Slasher Opening Sequences

When viewing a slasher movie you will tend to find numerous stuff in the opening sequences, the list bellow is just some of what may be viewed in a slasher opening:

1. Credits
2. White font on black background
3. Idents
4. Narrative Enigma
5. Dutch angle
6. False scare
7. Intertextuality
8. Post Modernism
9. Audio Bridge
10. Exposition
11. Stalk and Slash
12. Scream queen
13. Final girl
14. Establishing shot
15. Anchorage
16. Polysemy
17. Binary opposite

One of the slasher movies which we viewed was Psycho.

Psycho ( Alfred Hitchcock , 1960)

Box office
Budget: 800k
Gross: 5 million

At the beginning of the film it starts off with a black background and white stripes which appeared to look like they had been cut/ slashed by a knife, this in affect helped make the film more effective in the sense that it hinted what may be to come in the film, these slashed lines passed across the screen.

 As this is occurring the film presents the credits and titles of people who are featuring in the film or who produced and directed the film.

When viewing the opening sequence Alfred Hitchcock's name was viewed more than once during the opening credits.
The film had to be produced however in black and white as at the time that amount of blood and gore and had never been viewed before in a film, therefor the film was R rated which meant that it was the most violent film which had scenes of nudity and sexual violence in it. Now however in the present day it would be only rated a 12 or PG.

Once the opening credits and titles had been viewed the film starts of with an Extreme long shot which pans from right to left, this shot establishes the setting and where the film is taking place. As the shot is panning across the screen titles appear telling the viewer the name of the place they are viewing creating exposition. Gradually the extreme long shot starts to zoom in and focus on one certain window in the whole city (hand of fate), and views the scream queen laying on her bed with a male stood up right getting changed.

The Final Girl Concept

The Final Girl Concept

The final girl concept was founded by Carol.J Clover, in her book Men , Women and Chainsaw's. Clover suggested that at the begining of tese movies, the viewers begin sharing a perspective of the killer but experiences a shift in identification half way through of the final girl. How laurie Strode defines the final girl archeotype. the signifer that shows that she is the final girl is the fact that she is carying many books and school folders underneath her arm, this suggests that she is interlectual and very quiet. when she realises she has forgoton her biology book her friends laugh at her misfortune and think she is being pathetic, these are the stereotypical scream queens. Also the clothing she is wearing, she is very covered up and is wearing un-sexualy appealing clothes. Brown hair, flat chested and a poor choice of footwear also suggests that she is not very confident with herself and doesnt get ropped into things like others do. Unlike scream queens the final girl is also very responisble.



Laurie Strode (Halloween,1987)



Laurie Strode(final girl on left, scream queen on right)

Scream (Wes Craven, 1986)
Like previously in Halloween, Sidney Prescott is a young girl who at the beginning of the movie is doing her homework in her bedroom, when her boyfriend climbs through her bedroom window causing a false scare. Her clothing tells us that she is the final girl, this is because she has what viewers would say are old and unattractive, also her hairstyle is very old as well which suggests that she is not up to date with fashion and stuff. Also like in Halloween Sidney is a very well spoken girl who is intellectual and self-conscious about what she does, she is also a virgin which indicates to the viewers that she is not very sexual.

Micro Drama: Finished Film + Reflection

Here is our finished final micro drama, "Lads on Tour". It is a slasher movie. Finally after much editing during school time and out of school time working with my group on Final Cut Pro this our finished piece we have put together.

Micro Drama: Editing

Once we had completed out micro drama we went back to school and split our filming group into two separate groups, this meant that there would be two final edits of the micro drama that we had created. By splitting the group into two meant that we could cover different perspectives and see how others would interpret it.

In the group i was working with on the edit we cut down many of the clips using Final Cut Pro (FCP) cutting tool to shorten some of the long takes to make the flow of the film run more smoothly and also to help make it for the audience more understandable of what is happening in the scenes. Final Cut Pro was very helpful when editing as it helped us add titles to show the name of the micro drama, who certain roles were played by (characters) and who directed the micro drama. Also FCP made it possible for us to use a fading tool which faded one scene into another to show an ellipsis. Finally FCP provided different choices of  sound effects which could be used to create extra tension and suspense to give the ultimate scare.

If i was to re-do this process again i would try and firstly capture more shot varieties which would make it simpler to edit and have a wider choice of snippets to add into the editing, i also would try and add a bit more violence and gore as in the micro drama we have made the movement of the killers actions aren't very scary and don't cause the audience to jump whereas if we were to add more snippets of the action of the knife for example been struck back and forth more often this would help create the imagery of the killer brutally attacking the victim.

Micro Drama: The Shoot

Our micro drama took place at Ben's house, we choose to do it there as this allowed us to make to make the best use of natural light and background noises which helped create the realism. Also this provided us with reasonable amounts of room to shoot and different varieties of rooms in which we could use to make the micro drama as good as possible. Unfortunately however due to poor weather conditions this limited the amount of scenes which could be taken outside as we did not want to take the risk of damaging the recording equipment. 

This shot was one of the few taken outside as the weather became progressively worse

One of the best features when creating our micro drama was the natural light and how it worked, this meant that it created a sense of realism and added extra effect to our video. In one of our scenes shot in the micro drama myself and the others are stood at the top of the staircase looking down into the basement, as we had positioned the camera in a good position looking up at us from the bottom of the staircase the use of natural light created shadows against the walls of our silhouettes, this added the sense of mystery and suspense to out micro drama. However natural lighting didn't work out all the time as when it became darker it was harder to capture the footage.

This shot shows how natural lighting helped capture the shadows and add effect 

If i was to do this again i would, take more shots more often to help build suspense, i would reduce the amount of long takes as this doesn't help build up the tension especially if you are creating or attempting to create a horror, i would also add in a few more false scares to make the audience jumpy and finally i would try and use a few more close up shots and concentrate on the small details such as peoples expressions or certain objects in a room that people are picking up just to help make the audience experience what the person acting is experiencing. 

Film Festival Masterclass

As part of our media course, on the 9th of November we went on a media trip to the ASSF film festival in York. During this trip we went to two masterclasses, the first was a talk with the head of production at Warp   films Barry Ryan and the second masterclass was a talk from the successful cinematographer Danny Cohen.

Warp Films (Barry Ryan)

As it is the 10th year that Warp Films have been in production Barry Ryan was talking about its success over the years and how it came to be what it is now. He firstly started off by telling us about his latest films which he as the leading producer helped make and do and explained his role in the company, he also told us of another few films to expect to see in the future which he is currently working on. As the masterclass went on Barry talked about how to make a business work and how it fundamentally works in many film companies, he explained all about the budgets and costs of movies and how the money made from the movies (box office) was broken down to pay certain people for the help and jobs that were required to make the movie itself happen. Finally Barry went on to explain how Warp Films advertised and presented cover art for their films to draw the attention of the viewers. He stated that to get the attention of the viewers you must show them what they want to see.

Danny Cohen 

The second master class was with Danny Cohen and Mariayah Kaderbhai. Mariayah Kaderbhai did a live interview with Danny and asked he him numerous amounts of questions about how he came to be a cinematographer and what he had to undergo to get to where he is. Firstly Danny started  of by talking about how he got into the industry and how initially he did a social science degree then became a photographic technician which eventually lead on to him becoming a famous cinematographer. During the master class Danny was asked about how he made the variety of different scenes for numerous films. These scenes would be played to us and then he'd explain how he put them together. His best example was a scene from This is England, he explained how it was difficult to find an the correct are in which everything in the area had not changed much and had some of the features of what a town and streets would have appeared to look like in 1983. As it was difficult to find a perfect area Danny had to make make changes to the area, such things as changing the satellites on the house roofs and all the vehicles had to be from the 1980's time period. He explained to us how some cars were used more than once in any scene as they were on a low budget. The last thing that Danny went on to mention was how that natural light and the use of different camera angles and shot helped make a film better.

Vodcast Conventions

The objective was to work in groups of 4 and  create a vodcast of the different conventions seen in each others film openings. Here is our vodcast In this vodcast we highlight the conventions of Idents, Mise-en-Scene, Audio and Editing throughout the 8 films.

The 8 films that were mentioned are:

1. Breakfast on Pluto
2. Sunshine
3. Recrium for a dream 
4. 28 days later
5. Kez
6. Harry Brown

Key Narrative Theories

Todorov's 5-Part Narrative Formula 

Todorov is associated with the theory that every narrative can be broken down into three basic stages: situation,conflict,resolution (or equilibrium, new equilibrium). Crucially, your protagonist is not the same as the outset,but has been changed in some way from events. Your old friend Tzvetan Todorov actually posted five stages (though we generally refer to the 3-part model):

1.  a stage of equilibrium at the outset;
2. a disruption of the equilibrium by some action;
3. a recognition that there has been a disruption;
4. an attempt to repair the disruption;
5. a reinstatement of the equilibrium.

Levi-Strauss:Binary opposites & Dramatic Conflict

When we consider the use of stereotypes, it is often evident how a binary opposition is at play: how we describe a stereotypical poor or working class person, for example,is broadly the opposite of how we'd describe a middle or upper class person.

Scenes within dramas often reflect a use of this idea, with clashing pairs (male,female;rural, urban; rich, poor; heterosexual homosexual; good, bad; dominant, submissive etc.) of opposites,in other words binary opposites, sparking conflict or tension.

There is a philosophical argument underpinning this idea: when the world around us ( so,not just fictional texts) is organised and categorised through pairs of binary opposites, there is generally a powerful, or 'good',side: men are powerful, women are submissive; the poor unintelligent, the wealthy intelligent (a stereotype seen very clearly in Tess of the D'Urbevilles).

Propp's 8 Recurring Character Types

As well as proposing that narratives can be broken down into 31 basic functions, Valdimir Propp (in his study of fairy tales which continues to influence literary and media studies today)  argued that there are essentially just seven types, or archetypes:

1. The villain- struggles against the hero.
2. The donor- prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object.
3. The (magical) helper- helps the hero in the quest.
4. The princess or prince- the hero deserves her throughout the story but is unable to marry her because of a unfair evil, usually because of the villain. The hero's journey is often ended when he marries the princess, thereby beating the villain.
5. The princess and her father- gives the task to the hero, identifies the false hero, marries he hero, often sought for during the narrative. Propp noted that functionally, the princess and the father can not be clearly distinguished.
6. The dispatcher- character who makes the lack known and sends the hero off.
7. The hero/victim- reacts to the donor, weds the princess.
8. False hero/anti-hero/usurper- takes credit for the hero's actions or tries to marry the princess.

The roles could sometimes be distributed among various characters, as the hero kills the villain dragon, and the dragon's sisters take on the villainous role of chasing him. Conversely, one character could engage in acts as more than one role, as father could send his son on the quest and give him a sword, acting as both dispatcher and donor.


Barthes Concept of Narrative Enigma

A puzzle created within a narrative. A random person is being shot in a program but don't know by whom; a stranger arrives: who is she/he? What is she/he doing here? These are narrative enigmas. Trying to figure out these puzzles is part of the pleasure of watching fictional texts.
In 1980 over 25 million UK viewers watched when the US drama Dallas ended a season with the main antagonist getting shot. The nation was gripped, and speculation raged for months as to the identity of the killer. The tapes containing the episode revealing the killer had to be imported under armed guard, and the outcome was reported as a lead news story in the papers and on TV news.

Semiotics

Intertextual: Meaning of one text is tied to another, earlier text, e.g. to fully understand Scary Movie you'd need to have seen Scream, which it spoofs. This can cause contested readings.

Binary Opposition: The juxtaposition of the refined parson high up on horseback, and the lowly D'Urbeville character, at the very beginning of the Tess mini-series is an example of binary opposition: any mutually exclusive pair form a binary opposition (male/female, rich/poor, rural/urban). Binary opposites are a key device for generating conflict and thus drama. When placed together, we can talk of binary opposites being juxtaposed- paired together to emphasis the contrast; their difference.

Denote/Connote: Denotation is the description of what we see or hear. Connotation is the symbolic meaning of these factual details: When we can denote a male having stubble and dark hair this often connotes villainy; this may be anchored through use of menacing, non-diegetic music.

Polysemy/ Anchorage: Every media text is essentially polysemic: it has many possible meanings. Our interpretation will be influenced by our knowledge of other texts, genre, our values, cultural background, age, gender, etc. Signifiers are embedded within texts to point us towards a particular, preferred, interpretation. The mise-en-scene will generally give us clues as to the geographical and time setting, but we often require on-screen graphics or dialogue to precisely anchor the period/location.

Signifier & Signified: A signifier is a single we pick out which we think has symbolic meaning ( the signified ): A low angle shot ( signifier ) often signifies power or strength; with a high angled shot the signified is often weakness or vulnerability.

Commutation Test: Always consider what we didn't see; the choices the producers have rejected.

Preferred/Contested/Oppositional Reading: We may be mainly considering what we consider to be the preferred reading (the interpretation the producers wish us to follow) but as texts are all polysemic, they are open to contested or even Oppositional readings. its useful to highlight any sequences you think invite contested/Oppositional readings through being poorly constructed.

Narrative Enigma: Mysterious elements within a text form a narrative enigma, needed in any drama.

Assessing a past coursework opening

"Tiny Terror"

 The strongest feature of this opening

The strongest feature during this opening is the variety of camera shots used throughout which help build suspense which helps reinforce the fact that it is a horror. Also the use of ellipsis (moving forward in time) makes the opening a lot better.

The weakest feature of this opening

The weakest feature of this opening is the editing, i think that when the doll is walking into the bathroom to kill the victim that the shots that were taken to capture the dolls movement meant that the editing of it was poor.

Semiotics Rap

Yo this is ma media rap
We learning semiotics brap!
Firstly there's denotations not to be mistaken for connotations,
The signifier is a detailed text,
Which leads onto been signified next,
Polysemy ain't ya enemy,
It just a multiple meaning which changes ur feeling,
Commutation test ain't the best as the rest,
The text may have another meaning,
Which may be teasing,
If ya do oppositional reading.