2. What is genre?
Genre is a ‘type’ or ‘category’. For example there is
different genres of music, films and fashion.
There are many genres of music, for example: Rock,
Metal, Pop, Indie, Country, Hip Hop, Rnb and
many more.
There are also many different genre of films, for
example: Romance, horror, romcom, comedy, sci
fi, and many more.
Lastly, there are also many different genres of
fashion, also known as stereotypes, for example:
goth, chav, hipster, etc.
3. Why is genre important?
• Genre is very important because it makes it easier for
institutions to advertise whatever they are advertising. They
know what audience they are targeting, for example if a new
action film was being released, they wouldn’t make the
advert for it with in pink frilly, girly font with a pop song
backing it. They wouldn’t use that because it would attract
the wrong audience and they would end up with negative
feedback and overall would probably lose money. For an
action film they would use upbeat, exciting music, with bold
text, usually more masculine and aimed at males, as this is
their main target audience and they want it to appeal to them
the most. They would apply this theory to advertise different
genres.
4. Genre theorists and theories.
Daniel Chandler – conventional definitions of genre tend to be
based on the notion that they constitute particular
conventions of content (themes, settings) also including
structure and style.
Tom Ryall – Genre provides a framework of structuring rules, in
forms of patterns/styles/structure, which act as a form of
supervision over the work of production for film makers and
the work of reading by audiences.
John Fiske – defines genre as ‘attempts to structure some order
into the wide range of texts and meanings that circulate our
culture for the convenience for the audience’.
5. What genre theories link to the
horror genre?
• All of the theories that I mentioned in the previous
slide link to the horror genre. Daniel Chandler
mentioned genre being about theme, setting and
structure, and for a typical horror story, the most
reoccurring theme is that there would a killer, a
target and a hero involved. The setting is usually in a
deserted place, for example a haunted house or a
forest, and the structure is often that the killer is
after a particular person and there are many
different obstacles get in the way, and terrible things
happen, however in the end the hero saves the day.
7. What is narrative?
• A narrative is a constructive format as a work
of speech, writing, song, film, television, video
games, photography or theatre, that describes
a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events.
The word "story" may be used as a synonym
of "narrative". It can also be used to refer to
the sequence of events described in a
narrative .
8. Narrative theorists and theories.
Vladimir Propp – he proposed that it was possible to
classify the characters and their actions into clearly
defined roles and functions.
Todorov – suggests most narratives starts with
equilibrium which is where everything is normal and
protagonists are happy.
Roland Barthes – suggests that narrative works with
five different codes which activate the reader to
make sense of it.
9. What narrative theories link to the
horror genre?
Toderovs theory fits in well with the horror genre,
because it most horror films it typically starts with
everything being completely normal and then
something terrible happening and corrupting the
normality, and then in the end everything ends up ok
again.
Propps theory also links well to the horror genre as
he said you can identify the characters and their
actions into defined roles and functions. For
example, the hero and the villian etc.
11. What is representation?
• Representation refers to the construction in
any medium of aspects of ‘reality’ such as
people, places, objects, events, cultural
identities and other abstract concepts. Such
representations may be in speech or writing
as well as still or moving pictures.
12. What represention theories are
there?
• The male gaze is a representation theory, its
how men look at pictures of women and how
they analyse them etc.
• Reception theory
14. What is an audience?
• An audience are the people who certain
media products are aimed at and the people
who let the companies earn money and earn a
reputation. Media companies need to
advertise their products etc to the right
audience otherwise they won’t make money
and their product would fail.
15. Nightmare on elm street trailer.
• Cinematography
.
The camera is below
the protaganist which
makes them come
across as more A shot behind the protagonist
powerful and in makes the scene scarier as you do
control. not know what is behind them and
you don’t know what will happen.
16. Sound
The sound of sharp objects
scraping against a wall adds a
scary, unsettling vibe to the The sound of a girl screaming
horror film because it’s is a typical sound used in
unpleasant and not enjoyable horror films because it creates
to watch or listen too. drama and panic.
17. Mise en scene.
The mise en scene used here
is slightly destroyed and old
and this makes it more scary
because it looks deserted
which shows the protagonist
would most likely be more
vulnerable.
18. Editing.
At the end when the
masthead is shown, they
have put it in a red colour
font to represent blood and
death, and they have used a
spikey, old fashioned font as
well to go with the theme.
They have also used
splatters of blood on the
side to again represent
death. The editing
throughout the trailer was
very fast paced to add more
drama and to keep the
watcher on the edge of their
seat.
19. Insidious trailer.
Cinematography.
In horror film trailers a lot of the time they use shots
when the camera is behind the protagonist because
there is more of a mystery behind it and there is
more tension.
20. Sound.
The sound of someone
trying to escape from
somewhere builds up
tension as the watcher will
put themselves in their
shoes.
21. Mise en scene.
A timer was featured
during the trailer and
this added tension
because there is a Once again they used an
constant ticking object which makes a
noise which puts the constant creaking sound
watcher on edge. which adds effect and it is
scary looking.
22. Editing.
When text was shown it
came up very quickly and in
very scary font.
The scene changes were in time with
the ticking which was very fast and
added a lot of tension.
23. Research and planning.
Research and planning involve looking at other
horror films and their trailers and getting
inspiration and ideas from them and seeing what
appeals, what has done well and what hasn’t done
well. Planning would involved writing what you
are going to do so you’re organised and your
trailer would actually work and make sense. You
could also do a few practise ones to see what
works/what you like etc and get feedback on
them.
24. Conventions of a horror trailer.
Typically in horror films they are set in deserted places, for example an island,
forests, old houses/buildings etc because then the main protagonist who is the
target are alone and are not easily helped, which altogether makes the film more
tense and scary.
25. Conventions of a horror trailer.
Also, a convention of a horror trailer is that there is complete silence, and one
reoccurring noise which is unsettling and unpleasant to listen to, which makes the
watcher more nervous.
26. Conventions of a horror trailer.
Text always comes up during a horror film trailer, with a sound effect in the
background to make it more unsettling and for it to have more of a impact.
The text is always in spiky, old fashioned scary font to suit the theme.
27. What is digital technology?
• Digital media is a form of electronic media
where data are stored in digital (as opposed
to analog) form. It can refer to the technical
aspect of storage and transmission (e.g. hard
disk drives or computer networking) of
information or to the "end product”.
28. What is creativity?
• Creativity is the use of some ones own ideas
and their originality. For example, the
production of artistic work. Creative features
that are used in horror films, for example
would be the plot, how would people get
killed? Why are they getting killed? Etc. Also,
the costumes that they have to wear, and the
settings and locations.
29. What is post production?
• Post-production is part of filmmaking and the video production process. It occurs in
the making of motion pictures, television programs, radio programs, advertising,
audio recordings, photography, and digital art. It is a term for all stages of production
occurring after the actual end of shooting and/or recording the completed work.
• Post-production is, in fact, many different processes grouped under one name.
These typically include:
• Video editing the picture of a television program using an edit decision list (EDL)
• Writing, (re)recording, and editing the soundtrack.
• Adding visual special effects - mainly computer-generated imagery (CGI) and digital
copy from which release prints will be made (although this may be made obsolete by
digital-cinema technologies).
• Sound design, Sound effects, ADR, Foley and Music, culminating in a process known
as sound re-recording or mixing with professional audio equipment.
• Transfer of Color motion picture film to Video or DPX with a telecine and color
grading (correction) in a color suite.
