'CULT' film trailer - Final Product

'Total Film' Magazine cover

'CULT' film poster

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

Throughout this project we've used different types of media softwares, websites and networking sites as well as hardware to help us pre-production and post-production as well as creating the product itself.


Obviously throughout the whole project, from start to finish, I've used this site eBlogger to host our blog where I've put everything down from the planning of my product, to the audience research and now the evaluations and the final pieces, So, out of all the different types of softwares and websites we've used I can easily say that this site has been used quite a lot, maybe even more than any of the other softwares and websites that occur in the picture above, because this is where I'm putting down all my work, in a quick, easy and presentable way. Although I have liked using this blog and exploring the different ways to make it work as a medium, I think there has also been a lot of things that have not been so successful by basing my project through a blog. I really liked how it was an easy, casual way to document my work and allows you to look through my project and watch it developed, I think that certain things would have worked better using traditional ways - such as essays etc. I found it hard to take some of my essays and use the blog as a medium using different images, video clips, etc to make my point. But I do like how using a blog allows me to use everything from images to video clips to make it more of an experience than just, a blog.


The main thing during pre-production was to collect our audience research to discover our target audience and what they would want in our product. We set up a questionnaire on www.surveymonkey.com which allowed us to create a multiple choice questionnaire for our audience to take, and we could collect research from. To advertise our questionnaire in the bid that our friends and mutual friends would take it, we used www.facebook.com, which is obviously a social network site where most people about our age have a page, and therefore it was a quick, easy way to promote our questionnaire and was the best way to grab a large audience in such an easy, simple way. I shared a link to the survey as on my page which appeared on the homepage of Facebook for everyone to see, and hopefully click the link and take the survey. Once we had done this, and got some idea of our film I began using Photoshop to create a mood board of ideas that I found scary, and what I thought were a good idea to be used in our trailer (The mood board itself is on this blog in pre-production planning). I'd had a lot of use of photoshop before through AS media, as well as using it on my mac at home where I've often played around with it, so for these reasons I had a good knowledge of photoshop and producing a mood board was quite easy.

After pre-production planning was complete, and we had an idea of what we wanted our trailer to be like and had drew up storyboards that we could work from for ideas, We began the trailer itself. We used the college's camera to film with, and quite often didn't use a tripod to give it a more home-video effect in the bid to make our film feel more realistic and life-like. However we did use a tripod at sometimes. After each time we'd been shooting we'd upload the footage to our macs, where we developed our trailer in Final Cut Pro. I'd never actually used Final Cut Pro before but I found it was quite easy to pick up, a lot easier than I thought. We used Final Cut Pro to produce our trailer, by importing clips from the camera into the software and placing them into the work space of the software where you build your clip. I learnt how to produce different transitions, from the simple cut (allowing for continuity editing to work well) as well as fades to add emphasis to different areas of the clip. We had included a lot of ideas in our storyboards that involved using the macs to produce CGI for our trailer, such as the scenes where the shot is black with a typewriter-like font scrolling out words and their definitions. This was also quite easy to pick up and I felt it worked really well. However we also used photoshop in this part of our project as well to produce newspaper articles that we had overlap each other during the trailer - The poor photoshopping however made this look very weak and not how we had imagined it was going to look. When arranging the music, we had a very specific idea of how we wanted it to be - with the use of bass notes on certain areas that we compared next to cult-like chanting in other areas. We used Garage band to produce our music and, although the music doesn't work as well as we'd hoped, It was fun to play around with the software and come to terms with it whilst we tried to produce a good, scary soundtrack.


Post-production, we were set the task of producing a film poster and the front page of a magazine to help promote our film. Before doing this I done an analysis of two film posters and 2 magazine covers, so I could look for different conventions of these things as well as the way different companies make posters/covers look interesting and bold. I done these analysis' on www.flickr.com because it allowed me to upload my images, and choose certain areas to talk about why it is effective, or isn't, and if it fits in with typical conventions or not (such as fonts, images, colours, etc). I then moved onto my products, which I used photoshop for to produce a film poster for my film, as well as the front page of 'Total Film' magazine. I used original photo's of the final girl from my trailer and created each product from scratch - including the Total Film logo. Throughout the project everything was being uploaded to this website, www.blogger.com to allow all my work to flow through, and my final trailer was uploaded to www.youtube.com which allows me to embed it onto my blog. Youtube allows the public to watch my trailer and is a quick, easy and free way to post videos onto the internet and allow people to give feedback.


Over all, I feel I've used a broad range of different softwares, as well as websites and hardware to produce my final piece, from pre-production planning to the actual product itself, as well the post-production planning. Having already had some knowledge of certain things (such as Photoshop, or eBlogger) meant that my project has flowed quite smoothly in some places, whereas learning how to use new software such as Final Cut Pro and Garage band has been challenging, but all worked together in the part of allowing me to finish my final product.

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

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

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products., a photo by Tom Patterson2 on Flickr.

I chose to do this evaluation on flickr, because it allowed me to create a montage of images from my trailer and other existing horror trailers, and make a 'note' on each comparison that allowed me to compare the stills and answer the question.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback has been useful and taught me a lot of things about what our target audience want in a trailer, and more importantly a horror trailer. Pre-production and post-production audience feedback and research have helped us in our ideas to produce and develop our product, as well as giving us feedback about what our target audience thought worked well in our trailer, and what they thought could have been a bit better.

Before we began our trailer, or even thought towards it, we used www.surveymonkey.com to produce a multiple choice questionnaire about horror films and what our audience found scary, and more importantly, who our audience was! Once we collected the data we took our findings to begin thinking towards the plot line for our trailer. We knew, as a group, that we wanted our plot line to follow many standard horror conventions but with a twist, to make our trailer stand out and want our audience to want to watch the film (even though of course we were only making the trailer). One question we asked was to do with what our audience found scary, and one of the options was religion and religious iconography, which we knew we were already going to base our plot line around as it is a topic that, although controversial and sometimes shockingly scary, isn’t used in horror enough. But we used the rest of the information to think of other things we could include in our trailer.  We found that our audience found psychologically frightening things scary too, so we thouyght that combining the idea of religious iconography with a psychological plotline would allow us to think of something scary. After all, cults are people who have become so obsessed with a certain idea, often religious, which allows us to create a plot line around psychology. We found that people found ‘gore’ quite scary and shocking, so we thought we’d include that in our trailer (resulting in the scenes of the slit wrists and the crucifix engraved in the chest).

Once our trailer was complete we had it shown to different groups of people - one of them being our media class who had been set the same task of producing a horror film trailer. We all gave each other feedback on each others trailers which I felt was a good idea as we had all been using the same software and equipment to produce the final outcomes and we all understood how much effort had been put into each trailer. As well as this we showed our trailer to some of our friends as well as mutual friends who we felt would give us an honest answer on how good our trailer was, and how it could be improved.

One thing we learned from our audience research was that people weren’t too keen on the music. Some people felt that it didn’t flow well with the actual imagery and didn’t fit in too well with the horror conventions. Another thing we found was that people didn’t like the end of our music, however this wasn’t how it was supposed to be because we were trying to find a piece of music that was epically horror for the very end where our title appeared, but whilst doing our last minute tweaking to the trailer we never got round to actually finding the perfect piece of music for the ending, which meant when the title appeared there was no music playing as it had come to an instant end - which we also didn’t like just as much as our audience. However if we were given more time I know we would have made the music fit in better with the rest of the trailer.

Another thing that also didn't go down too well was the actual scare factor of our trailer, because although our plot line, I feel, is quite scary, I don’t think our trailer portrays it to the scariest it could be. Pre-production we had all these extravagant ideas of shots of crucification and other crazy ideas which weren’t really possible on the tight time schedule we had. But I personally feel that the trailer is still scary in a sense, with the use of binary opposites with the little girl, but possibly not too its full potential. Our audience feedback about this was that we needed to maybe make the plot line a little bit more obvious in the actual trailer, because although we tried to stick to horror conventions by giving only a little bit away to entice the audience into watching the whole thing, I don’t think we gave enough away to make it clear what the film was about. I think we could have fixed this problem by including more cult imagery and iconography.

Our audience feedback did also give us a lot of positive feedback about our trailer as well. We included a lot of things in our trailer that people thought worked really well and some even said that they hadn’t seen things like it in previous trailers. For example - our class felt that the typewriter effect of different words and their definitions worked very well, with each word giving more and more away about the film and what happens (words like ‘worship’, all relating to cults and cult rituals). I thought that this worked very well and I’m glad others did. I thought that the quick bursts of quick cuts followed by a black screen with the writing on was a nice touch as well as it broke down the build up and still made the quick, flashy cuts interesting.

Another thing that we learnt from our audience research was that a lot of people liked one thing in particular which we weren’t sure if it would go down well or not - which was using really odd things in our quick cuts, such as the same clip 3 times in a row, really quick to make it look almost twitchy and putting certain clips in reverse so that they went backwards. We weren’t sure if it would work or not, but our audience research shows that people really liked it because it was strange and mysterious. The odd sense of going backwards and forwards of the clips as well I thought worked well in a kind of creepy way - which relates with Bordwell and Thompsons theory of distortions of time and space being used in horror.

So, I learnt a lot from my audience research. Not only did I find out what my audience thought was successful not just as a trailer but as a horror text, I also found our what didn’t exactly work for them and what could have been improved. If given the time again, I know there was many things I’d do to improve my trailer, and possibly gain more and more audience feedback until it was nearly perfect. One of those things would have been what we initially planned as a group before realising how awkward it would be to do - wish was having an actual crucification performed using a large cross and latex and makeup to create wounds - However we went against this in the end because it would be very hard to create and look good, as well as time consuming (considering we didn't have a lot of time we had to decide against it).

Original Photos for Magazine cover & Poster

Drafts for ancillary tasks

Film Poster

Magazine Cover

Insidious Poster

Insidious Poster, a photo by Tom Patterson2 on Flickr.

Wonderland Magazine cover

Wonderland Magazine cover, a photo by Tom Patterson2 on Flickr.

Radio Times Cover

F
1-SE-41-0-Cover, a photo by Tom Patterson2 on Flickr.

The last house on the left poster

The last house on the left poster, a photo by Tom Patterson2 on Flickr.

The role of the distributor

A distributors role, although it may sound simple, is in fact quite an important part to play in whether a film succeeds or fails. With many other entertainment options available to us now and with UK cinemas releasing 500+ titles every year, it is important that the distributor knows a lot about the film itself to be able to market, promote and attract the correct audience.

The first thing the distributor must understand before they can do anything with the product they have been given to advertise is the audience. Audience is a crucial thing because, like with anything, without an audience nothing would sell. But how are the audience targeted? With so many different aspects about a person contributing to them such as age, gender, personality, lifestyle, etc, how can something be aimed at a wide range of people but at the same time, at one person individually. The average age of people going to the cinema has been established as 15-25, this being due to the high amount of media related products that are available to us now that allow us to be advertised at, or even the fact that the cinema is now a bigger, better experience that it ever was - with options such as 3D movies or IMAX.
So once an audience has been established there are many other things the distributor has to establish such as:
- A marketing plan (How will the film be advertised before its release?)
- A release strategy (Where will it be released too, what date, etc)
- Arranging what cinemas will display the movie (Large chains such as 'ODEON', or smaller, individually ran cinemas such as 'Cinema City - Norwich') http://www.picturehouses.co.uk/cinema/Cinema_City/

The distributors will look for any chance for a strong advertisement campaign. Strong campaigns can have all sorts of things involved in them, that may be to do solely with the film, but some may be to do with collaborations (for example - Disney and McDonalds often work together to promote new films through the use of McDonalds happy meal - appeals straight to Disney's target audience - Children).

Distributors will also look for things in the film that its audience will find appealing. It'll look for a certain thing in the film that they can play on throughout the advertisement, maybe a particular quote or punchline. They can use this quote throughout their film posters and make a point of using it in the trailer. Making sure the film is promoted in the way it needs to be promoted for its clients - to ensure their target audience is properly introduced to the film.

As well as all of this, Distributors need to take into consideration all the different things that go into a movie and that they should be promoted properly - for example, if a famous actress or actor is in the film then they need to ensure their audience is aware of this, because that person may have a string of people waiting to want to watch their films! The distributor needs to know the film inside out as well, knowing everything about the plot so that the distributor is aware about the different things that could come from the film, such as sequels, 3D/IMAX opportunities, the age rating for the film and why it is this or even nominations for awards.

Competition should also be one of the main things on the distributors mind. They need to make sure that their film looks and sounds better than any of the others on the market, especially ones of the same genre that could possibly jeopardise the success their film could have.

And one of the main things that the distributor has to control is of course, the distribution of the film and its advertisement. They need to be up to date with all the latest ways they can get their film on the market. From iPods to iPads and through social networking sites from twitter and facebook - advertisements are everywhere nower days, and they need to be aware of it and cover every different medium they can. But they need to also remember the classic ways of promotion - from posters, to magazines and from bus shelters to the classic word of mouth. They need to make sure that they cover as much as possible to ensure that there is no way their target audience could miss their film.

Other planning materials (Shot list & Mock up of Questionnaire)

Storyboards for our trailer

Target Audience Research and Feedback.

There was many reasons as to why we felt it was essential to undergo audience research before going anywhere with our project. Firstly, we were put into groups where we all had different ideas as to what our film could be, so instead of battling between us what our film should include, it made sense to find out what our audience would find scary in the bid to make an interesting trailer. Another thing we wanted to find out was who our audience actually was - Gender? Age? Lifestyle? All these things I feel would effect our trailer in the sense that, some people may not be interesting in going to the cinema, some people may not be of the age where they enjoy the cinema, and another main reason is that we wanted to find out how many of our audience were males (Seeing as in our film we planned on having a final girl, and therefore we had to allow our audience, both genders, to assosicate with her). Surveymonkey (http://www.surveymonkey.com/) was our best bet at a quick, easy way to collect research about our audience and to find out how to progress with our trailer. Surveymonkey is a website that allows you to set up questionnaires online for free, whether they be closed questions, multiple choice, or open ended questions where our audience could write an answer. We chose to have multiple choice questions because we thought it gave our audience the freedom to pick from various answers, because we felt that if we had allowed them to write an answer to each question it would have given them too much freedom and it would have been difficult to collect our data. We had 10 questions which began with finding out about the person, and went on to find out about their habits when it comes to films (who they go to the cinema with, etc), and towards the end the questionnaire was more specially on horror. We advertised our questionnaire on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/) and Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/) because it was a quick and easy way to advertise our questionnaire to our friends as well as mutual friends - however we did initially think this may cause an issue when it came to our question on age because it was almost clear that all the people taking our questionnaire would be the same age as us, seeing as they were using the same social networking sites as us.

When we collected our data we found some interesting responses and some responses just as we imagined. As we expected, most of our audience fell into the 15-18 category (52.9%), with the second biggest percentage of people being 19-24. Although it was quite close with our gender question, we did establish that more of our audience was male (58.8%), which is something that we need to keep in mind throughout planning as we need to entice our audience into our film as well as making them associate with our final girl (When exploring Carol Clovers theory in my blog I discovered that although horror is mainly aimed at males, it does make them associate with women). We also found that most of our audience would watch a film with a group of people (70.6%), and if not that then with their partner (41.9%), with only 5.9% saying they would watch a film alone. 50% of people also said this would probably be a DVD at home whereas only 31.3% of people would actually venture out to the cinema - something that we must remember when we think towards a distribution plan - Trailers at the cinema obviously isn't enough to target our whole audience (especially when we found that 94.1% of our audience want to see a film because of the trailer, and 88.2% of people would see a film more so because of the clips in the trailer than the stars of the film). Although we already knew as a group we wanted to put a twist on religious iconography, making our film a religious horror, our findings also found that 70.6% of people found psychological films scary too - which is something we plan on taking on board when thinking towards our plot and our storyboards. We also found that less people found handheld cameras gave a less scary effect than we imagined as a group - After looking at the trailer for Paranormal Activity previously in my blog I personally find that using a handheld camera makes it feel a lot scarier and more, real, so even though our audience research has said that our audience has said otherwise we may still carry through with this idea but not as extreme as we may have. We also found that when it came to 'weapons', no one found guns scary and a very small percent (17.6%) found knives scary - but torture devices and chainsaws were found to be most scary both getting (58.8%).

Our audience research has helped us a lot to, not only discover who our audience is, but what they like in horror and what they find interesting about a trailer. Many things we've learnt from our audience research we plan on carrying through, such as the plot line, etc, whereas some things we have thought we may not include for various (for example - although we found that a lot of people found chainsaws scary, using one would be hard work to look good and wouldn't really fit with our plot line). We have also learnt a lot about the individuals who took our questionnaire such as their gender, age and habits when it comes to watching films - all things that will come in handy when thinking about our promotional package as a whole. Although I found surveymonkey was a good, easy way to collect data, I do now wish we had gone a little more indepth with our questionnaire, asking a few more questions or offering a few more answers on the multiple choice questions so that we could pinpoint a lot more about our audience and their interests then we already know. However, now our audience research is done and we've discovered a lot of things about our audience we didn't know, we can now mould our film around that as well as having the freedom to create something unique and interesting with our own individual twist.

Surveymonkey Audience Research

Click here to take survey

My Moodboard of Ideas

This is my mood board of things that I find scary and have given me inspiration for my own horror trailer. One of the main things I find very scary is religion and the obsession some people have over it and the whole is it real/is it not real argument. I also find the Illuminati and all the conspiracies behind it scary, because it's so real and is actually going on (I have included a dollar bill on my mood board because it links with the conspiracy that the US government are in on the Illuminati). I have also included a photo of the twin towers, the Bermuda triangle and the globe with '2012' written all over it. Simply because I think that things to do with this world are very terrifying because it's REAL. I think that 911 is scary because, to think people thought to do that leaves me questioning what other people may be thinking of doing, are we ever safe? why did they do it? all these questions are un-answerable. The Bermuda triangle is also very scary because we know something goes on there for planes/ships/etc to go missing, but what? and why is there not great effort going in to finding out? (relating back to the US governments questionable role in society). And as for the globe, I think 2012 is so scary, so much tension has been built up to this year where so many things are going to happen, but will they? and many of the reasons we believe in it goes back to religion. It's all a vicious circle! I also find mental illness scary for the same reason - it's real life and it actually happens, and for that reason I have included a picture of the DSM and a mental hospital onto my moodboard.

CULT - our films pitch for a horror trailer

Our groups initial idea for our horror film includes many of the ideas and key concepts we’ve looked at throughout this project so far - Such as a final girl, a plot line we created from our audience research, as well as having many conventions of horror. Our film is going to be called ‘CULT’, which is too the point and bold, but our trailer will show our audience that it’s an idea that has been taken, and twisted to create something psychologically terrifying.

The main plot line for our horror film will begin with a couple driving through the woods when they come across a little girl, and once they get out of the car to look for her she’s gone. As they search through the forest in the bid to find her they realize that there is something strange about the forest and before they know it they’re lost. The film goes on to allow the couple to discover that the girl was not a cute, young, innocent girl like they’d thought, but in fact the leader to a cult that the couple are abducted by and forced to harm themselves and others as they resist to become part of it.

We plan on using a lot of simple but strange effects in our trailer to make it a little bit more edgy and creepy, instead of actually scary. We plan on using a lot of the things that Bordwell and Thompson believe make something scary - distorting time and space to make everything that more ‘weird’ (such as putting clips backwards, in slow motion, or breaking the 180 degree rule), which I feel will work well with the plot line based around strange cults and cult-like rituals.

Another thing we will play on a lot is binary opposites, we will completely mess with the audiences heads with the confusion about the little girl from the very beginning. Is she cute, is she not? and as the film progresses the audience will discover more and more about the plot line and make these assumptions for themselves.

Ideas from existing trailers for inspiration for my own

What I really like about this trailer is the way music and sounds are used. Although not a lot of speech is used, I think enough is used to give a general overview of the film without giving away TOO much detail (obviously this is what a trailer should do). I really like how the background music begins quite minimal and isn't very noticeable behind the voice overs, but soon becomes louder and is obviously the main focus in regards to sound. I also like how there is a huge climax and the music becomes more dramatic, with a lot more tension and volume, and then as soon as the glass smashes (2:02), the whole thing just stops, the music dies down straight away but the trailer is not over. I think that the way the glass smashing and the end of the dramatic co inside with each other is very effective and something I may consider doing in my own trailer.


What I like about this trailer is the way it looks as though the whole thing is recorded using a handheld camera. Although, since Paranormal Activity 1, using a handheld camera has become very common in horror, I still think its very scary because it looks so realistic, and has the added horror of making the whole thing feel real. So, although there is no particular part of the trailer I find particularly more/less interesting, I think the way it's actually filmed to be the most scary thing (especially the way that the date is still in the bottom right corner of the screen to make it feel a lot more like a home video).


What I find so scary about this particular isn't to do with sound or the way it is filmed, but the actual plot line itself. Obviously this film is about exorcism, and that on its own is, in my eyes, a very scary topic. But it's more than that, I think that because this film is based on religion, people would take to the film in very different ways. If someone is a Christian, I'm sure they'd find this film a lot scarier then someone who was an atheist - obviously because for a Christian, this film trailer would be very believeable because they believe that these kind of things are true (The famous film "The exocorism of Emily Rose" even says it's based on a true story). I think that also, the fact that at 0:33 a sentence appears saying "If you believe in God, you must believe in the devil" is very effective. However, even if you werent a Christian, you'd still find this film scary, but not for the actual possesion itself, but for the things that happen because of this. I think the main thing I like about it though is the way it has the power to frighten people in different ways. Another thing I like about the topic of religion is the contraversy around it.

How women are represented in Horror - The Shining, Halloween & Eden Lake

"Carol Clover, in 'Men, women and chainsaws', argues that many horror films are interesting in their representation of gender because they provide a female point of identification for a male core target audience - To what extent do you think horror represents gender progressively?"


Carol Clover presented many theories within the horror genre, but one in particular that allowed us to explore gender and sexuality to a whole other level. Horror has always been known as being one of those genres that aimed mostly at males - the sheer terror and gore is something that hasn't always appealed to women, so to meet the needs of its target audience, horror has produced some of the sickest, evilest and frightening films in the bid to attract its target demographic more so than the rest of the competition. Clover suggested that, although Horror is obviously a genre that is aimed at men, it also does something very sneaky - this being that in Horror, directors, movie writers, actor/actresses, (etc) all hold the power to take a mans masculinity and completely turn it upside down, by putting the men in the place of a women. Clover suggested that all Horror films ended with a 'final girl' - the girl that goes through the most and toughens up throughout the film to make it to end, and survive. But wait, final girl? Yes, without the audience even realising, they are always put into the point of view as the girl who survives (well, most of the time, there is the rare time in a film where we may see a point of view shot from the killer, but not for the whole film). How does this relate to the question being asked? Well, Would this be seen as progressive or not? Some may look at it as - well, of corse it is, the women is surviving, and clearly, this is completely out-ruling the stereotype that women are weak and dumb, and only belong in the home or looking after children (Anything that meets the criteria of a domestic female). But in doing so, I can't think of an extreme horror film I've ever watched where I haven't had a women in white lingerie or an oversized shirt put in front of my eyes. Well, that certainly isn't progressive - fair enough this women may, or may not survive, but either way she's still had to get her body out at some point to please the men in their 'male gaze'.

Let's take the film 'Halloween' (1978). Now, I feel that this film meets the criteria to be seen as progressive, but also conservative in many ways. Firstly, let's think of the female characters in the film. We follow the story through the life of Laurie, a kind, well behaved and intelligent girl. But within the film are a few other characters - Linda, Annie, Judith Myers, The Nurse as well as another Girl who babysits. All together - 6 girls. Now, how many of those girls do we see in their underwear at some point in the film? 3. So, half of the female characters in this film are simply sex objects - nothing more than a male gaze. On the contrary, the other half of the female characters are actually seen with a little more respect, and are all presented as domestic females. If that wasn't enough to leave me confused as to whether this film was conservative or progressive, the narrative structure itself was questioning sexism in a whole other way. Throughout the film we see 5 deaths occur, 3 of those being women (60%) and the other 2 being men (40%), Well, obviously this isn't progressive in the slightest. In fact all it does is stick to the same idea that is always presented of women being weak and stupid. However, something that is progressive is the way the main protagonist is female, but not only that, the final girl. Another thing quite odd is the way that Laurie never objectifies herself in the same way the other girls do, and yet she becomes the subject. At one point in the film one of the other girls dies, whilst waiting for a man in bed, can someone objectify themselves any more than that?! So, This film is confusing, is it progressive? is it conservative? I struggle to come to terms with it. But also, something that helped me comprehend with the idea of sexism in the film a little bit better was researching into the roles of women in 1978. I discovered that feminism was huge in the whole of the 70's, women fought for equal rights and feminism was at its peak, so, why would films produced in the late 1970's still have women strutting around in lingerie with brains the size of pea's? I don't see that being progressive in the slightest.

So, if the era does have anything to do with the way gender, if we looked at a film more recent then surely it would be more progressive than Halloween. "The Shining"(1982) may only be 4 years after, but it shows a lot of differences. In Halloween we are made to follow the story of Laurie about 80/90% of the time - making it clear that she is the final girl, and the story is in fact about her (progressive). However in this film we relate with all 3 of the main characters for various amounts of time - Not just Wendy who would be seen as the final girl, instead we relate with Jack, Wendy and Danny. The ratio of main male characters to main female characters obviously being 2:1, therefore obviously being a bit sexist when it comes to screen time. In fact, let's look at characters over all in the Shining - Over all there are 9 men, and 5 females. If you don't think that isn't conservative yet, then take into consideration how often you see the female characters. For example - fair enough Wendy has a lot of screen time (probably would seeing as she's meant to be the main character), but then the other female characters have hardly any screen time in comparison to her - take the lady in the bathtub for example, she must have about 20 seconds throughout the whole film. And Grady's twin daughters... well, we see them for a good 15 seconds, half of that time it's flashing to their body parts splattered across the hall way. But, when it comes to the roles of women in this film, I guess it's a bit better than Halloween. Wendy's role is obviously a familiar and yet domestic female - someone who takes care of the family. However the lady in the bath tub, well, she's clearly a sex object. However I personally think that this film takes the idea of 'sex objects' and 'the male gaze' and completely turns it round on itself. As the women gets out of the bath and walks towards Jack, she has a huge sex appeal, however her body begins to deteriorate and rot whilst she's touching him, until eventually she looks like a very old, if not, dead lady. So in a sense I see that as being progressive - as the film has only shown one woman as a sex object throughout the whole film, and even then it almost mocks the idea of needing a sex object in a film by having the sexual desire completely disappear so instantly, almost as if to say we don't need sex appeal in Horror. Obviously the narrative seems to be quite progressive too, as it shows Wendy as the final girl, having to fight for, not only her own life, but also her sons life in their bid for survival, and escaping from the 'monster' in this film (the 'monster' obviously being her own husband, it's so peculiar how one person can play so many different roles in one film, especially if we applied this film to Propps character functions).

A more recent film Eden Lake (2008), I feel that gender is represented very differently to those films from the 70's and 80's. Although there are 11 males in this film, and only 6 females (meaning there are nearly double the amount of men, which could be seen as conservative), we have to take into account the roles the women actually play in this film. For example, fair enough we have the waitress and a few other women playing smaller roles, but we also have Jenny - the main girl, who we watch transform from a sweet, innocent woman into what I can only describe as a monster as the film progresses. Not only this, the film begins with a group of young boys and one girl terrorising Jenny and her boyfriend on a weekend away, and eventually destroying them to the point that Jennys boyfriend is burnt. But Jenny powers through in the hope to save herself, and eventually makes it out from the forest and away from the gang that is after her... Now, surely that would be seen as progressive, a young woman protecting herself and escaping from a group of 5/6 dangerous teenage boys. Paige is another main character in this film. She plays a passive role as a female and is part of the 'gang' of young boys who are set out to kill Jenny and her boyfriend. However Paige herself even tries to escape, before she is run over by Jenny whilst making an escape. Paige could also be seen as a character who challenges sex appeal in the film, when she questions "You lookin' at my tits?", so, instead of having a male gaze in this film, we're actually being challenged for trying to find one, which of corse must be seen as progressive. In fact at one point in the film, we look through the eyes of the young boys as they look through a telescope at Jenny laying on the beach, however the camera quickly flips back on to Jenny, where we, the audience, are put in her position and aware of this, she wraps herself up. Progressive? Most certainly. Another reason why I feel this film is progressive is because of the death count, More men die in this film than women. The argument could be that there are more males in this film so therefore that may be why, but still, I think it is progressive as we see a lot more men die then women - in fact we only see 1 girl die (Paige), the film lets us interpret the ending ourselves by not telling us what does or doesn't happen to Jenny.
So, in my personal opinion I think that the way horror represents gender progressively all comes down to the era of the film. I think it is clear that, although it is seen progressive in certain parts of the films I studied in the 70's and 80's, the films also cover quite a lot of things that could make me believe the film is conservative and sexist. I think that since the 80's the roles of women have become a lot more equal to the roles of men, with women being able to do any job that a man can do and having equal rights. So, for this reason I think that horror has followed this trend and films have been produced that are progressive, and were women are seen as more than just a sex object, but as an actual person. I can only predict that in the future, as women and men slowly become more and more equal, horror will also provide men and women with equal roles in the bid to entertain the audiences in exciting ways. Who knows, Carol Clovers theory may even be scrapped and we may soon be experiencing horror through the eyes of a male, maybe even having a female as the villain?

Haunted Dreams - My pitch for an idea for a new horror movie.

The film tells the story of 3 room mates who move into an apartment together, and strange things happen whilst they’re asleep (example - waking up in the morning and furniture has been moved around). The guys then begin to believe their new apartment is haunted, as the incidents begin to happen more frequently. 

The 3 guys get cameras set up around the home, both normal webcams as well as thermal cameras to detect the paranormal.

One morning one room mate awakes to find his friend death in the kitchen floor, with blood everywhere and a knife laying beside him. Frightened, he watches the webcams back, only to see his friend being pulled out of bed and knifed to death by himself.  He deletes the video footage and insists to the other room mate that his friend had committed suicide. 

But weeks later, the same thing begins to happen, but to the other room mate. However this room mate is stronger, and tougher, and battles his way out from his ‘friends’ grasp. He slaps the ‘friend’ and in doing so, he disc overs that he was asleep, and he awakes questioning his actions. The room mate then confronts him insisting that he did kill the other room mate, but not intentionally - but in a deep sleep.

He is then sent to a hospital where he is monitored closely - but not close enough, as he continues to get from his bed at night, whilst asleep, and kill other patients in the hospital. 

Nothing can stop him, as soon as night falls and he falls asleep, it is almost as if a demon is taking over him forcing to do such things. Eventually, nurses insist he sleep in a bed where his legs and arms are clamped down.

However, in the middle of the night, whilst a nurse is circling the hospital to check on the patients, she notices the door to his room wide open, and the locks on his bed broken and the patient - missing. 

The police are called, and a hunt is let out to find the killer. The police follow his footsteps back to the most obvious place - his apartment. They burst through the door to find the room mate dead on the floor, in a pool of his own blood, and with the killer about to stab a knife through his own heart. They attempt to stop him, but by the time they do so, he has already thrusted the knife through his chest - in doing so, waking himself up to recognize his actions, before dyeing a slow, painful death, and leaving the audience frightened about the horror they can’t control, a living, walking nightmare.

Narrative Theory (The Shining)

In class we explored the ideas of four narrative theorists; Propp, Todorov, Levi-Strauss and Bordwell and Thompson. We then applied these theories to the 1980's horror - The Shining

Propp worked on Russian folk tales and created an idea of a set of character and narrative functions that he felt were universal and were incorporated into every films narrative structure. According to Propp, in every story there are 8 different roles played by characters - sometimes a character may fit into different roles because of the way the story is - In this case, The Shining has a very small cast so it turns out that, some roles are played by the same person. However, some roles are played by no one at all, and for that reason we can't apply this theory to The Shining as the relevance of it isn't strong at all. For example - the obvious roles such as 'The Villain' is obviously played by Jack, however other roles such as the false hero are a bit distorted and it is unclear who would fit into playing this role - if anyone at all. Propp also suggested a certain narrative structure that he said applied to every plot line. The narrative structure was broken up into 31 stages - 31 different things that would happen throughout the film in a particular order. However, when reading through this structure and trying to apply it to The Shining, I found that once I got passed number 6 - "The villain learns something about his victim" (which I related to Danny's shining being made clear), The whole structure began to lose structure to the film, and I could no longer link Propps structure to the film, especially in the order that Propp suggested. Even though the first 6 fitted well (For example - "1: A member of the family leaves home", linking to when Jack leaves the home to go for his interview), the rest of it is very distorted and doesn't link well at all, and for this reason, as well as the character roles I feel that Propps theory is not relative to The Shining in the slightest - although some people may argue differently.

Levi-Strauss worked on binary oppositions - basically the fact that when we know one thing, we know its opposite (example - hot and cold). His theory was that when something is not supposed to be scary, so often it turns out to be. This theory relates perfectly to The Shining, in so many ways. Firstly, we have one of our main characters, Danny. A young boy, so cute, stupid and innocent who would never cause anyone harm. Or so we think. He discovers an unknown and peculiar talent, the ability to 'Shine'. Not so cute, stupid and innocent anymore. Another thing that is quite terrifying in the film is the two twin girls who appear throughout the film to frighten off young Danny. Although they should be cute, identical twins with pigtails and checkered blue and white outfits, something isn't quite right about them - which links well to Levi-Strauss' theory, are they TOO cute they become scary??

Todorov proposed a theory that suggested all films began with an equilibrium which lead onto a disequilibrium and finally a new equilibrium. A disequilibrium would always be something that happens in the film that makes other things happen, and the outcome of this would be the new equilibrium. I think that this theory would apply to The Shining because we could count the equilibrium as the normality of Jack before they moved to the hotel, leaving the whole family normal and life being 'peachy'. The disequilibrium would then be the actual moving to the hotel and Jack going mental, and taking his anger out on the family and driving them out of the hotel. The new equilibrium would be the ending where we see Danny and Wendy leaving, and Jack dead. However, the very ending of the film may confuse this structure a bit when we see the picture of Jack in the 1920's, leaving us questioning if this is the new equilibrium, or if the film is ending on a disequilbrium? So, although this theory does apply to the film, it doesn't apply as well as other theory (Levi-Strauss' theory is most definitely more appropriate).

Bordwell and Thompson produced a theory that was based on the distortion of time and space that created a film. I think that this theory links so well and so clearly with The Shining. In regards to time, it is so distorted in this film, which is quite scary as you cant relate to it as well as possible. One reason for this is how it will always begin a day with just the day (example - "TUESDAY"), But there will be no date attached, or time, or anything, just the day, leaving us questioning, which Tuesday?. Also, as the film comes to a close, the times become closer and closer, even down to the hour (example -"4pm") which I think shows how close the film is coming to its end and allowing the tension to build. Another reason why time is so distorted is that, every time there is a long/wide shot of the hotel, it is always dark, dull and snowy (simply because of the weather), however this leaves us questioning the time of day, is it day? is it night? who knows. Space is also distorted greatly in the film. We know that they are staying in a hotel, and we know they are in a room/suite, but everything else is so confusing. For example - we quite often see Jack walking the halls, however each hallway is decorated differently and we can never relate to where the hallways are.
So, To conclude, Levi-Strauss' theory, I feel relates best to The Shining in many ways, as does Bordwell & Thompsons theory, however Todorov's theory doesn't relate as strongly as the others, and, in my opinion I feel that Propps theory makes basically no sense when applying it to The Shining.

Freuds "The return of the repression"

The term "the return of the repressed" is a term developed by Freud linking with the idea of neurotic symptoms. Linking in with his idea of the Ego, the Superego and the Id, Freud developed this idea to try and describe what happens when a thought or a feeling trys to force its way to the mind in which it will be expressed (Id, for example). The Ego, commonly known as the 'referee', would however stop this by repressing it back down, allowing it never to be expressed and/or portrayed. The feelings of an only child being introduced to a new brother/sister at a young age is a perfect example of this - mixing all the new and confusing emotions together and the child having to repress all the feelings down into the unconscious.

So, Freud believes that as humans, everyone goes through the process of repressing at some point, especially when they are growing up. He believed that we push things down and ignore them in the bid to cover up our true emotions, or in fact to come to terms with what has happened. However, although we may push those thoughts down inside us so far that we stop thinking about them, those thoughts and strong feelings and emotions as well as desires and impulses are still there, and always will be. We can go on for months, even years without thinking about what we have repressed, but Freud believes that we will never forgot it, and even a simple trigger can bring back repressed memories from years ago, and our true feelings and emotions will eventually come out nearer the time, and possibly more developed.

So, how does this relate to horror? well, if we all repress certain feelings and emotions, then what about our feelings when we are hurt, or betrayed, or even more extreme (such as being abused as a child, etc). Even the example I previously used about an older child being ignored when a new child is brought into the family applies well to this. If Freud believes that all of us, one day will have our repressed memories come back, who knows how we will control these emotions. Horror takes this idea and allows it to work in its favour, because our villains can always be looked at as having repressed thoughts coming out, causing them to do the things they do. People always say when watching some of the disgusting and terrifying things that happen in horror 'oh how would think to do that?', well, horror uses the idea that we've had repressed feelings of anger and impulses to do bad things to people to allow the villains to perform such acts. Because, like in real life, horror plays on the idea that people do bad things because they aren't psychologically healthy - no normal person would do half of these things. So Horror, and Freud work well along side each other, taking Freud's idea of repressing all our hidden emotions, and horrors impulses of letting them all come out.

Horror audiences on the other hand, could have Freuds theory applied to them in 2 different ways. One thing about watching horror is that, if a person has lead a life that has been very extreme and they have gone through a lot, one simple horror film could unlock all the repressed memories they have, once being reminded of it. But on the other hand, horror may only be feeding people's sick minds for when/if their repressed memories are ever unlocked. Audiences are also shown the strong bond between 'good' and 'evil' as Freud intended.