. This is clearly shown in this film. The two main character types is the villain and the hero/ Kipps and the women in black. These are also binary opposition, good vs evil the two things in the film that are working against each over. Claude Levi-Strauss looking in to binary opposition underneath are the things he came up with and next to it I have stated how this is shown in The Women In Black:

Male/Female- The male and female is also the good vs elvil. As the hero and the good in this film is Kipps who is a male and the evil is the women in black who is a female.  

Known/Unknown-The unknown is the women in black, who is she? Why is is killing kids? How do they stop her? This makes the known who is Kipps and the villages scared because they are unable to answer these question. 

Safe/Unsafe- Kipps is safe in London with his kids and the villages think they are save even though they are living in fear. But when Kipps come to the village he is blamed for making it unsafe. But there is also a contrast between the adult are safe and the kids are unsafe. This is due the the women in black killing the kid to then hurt the adults.  

Fear/Courage- Fear is the villages who are scared to face the women in black and the courage is Kipps who is able to become a hero and face the evil.
Normal/Abnormal- Normal is living and abnormal is the ghost of the women in black.
Good/Evil- The clear good vs evil is Kipps vs the women in black.

The women in black follows many horror film genre convention from the location being a small village and an abandoned house in the middle of no where This makes the film more tense because it is in a isolated location. The sense of isolation is scary for the charters as there is more of a sense of being alone. This isolated village also harbour a secret from the outside people. The colour black itself represent danger, darkness and evil which is the main colour is this film. The women itself is wearing black showing she is dangerous. Children's toys are also I sighn of innocents and children and because they are so innocent they are oblivious to the danger they are in. 

The women in black includes many jump scares and follows many clear horror film convention. It has a very strong three act structure with a strong ending. This film supports Todorov, Vladimir Propp and Claude Levi-Strauss theories. I belive the strong charters types and story as an audience we find more connection with the hero and want him to stop the evil and help the helpless village. 

pre-production work

Adult/Minor Talent arrangement release, Production Schedule, Shot list, Location release, Location recce form, Character list and costume, Budgeting sheet. 

              

Contact Sheet

   

Risk Assessment

Final horror film trailer idea and how our research into existing horror text and media theory affected our proposed idea.

Final horror film idea:
Out final chosen idea for a horror films and what we are going to make a trailer for is a paranormal
horror film called 'The Reedham Reaping'. This is idea three of the individual group ideas. The name of our horror film come form the location that the trail will be filmed in which is 'Reedham'

The 'The Reedham Reaping' is all about a couple that finally buys their dream house together in a small village. The one way they where able to do this was because of how cheap the house was. The house was said to be haunted by a little girl who was stabbed to death by her own dad in 1796. The couple move in and strange things start to happen. Doors start to bang and things start to go missing. As things start to get worse the spirit of the little girl start to try and harm the new owners of the house. She locks all the doors and slashers the car tires so the new owner can't escape. But will she kill the owner or will they escape?

Charters will include:

Sara(age 25)- Sara is one of the main protagonist she is Roberts girlfriend. Sara is a smart and strong individual women who notices straight away that there is something wrong with this house. She has long brown hair and bright blue eyes. She as always dreamed of moving into her own home in the country.

Robert (age 26)- Robert is Sara's boy friend and is another main protagonist. He is strong and smart with a good job. He believes in nothing supernatural until he finally see's the little girl. Robert and Sara met when they where 17 and have been together since. Robert is tall and skinny with dark brown hair

Martha (age 10)- Martha birthday was the 21st of June 1796 the same day that he died. Her dad was very controlling and one night he lost control and killed her. She is the evil in the film as she is trying to hurt the new owners of her old house. She always wears the same white blood stained dress the same dress that is was killed in.

The narrative theory and other theorist that have had an affect on our final idea:
We have chosen to follow Todorov theory and follow his three act structure. Even tho we will not show this in the horror film trailer so we don't give too much away in the trailer. The equilibrium will be them moving into there new house together finally they are escaping for the city. The initial equilibrium in the film is when the spirit starts to be know in the house. This then starts a series of events  that leads to the new equilibrium. The new equilibrium is them fighting back to the evil and getting out of the house alive.

The film will have strong character types this will also be shown in the horror film trailer. We will follow Vladimir Propp 8 character types. Form the villain, hero,  princess. We will also follow Claude Levi-Strauss how looked into binary opposition. We will show a clear good vs evil/known to unknown.

We have not included the 'male glaze' we did this as we did not want to degrade women in our horror film or trailer. We want our character Sara to be strong charter that doesn't just look to man for help. Looking into the male gaze we belive in the modern day we did not need to include to. We want people to be attracted to the theme and story line of our film and not the women. 

Finished Horror Film Trailer

               

Horror film poster

Mood board

I have made a mood board with images that represent or horror film. This included images that represent our genera, charters and location. I having included exciting films that are slimier themes to our movie idea. These themes are the paranormal, ghosts and abnormal sightings. The images I have included on the mood bored are the images I believe included all of these themes.  

The movies that I have included are 'the paranormal diaries', 'the paranormal incident', 'grave encounters', 'paranormal activity'. All of these films have one things in common with out movies idea is they are all about the paranormal

The images I have included are location that give me inspirations of the sort of locations and sets that would be good to film in. We want out set location to be a creepy house which rather big and gives off a chilling vibe just like the location images I have included in my mood bored.

I have also included shots/scene form other films that are iconic in  paranormal horror movies. These will help to see what type of shot, props and light other films use within the same genre. These shots also include crosses and other religious symbols/signs. These seems to be a big comment factor in paranormal movies.

The final set of images I have included are cupels and children to give us idea on the types of charters we want to included in our film also the costumes and make up. We included images of children who looking scary and creepy. We did this as we want a young girl who will be haunting and coming back as a ghost. She will be the cause of the the unexplained paranormal things going on within the house. I added couple within the mood bored as our main protagonists will be a younger couple who are going away for the weekend.

I also looked into some cases and peoples real live stories on paranormal activity and this is one I found very interesting and has simlera story to what we would like to interpret for our horror film:

In 1974 the Smurls claimed that their home located at 328 Chase street in the city of Wast Pittson, Pennsylvania was being tormented by a demon that caused loud nosies, bad odours, threw their dog into walls, shook their mattress, harmed their children and even physically and sexually assaulted Jack the man of the house of many occasions. They called on professional help who tried all sorts to stop this form happening. They finally moved house and nothing paranormal happened to them again.

Planning record sheets

   

Group Individual Idea

             

Audience and Institutions

                                    

Film distribution and marketing

Film distribution and marketing

Film distribution is the availability a movie is made for the viewing for an audience this is most comely done by using film distribution/ promotion. This is how the they believe is the best way to sell the film to the audience. The aim of film distribution is for it be seen by the majority of it's target audience. 

This is job is done by a film distributor there job included to set a release date for the film and the method by which the film is make available for viewing. They also look at the largest possible target audience for the film and entice the audience to watch it through there target markets psycho-graphics and demographics. Then they chose how they will make it available directly to there target audience through theatrically or home viewing. The film distributor want to get the film screened in as many cinemas as possible and watched on as many TV's as they can depending on the methods of distribution. 

Reach can depend on how much profit a film makes. The distributor can chose to have a big reach and advertise to a wide range of people and this will be more expensive but could also make the film money. If the distributor decides to have a big reach by advertising as much as they can increasing the amount of views it has. This can be risky as the film is not 100% going to be popular meaning a smaller profit is made. An example of a film that has had a successful reach is 'the women in black' this was massively beneficial to the film and help the film to make a bigger profit.

The marketing plan is made by a company to a pacific design plan to achieve their marketing objective a the time they wish to reach it. The marking plan will start with the identification of what the consumer wants, this can be shown through the market research. The plan will also include an analysis of the already set marketing situation. The marketing plan is to create visibility, raise awareness and engage entreats in the product. Other ways to market films are posters, trailers, online and mobile apps. When a film is released critics may go and watch the film and share their opinion hopefully they give good feedback which will sway the public to watch the film. Also social media is a big marketing product. 

The distribution plan is made by a management team their aim is to sell their product to the retailers then customers. The plan is carried out by the films distribution who sighs a contract that has the rights for them to promote a product. They decide when the release date should be, when it will appeal the most to there target audience. For example, the films 'Halloween' was released on October 25th near to halloween. The distribution plan also looks at their target audience so they can expose the target audience effectively thought advertisement and promotion. This includes looking at the genre of the film and what is that target market for that genre. The plan also looks at the budget as if there is a low distribution budget they cant spent vast amounts of money on the adverting and promotion. 

Advertising is materials that a company markets their brand with. The may chose to advertise on Tv, radio or in magazines. They chose what they believe will be the most effective what to market and get the product across to the consumer. Publicity is used to gain the publics attention. This would be done through premieres, interviews, actors appearing. For example, an actor will go on a talk show and talk about the new film they are on and promote it. Promotion is the raising awareness of the film. This is selling merchandise with the film title or actors charters in it. This can also include using freebies  in a magazine to promote the movie.

Underneath is a taser poster and trailer and a main poster and trailer for the film 'the babadook'. The first poster and trailer are the taser ones and the others are the main posters. The babadook was released in 2014 a psychological horror films directed by Jennifer kent. The babadook was only given a limit of 13-screen in Australia compared to 146 scenes in the UK. The babadooks distributor was IBC films and was released in 145 screens in the opening weekend.