MISE-EN-SCENE set-dressing in 4400

tbc

Prominence of student work on YouTube

I've blogged previously on the growing number of made-for-fun short horror films on YouTube (especially zombie flicks), reflecting the ongoing impact of digitisation and the accessibility of digital film-making today, but its worth noting too how the battalions of Media Studies students across the land are leaving their own legacy. As students conduct research into their chosen genre before setting out to create their own genre piece, increasingly they could be accessing other students' distilled research to do so!

When doing some tagging on archive posts I came across a mention of how prominent my students' work was on YouTube search results - so, a year or so on, I had another look, and sure enough, a 'slasher openings' on YouTube (Nov 15th 2013) produced the following top results:

IGS student work came top of the pile in this search

You can help make your work more widely seen by using YouTube categories and tagging.

Martin Scorsese's Top 11 Horror Movies

There's always some publication/organisation publishing a 'top horror' list - the genre remains very popular, whilst also continuing to evolve; the likes of Saw are very different indeed from the 60s Hammer movies that briefly dominated the global horror audience!

The Guardian has indeed run a top 10 horror in 2013 (their horror microsite is here), part of a wider genre-by-genre series, but this is a little bit different: the countdown by one of the all-time greats of film-making, Martin Scorsese (Raging Bull etc!). Plus ... like Spinal Tap, he turns it up to 11!
Great article, with trailers/clips helpfully built in; his selections are firmly of the old school...

Violent scenes

Easily the most difficult aspect of trying to create your own slasher: your earnest efforts can end up causing laughter instead of chills unless you're very careful about framing, editing, mise-en-scene/SFX and sound. Try watching almost any slasher kill/violence scene with the sound off (repeat with no pictures, sound only) and you'll quickly appreciate what a difference sound can make. That includes unsettling diegetic sound (often exaggerated), not just non-diegetic music.
This is just a placeholder post for now, something I'll add to at a later date. There's no substitute for viewing (though reading the likes of Stephen Rebello's Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho [1990], or any of the many journal/web articles devoted to this topic will certainly help) examples to boost your understanding of how filmmakers maintain verisimilitude in this central feature for slasher audiences.

Sometimes, though, there's an intentional degree of campness, even before Scream made postmodernism part of the slasher mix. The vid below (a daft vodcast ... with over 175k views) contains some examples, but its not hard to find many more on YouTube.

NB: The following vid features strong language and clips from 18-rated films featuring strong violence.

tbc

Franchises

A couple of useful resources (I'll probably add more later) on a central feature of the genre: the franchise, with endless generally low-budget sequels, costs kept low by having few returning characters between movies able to demand higher fees (Scream was a notable exception), often treating the fanbase shoddily by selectively following the narratives of previous movies.

http://horror.about.com/od/horrorfranchises/Horror_Movie_Franchises.htm - Good list, with each entry hyperlinked to further info
http://uk.ign.com/articles/2006/12/18/top-25-movie-franchises-of-all-time-7 - slasher franchises feature in the list
http://www.joblo.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-32794.html - a forum's list of best 10 slashers ever, in which franchise entries feature heavily
http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-horror-franchises-they-should-have-killed-for-real.php - A different approach: the 10 franchises that should have been scrapped!
http://turtlecanyon.wordpress.com/2012/10/31/the-slasher-movie-franchise-rankings/ - a simple listing of the entries in 3 key franchises (Scream, Hwn, Fri 13th)
http://lovingthehalloweenfranchise.tumblr.com/ - a blog dedicated to Halloween (there are many more out there)
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/genres/chart/?id=slasher.htm - the top 20 all-time slasher movies by box office features ... 20 franchise entries, which says a lot about how the genre functions
http://forum.dvdtalk.com/movie-talk/606071-favorite-slasher-film-franchises-why.html - a poll and discussion about the best slasher franchise
http://www.he-man.org/forums/boards/showthread.php?179117-Slasher-Movie-Poll! - interesting list of best slasher killer etc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMJr9vSfZQ4&feature=related - most remakes have been abysmal; here's a video comparison of the orig + remake NoESt

NARRATIVE Nowell's 7 key stages of slasher

Nowell’s book Blood Money (2011) is primarily concerned with a point on audience: that slasher movies were aimed as much at female as at male audiences. He also makes an incredibly useful analysis of what he considers the universal components of the early slasher narratives, listed below, also noting that films were given some differentiation + novelty alongside their redundancy by playing around with the ordering of these. Once more, Todorov’s notions influenced him.

‘Part One: Setup

1.Trigger: Events propel a human (the killer) upon a homicidal trajectory.

2.Threat: The killer targets a group of hedonistic youths for killing.

Part Two: Disruption

3. Leisure: Youths interact recreationally in an insular quotidian location.

4. Stalking: A shadowy killer tracks youths in that location.

5. Murders: The shadowy killer kills some of the youths.

Part Three: Resolution

6. Confrontation: The remaining character(s) challenges the killer.

7. Neutralization: The immediate threat posed by the killer is eliminated.’ (p.21)

21 Memorable scream queens

Not my list, but a useful blog post to help with your research; see http://www.buzzsugar.com/Movie-Scream-Queens-20062131.

REMAKES Mark Kermode's reviews-NoESt

You can find footage of his reviews of other remakes (TCM, LHotLeft etc) by searching or looking on the suggested video column alongside the following vid. No matter what franchise/idea you're working on, you'll find his reviews useful - eg, this one points up that the conflict/dis-equilibrium in the original film occurs only because parents lied to their children.

Here's another cracking quote from this:

Now what you get is Michael Bay's lot, the destroyers of all creativity in cinema, the jack-booted bank managers who just come storming through in the pursuit of a quick buck going What was the whole thesis of [NoESt] ... Oh! He's got a big claw! ... It's just this horrible reducto absurdium. In this, there's none of the [original's] coherence, the backstory is completely messed up. ... Its nastier in all the wrong ways. Its boring and louder.

He really doesn't hold back!

Mark Kermode's Doc Scream + Scream Again

Mark Kermode, Radio 5's famously-quiffed film reviewer, presented this doc some time ago, reflecting his status as a leading authority on the horror genre. A YT user has uploaded it in 5 parts (click on his list of uploaded vids to find the rest); here's part 1:

Child's Play 6 due...

See http://bloody-disgusting.com/news/3149679/omfg-childs-play-sequel-begins-casting-its-the-curse-of-chucky/

BellaOnlone on Popularity of Horror Films

From http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art5267.asp (BellaOnline "The Voice of Women")

Steven Casey Murray
BellaOnline's Horror Movies Editor

The Popularity of Horror Films

Scary, creepy, and downright disturbing images have existed in film as long as we have had the ability to invent them, perceive them, and construct them. People like to be scared, they crave it and seek it out. The need for fear is inherent within the human psyche. It’s our yin to the yang of feelings of security and acceptance. Fear has been part of our imagination since children, since we were scared to have the light turned off, or that something was under the bed. Horror can stem from our individual fears or the collective conscious, for example the fear of death. It is a fact that horror, and by extension horror movies, appeal to our most primitive state. Horror strips us down to our essence and takes us back to the caveman – the fight or flight.

Horror movies can, and have, helped many individuals through times of real horror within their own lives. Identifying with the protagonist who is trying to overcome the monster; a metaphor for the troubles we ourselves are trying to overcome in reality. Because horror is innate in the human mind, elements of horror are shown in every type of film genre. Horror movies cause us to ask the eternal question, “what if” and allow us to safely delve into our primal fears. A fear that has been there since childhood, a fear we are all born with in our body’s make-up.

from http://levigeorge.com/junk/sep2009/

Audience Expectations in the ‘Slasher’ Formula

< Back

Spoilers:

Friday the 13th (parts 1 and 5)

April Fools Day.

Halloween 3

Audience Expectations in the ‘Slasher’ Formula

How important is Audience Expectation in relation to Genre? This is a question with many variables. Different genres will attract different audiences, different films will attract different ages, races and cultures and each of these groups bringing attend a film with their own unique expectations. Consequently I will answer this question using the example of only one genre, the Slasher film. The reason I am using this genre is because it’s audience is made up almost entirely of teenagers. It is also one of the best examples of genre purism, meaning that the genre itself has barely changed since it was invented thirty years ago.

What is a ‘Slasher’ Film?

Slasher movies are a sub-genre of horror. Some critics refer to the genre as ‘dead teenager movies’ ‘slice and dice films’ or ‘gross out films’ (Wong, 2006). Films of the genre generally contain high levels of violence, blood and gore and almost always feature a group of teenagers as protagonists. The antagonist is a killer, often wearing a mask, who kills the protagonists one by one throughout the course of the film. Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), while pre-dating the term, is considered by many to be a slasher movie (Bohusz 2007) as it matches the traditional narrative formula of the genre.

A killer with a mysterious identity attacks an attractive young woman with a butcher knife. Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) certainly influenced the narrative structure of the contemporary slasher film.

Some of the first films to be defined as slasher movies came ten years later in the mid seventies. The first box office success was John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978), a movie about a baby sitter and her friends who are stalked, and most of them killed, by an escaped killer named Michael Myers. The film cost only three-hundred-thousand dollars to create and made roughly fifty-million dollars. Similar films began to spring up including Friday the 13^th (1980), a film with a narrative plot similar to Halloween but added much more gruesome death scenes. Prom Night (1980) was another release that kept a similar narrative structure, but added a ‘whodunit’ aspect to the film. This left the audience to guess the identity of the masked killer. Both films were made on a small budget and were financial successes. This convinced Hollywood studios to continue creating more and the slasher movie was born.

The Audience

When it comes to audience expectation one must consider who the audience is. The audience of Slasher movies is almost entirely made up of adolescents. There has been much speculation on why many teena

Fan-made trailers: D2Kill

Spotted this on GeorgiaB's blog; not a satire, but actually an update or modernization of the (not great!) original trailer for de Palma's critically-mauled (but actually rather good methinks) Dressed to Kill:

Slasher sitcom Holliston @ FearNet.com

More news which highlights the continuing popularity of the slasher genre - whilst also perhaps reinforcing the perception that young males are the main audience for it (its actually much closer to 50/50 than generally thought, with the final girl archetype and common use of romantic sub-plots helping draw in a sizeable female audience): see http://loudwire.com/oderus-urungus-gwar-dee-snider-fighting-off-cyborgs-tour-more/
Some of the language is a little ... colourful, but it sounds an interesting, highly postmodern venture (its centred on young filmmakers struggling to make a low-budget horror movie, and stars heavy metal icon Dee Snider plus 'Oderus Urungus' of the metal band GWAR [who perform as aliens in full costume]).
The show 'airs' on http://www.fearnet.com/ (which has some deals in place to be included in cable TV packages in some US cities), a useful source itself to see some of the low-budget horror work thats going on, and attracting a paying audience, out there...
If you watch the trailer for Holliston you'll see its a low budget, highly sexist affair, but interesting nonetheless for making the audience the protagonists (postmodern as I said: the Wayne's World of horror).

You can also read more at http://www.horrorsociety.com/2012/01/25/first-promo-poster-for-greens-holliston/
For example, when considering/justifying audience, this article, highlighting that Woman in Black is the highest-grossing UK movie for 20 years (over $100m worldwide), shows the audience is there for UK-based horror!

Making found-footage horror

'How To Make A Terrifying Found Footage Horror': http://www.totalfilm.com/features/how-to-make-a-terrifying-found-footage-horror/hire-unknown-actors

DIGITISATION: self-published short film

Across these blogs I'll keep returning to the concept of digitisation, the ongoing process of change and transformation of our media, a key element of which is the opening up of opportunities for micro-budget media producers to (occasionally!) attract large audiences and even make some money...
We mustn't forget that giant global conglomerates remain utterly dominant, but the possibilities for someone with a digital camera and a Mac are infinitely higher now than 10, 20 years ago. There have always been amateur/debut film-makers somehow bringing together feature films on infinitesimally small budgets, from Wes Craven's Last House on the Left and John Carpenter's Halloween, through Alex Cox's Repo Man (see his superb book X Films: True Confessions of a Radical Filmmaker, there's a copy in Lib/F6), Kevin Smith's Clerks and closer to home the rather more dubious Colin!
Here's an interesting example of a horror buff with her own successful blog, Final Girl, who made a short film ... and monetised it through this blog, charging $5 for a DVD of the 10min short film! The short is a postmodern lesbian vampire skit using knock-off Barbie dolls, reflecting the filmmaker's feminist sensibilities. If you do watch it, remember its NOT a feature film - shorts can be rather quirkier. It is, whatever you make of the film itself (the sound is nicely done and the mise-en-scene well handled given the size of the characters!), a great example of how digitisation has expanded the possibilities for enthusiastic amateur filmmakers and media producers generally to go ahead and create, distribute and exhibit work without having to sign deals with larger media firms.

Taste of Flesh, Taste of Fear - watch more funny videos     

'Final Girl' runs a monthly slasher film club; check it out and if you blog on it she may add a link to your blog on hers!

There is of course another example of a self-publishing filmmaker closer to home, and we will be looking at a trailer for his latest production in Friday's lessons, and with a bit of luck hearing a little from the filmmaker himself on how he went about it, and his plans for this new opus...
We'll also have a look at the film Monsters, a good example of how digitisation has opened up possibilities for filmmakers to produce slick work on very limited money and with a crew barely bigger than a Media coursework group; I have previously blogged on this and various other examples of digitisation, plus analyses, in a wide range of posts you should be looking over whether for AS/A2 exam or AS/A2 coursework (especially Evaluation)... 

American horror theatre

See http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2011/dec/04/america-horror-theatre for an eye-opening article about the horror experience in genuine 3D; paying $100 to be tortured and abused is a $300m industry in the US - could it happen here? (American horror theatre: 'A hand slams into my neck and wrenches me through the darkness')

Hammer Horror

Nice compilations of clips from various Hammer movies; remember, many of these are stocked in the Lib - your coursework pitch could be to 'reimagine' one of these within a modern slasher format!

more...

Zombie flicks - low budget, inferior to your productions?

Colin, the supposedly £45 movie, was bad enough, here's another that looks pretty atrocious but illustrates that not everything that makes it market is slick and professional; bedroom producers are springing up and able to market and distribute their micro-budget efforts where years ago they would have gotten no further than family/friends passing round a VHS tape: Harold's Going Stiff (not in the least recommended!). The other intriguing aspect of this lamely-punning film is how it plays with representations of age, as it seems to feature a romance between the titular aged zombie and a 20-something woman (reflected in that schoolboy double entendre title).

You can get a sense of the underground boom in zombie production at http://zombiemovieguide.com/category/movies-trailers/page/3/
As with zero-/micro-budget productions within other sub-genres of horror, some of these are plainly and crudely using sex to sell.

Back catalogue boxsets: eg of Fri 13th

When we're studying British Cinema (Audience + Institutions) for the exam, one of the major aspects we consider is marketing, as part of the overall picture of how it functions as a business.
Since the DVD came along and replaced VHS, film studios have relied heavily upon reissues, as well as multiple editions (special/collector's/ultimate edition, director's cut etc) as a way to create extra revenue (money/income). Box office (cinema) revenue is just one part of their revenue streams.
With so many 80s horror franchises being 'rebooted' or 'reimagined' its no surprise that new editions of the 80s horror movies are being released, tempting those who already own these on DVD (or Blu-Ray) to pass over another sizeable lump of cash for new extras and uncut editions.
Here's one example, a detailed review from the excellent BloodyDisgusting.com of a new Friday the 13th boxset.

Since writing this I noticed there were many examples on YT of fans vodcasting their own reviews too, such as this example; click onto the YT view page and you'll find more/better examples along the right-hand side:

Link: http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/26376

[DVD Review] 'Friday The 13th' Ultimate Collection Limited Edition

Sunday, September 18, 2011

By: David Harley

7 Comments

When Paramount released the first Friday the 13th box set back in 2004, it was a huge disappointment. Fans were finally able to buy the first eight films together, true, but none of them were uncut and bonus features – which Jason aficionados knew existed through the festival circuit, overseas releases and the like – were nowhere to be found. The supplemental materials included were a bit better than most people gave them credit for being, but the sting of not having uncut versions sent fans over the edge - folks, we’re never going to get them uncut due to monetary concerns and guild regulations.

A year later, Peter Bracke released Crystal Lake Memories, a tome to the series that contained the sort of in-depth analysis and interviews the bonus disc lacked. To this day, no Friday extra has come close to rivaling the 320-page book for content and entertainment value. A documentary that used Memories as a starting point, entitled His Name Was Jason, was released on February 3, 2009 and was a total joke. There wasn’t nearly enough information on how the films were made, instead focusing on common knowledge about the series as well as interviewing internet personalities and up-and-coming directors. God bless these guys, I love (most of) them but I don’t care what they think about Jason and, judging by how much it’s looked down upon these days, neither does anyone else. Some of the producers went on to tackle another big horror franchise the following year with Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy.They learned from their mistakes and made one of the greatest horror docs of all-time.

That same day in 2009, Paramount began releasing their Deluxe Edition line of the entries they owned (the first eight films). Originally planning to release them on DVD and Blu-ray, the films stopped being released in HD after Part III and there’s still no news on whether we’ll ever see the rest of the Paramount flicks on Blu-ray. These newer editions regurgitated a lot of stuff from the first box set, but had a healthy amount of new bonus features including an uncut version of the original (the only uncut film officially released so far), a fan commentary with Adam Green and Joe Lynch on The Final Chapter, the god-awful Lost Tales From Camp Blood shorts, new interview segments, deleted scenes (most of which were previously released but there are a few additions) and even a Best Buy exclusive which was included as a bonus disc with the 2004 set. In the end, everyone came away happy – Paramount got to capitalize on the reboot with new editions and fans got more bonus features and better A/V quality – except for those hoping to get the rest of the series in HD.




Almost 7 years later (one day shy, if you want to get technical), Paramount is rereleasing their Deluxe Editions in a new box set – The Ultimate Collection, limited to 50,000 copies – that includes a replica hockey mask, a book that stores all of the discs and two pairs of 3D glasses for Part III. But is it worth double dipping for? Instead of dissecting each film – let’s be honest here, guys: you’re investing in a $40+ box set comprised of eight well known horror flicks, you couldn't care less about what I think of them – let’s go through the new selling points.



The new box is made of thin sheet plastic, which is roughly the same height as most other box sets out there (it’s a smidge taller than the Futurama releases, whic