The Horror Genre page features our groups transition work which was completed before and during the summer half term for which we have now visually presented our best pieces, especially our summer projects which is placed at the bottom of the page where we have a range of posters, magazines and trailers which highlights our strengths in creative design.
Iconic Horror Films
During our transition into A2 media our first task was watching some of the most popular horror movie trailers, in which we wrote down background information for example the director, release date and sub-genre. In terms of each movies' sub-genre we looked at how its portrayed, important concepts that arises and are continuously used. We also looked at the meanings behind certain icons (i.e. in J-horror the yurei ghost) used throughout the clips. The following gallery illustrates the task as well as the iconic horror trailers beneath:
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Horror Semiotics
Semiotics is the study of signs. A sign is anything that carries meaning from explicit icons to implicit symbols and iconic signs. For the following task we had a class discussion about the three types of codes in semiotics which are: 1) symbolic (mis en scene) - from viewing the prezi you will see connotations behind weapons, masks, religion, locked content mirrors, death and toys, 2) written & audio can illustrate the connotations behind certain types of typography and sounds and lastly number 3 is technical which is the meanings behind different camera shots and angles plus why are they used:
Horror Sub-Genres
In the build up of learning about horror sub-genres we watched clips from popular horror films based on the genres listed bellow. What we learnt from our class discussions is specific features involved within their genre i.e. how the protagonists are portrayed and what makes them unique and memorable. Following from this we listed down key films which we use as inspiration from our group project:
Horror Theories
This prezi presentation features the 3 main horror theories: Graeme Burton's genre theory, Todorov's narrative theory and Laura Mulvey's: The 'male gaze'. In terms of burton's theory, he illustrates the key elements that are important within horror films such as the protagonist (hero) and antagonism (villain), stock characters/situations, icons etc. Todrov's narrative theory distinguishes the mean of the beginning, middle and end within horror which is: equilibrium (balance), disequilibrium (balance disrupted) and the resolution (how will the problem be solved. Lastly Muley's male gaze theory illustrates the difference between how male and female characters are likely to be portrayed in horror films:
Treatments
The following section is a written plan which features our synopsis, the Todorov narrative theory (equilibrium, disequilibrium and resolution), our inferred meanings and the cast , title and tagline. These plans are linked to the summer projects we produced which is viewed at the bottom of this page. Due to the many horror films we have watched before the summer we were able to familiarize ourselves with what to expect when making a trailer based on a specific sub-genre. For this reason the majority of our concepts reflect the genre theory made by Graeme Burton which features the principle cast, stock characters, stock situations, themes etc.
Storyboards
The instruction for the following task was to pair up with another member of the class and draw a storyboard after watching a recent horror trailers which we were able to choose from a list . The most popular trailer drawn from our group was the film 'I spit on your grave' released in 2010. Firstly we focused on how many scenes were featured, then we began to divide them into 16 shots. For this reason each drawing was able to flow on the storyboards:
Trailer Content Analyses
For trailer content analyses each table were given time to watch at least a minute long horror trailers where at the same time writing down what we notice for example shots of the aggressor and victims, camera, editing and sound techniques that engaged us to continue watching. We also looked out for the different locations used and what graphic content was portrayed. Some of the following trailers we anaylised was: The Visit, The Purge Anarchy, I Saw The Devil and I Spit On Your Grave.
Film Crits
The following section shows film crits where we had the chance in our free periods to watch popular horror films and look out for who were the principle and stock characters as well as the equilibrium, disequilibrium and the resolution. We also had to give our own opinion of what we thought of the films The Exorcist, Rec and Scream:
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Summer Work
This section illustrates how our group how the chance to understand the process of the A2 media task which is to create a horror Trailer, Magazine and poster. It allowed to have a beginners trial on the thought process from which we have learnt the basic steps and tried to illustrate that we can go beyond. It was also a process where we could show off our creative skills and learn what would be our strengths and weaknesses are in terms of putting everything together. Bellow you'll able to see our works including comments from our group members:
tHE bUNKER(trailer and poster) created by lucy renshaw |
tHE MAZE (trailer and poster) created by huldah boakyewaa
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Explicit (magazine) and fallen angel(poster) - created by Genesis
Genesis states his strengths were:
content plus its a change from last year' |
the Fallen (poster) created by maada sessay
Maada states his strengths were:
Maada states his weaknesses were:
'overall i enjoyed making the poster as it was good for me to have practice before the real project plus coming together to work with my brother was also enjoyable' |