Fear itself documentary notes

Fear Itself notes

·       Horror movies give you right the amount of light to make you realise how dark it really is and the right amount of sound to show how silent it is.

·       Fear strikes you so fast that it does not give you time to make sense of what’s happening

·        Blood signals disaster. The vivid red stands out. It can symbolise healing but fear still remain.

·        “every inch of the ground, is an inch away from safety”

·        Your body is always looking for something to be fearful off.

·        When we indulge the things that scare us, we aren’t the victims of fear, we are co-conspirators.

·        You allow yourself to be influenced by horror in the parts you decide to watch.

·        People assume the monster is always the bad person whereas sometimes it’s the humans. We expect better from the humans.

·        Humans are desperate to be scared without realising this, they go to theme parks to feel the fear of a roller coaster.

·        The aspect of uncertainty not being found in your fear is scary for a person.

·        If we deny the story that makes sense of what scares us, we tell our own story.

·        When fear goes beyond your nerve and gets inside your head, nothing else really matters. It blocks out everything else you feel.

·        Sometimes you want the subject of the film, to feel the same urge as you like running or hiding.

·        You push fear from your mind, making everything seem still.

·        There is no such thing as a clear break with fear.

·        Turning away from the things that scare you gives them more power.

·        The real horror is the person behind the screen who is creating the movie meaning horror is never too far away. All the people we share the world with could be sinister.

·        Maybe it is ordinary people we should be scared off.

·        You ignore fear as you don’t believe any type of horror will happen to you until it happens to you.

·        Horror movies are built to take advantage of humans.

The Fly Narrative Theory

The Fly narrative theory

Propps Character Types

In The Fly, Propps Theory can be applied since they're is stereotypical characters types throughout the film. His theory said that in every film there are certain character types that play a significant role.

In The Fly, There is 'The Princess' role which is played by the character Veronica Quaife. She is a very important character throughout the film. In the film, she could be seen as 'the princess' since in the end she is saved by the character Strathis Borans. You could also argue she shows signs of being The Final Girl, since she is a strong female character who signifies bravery and intelligence as she is the one who first notices that there is something wrong with Seth Brundle as he transitions into 'The Fly'.

Another character that matches to Propps theory could be Seth Brundle as 'The False Hero', as in the start of the movie, this character comes across as a hero and he presents himself as the 'good guy' but this all changes when he goes in the teleporter unknowingly with a fly which initiates the transition between him as a human to a fly. By the end of the movie, he becomes evil and tries to kill Strathis Borans and he also becomes a danger to Veronica.

Strathis Borans could be seen as ' The Villain'. At the start of 'The Fly', he could be seen as the villain since he tries to blackmail Veronica into having sex with him and his character does not seem to be a very nice man. Boran only cared about his next newspaper headline. However, Strathis Boran shows a different side to his character when he realised that Veronica was in trouble, he showed signs of caring about her and her well being like when she is pregnant he supports her and takes her to the hospital. Then when Seth Brundle kidnaps her, you see him risk his own life and endure serious pain from having his hands chopped off to attempt to save her from Brundle who is now "The Fly". I believe that he showed signs of being a hero as he saves Veronicas life.

The Final Girl Theory

The Final Girl

The Final girl refers to the last female character in a slasher film, who usually confronts the killer. The final girl tends to be the one who tells the story or it is seen through her eyes. 

The Final Girl is usually presented as intelligent and very aware compared to the people around her. She usually is young, with pretty features and sometimes can be confused with being the damsel in distress. The Final Girl is always very brave and is likely to be the last character alive or the only character who stays alive.

Women in films are usually portrayed as weak and timid characters. Women in films are always tended to be sexualised. Always being the ones who are saved by the man. The Final Girl Theory goes against this stereotype. The Final Girl tends to be a strong, independent female who is likely to be sexually unavailable.

This theory came from Carol Clovers book "Men, Women and Chainsaws". She states that the final girl is the "investigating consciousness" of the film. She moves the narrative forward. According to Clover, the final girl may usually have a unisex name like "Billie" or "Sydney". They sometimes have a direct connection to the killer, for example, in Halloween, the final girl who is Laurie Strode is actually the sister to Michael Myers.

Horror Movie Homework

Horror movie analysis

Screen Caps from the movie Halloween (1978)

The cinematography and what it suggests to the audience.

The Cinematography of this screen shot of Halloween is as you can see the shot of this scene is an extreme wide shot which gives a view of the whole scene and the two main characters of the movie. This suggests to the audience that the film is set in a neighbourhood, full of greenery and it looks like a normal friendly place which contrasts with what actually happens in the film. In this shot, there is a visible over the shoulder shot from the character Michael Myers, this creates a feeling of the character watching over the woman in the scene which suggests to the audience that the woman is in danger. Its as-if Michael Myers is choosing his victim and stalking the female so he can find the opportunity to murder her. The camera in this shot is placed like its giving the audience the same view as what Michael Myers is seeing, this creates the feeling for the audience as if they portray the character as Myers as it shows his point of view.

The Cinematography of this screen shot of Halloween is the scene is shot in an extreme wide shot, it establishes the scene and the shot only shows the one character which is Michael Myers, this makes him the point of view and it also shows a very ordinary neighbourhood then there is a character looking suspicious in a mask. This suggests to the audience that this character is out of the ordinary and should not be there. It also adds to the atmosphere making it eery and creepy. It is as-if Myers is staring into the person who is watching it,It includes the audience. The normality of this scene counteracts with Michael Myers. The angle of the scene is set in the middle which increases the involvement of the audience even more.

Research for It follows

It Follows

Today in lesson we researched It follows and we gathered information on "The production, Distrbution and Exhibition".

I researched Production of It Follows.

It Follows
Production	Screen play is written by David Robert Mitchell, an American film director and writer. Mitchell was also the director of It follows. He also directed The myth of the American sleepover and Virgin.  It follows was filmed in Detroit, Michigan
Distribution	The film 'It Follows' was purchased by RADiUS-TWC and Dimension Films for North American distribution. It hit venues worldwide and it's distributor is Icon. It was given a limited release in the United States on March 13 and a wide release on March 27.
Exhibition	Released on the 27th of February 2015.  Given a rating of 15 so it is shown to more mature audiences. Mostly given a positive review by critics receiving up to 5 stars by some. UK box office- £371,142

Jurassic World

Jurassic World (2015)

The film i researched was Jurassic world. It was initially released on the 12th of June 2015. It is rated on IMDb as 7.2/10 and it has 5 nominations currently. It is classed as an action, adventure and sci-fi film and it is rated as a PG-13. It stars Chris Pratt as the main character and this is a movie sequel to the Jurassic Park movies.

Technical codes in the horror genre

Our finished Swede

Evaluation of our Swede

Evaluation of our swede

For our swede, we did high school musical and our group consisted of Me as Gabriella, Maddie as Sharpey, Katie as karaoke man, Beth as Taylor and Robert as Troy, and Ryan.

We had a really tight schedule to film the swede with only a few weeks to film it and edit it but i think we all managed the time efficiently and because we had our filming schedule and story board to work off and every lesson we worked on at least filming one scene. We managed the time efficiently so we would be able to have all of it completed by the deadline.

My role in the swede was playing Gabriella but i also helped with filming and creating the swede. Gabriella is one of the main characters in our swede and i feel i did her role justice. When the group needed support with the filming, i volunteered to help out with that.

I felt like i worked really well in our group since all of us were friends, we all got on really well and had loads of fun filming together.  All of us individually brought something differently to the swede process and all of us had our strengths in certain areas f the editing/filming. Some of us were better at acting and some of us were better at filming and because of this, the swede came together really well.

Some of the problems we may face when it comes do doing our real horror opening is managing our time well because we will probably be on a tighter schedule but we also may face the issue of making it professional and serious since we will have to focus on making the opening scary and serious which is completely different to what the swede was like. The swede was allowed to be awful and not serious whereas the horror opening scene will need to be serious and this may be an issue because we are not use to filming something at this depth. I believe that our group is versatile though and will adapt to the circumstances.

Finalisation of our Swede

Finalisation of our swede

Today, We finalised our swede by finishing off the end scenes and editing it together. Me, Katie and Rob worked on some filming, we filmed Get your head in the game, some call back scenes and then we filmed the final scene which was all in this together. It is our final day recording and editing today. We have finally finished it all off and now we are just making the finishing touches to make it perfect.                                                                                                        

                                                                                                                                                                                 

Swede Progress

Today, we worked on filming more of our swede. We recorded Ms Darbus scene which Mrs Davis kindly helped out with. We then filmed Gabriellas singing scene when she makes an emotional debut  to Troy in the song "when there was me and you". After this we recorded Roberts scene as troy where he slams his locker and then Gabriella crying over troy.

We also edited half of the swede all together and created the first part of our mini movie.

We dont have much left to complete all the filming, we only have 2/3 scenes left then we need to edit it all together and then it should be completed for the deadline but so far we have made great progress.