Z.S Genre Research - Scissor Massacre (

Genre

This is a horror film and this is made obvious by the eerie music and blurred images of faces. It is also shown to be in a hospital and has a panning shot of scissors. All of this creates an enigma and the pictures of scans and gore let the audience piece the story together.

 

Audiences expect horror films to scare them and to make them feel uncomfortable. Their expectations are fulfilled with the gory images of the surgery and the music is quite unusual.

It uses quite a calm piece of music which is ironic to the piece as it is obviously a stressful and frightening time for the woman being operated on. Once again this help reinforce the genre.

Film language

The scissors and pictures used as well as it obviously being placed in a white hospital shows the audience that there is something to be frightened about and that they should be wary.

When she is being operated on their is a point of view shot which looks up at the doctors, this shows the audience that she is weak and vulnerable. It also shows us that she is one of the stock characters as we are seeing it from her perspective.

The sound, as mentioned before is ironic because it is serene and calm even though it is obvious that it was not like that for our stock character.

 

Characters waiting in the hospital are all silent with their heads bowed down which is a non verbal method of making the audience aware that it is a sad time for the characters.

There are several blurred images, such as the doctors faces, this may have been used by the director to show the characters' fear and confusion.

MD-Analysing opening sequences

It is indicative to note that as we were no sure what genre to decide we thought that it would be best to study individual different genres to give us a better idea of what genre to decide upon.

Z.S Genre Research - One missed call (

Media audiences

The target audience is males and females aged 16-25, these are the people who can relate best with the young characters and generally tend to enjoy horror films more than older audiences.

The probable audience readings of this text is that the girl being bullied at school is weak and defensless and that she does not deserve it. The audience are made to feel sympathy for her and we are put in her view point so are more likely to support her.

As a young british teenager watching a Japanese horror, i probably find it more frightening than a japanese audience would because they myths and legends which a lot of the horror films are based on are not familiar to me. However as a teenager i feel i can relate to the character and can sympathise with her pain when she is being bullied and treated badly.

Z.S Genre Research - Ringu (

Representation and Ideology

The social group represented in this media text is mainly teenage girls. They are seen to be having a sleepover and gossiping about boys, which is how teenage girls are stereotypically seen.

When talking about the phone call and scary film, they show that diversity of Japanese myths and legends which are not apparent in our British culture.

Narrative

The narrative is a structured conversation between the two teenage girls at what appears to be a sleepover. They are gossiping and chatting like you would expect most teenage girls to.

The audience are positioned as an outsider and are listening in to the conversation, however due to the priority camera shots we are positioned more with the girl who claims to have seen a weird film.

This text uses identification by using the teenage girls, because a large proportion of the target audience will be young/teenage girls. However it is slightly alienated, but this is because i am a british teenager, which is obviously very different from the life of a japanese teenager.

The theme of the narrative seems to be around the "weird film" one of the girls claims to have seen. This is a good way to introduce the story line as both girls are aware of the story and say that "everyone is talking about it".

Tension is created an maintained by having medium close ups on the girls face so we, as the audience can see her reactions and non verbal communications to see that she is scared and that she is the character of primary concern. The ringing of the phone also creates a shock, which helps to keep the audience interested.

JR - Analysing an Opening Sequence

Pulp Fiction ( Quentin Tarantino, 1994)

Genre Analysis

The film 'Pulp Fiction' is a thriller action film, we can tell this by the opening sequence as there is a shoot out and this is a common convention of the genre. Also the location is in what looks like a City Cafe.

Another Convention of a thriller is the bad guys and good guys, this is a stereotypical image of what a action film is normally. The opening credits are two a upbeat soundtrack, which also leads to how the genre is a fast pasted and upbeat.

In this opening sequence the does fulfil the generic expectation of the text, this expectation was a gun scene at the begin to which draws the audience into the film, and this is a stereotypical ideology of thriller. At the beginning we see the couple talking about robbing banks, drug stores and other places, this sets up our expectation of the thriller genre.

The clip does conform to many characteristics of the genre of a thriller, it does this by presenting several conventions of a stereotypical thriller film, these being fast pace action, guns and a little bit of romance. Thought this are not always presented in the beginning of a thriller but can be seen throughout.

Institutional Context

There are many well known stars in 'Pulp Fiction' a few being, Samuel L. Jackson, John Travolta and Tim Roth. It was important to have bit known stars so to promote the film. Samuel L. Jackson for example is a well known actor to the genre of thriller therefore he helps to promote the film. Also having a very well known director also helps sell the film.

The studio which produced 'Pulp Fiction' was Miramax Films, which is an art house/ independent film production company. 

Genre Timeline

What Women Suffer-1911-Made in Australia. This was the earliest to try and create a thriller. However, this movie was clearly limited by not just it’s black and white colour but also the sound which makes it difficult for the audience to really be scared as this genre not only heavily relies on the characters fears and beliefs, as well as, the sound to build tension and further the plot.

After Five, 1915 The first records of the thriller genre, moving to America is with this film.

The genre really started to take off when iconic film directors like Alfred Hitchcock decided to immersive themselves in it, making a more credible film proposition.

Rebecca in 1940

Rear Window 1953- this was especially well accredited and begins the real trend for modern thrillers.

In 1974 another classic thriller was created by Polanski.

Nevertheless, one of the most iconic films was Jaws (Spielberg, 75)

Taxi Driver, 1976 by the famous director Martin Scorsese was another iconic thriller. From this film came the famous lines "ARE YOU TALKIN' TO ME"

This Genre started to develop more on the physchological aspect with Silence of the Lambs (Demme, 91)

Quentin Tarantino’s pulp fiction 1994 re-enforced this development in crime-horror.

Se7en (Fincher, 95) starring Brad Pitt is another iconic thriller film

These Japanese films are the main sub genre that we believe that we would be able to re-create and exploit.

Japan made early forays into the horror genre with Bake Jizo and Shinin no Sosei, both made in 1898.

This pre-war Japanese film was one of the first Japanese horror films, but sadly like most pre-war horrors it has been forgotten over time and has not been appreciated.

Ugetsu Monogatari 1953 – Dir: Kenji Mizoguchi. – has been called ‘the most beautiful ghost story ever filmed’: visually stunning, like an ancient painting shrouded in fog and silence. This film had an extremely low budget and relied mainly on an eerie atmosphere instead of using special effects or computer graphics. This film laid out the foundations for modern Japanese horror such as ‘Ringu’ and ‘The Grudge’.

The Ring , 2002 directed by Verbisnki was the first successful film to really build on the psychological aspect of the film which aided them financially as it brought the certificate rating down. Furthermore, it changed its main character to a girl to conform to the expectations of the audience that to some extent alone explain its success. Also introduced the way for other psychological thriller remakes like the Grudge and Dark Water, as well, as its own remake.

The Grudge (Shimizu, 04)

Dark Water (Salles, 05)

The Grudge 2 (Shimizu, 05)

The Grudge 3 (Wilkins, 09)

MD - Media genre analysis 1