The document discusses key concepts in horror film theory and production, including definitions of genres, narratives, representation, audiences, and the use of research, planning, and digital technology in creating frightening elements. It also examines various theorists that contribute to understanding these concepts as related to the horror genre.

1. Theoretical Research
Zak Michael

2. What is genre?
• Genre is the term used for any category of
literature or other forms of art or
entertainment, based on some style of
criteria. Genres are formed by conventions
which can change over time as new
genres are invented, and old genres, such
as Noire; become discontinued.
Sometimes, works can fit into multiple
genres by the concept of borrowing and
recombining these conventions.

3. What genre theorists can you find?
• Charaudeau and Maingueneau – Their theory states that
genre can be determined through four different analytic
conceptualizations.
A texts genre may be determined by its: 1) Linguistic function
2) Formal traits 3) Textual organization 4) Relation of
communicative situation to formal and organizational traits
of the text.
. Jacques Derrida – Derrida articulates that individual texts
participate in, rather than belong to certain genres. He does
this by demonstrating that the ‘mark of genre’ is not itself a
member of a genre or type. Thus, the very characteristic
that signifies genre defies classification.

4. What genre theorists link to the
horror genre?
• Stephen Prince- who states that “like other genre movies,
any given horror film will convey synchronic association,
ideological, and social messages that are a part of a certain
period or historical moment. One can analyze horror films
in terms of these periods or moments, just like one can do
with gangster movies. But unlike those genres, horror also
goes deeper, to explore more fundamental questions about
the nature of human existence, questions that in some
profound ways, go beyond culture and society as these are
organized in any given period or form.”

5. What is narrative?
Narrative is a constructive format which as a
work of a piece of film, describes a sequence of
fictional, and or non-fictional events. In horror
films, the narratives conventionally take dramatic
twists and turns in order to surprise and shock
their audience.

6. What narrative theorists can you
find?
• Victor Shlovsky’s theory of the analysis of
the relationship between composition and
style.
• Vladimir Propp who analyzed plots used in
traditional folk-tale and identified 31
distinct functional components.

7. What narrative theories link to
the horror genre?
• Tzvetan Todorov, a 1960’s Bulgarian structualist
constructed a theory of narrative structures of
horror. His basic theory included
• Equilibrium- everyone is in equal status
• Agent of change- what disrupts everything
• Final Resolution
• New equilibrium- everything is back to normal

8. What is representation?
• Representation refers to the construction
in any medium of aspects of ‘reality’, such
as people, places, events, objects, and
even cultural identities. The key markers
of representation, or identity are: class,
age, gender and ethnicity. Identities are
differently marked so that they conform to
demographic factors such as : How do
men look at images at women, women at
men, men at men, women at women?

9. Representation Graph
What influence do these have on other
interpreters?
Class
Age
Gender
Ethnicity
Class Class
Age Age
Gender Gender
Ethnicity Ethnicity
What part do these
What sort of
factors play in the text
realities are
production?
depicted?

10. What representation theorists
can you find?
• Lester Friedman
• Vito Russo
• Stuart Hall
• Richard Dyer
• Robin Gutch

11. What representation theorists
link to the horror genre?
• Cynthia A. Freeland- Freeland suggests
that feminist studies of horror films have
focused on psychodynamics whereby the
chief interest is on “viewer motives and
interests watching horror films”.

12. What is an audience?
• Audience is the group of people who
participate in reading, viewing, listening or
playing a type of media text. Audience
members participate in different ways by
which some media types involve audience
participation, whereby others only allow
clapping or criticism.

13. What audience theorists can
you find?
• Walter Ong
• Mary Taylor
• Ruth Mitchell
• Ede and Lunsford

14. What audience theorists link to
the horror genre?
• The hypodermic syringe model concept whereby the intended message is
directly received and wholly accepted by the receiver.
• Two Step Flow - The people with most access to media, and highest media
literacy explain and diffuse the content to others. This is a modern version of
the hypodermic needle model.
• Uses and Gratifications Theory - People are not helpless victims of mass
media, but use the media to get specific gratifications.
• Reception theory- The meaning of a "text" is not inherent within the text
itself, but the audience must elicit meaning based on their individual cultural
background and life experiences.

15. Scream Trailer
Cinematography: much of the cinematography
applied during this particular trailer is through the use
of close up camera shots in order to show the viewer
of the trailer the reactions upon the face of the
victims in the movie.
Editing: slow cuts and then as the music paces up
and tension rises, the cuts become much quicker.
Sound: Ambient, diegetic, and non diegetic sound
are all applied to the trailer in order to create realistic
effects as well as build tension for the viewer.
Mise en scene: as seen in the top image, the setting
of the film is clearly in a conventional suburban
house which is slightly isolated, linking to a possible
concept which the director of the film is trying to get
across.

16. Halloween Trailer
Cinematography : as seen in image 1, the
cinematography used within this trailer is of extreme
close ups which are used by the director (Rob
Zombie) to explore graphic features and reactions
upon the face of certain characters.
Editing: Reaction shots are used to explore emotion.
Sound: non diegetic sound is used in order to create
a vast amount of tension for the viewer of the trailer
Mise En Scene: as seen in image 2, the concept of
the hospital being used is a conventional setting
within the horror genre, as it correlates with the
concept of desertion.

17. The Fourth Kind
Cinematography: use of close ups have
been used as the film has been produced in
a documentary style horror, to make some
concepts scary for the viewer.
Editing: Jump cuts have been used
Sound: diegetic sound from screams used
for tensity.
Mise en scene: the mise en scene of the
film is located in Alaska, which correlates
with the concept of mystery, desertion, and
the unknown, all concepts which are
explored within horror films.

18. What is research and planning?
• Research in terms of films is where producers of films
look at existing cases or stories to find inspiration prior to
the production of their film. This may be important so that
the producer can find out key concepts about the case,
and if they choose to adapt a story into a film, they can
see if they’ll need permission for certain aspects.
• Planning: when the creative writers set out ideas and
concepts which they may have prior to the production of
a film. They plan out certain characters and setting ideas
also.

19. Other planning stages needed
in a horror film…
• Deciding on the soundtrack for the film is a
key aspect for some films. In addition to
this, the creative team needs to decide on
make-up, masks, sound effects, clothing
and relationships between characters
within the film.

20. What are Real Media Texts?
• Real media texts are any sort of media by
which we as a viewer chose to view,
whether it be a film, television program,
documentary or cartoon.

21. What are the main conventions
of a horror trailer?
• The main conventions found within horror
film are telephone calls; creating an
aspect of mystery, a serial killer or ghost
etc (a main antagonist), a protagonist,
whom the audience may sympathize with,
and in terms of editing, there are generally
slow cuts within slow music to start with,
then the pace picks up and the cuts speed
up.

22. What theories link to horror
trailers?
• The theory which links to horror trailers is:
Tzvetan Todorov, a 1960’s Bulgarian
structualist constructed a theory of
narrative structures of horror. His basic
theory included:
• Equilibrium- everyone is in equal status
• Agent of change- what disrupts everything
• Final Resolution
• New equilibrium- everything is back to
normal

23. What is digital technology?
• Digital media is a form of electronic
media are stored in digital form. It can
also refer to the technical aspect
storage and transmission (e.g. hard
disk drives or computer networking) of
information or to the "end product",
such as digital video, augmented
reality or digital art.

24. What digital technology is
needed to create a film?
• After a film has been shot, digital
technology is used in order to add the
supernatural and unrealistic elements into
the film. Concepts such as Computer
Generated Imagery are applied to the film
after filming has been completed.

25. What is creativity?
• Creativity is defined as the concept to
generate or recognize ideas within the
planning stages of a film, or other piece of
media.

26. Creative features used in
horror…
• In horror film, creative team have the
fundamental say in the decisions made in
creating costumes, make-up, masks, on
set locations etc. These concepts have to
be thought of in major detail and therefore,
require much planning.