Definition of Transmedia: When a text is not limited to one media.
Transmedia text helps films appeal to an audience because not only do other medias promote the actual film but also if the audience like one of the medias shown they will most likely to check out the others to see whether they like it too. This is also a way to create a block buster film if it gets popular enough.
Blumer & Katz: Media Theories- Uses and Gratification.
There are only 4 reasons why an audience enjoy a media (Film)
1. Personal Relationships
- Relationships in the real world
- Talking to people about media - X Factor on Monday
2. Personal Identity
-When you see yourself in the film
- Relate to characters
3. Diversion
- Escaping from the real world
4. Information
- News
Evil Dead case study:
Media: Video game (PlayStation 2 & Xbox)
Release date: September-October 2005
Media: Video game (PlayStation, Dreamcast & Microsoft windows)
Release date: December 2000- June 2001
A step by step recipe for new film writers on how to make the perfect horror film
In order to make the perfect horror film you will need to identify what makes the perfect horror film for your audience to love & enjoy. First thing you will need to know are the key ingredients for a horror film. Ingredients
1) The setting of the horror film is commonly used as the base of the perfect mixture. Without the base the film will lack in flavor.
2) 3 or more tablespoons of themes that will tickle your taste buds,
3) You will also need a dash of a good daunting sound track
4) A couple of characters to tie the whole story together
5) And last but not least a delicious narrative that will have the audience on the edge of their seats.
Method
Step 1:
Firstly you will need to pick what type of setting the horror film will be, the usual settings for a horror film are normally
- Small communities or isolated places
- Urban environments
- Dark streets
- Narrow alleyways
- Large cities
- New house
Step 2;
After picking a setting you will need to toss it into a bowl and give it a quick mix. Then you will need to choose a narrative. Picking a narrative shouldn't be too hard after picking your setting, once you have the setting, the story can easily be made up based around what setting you have chosen. Say if you chosen 'new house' for your setting normally the narrative would be about a new family moving into a haunted house. An example of this would be the films 'Insidious' or 'The Haunting.'
Step 3:
Now that you have both the setting and the narrative in the bowl whisk the two together to give it a creamy texture.
Step 4:
The next thing to throw into the mix would be the themes. Now choosing the themes is a very important step to take in the process of creating a perfect horror film, if this step is missed out the whole thing could turn out like a disaster. With the theme you will need to choose it wisely by considering what you already have. An example would be: say you have chosen the setting 'new house' with the narrative with a new family moving in to a haunted house you would need to think about what sort of theme the story line fits into where its a 'Good vrs Evil' or a religious based film or a film that portrays depression. Choosing the right theme for your film will give it the right flavor and the right colour so your target audience will enjoy it more.
Step 5:
Next you need to start chopping up some human flesh and add 8 pints of blood to form your characters. The formation of character creating is the longest step because you have to choose each of the characters personalities and what actor would suit the characters look and be able to act the characters personality as well. This is a lengthy process because you will need to cast auditions so you get to see how each person acted and then at the end choose the best person.
Step 6:
Now that you have the setting, the narrative, the themes and the characters its time to bake your perfect horror film mix in the oven for a good 45 minutes until its a good deep red with blood oozing out of the top.
Step 7:
After the perfect horror film is ready leave it to cool for 10 minutes and then after sprinkle a dash of a
daunting, eerie soundtrack of your choice to tie the whole film together and bish bash bosh you have the perfect horror film.
Just because you have the perfect horror film doesn't mean its all over just yet, there are a few things you need to do to share the perfectness of your film with the public... and that is to advertise it correctly. When advertising your film you want to grab the audiences attention without giving away too much.
Here are some good examples of ways other films grabbed their audiences attention.
This trailer was promoting the film 'Carrie.' Its about a girl who has telekinetic powers just like the way this video was filmed. This grabs the public's attention because its funny to see peoples reactions and for the people who witnessed this happening this will definitely stick to their minds and when they see the film is out hopefully they will go to watch it.
A trailer isn't the only way to grab your audiences attention another way would be to create a whole load of different posters that could also grab peoples attention.. here are some good examples:
The image is the thing that really grabs the audiences attention, this image is unusual because the girls body is bent in an abnormal way also her body + shadow together looks like a 2 which is also quite interesting.
If you're a Harry Potter fan then you will know what this is about, this poster didn't even need a title because everyone knows about it, this will get the fans talking which will get it more publicity,
Other ways you can get publicity is through
- Merchandise
- Media ( Twitter, Facebook, YouTube.)
Some horror films are influenced by true stories like Annabelle was and the conjuring.
So that is the way you could make a perfect horror film. I hope you enjoy creating a story that will make you sleep less at night.
Zara Butterworth researching horror audiences: Accessed date: 26/01/2015, Zara butterworth, http://www.slideshare.net/zarabutterworth/researching-horror-audiences
Zara Butterworth is a student who was doing research on horror audience, she produced a slide-share on what she has discovered, here is what I learnt from her slide share:
- Largest group of cinema goers are people between the ages of 15-24.
- In her opinion males see horror/action more than females whereas woman typically prefer watching genres such as comedy & romance.
- However recent figures show that females watching horror has exceeded male viewers for the first time.
- Not only are woman conventionally less likely to visit cinema but statistics show that vast majority of films within the genre are directed/written/produced by men.
Molly's A2 media blog: Target Audience of Horror films
Accessed date: 26/01/2015, Molly Rose Brown, http://enorfbrownm.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/target-audience-of-horrorfilms-any-form.html
Molly is also another student who has done some primary research on the target audience on horror films. Here are some of the things that I learnt from it:
- The rating and audience on a horror film depends on what the horror film actually contains,
- Teenage males would be more likely to watch horror films as the simple stereotype of males being the more 'harder to scare' gender whereas females are supposedly easier to scare and quite feminine.
The Guardian: Everything but the ghoul Access date: 26/1/2015, The Guardian http://www.theguardian.com/film/2007/apr/06/2
From this article I have learnt
- There are very few female directors of any genre. I think the type of horror films women tend to like are perhaps more interesting, more psychological
- Psychologists have long believed that our attraction to horror films is that they allow us to explore and experiment with fears and emotions. But there are suggestions that women respond to fear in a way that men don't. "fear can facilitate sexual responsiveness in women, whereas it inhibits in men" - Dr Glenn Wilson
Pacific + Standard- The psychology of a horror movie fan
What I learnt from this article is that: Horror films that end un happily should then produce heightened dysphoria
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Conclusion:
From all the articles I have read and all the self research other students did I have learnt that the audience rating all depends on what the film involves.
Genre conventions are things that make the genre, things you would expect to see in a specific genre. To be able to recognise a specific genre you need to look at the setting, narrative, characterisation and the themes.
A horror film setting normally includes:
- Small communities or isolated places
- Urban environments
- Dark streets
- Narrow alleyways
- Large cities
- New house
Anything that connotes isolation or being alone.
The typical horror film narratives are:
- Revenge from the killer/supernatural creature
- Halloween night
- Friday 13th
- The dead not at peace
- New family moving into old house
The general characters in a horror film are:
- Victim
- Hero
- The villain (often a supernatural creature)
- Stupid immoral teenagers that always get killed
- Creepy children
- Police officers (good/bad)
And finally the themes that occur in most horror films:
- Good vs Evil
- Depression
- Religion
- Death
- Revenge
- Murder
- Nightmares
- Madness
- Envy
- Suicide
Here is a horror film called 'Annabelle' directed by John R. Leonetti produced James Wan:
The settings the trailer show are:
- New house
- Isolated places
The narrative that was shown was:
- New family moving into new house
- The dead (supernatural possessed doll) not at peace
And finally the characters that were shown:
- Victim
- Hero
- The villain (the doll and the serial killers)
- Creepy children
Themes shown:
- Religion
- Death
- Revenge
- Murder
- Madness
- Suicide
Sound:
- Typical scary music
- Screams
- Scary whispers
- Laughter
- ticking
- Door creaking
- Contrapuntal music
- Sounds louder than normal
Here is another horror film directed by Levan Gabriadze and produced by Bekmambetov & Greaves
Setting the trailer shows:
- In house alone (Isolated)
This is an article that intends to explore the relationship between the producers, Disney and the audience 5-15 year olds. $400,738,009 is the box office that has been taken by Disney's Frozen so far. The film Frozen is about two sisters, Anna a strong fearless female character and Elsa, a strong independent woman who has lived her life in fear. Because of her magical powers Elsa has managed to get herself into quite some trouble which has caused her to hold back her powers and keep them a secret from everyone, and in order to do so she had to be isolated away from everyone, even her sister. One day her powers become revealed to everyone because she loses control of them so she runs away to let herself be free, which causes the Kingdom of Arendelle to have a eternal winter. Anna goes on a long journey in order to save her sister and the town. This film has become extremely successful due to the relationship it developed with it's audience and through Frozen events like the sing along event that was put on for the audience who enjoyed Frozen, and the heavy marketing with all the teaser posters and different trailers.
Frozen directed by Chris Buck & Jennifer Lee and the producers were Disney. This film was the most discussed film on Facebook in 2014 which is primarily due to the fact that Facebook is used more by the primary audience; 5-15 year old young females. Disney appeal to their audience by creating merchandise targeted at a specific age group and gender based on the film, for frozen they created a lot of merchandise targeted at young girls knowing what they want and putting a Frozen logo on it which will make the young girls want it even more EXAMPLES. The relationship between Disney and their audience is built on the selling and marketing of films and the merchandise. For Frozen they made their merchandise gender specific. They have made more girl merchandise than boy merchandise because Disney targeted their film for young girls and there are more girls that watched the film than boys.
The film became so popular that sing along events were made in the Royal Albert hall. The stars that voiced the two princesses were Kristen Bell (Anna) and Idina Menzel (Elsa). Kristen Bell is known for acting in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Veronica Mars while Idina Menzel is known for being in another Disney film Enchanted and also is known for being in 2005 film Rent. Whenever anyone hears about a Disney film everyone automatically thinks of romance and magical stories that people could only dream about, instead of this film being a romantic magical film its a film about a relationship between sisters that has a stronger bond than any other sort of relationship. This is the reason why the film became a blockbuster, purely because this film wasn't about another relationship that ends so perfectly but its about how woman don't need to rely on a man to fulfill their wishes. This teaches young girls that you don't need to be in a relationship to be happy, this film is different from other Disney films because the majority of Disney princess films all end with the girl meeting the perfect boy and they skip happily into the sunset. Rather than the audiences expectations being met, it wasn't what they expected it to be but it still got positive feedback. The normal Disney princess films was teaching young girls the wrong idea of love, which sets their expectations too high so when reality hits them they will be disappointed. This constructs a more positive representation of woman which is why I believe this is one of the main reasons this film became really popular. The box office domestic total gross came up to a shocking number of $400,738,009 and worldwide it made $1,274,219,009. Arguably Disney is the most successful animation production in all of history.
Frozen has targeted 5-15 year olds as their primary audience. This film was mainly targeted at young girls but a minority of boys have also found this film appealing as well, ''At 3:36am the other week, my son climbed into bed with me and started singing that he was the queen in a kingdom of isolation. He’s five.' (SOURCE) This film appeals to this specific targeted audience because at this age children are more vulnerable and easily influenced and this film teaches the younger audience that family is all you need, you don't need a hero to save you, you just need your friends and family. This film teaches younger people to be more independent.
When Ana goes after Elsa telling everyone at the kingdom that she is going alone shows that she relies on nobody but herself.
Elsa is another example of how independence is shown in the film, she runs away from the Kingdom and builds a life for herself on her own without anyone with her.
People find Frozen a easy film to relate to since there is the big theme of isolation which a lot of the younger audience and the older audience can relate to. For anyone who has ever felt alone can relate to this film easily because in the beginning of the film Elsa had to isolate herself from everyone to prevent anyone from knowing her secret, she was scared to mingle with people just in case she hurt them.
Frozen uses marketing to promote the film with its target audience (5-15) by creating a lot of promotional teaser posters and theoretical posters, after the posters Disney created a teaser trailer and a theoretical trailer as well, because of the teaser trailer people got confused and thought this film was all about a snowman that's on a journey, the teaser trailer had nothing to do with the actual film so this tricked a few people into watching it. The theoretical trailer presented Elsa to be a bad character, which didn't give too much away about the film, from the trailer it looked like any other ordinary princess Disney film. After getting such a big reaction from the audience and media frozen sing along DVDs started coming out which made the film an even bigger hit. Frozen merchandise started selling loads so Disney saw this as an opportunity to make a lot of money and keep the film at the top. Children's frozen clothing started coming out as well as toys, bed spread sheets, plates, towels and even phone cases. Not only was this a popular film for children but a lot of adults enjoyed this film as well. Frozen events started happening and even frozen costumes came out. Because of how much frozen was promoted more and more people started talking about it which also helped Disney with promotion. This film became the new hype because of how much it was talked about,
Looking deeply into the film Frozen it has made me realize that there was a deeper reason why the film got so popular. The marketing for the film definitely helped keep the hype going which excited the children which made them demand more. A film would have to be a good film for it to get popular, the marketing for Frozen only advertised what the film was going to show. I did some Primary research to see what girls between 5-15 thought of the film and what gender do they think its aimed at and why, here are the answers I received: 'I thought that the film had a lot of meaning behind it, I really enjoyed the twist at the end. I think its more aimed at females because its about two girls, and since its a princess film it seems more girly.' 'The film was a good film because it was about 2 sisters rather than a couple, I think its aimed at girls because its a princess film.' From the answers I got people believe that this film was more directed at females rather than males. I feel that this film is a great film for the younger audience to look up to, it gives them a whole new sight of what love is really like and how family should come before anything.
The Departed, (Martin Scorsese, 2006) is a remake of the original film Infernal Affairs, (Wai Keung Lau, 2002). Both films were very successful except the original was more successful in Honk Kong than anywhere else because the film was in Chinese. One of the main reasons Scorsese remade the film was because of the language and the unknown actors which made it difficult for the film to become big in the US, so he remade it in English using famous well known stars and it became a big hit.
The film critic Roger Ebert did a review on The Departed and believed that Scorsese still made this remake of the film his own because he is an auteur. In Hollywood film remakes are highly popular but normally when a film is remade it's normally exactly same as the original and it either does better or worse. The Departed wasn't just a remake, Scorsese managed to make this film slightly different to make it his own. "What makes this a Scorsese film, and not merely a retread is the director's use of actors, locations and energy, and it's buried theme. I am fond of saying that a movie is not about what it's about; it's about how it's about. That's always true of a Scorsese film." (Ebert, 10.12.14)
After watching both 'Infernal Affairs' and 'The Departed' both films have similarities however The Departed had a greater sense of exposition than the original. In the beginning half of The Departed, the film had narration by one of the characters 'Frank Costello. The character 'Frank Costello' is established as dominant and powerful because of his opening sentence from the narration 'I don't want to be a product of my environment, I want my environment to be a product of me.' Here he is saying that he doesn't want the environment to have an impact on him but he wants to have an impact on his environment, he wants to take charge and be dominant this is one of the key characteristics that he displays during the film.
Here is a screenshot of Frank Costello while he was narrating.
'no one gives it to you, you have to take it'
As part of the exposition 'Frank Costello' lets the audience know what exactly is happening by narrating, It is this strong sense exposition that is in contrast with the film 'Infernal Affairs.' An American audience may understand less about Infernal Affairs because it didn't have the narration explaining what’s happening. charcacter and themes
At the very beginning of the film, it showed some archive footage of what the crime was like before, this helped give exposition by showing the audience Boston’s crime before the character Frank Costello took charge.
Instead of shooting the film in its original destination Scorsese decided to film in the town Boston. Martin didn't pick this place randomly, he decided on Boston because it has a lot of violent history behind it which suited the films scenes and themes.
Here is a screenshot of the archive footage in Boston showing the audience what Boston was like in the past. 'the city experienced conflict starting in 1974 over desegregation busing, which resulted in unrest and violence around public schools throughout the mid-1970s.'
When the film started the characters names were used a lot which helped the audience identify each characters name. In the beginning of Infernal Affairs there wasn't any narration over the film to tell the audience what the plot was, but there was also not a lot of use of characters names, this technique could make it more difficult for a mainstream audience to understand the narrative.
I analysed both films ‘The Departed’ and ‘Infernal Affairs’ and noticed that ‘The Departed’ had more exposition. ‘The Departed’ was made for the American audience, having more exposition is typical for mainstream American films since the Americans are a passive audience, while ‘Infernal Affairs’ was set in Japan and the audience there is an active audience. The departed has more drama, romance and exposition. This is typical for a film that comes out of Hollywood rather than Hong Kong.
Infernal affairs is a crime thriller whilst The Departed is a crime/drama thriller. Because the remake had better exposition which made it easier for the audience to understand, The crime genre was more identifiable in The Departed than Infernal Affairs. The crime scenes were rushed into in Infernal Affairs This could be because of the lack of narration.
Love triangles, drug abuse and alcoholism; these are some of the dramatic scenes that occurs in The Departed. The love triangle is between the three characters Billy, Collin and Madolyn. Madolyn originally meets the character Collin first but she notices Collin keeping things from her, and then she meets Billy. They start of with an argument and then they get to know each other and Billy ends up having only her to trust. They met because Madolyn was his psychiatrist and Billy was asking her to put him on some pills, this is where the drug abuse scene starts, she only gives him the pills because he shouted at her which shows drug addict behavior which adds to the drama. Another drug scene is when Billy is with his cousin selling drugs to get the attention of the character Frank.
Having more drama in a film keeps the audience entertained and it also appeals to a wider audience. In Infernal Affairsthere wasn't as many dramatic scenes which caused the film to feel like it was dragging on for too long which causes the audience to feel less engaged. Because of the wide variety of scenes The Departed was more commercially successful as a result.
The stars in The Departed did have an impact on the film because they bring the attention of their fan base to the film, the stars fans would watch the film just because they're in it rather than watching the film because they like it. In Infernal affairs the American audience didn't recognize any of the actors so their attention wouldn't have been as engaged as it it would of been if they saw an actor they knew/liked.
The Martin Scorsese film costed approximately $90 million to make while Infernal Affairs was 50 million Hong Kong dollars. For The departed it made a grand total of $132,384,315 in the box office and Infernal Affairs made $169,659.
Why was it remade?: The departed is a remake of the film Infernal affairs, the original was directed by the director Andrew Lau. It was remade because the language of the original was in Chinese, so to make it appeal to the American audience more they remade it, changing the language to English.
What genre is it?: Departed was made as a crime drama film but the original 'Infernal affairs' was made as a crime thriller film.
