Genre theory is used to categorize films based on stylistic criteria. Genres help audiences identify different types of films and cater to their expectations. Narratives describe a sequence of events and follow common story structures identified by theorists like Propp and Todorov. Representation in media involves intentionally constructing artificial versions of reality. Audience theory considers how audiences interpret and are influenced by media texts. Research and planning are required to systematically develop knowledge and create goals for making a horror film, such as analyzing films and planning elements like plot, characters, and locations.

1. Theoretical Research

2. • What is genre?
• Genre is the term for categories, e.g. music, whether written or spoken, audial or
visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria.
• What genre theorists can you find?
• Genre theory is used order to ease the categorization of films.
• Gunther Kress- Genre is ‘a kind of text that derives its form from the structure of a
(frequently repeated) social occasion, with it characteristic participants and their purposes.’
•
• Denis McQuail- The genre may be considered as a practical device for helping any mass
medium to produce consistently and efficiently and to relate its production to the
expectations of its customers.
•
• Christine Gledhill- ‘Differences between genres meant different audience could be identified
and catered to...’

3. • What is narrative?
• Narrative = the way the events are put together to be presented to an audience.
• A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-
fictional or fictional events.
• What narrative theorists can you find?
• Vladimir Propp 1895-1970- Proposed that it was possible to classify the characters
and their actions into clearly defined roles and functions.
• Identified 8 character roles and 31 points in story which move the story along.
• 8 Characters- Villain, hero, donor, helper, princess, father, dispatcher, false hero.
• Tzvetan Todorov
• Suggests most narratives start with a state of equilibrium in which life is ‘normal
and things are how they should be.
• Disequilibrium- the status quo is interrupted by an event.
• Equilibrium- restored at the end of the story
• A trailer can show disequilibriumm but must not show how it is restored. Trailers
must not show Todorov’s theory.

5. • What is representation?
• All media texts are re-presentations of reality. They are intentionally
composed, lit, written, framed, cropped, captioned, branded, targeted and censored by their producers, and that they are
entirely artificial versions of the reality we perceive around us.
• every media form, from a home video to a glossy magazine, is a representation of someone's concept of existence, codified
into a series of signs and symbols which can be read by an audience. Without the media, our perception of reality would be
very limited, and that we, as an audience, need the media to make sense of reality. Representation is a fluid, two-way
process: producers position a text somewhere in relation to reality and audiences assess a text on its relationship to reality.
• What representation theorists can you find?
The Male Gaze – Laura Mulvey – Feminist Theory – Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema – Written in 1975
• The cinema apparatus of Hollywood cinema puts the audience in a masculine subject position with the woman on the screen
seen as an object of desire. Film and cinematography are structures upon ideas. Protagonists tended to be men. Mulvey
suggests two distinct modes of male gaze – “voueuristic (women as whores) and fetishistic – women as unreachable
Madonna's”. (Also narcissistic – women watching film see themselves reflected on the screen).
Queer Theory – Judith Butler
• Queer theory challenges the idea that gender – being male or female – is part of the essential self, that it is fixed, immovable
–Queer theory suggest that our male or female gender does not control all aspects of our identity or how we perceive other
peoples identity. Gender, particularly as it is represented in performance – on TV, Film etc, is fluid, flexible depending on the
context in which it is seen. For example an audience can see Tom Cruise playing a “straight” pilot in The Right Stuff and
interpret his gender, although male, as having very “queer” or “gay” attributes. The theory developed as a way of
combating negative representations of gay sexuality in the Media. It combats the idea that people should be divided and
categorised, indeed marginalised, due to their sexual orientation or practice and that a persons identity should not be limited
to their sexual preference. It asks us to consider how the media constructs gay representation. (Apply to representation of
gay sexuality in Knocked up…any others? What about Graham Norton? Alan Carr? Does Post Modern Irony regarding
representation of gay characters relieve the audience of burden of moral responsibility regarding evolving attitudes a more
flexible idea of gender?)

6. • What is an audience?
• Audience theory provides a starting point for many Media Studies tasks. Whether you are constructing a text or analysing one, you will need to
consider the destination of that text (i.e. its target audience) and how that audience (or any other) will respond to that text.
• A media text in itself has no meaning until it is read or decoded by an audience.
• The targeted consumers/ people who have certain interests and are receiving the product/ film.
• What audience theorists can you find?
• Andrew Hart is among many writers, theorists and researchers who identify and value the existence of the audience in relation to the media.
Audiences are vital in communication. It is for the audience that the media are constructing and conveying information, and, if it were not for the
audiences, the media would not exist. The exact relationship between the media and their audiences has been the subject of debate since the media
were first seriously studied and emphasises the importance of the audience and of their relationship with the media.
• What audience theories link to the horror genre?
• The Hypodermic Needle Model
• Suggests that audiences passively receive the information transmitted via a media text, without any attempt on their part to process or challenge the
data. Don't forget that this theory was developed in an age when the mass media were still fairly new - radio and cinema were less than two decades
old. Governments had just discovered the power of advertising to communicate a message, and produced propaganda to try and sway populaces to
their way of thinking.
• The Hypodermic Needle Model suggests that the information from a text passes into the mass consciousness of the audience unmediated, ie the
experience, intelligence and opinion of an individual are not relevant to the reception of the text. This theory suggests that, as an audience, we are
manipulated by the creators of media texts, and that our behaviour and thinking might be easily changed by media-makers. It assumes that the
audience are passive and heterogeneous. Used to explain why certain groups in society should not be exposed to certain media texts (comics in the
1950s, rap music in the 2000s), for fear that they will watch or read sexual or violent behaviour and will then act them out themselves.
• Two-Step Flow
• Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, and Hazel Gaudet analysed the voters' decision-making processes during a 1940 presidential election campaign
and published their results in a paper called The People's Choice. Their findings suggested that the information does not flow directly from the text
into the minds of its audience unmediated but is filtered through "opinion leaders" who then communicate it to their less active associates, over
whom they have influence. The audience then mediate the information received directly from the media with the ideas and thoughts expressed by
the opinion leaders, thus being influenced not by a direct process, but by a two step flow. This diminished the power of the media in the eyes of
researchers, and caused them to conclude that social factors were also important in the way in which audiences interpreted texts. This is sometimes
referred to as the limited effects paradigm.
• 3. Uses & Gratifications
• Researchers Blulmer and Katz expanded this theory and published their own in 1974, stating that individuals might choose and use a text for the
following purposes
• Diversion - escape from everyday problems and routine.
• Personal Relationships - using the media for emotional and other interaction, eg) substituting soap operas for family life
• Personal Identity - finding yourself reflected in texts, learning behaviour and values from texts
• Surveillance - Information which could be useful for living eg) weather reports, financial news, holiday bargains
• Reception Theory
• This work was based on Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding model of the relationship between text and audience - the text is encoded by the
producer, and decoded by the reader, and there may be major differences between two different readings of the same code. However, by using
recognised codes and conventions, and by drawing upon audience expectations relating to aspects such as genre and use of stars, the producers
can position the audience and thus create a certain amount of agreement on what the code means. This is known as a preferred reading.

7. Analyse
• -Cinematography/Sound/Mise en scene/Editing
Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
Children song echo in background (1,2
Fire- death Freddie’s coming for you...)
Claws- violence, pain, death
Black and red jumper- evil colours Short sharp non diagetic sounds with
edits
Screams- ambient sound
Slow Pan across- informs audience of the
High angle over shoulder shot- location and brings across a spooky
gives the villain power atmosphere
Establishing shot- Dark, spooky,
deserted
Dark, shadows- sense of the unknown

8. Analyse
• -Cinematography/Sound/Mise en scene/Editing
Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
Editing
Short sharp cuts, slow pans and whip pans
Slow creates tension, suspense and spooky atmosphere
Fast creates a jumpy atmosphere.

9. • What is research and planning?
• Research and experimental development is creative work
undertaken systematically to increase the stock of
knowledge
• Planning- process of creating and maintaining a plan; and
the psychological process of thinking about the activities
required to create a desired goal on some scale.
• What research and planning stages are needed to make a
horror film ?
• Analyse horror films through cinematography, sound, mise
en scene and editing.
• Plan plot/story, location, characters, costumes ect.

10. • What are real media texts?
• What are conventions of a horror trailer?
• Captions
• No voice over
• Who is in it, title, date it opens
• Synergy
• Enigma
• What theories link to the trailer?

11. • What is digital technology? The term digital technologies is used to refer
to the ever-evolving suite of digital software, hardware and architecture
used in learning and teaching in the school, the home and beyond.
• What digital technology do you need to create a horror film?

12. • What is creativity? Creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative
ideas into reality. To make new things.
• What creative features are used in horror trailers?

13. • What is post production? Post-production is part of filmmaking and
the video production process. It is a term for all stages of production
occurring after the actual end of shooting and/or recording the completed
work.
• What post production stages do you need to create a horror film?