How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

for flickr, a photo by MeganPalmer on Flickr.

In what ways does your media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Evaluation for question 1 redone

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What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

We screened our trailer in our class, which are full of our target audience of 18year olds, (with the target audience being 18-25 year olds). We asked the audience each what they thought were good points and things that needed to be improved for our trailer, and so I recorded notes of their ideas and opinions.


Mise-en-scene 

• The audience felt that the CCTV editing made our trailer unique and effective, as we were determined to make the trailer seem realistic with a narrative to why their was a camera filming the action.
• They also felt that the location of a normal house was effective because the horror was more realistic and they could link the horror the existing films like 'Paranormal Activity' which is a popular horror that involves mostly CCTV.
• Some of the audience said they would have liked to have seen more gore and death, but this was due to personal preference.
• Trailers are specifically designed for the audience to be given flashes of shots that are not in the same sequence during the film, the audience did agree that we were successful with this because we gave numerous shots that would be in different parts of the film without giving too much information away about the plot.
• Most trailers have the name of the film come up at the end of the film, and we followed this idea as it worked well with our last scene that would scare the audience.

Camera Work/Editing

• The audience felt that there was a good use of ranging shots, with the swings moving, with the slow zooming in to the girls face when she's rocking being one of the audiences favourite. Other shots they particularly liked that were effective as both a teaser trailer shot and following conventions of horror are:- the morph face at the end, the establishing shot of the home, when the girls on the swings and repetitive shots of the girl rocking. They felt the swings created a very effective shot to the horror convention as they were swinging absently, being binary opposites of innocence. 
• The editing that the audience liked was the morph of the face at the end of the trailer, this was a particular unique shot that brought our trailer to light. The build up to the end shot of the morph was complimented on, as the pace was effective. 
• However the criticisms were that they felt like they needed more information about the narrative and there was a lack of clarity with the narrative, they also wanted the pace to be faster throughout the trailer. The shot of the girl rocking was also said to be used too many times, which I can agree with looking back at the trailer.

Sound

• The audience generally agreed that the soundtrack worked well with the trailer, with the music having no bad transitions with the voice-overs/crackling with inter titles and change to heartbeats or the growl at the end. The audience also said that the sound allowed them to know the genre and built up the plot of the film because of the style we chose.
• They also said that the crackling effect with the inter titles and also with the bad TV/CCTV shots were effective as this gave the scare-factor of the sound and made the CCTV seem more relevant and important to the trailer
• The audience stated the voice overs helped shape the narrative and explained what was going on in the shots, also they liked that the voice overs were from various characters rather than one main voice.
• Criticisms of the sound were that the voice-overs could have been made clearer as well as the fact the one that was supposed to be the doctor giving the parents advice didn't fit well which is what some of the audience felt.

Overall
Overall I feel that there was mostly good feedback about the trailer and some of the people did jump when the morph face came up, they felt that the trailer was unique as well as being typical as a horror teaser trailer. 
I feel like the negative comments are helpful with knowing what we would change and realising ourselves that when seeing the trailer altogether for a audience that it is aimed at, that some of the narrative could be shown more. 
I think that what has been said about the trailer has established that we have successfully created a horror teaser trailer, with effective camera angles, exciting shots and a dramatic sound mix. 

What is distinctive about differences between trailers and teaser trailers?

Trailers are usually longer than teaser trailers with trailers being 2 to 3 minutes whereas a teaser trailer will only last about 1 and a half mins. The teaser trailer will advertise short shots of the film that give very little away, only a small amount of the narrative so the audience are attracted to the film but dont know too much about it.
Teaser trailers are often distributed before the full length trailer because they announce the film is coming and give the target audience a taster of the film, which they will later find more about in the trailer. Full length trailers are screened shortly before the film opens which may follow on from a teaser trailer which is shown in advance, not all films decide to have teaser trailers, the distributors and production company will discuss whether they want one or not.
Both trailers and teasers have to be effective at giving the audience glimpses of the film through a number of edited shots from the film, the making of a trailer takes work, and these trailers become very popular both online, TV, Cinema, and even on DVDS so the thought that goes into the trailer is important whereas the teaser would probably be shown for a shorter period of time when the film is coming out in a more distant future than what a trailer would show.

Orginial Picture For Both Products

My Trailer

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

horro film magazine cover night mare endings], a photo by MeganPalmer on Flickr.

horror film poster for nightmare endings, a photo by MeganPalmer on Flickr.

Please begin by clicking on the above images to read my Flickr annotations, then come back to this post and read on.

The trailer along with the poster and magazine cover, are altogether working as a promotion for the film 'Nightmare Endings', they work together to address the target audience and help advertise and promote the film to them successfully. For the film to be successful the marketing strategies need to actually attract the young (18-25) year old target audience to purchase the cinema tickets that will earn the production company their money. The distributor and producer will need to arrange a release date and a marketing strategy (in the case of my trailer and a poster) which will spread the popularity of the release. The Film magazine cover would be a publicity strategy for the distribution company to arrange  with the magazine company, so they could interview the star of the film and get press on the film to make it more popular, which is an example of successful generation of publicity. Whereas the poster was designed specifically by the distribution company to reinforce what they want the audience to see. 
The two promotional marketing strategies of a poster and film magazine will allow a wider audience to see either two then the audience can decide if they want to watch the trailer, which will attract the audience with narrative and give some aspects of the horror away. The magazine links to the trailer and poster because the film is being advertised by the actress herself, giving the loyal readers of 'Total Film' a exclusive view of the film without even knowing about the narrative. The magazine would give the film lovers a reason to watch the film, addressing a wide audience just through the magazine.

Teaser trailers are the most effective way of advertising a film as they can be viewed online (advertised on the poster aswell as Youtube) on TV and also at cinemas when watching a film that is aimed at the same target audience as my trailer, this would help create a wide interest as the target audience are very active online and watch alot of TV, so the spread of interest in the film would be effective due to the trailer. The trailer is an easy, fast way of attracting the audiences attention as my groups trailer is 1min 30 approximately, so the audience wouldnt get bored or annoyed at the trailer, but instead would give the audience a sample taste of the film. Whereas the magazine cover would allow the audience to work their way through the interview about the film at their own pace.

My trailer, poster and magazine cover all show the main protagonist 'the monster' which keeps a pattern to the audience, so when they see the girl they can immeditely identify her with the film. The trailer does not give too much of the narrative away, but enough to attract the target audience to want to see more. The poster and trailer both reinforce the central marketing message for the film, with the same tagline in both, so that the audience has the line fixed in their heads when they think of 'Nightmare Endings'. They also both share a image of the morph face which is a memorable part of the trailer that leaves the audience more intrigued about the narrative behind the image that is shown in both the trailer and on the poster. The fonts of the title 'Nightmare Endings' is also the same style to look professional and keep the connection between the two. I think that they work positively together because they promote the same film in similar ways with font, colour, tagline and title the same, which makes the audience know what is being promoted and link the two.

StoryBoard

Nightmare endings

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Nightmare Endings Promotional Poster

Magazine Cover For Nightmare Endings

Paper Draft Of Magazine Cover

Paper Draft Of Film Poster

Empire film magazine cover analysis

inception-cover-empire, a photo by MeganPalmer on Flickr.

FILM magazine cover analysis

total-film1 jen body, a photo by MeganPalmer on Flickr.

Mirror Poster Analysis

mpamirrorsposterb, a photo by MeganPalmer on Flickr.

28 weeks later poster analysis

28weeksint, a photo by MeganPalmer on Flickr.

Planning For Filming.

To create our trailer we arranged meetings several times, all having contributed and helped shape our trailer.
The first meeting was in the Christmas holidays using my sister as the horror character as the little girl who turns into this sleepwalker, the location was at my house as we wanted a house that wasn't really modern but wasn't old because the storyline fitted to my house, the house of a normal family who suffer something from the past. The props we used were a knife that we would make the character hold and we specially designed the lighting so that we could morph the face at the end of the girl rocking.
The second meeting was when we learnt from the first our mistakes, we needed to change the who played the girl as my sister was unable to represent the image of what we all wanted for our trailer. We decided that I would have to play the young girl, I dressed in a dress that would help fit the character and pjs for 'night scenes', wear little make-up, the location was at my house again as we still thought that it was a good location. We used similar lighting, a knife, fake blood, a board that we could write 'die' on acting as the girl writing on the wall.
The third meeting was me and Alex, we went to my house and also another location that was a park near my house that we could shoot scenes of the girl seeming to be innocent, we also shot scenes like candles being blown out, doors opening, the exterior shots of the house, me pulling out knives from the kitchen and me walking up the stairs. We decided quick flashes of objects and the girl doing weird things were ideal for our trailer as the narrative isn't given away but the trailer shows images interesting enough to attract the audience.
Our fourth meeting will be the narrative shots, hopefully being able to get actors as the parents of the girl and the scenes where voice overs will be used or dialogue becomes part of the scenes, also re shooting the rocking scene because we decided to get a better edit of the morphing of the face, we need to re shoot the scene.

My Synopsis

There is a mixed-gender group of eight teenagers from London, they have just received their A level results, to celebrate they all travel out into a huge forest to camp for the weekend. The teenagers enter a private sector of the forest unknowingly and choose to camp there; that night they all get very high on drugs, so high, that when one of the girls gets into a violent argument with another and leaves the camp area, they are followed by some unknown man who is seeking to kill all the teenagers. The teenage girl who has left is killed without the others knowing, and then the man seeks out the rest of the group, whose drugged brains are left paranoid. The audience of this horror will not know if the group are tripping out, or if the killer is real, giving suspense and uncertainty.


As the night progresses the teenagers get more and more paranoid; as they keep seeing the man appear, they start to worry about their missing friend and decide to search the forest for her. They split up into three search parties, all high and panicking for their lives. The man stalks each group one by one, with a silent desire to murder each one of them in horrific ways.


Each teenager gets trapped, or stuck in a intense chase scene and the audience are put in an awkward position of relating to the best friend of the first victim, who gets separated from the rest of the group and is put in terrifying situations with the killer.
The overall question being… will they survive? Will they find their friend? Who will be the last alive?

Gender Representation in Horror.

Carol Clover in ‘Men, Women and Chainsaws’ argues that Horrors representation of gender is very interesting because it frequently offers its core target audience of young males identification with female characters, unlike any other mainstream genre. To what extent do you think Horror’s representation of gender challenges dominant representation?


The common representation of women in most mainstream genre films is that they are less dominant, with Jeremy Tunstall finding the roles were wither domestic, sex objects, consumers or martial. Media focuses on there roles and contrasts with men being dominant, independent and strong whilst women are almost always passive, with a focus on the physical beauty. Clover in her book ‘Men, Women and Chainsaws’ argues that the “sadistic objectification” of women which occurs in mainstream genres is different in horrors because they often allow the audience to identify with the female or “final-girl”. 

Laura Mulvey, in her famous essay ‘Visual pleasure and Narrative cinema’ suggests that the camera presents women as objects rather than someone we can identify with. Often referred to as the ‘male gaze’ because the camera works to allow the audience to see the woman as an object through the males eyes. Common ways of doing this is through point-of-view shots, long shots of the woman and reaction shots of the male. Horror always brings this objectification into something negative, and example of ‘male gaze’ in horrors is in ‘The Shining’ when we see a point of view shot of Jack admiring the naked woman coming out of the bathtub in a long shot, following all mainstream examples of the ‘male gaze’ until the gaze is undermined by the woman transforming into an old woman, almost making the audience feel badly about objectifying the woman in the first place. 


However, sometimes in horrors the ‘male gaze’ is used to show why the victims should be punished for sexual actions, for example, in ‘Halloween’, there are point of view shots of Annie taking off her clothes and a long shot of Linda showing off her boobs. But the protagonist Laurie is never objectified, which suggests that the ‘male gaze’ was a punishment for sexually active females. In ‘Eden Lake’, the male gaze is different than expected because we identify with the female rather than Brett, who is watching her in her bikini. 


Horror; often has a female protagonist, which the target audience of young males have to identify with, this is extremely contrasted from other mainstream genres where a male would usually be the protagonist if the core audience were males. ‘Carrie’ is about a girl who is bullied then transforms her victim character function into heroism as she becomes monstrous, getting revenge on all her bullies, Stephen King, the writer of the book claims that any boy who has ‘had his shorts pulled down in phys ed or his glasses thumb-rubbed’ would be able to identify with Carrie. This allows us to see how victimisation can happen with males too, so horror breaks the assumption that females are the only victims. There is arguably the possibility that males will identify with the female characters because since the 1970’s the new ‘tough girl’ image has given boys something new they can identify with.


 The number of deaths in horror films is usually about ‘punishment’ of females having any independence and for transgressing those typical four representations of women, a film that proves this is in ‘Halloween’, where the majority killed are sexually-active females whose boyfriends are simply in the way. However in some horrors the death is not about punishment but simply to fulfil the expectation of horrific deaths to occur, like in ‘The Shining’, where there are an equal amount of female and male deaths. In ‘Eden Lake’ there are much more male deaths, this gives an alternative representation that women needn’t be punished for independence. The more modern the film, the more sexism is fading away, creating strong female roles that are identifiable. 


http://youtu.be/Xr9QsFnd2Os

The whole ‘final girl’ aspect of horror films is when a female who is weak has been made to become strong and sometimes, monstrous. The ‘final girl’ is often the main protagonist who we follow through the entire narrative but in ‘The shining’ we do not identify with Wendy until she has become Jacks victim, the shifts from a male perspective to a woman’s. The ‘final girl’ is represented as unsexualised, boyish, innocent and smart, this fights against the normal female figures in other genres because horrors represent sexual objects as negative, so as a genre sexism is fought against. 


When we look at the roles that women are often categorised under, some of the horrors do still follow those representations. For example in ‘Halloween’, Laurie is shown to have a domestic role as she is caring for the children as she is babysitting and Annie and Linda are portrayed as sex objects but horror allows this negative objectification to be seen as something that is punished with death. In ‘The Shining’ Wendy is family defined, as mother of Danny and wife of Jack, she is a passive character even though she is of importance as the hero/victim in the film. She is also showing the stereo-type of domestic representation of cooking, completing chores and caring for Danny, something that was the typical woman’s roles in 1982 (when the film came out). In ‘Eden Lake’ the representation of woman is still very sexist despite the film being modern (2008), with the only female gang member being perhaps passive, as when all the males stab Steve she just films it. Jenny is also defined by martial status as she is Steve’s fiancée and also domesticated by her teaching career, showing she has a caring nature. Horror manipulates this caring women into a monstrous nature with her killing two of the teenagers that are involved with the killing of Steve.


There was research in 1992 providing the evidence that in films there is a lot more male characters than females, with statistics showing for every two men there is one woman. This is also shown in horror, even if there are sometimes equal amounts like in ‘Halloween’, most horrors contain more male roles. This may be to continue to show that women are passive and they have also limited roles outside the ‘final girl’ character.


To conclude, I think that Horror generally offers a progressive representation of gender because of males having a identification with the female protagonist. Horror challenges the normal sexist roles of females and provides females more equality.

Audience Research.

Results from our questionnaire

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We carried out our research by forming particular questions that would help us with knowing what we should film for our horror trailer. We distributed the questionnaire on survey monkey for random users, and also between class friends at college. We chose this method because it was unbiased and random people could answer the questions, so we would know real answers from an audience who the film would be aimed at. 
The questionnaire was ideal to be online and face-to-face given out, so we got a mixed audience, the questionnaire was much easier and direct that interviews which would perhaps bias some peoples answers. The answers would be qualitative data because the answers were direct to help us with the trailer. We found the questionnaire useful when reflecting on what our trailer needed.

Role of the Film Distributor.

The role of the distributor is to identify the largest audience possible for every film they help market to the world. Their work is tough, with the growing ways in which entertainment is shared, abled by technology. Vital to individual films is the audience-focused distribution, which is why audience research is increasingly important in the film industry. The main challenge to bring the film to market is to identify the audience, estimate the revenue potential, market the film for audience awareness and the persuasion to release the film into cinemas.

 Audiences are so important, there are many features of audiences that have to be taken into consideration by distributors, for example :-age, lifestyle, social networking sites, consumption patterns and gender. An age range of 15-25 years old have been discovered by research to be the most common visitors to cinemas, the reason for this is the digital age of social networking, mobiles, 3D films, blogging (etc), giving them a label of the biggest media consumers.

The distribution plan is to :-

• develop a release strategy and consider a date to release
• present the film to exhibitors and sort an agreement for the film to be shown in cinemas
• start a marketing campaign to create a 'audience buzz' by launching the film.

The distributors will analyse the film for features that will be very attractive, like a brand new fresh idea, a 'hook' or something that stands out from other film ideas because of the 500 new films every year meaning high competition . They will contribute to the development of the film, work out costs of production and aim for the highest profit by marketing. 

Distributors need qualities like professional judgement, statistical research, market knowledge and engagement with the audience for each film they take on. Audiences are unpredictable, no one can say that the film will be a big hit but marketing the film correctly helps.
Audience research like test screenings followed by questionnaires help the distributor become confident in the expected audience and box-office prospects. Focus on competition with other films that may be similar is important, so the release date often can change due to clashes with genre similarities. Also the need for stars, audiences will jump at their chance to see their favourite actor/ess in a exciting new film.

Also when thinking of release dates, factors that are taken in consideration are:-

• Competition with other films 
• 3D opportunities 
• Actors and Actresses
• Publicity of Cast members, the need to be in the UK for premiere
• Media publicity of the film
• Hope for awards or nominations e.g- Golden Globes
• Ability for sequels 
• Certificate for the age of the film (BBFC classification)

The marketing plan is also vital in the distribution of the film, every film needs a detailed plan that will create awareness and engage interest from audiences. Ways in which films can be advertised to the audience is :-

• Word of mouth- most cinema goers know in advance if they want to see a film, peoples sharing of opinions and also information into the film can have an huge impact that can be positive or negative
• Posters- Includes information that allows the audience to see what genre it is, who stars in the film, a tagline or credits and this often gives the audience something to think about
• Teaser poster- advertising release date 
• Advertising banners, mini-posters, window clings and standees.
• Trailers/Teaser Trailers- teaser trailers in advance giving small parts away to tease the audience to wait for the actual trailer, the actual trailer captivates the audience, as well as being available for millions of online viewers.
• Online and Mobile- films can have official websites offering behind-the-scenes footage, exclusive photos, information and trailers as well as updates that gradually build up excitement for the films release. However sometimes blogs and forums lead to influences in the outcomes of films, giving online users a huge influence on films.
• Social networking, pages dedicated to films occur on Facebook and Twitter 
• Purchases of tickets/screenings and special offers online.

 An example of a film that is promoted is New years eve: 
http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=new+years+eve+poster&hl=en&biw=1366&bih=643&gbv=2&tbm=isch&tbnid=Sh5k55GWroUQ6M:&imgrefurl=http://blog.80millionmoviesfree.com/in-theaters/new-years-eve-poster&docid=BZdkczNgRBgXnM&imgurl=http://blog.80millionmoviesfree.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/new-years-eve-poster.jpg&w=600&h=898&ei=kTsYT46zKISA8gPO5OXHCw&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=433&sig=112194977299561245353&page=1&tbnh=131&tbnw=102&start=0&ndsp=27&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0&tx=43&ty=104




Publicity is when the film attracts attention from the media to promote the film, for example, Journalists, who are given information like cast lists, biographies, facts about the production and a synopsis. There is always images from the film that the media can be published online for pro-actively creating a 'hook' or certain angle for feature articles or promotions of the film. Media interviews with members of the cast or the director as well as publications or entertainment channels attending premieres or award ceremonies. 

Screenings in advance for national critics are often helpful in knowing when a film is a success and why, distinguishing the genre, storyline and features of the film that are appealing and what critics like about the film. Some comments from critics are advertised on billboards, on trailers and posters for the film.

There is an award-buzz, where there is a season awaiting an award ceremony where shortlists of nominations will be announced about a month before the ceremony, which often help hype the films global profile. Set visits are also arranged for top Journalists, exhibitors and marketing partners to be able to see film production in guarded locations where the public is strictly kept away from.

The promotional partnerships will be made by the distributor, which allows advertising to occur in areas where they cannot usually, for example:- shops, restaurants or on packets. Also perhaps creating involvement with the film with competitions or collective items. A way of partnership increasing is when the film will product place an item from where they are allowed to advertise.

Merchandising the film can promote the film with logos, images or characters on special products. Some examples of merchandising that can promote a film is:- clothing, toys, figurines, ringtones, stationary, books, games, and soundtracks. The hope from this is that the film will become popular or spread into being a international news item. 

Another form of promotion is organising premieres or special tours around the country (e.g- shopping centres) where the fans can get close to the stars of the film with autographs, pictures and access the world of that film. There are also after-parties that media publications can be invited along to to cover the celebrities as news media worldwide. 

Promotional preview screening can be arranged, targeting specific audiences in a print or online offer that will be for the core audience of that film. Sometimes there are also film festivals where the competition can be difficult because there are numerous new titles that are promoting their films to Journalists and film buyers internationally.

Horror Synopsis

Our horror synopsis starts with a young girl living in a new house, we shoot everyday normality of her and her family. Then events start happening which are unexplained, the girl has started sleep walking, and as she does, she does weird things such as getting knives from the kitchen, writing in blood on the walls, turning lights on in the middle of the night. The events that she does get worse and worse so the parents decide to put up CCTV cameras around the house once they realize its their daughter that is doing all these terrible and weird things. They capture footage of her acting possessed as she is sleep walking, there is one scene where the girl is rocking in the dark with her hair over her face and when she looks up she starts screaming with editing that will distort her face.
The parents then find under the floorboards  in the little girls room a diary that was written years ago by a family who used to live in that house. They discover that their little girl is repeating the events in the diary, the girl who used to live there was also sleepwalking and doing strange things to her family. The parents search the girls name on the internet and find that the family were all tragically murdered by their daughter... they then start to panic, relying on the diary to find out what happens next, but with pages missing they struggle to know whats going to happen next.




We will include normal filming but after events start occurring, we will edit the camera footage in certain parts to make it CCTV footage. We will also use a sound bridge at the start from when the production companies are on screen the dialogue is creating suspense of what is happening. With an open line like 'Who turned the light on last night' or something similar. I think that creating shots of the girl acting innocent like swinging on a swing in her garden will create some sort of innocence to her role that makes the audience see how something they dont ever think they could fear actually becomes monsterous.

Horror Mood Board

My mood board represents what I find particulary scary, things like blood, graveyards, dark forests, scary possessed people and dolls.I think that the mood board represents things that we could easily add to our horror trailer.

Trailers

The 'One missed call' trailer is effective because there is effective editing, for example I really like the way there is constant flashes of shots of the scary people that are either tormenting the victims or are something set up to scare the victims into a state of mind where they are just paranoid. The whole trailer is quite dark and has a certain mood that puts us in a awkward position. I like the way the music is the most suspenseful thing in the trailer because we instantly will relate the ring tone to death, and this the ring tone is maybe the most important way of scaring the audience because it is a signifier of death and fear.
There are statistics that are shown at the start with a non diegetic ring tone, this instantly allows the audience to know what the film is going to be about, because we know it will be a digital related film, the fact that there are facts showing at the start makes the film seem more realistic with the ... leading up to what we need to find out about this fact.
The dialogue also has quite an impact in allowing the audience to know that they should be scared of whats going on, with the first line being 'that's not my cell phone', we already know that a narrative has started where the phone is of importance and perhaps is going to change the girls lives forever.
I like the constant edits of shots where we see more dramatic parts of the film, like centipedes on a mans hand, fire starting, flashes of the villains and of the 'final girl' hiding and struggling to survive.
I think that I could interpret this into the horror trailer that me and my group will make because we could use the editing, the editing, I think is very effective and would make the trailer appealing to the audience as they would see quick flashes of scenes where they would want to see more.





'The Strangers' Trailer uses typical horror conventions that I think are common but make the trailer effective because they scare the audience. I think that music starting on its own and the swings moving on their own are typical events that would scare anyone, they create the feeling of suspense because we don't know if someone is there hiding from us or if there is some supernatural being. The isolation of a bungalow in the middle of a forestry area allows the audience to feel on edge because there is no connection to the outside world for help, the fact the 'Strangers' burn the males phone shows that they are going to have control because the male and female are now trapped and isolated with them.
The unknown noises, like behind the curtain when the male and female are holding each other gives the audience a feeling of identification as we all hear things sometimes without seeing what the noises are, the fact that the there is inter titles reading 'inspired by true events' gives the audience a definite sense of scare because the trailer is given reality and the audience belief that this could actually happen to someone, and more seriously... them.
Masked figures are typical characters to horrors, they are unknown figures, so the audience can't relate to the villain or even know who they are running from. The fact they appear standing there watching the characters is something that could easily happen to us. Writing on the window is something easily applied to add any fear factor as it means someone has been there whilst they are there and tried to create a connection to them.
I think that the conventions in the trailer are easily adaptable to our trailer we will make, we could interpret some of the ideas into our trailer for example, the whole writing on the window and making things move by themselves.





The trailer to 'Hide and Seek', I find typically scary as there has been a whole narrative set up to suit what is going to happen in the future, horrors often use children to manipulate the innocent factor to something that is scary. The way they move to somewhere new shows that a change could easily happen, the girls mother having just died allows us to know that the girl would be troubled, and giving her father some responsibility. The imaginary friend we never see, 'charlie' controls the girl, and uses her to threaten the woman who meets her father, the whole way she blames 'charlie' and draws the policeman dying, gives us a sense that the imaginary friend is very real, maybe a spirit that has influenced this innocent girl to create punishment for her father and his choices.  I think this could be interpreted into our trailer we will make as the whole children involvement and not seeing the villain adds some fear for the audience.

Narrative Theory

We applied theories and ideas of four narrative theorists to 'The Shining'. Propp was a Russian critic who explored the underlying structures of folk tales and he came up with a set of universal character and narrative functions which he thought were the basis for all stories. His ideas fit with 'The Shining' because you can apply the characters in the film to the character functions. However I feel that Propps theory isn't the best of the four to explain and help understand the narrative of 'The Shining' because you can apply certain characters to more than one function and also there is 'Harlem' who can arguably act as the helper, donor and the dispatcher because of his contribution to the family. But you could also propose that he acts as a hero in the way he comes to the mother and sons rescue at the end of the film. Propp also explains exact things in a narrative that occur, in a list of 31 events in folk tales. I think that many of these do apply to 'The Shining', although not in correct order to how Propp has set out his functions and 'The Shining' ends on number 21 rather than the false hero claim at the end of the theory. This allows me to evaluate Propp as having a few ideas that can link to the film but when analyzing overall, the film dosent completely fit with his theory.

The second theorist is Todorov, he also suggested that stories begin with an equilibrium where any potential opposing force are in balance but are then disrupted by some event, setting a chain of events that are restored and then end in a new equilibrium. The two narrative structures are named 'classic Hollywood' or 'classic realist'. Also another structure of hero meets villian, theres a quest then a closure. I think that this dosent apply to 'The Shining' because of the time being messed up, and the fact that the narrative does not start with a equilibrium but an abrupt start to the family beginning a new life for the winter at the hotel. The villain can be multiple characters of Jack, Grady, The hotel itself and the way time manipulates Jack into insanity, however by showing the picture dated in 1921 at the end, the narrative structure cannot simply be based on a disequilibrium of Jack going insane, because we do not know the mystery behind him being at the same age in 1921.
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The third theorist is Claude Levi-Strauss whose theory is based on binary opposites, for example, good and evil, human and aliens, normal and strange. He wasn't applying the narrative theory to an order but more so the themes of the narrative/plot. This I think applies quite well and gives us start of understanding 'The Shining' because we can definitely write a list of binary opposites that allow us to know what the themes of the film are and what goes on.
The binary oppisites of 'The Shining' are: Good vs Evil, Sanity vs Madness, Natural vs Unnatural, Past vs Present, Cause vs Effect, Community vs Isolation and Normal vs Abnormal.

I think, however that the fourth theorist is the theorist with the most relevant theory to 'The Shining'. Bordwell and Thompson wrote a book called 'Film Art:An introduction' and they define narrative as a 'chain of events in a cause-effect relationship, occurring in time and space'. They do not put together a full theory of narrative but they apply an interesting idea of a narrative starting with a situation, a series of changes occur in a pattern of cause and effect, then finally a new situation arises that brings an end to the narrative. The technical techniques in films like slow motion, flashbacks, cross cutting shows typical ways of changing time and places. The normality of directors is that they often cut between scenes or cross cut to show a change in time so that we, as the audience, follow the narrative but we don't see every single detail of time, for example, if someone was called to go to another country, we would see the phone conversation, then the next shot could be of them getting off the plane in the other country.
The way 'The Shining' can be understood is using this narrative theory, the audience can see that the film manipulates time in numerous ways. By simple use of time gradually decreasing in the titles that appear every so often, starting from 'one month', to 'one week' to 'Tuesday' and finally ending with 'Saturday', time change is slowing down, maybe to imply that Jacks insanity is growing faster and faster or perhaps, to confuse the audience as we lose track of time, we don't know as the audience what Tuesday or Saturday it is, the dates are not given, we just assume that they are in the middle of the 6 months over winter the family stay in the hotel for.

Another way of time defining the horror is that the picture at the end of the film of Jack aged as he is now in waiters outfit at the hotel is dated 1921, this confuses us and is something that remains unexplained, giving the film mystery with no real understanding over time.
Jack, also has sloppy time keeping, asking for the time, and having no sense of whats happening and when, he loses control of his mind and starts to see things like Grady, The Woman in the bath and the bartender with plenty of drinks on offer. This allows the audience to see that time has lost its importance to Jack, he feels that all the days have rolled into one long stay that has driven him to insanity.
Premonitions from the past have occurred as a kind of villain in the film, or things that will repeat themselves at some point in the film, giving the past a very vital role in the film because of repetition of events or things that are predictable. For example, the blood rushing out of the lift, the desire to kill ones family using the same weapon type (axe) and the twins, almost warning Danny about what is to come.
I think anniversaries is also important in the film because it was exactly ten years since Grady killed his family, however, the way that the characters are shown in the film shows Grady as a 1920's waiter, rather than a caretaker, and his words 'you've always been the caretaker' to Jack, may suggest that Jack, somehow has been the caretaker for the hotel since the 1920's. This idea lacks explanation but gives a suggestion of cause and effect, and how the use of time can be very important to a film.