1. Unit 1 macro analysis
Purpose (why was it made)
-Entertainment
This is for the viewers to enjoy and talk about the more viewers you get the more
money it brings in.
-Money and franchise
The more money is put into film production the more money is produced. Money
is also made when merchandise is produced to advertise the film more.
-Sponsorship
A sponsorship is when a company pays the filmmakers to you their product in
the film to bring in more money from the brand names that are featured in the
film. We have a land rover in the film witch is advertised to the viewers showing
what it could do on the road as our characters use it to drive through the forest
and dirt roads, this shows the power of the car and its grip. Climbing gear is also
advertised in the film, as it’s needed to get in the cave and for climbing.
Genre
-Horror
Horror is a film genre seeking to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by
playing on the audience's primal fears. The film is categorized and split into survival
horror and monster. It’s a monster because it has crawlers, which have monster like
attitude and are cannibals. The survival side is how the characters respond to the
newfound threat (how they are going to survive)
Form
Form can be: video game, radio, film and series/program.
The form for this film is linear narrative: start, middle and end. If I were to apply
Todorov’s theory to the Descent then at the start of the descent we have
equilibrium where the girls are rafting and every thing is as should be, calm and
peaceful. Then we move to a disruption where Sarah and her family find
themselves in a car crash where her daughter and husband die. Then Sarah tries
to remodel her life after the drama and does this by going on an adventure with
her friends, they go caving, at the start everything is as should be but within
minutes Sarah and the other girls find them self’s trapped in a cave and things go
from bad to worse as they realise they can’t get help from anyone outside, as
nobody is aware of their location (they’re are in an unknown cave). We get to
recognition of what’s happening, as the girls are lost. Then at stage four of the
path, the attempt to repair the girls try to make the best of the situation as they
gain hope in believing they can get out of the cave and in their best efforts come
across a drawing on the walls, like a map and use that to try and escape. The last
part is when things go from bad to worst for our characters, they get to a new
equilibrium as they are trapped in a cave with flesh eating monsters and they’re
trying to fight them of in the dark. And as horror movies go the characters die
one by one and Sarah accepts death and lets her self go as it’s the only option left
for her.
2. Style, content and meaning
The 1st half we have a slow cuts within the scenes and slow editing apart from
the car incident, the talking in scenes are very static. This makes it feel boring
and dreary like every day life is. It gives us a sense of how Sarah feels about her
life and how slow it’s moving. The camera motion helps give us that sense we
also get lots of cinematic camera movement like Arial shots and tracking which is
always moving away from Sarah showing that she always getting left behind. The
first part of the scene sets out to be a tragedy and it succeeds in doing so as Sarah
looses her family in a “tragic” car accident. We get that feeling that something is
not quite right in Sarah’s life and she tries to regain her confidence and get her
life back this helps with the narration of the film as we get the fact that Sarah is
trying to forget what happen and carry on moving forward. To help with this
they include music that gets us to feel sorry for her emotionally.
The 2nd half is built on survival as the sound effects, the music, camera
movement and editing paste informs us, it gives that raw feeling of 6 girls
trapped in a cave and desperately trying to get out, trying to SURVIVE. We get
more movement in the second half compared to the 1st all down to the
movement of the camera. We know that the camera being used is hand held, as
the images formed are very shaky, as we would expect when someone is running
trying to evade danger. As the camera we get that feel of scare and it makes
every thing look like it’s in the moment. Our interaction with the 2nd half
increases with sound effects added into the scenes this just increases what we
understand in terms of senses, as not only can we see what’s going on now we
can hear it too. We can hear the characters breathing heavy suggesting they’ve
been running now they’re exhausted. We hear when they’re fighting and we
know how hard they punch or kick by how loud the sound is. The six girls are
cleverly colour coded in the film help the viewers no who’s who because with out
it all the characters would all be he same and we wouldn’t be able to identify
them in the dark. Sarah is coloured red this indicates us of the nature of her
feelings after being in the cave it shows her turning into a animal killing
machine, she also drops into a pool of blood and her hole skin is covered in
blood.
