Textual Evaluation

Representation

Representation is crucial in communicating aspects of the narrative, allowing the audience to be engaged because of the similarity the individual and the character share and to create a high degree of verisimilitude that reflects real life.

The final girl is conventionally represented as innocent. This is communicated be her being very plain, in terms of the clothes she wears. She doesn’t wear any pink which shows that she isn’t very feminine and she doesn’t wear any clothes that show too much flesh, which show that she isn’t promiscuous. She also doesn’t wear any make up, which represents her to be innocent. This is a convention, seen throughout the slasher genre, in films such as, Halloween 1978. The actress Jamie Lee Curtis from Halloween 1978 conventionally didn’t wear make up and looked like a simple girl created by the way her she dressed and the props used.

In our trailer at a point the final girl is represented as passive, submissive and weak. In one of the shots she is on the floor in a recumbent position, according to Laura Mulvey’s theory of the male gaze, she is passive and submissive as she is allowing the camera to look as her, making the camera dominant and active. Here is evidence of a patriarchal society, and how men are supposed to be dominant and powerful in society. She is also represented a weak because the camera is at a high angle looking down on her making the character look weak and small.

We also captured a shot where the monster/killer and the final girl are in the same frame divided by a wall. Using Creed’s theory of women as abject, this represents the final girl to be monstrous, and how the monster and the girl have equal status in this patriarchal society.

The monster/ killer’s appearance is slightly conventionally to the slasher genre, in terms of the mask that is very effect. Due to the mask the killer is represented as scary and someone to fear, because the mask hides the killer’s identity, which plays on the fears of the audience, as they place what they fear to be behind the mask, which could be the fear of the unknown. The hood that the killer wears has the same effect as the mask as it doesn’t allow the audience to see who the killer is. The killer is also wearing combat trousers that have an army print represent him to be confrontational and could be seen as a dutiful killing machine.

In the trailer, the killer is captured to be animalistic, as there is a shot where he seems to have heightened senses, like a predator. The shot is when the final girl steps on a twig and the killer reacts to the sound of the twig snapping.

There are a series of location that is crucial to represent correctly to fit in with a narrative and to create an acceptable verisimilitude.

The first location is the woods, which is represented as scary and foreboding place. This is done by the barren trees and decaying leaves, which has connotations of death. Also the woods looks like a maze that never seems to have an end. In our trailer we haven’t shown any way out of the wood making it look impossible to escape.

The exterior of the scary house is represented as scary and abandoned; this is created by the unkempt condition on the house and the decaying of the fallen leaves creating a sense of death. The creeping poison ivy looks as if it has imprisoned the house within the woods as the ivy is going up the exterior of the house wall and is surrounding the house. All the shots of the house in our trailer are in black and white, which represent the house to be lifeless due to all the colours being saturated out of the shots.

In contrast the final girl’s kitchen is represented as domestic, suburban and used.

This is done by the mise-en scene of the warm lighting, the cutlery and colour. It is made to look very ordinary, so the audience can relate to the final girl by the normality of her kitchen. This scene makes the audience feel uncomfortable, because the safety that is felt with the location, which is then taken away when the killer is seen looking through the window, unsettling the audience.

The bedroom of the first girl to die is represented as feminine and is reflective of the characters personality. We did this by the mise-en scene of the pink objects, make up and the mobile phone; by this her personality is represented as feminine.

The teacher is represented as creepy; this is done by his appearance. We casted him as this character because he visually looks ratty and wiry, which makes him ideal of this part because we wanted this character to be the red herring in the trailer, leading the audience to a dead end. This character also makes the audience feel uncomfortable because he is a teacher and has a loco parentis role.

Genre

Descriptive is one of the ways to the study of genre, which involves viewing films to come under categories that share the same or similar attributes and aspect.

There are quite a few codes and conventions that are seen in our trailer and are also seen in other films that come under the slasher/ horror genre.

Iconography

In slasher films there is normally woods where the teenagers end up. We decided stick to this convention because first of all it is easier to target our intended demographic due to the fact that they are familiar with this iconography but also our demographic is teenagers and teenagers are more curious and adventurous and therefore having a film where the characters are adventure and wonder into the woods the characters with the target demographic.

In most films there is also the use of an abandoned house that the teenage characters go to stay at or go to see. We used this convention because I think it makes the film more interesting as this is any unknown place that the characters always get involved with. Also the intended demographic are familiar with the iconography of the house and therefore it is easier to them to relate to the film in terms of the demographic recognizing the film as they in there teenage years are bombarded with this iconography and films that use this iconic location.

In most slasher film the killer is always wearing a mask and at the end of a film sometime the audiences find out who the killer is and sometime they don’t. We decided to use a mask as it is effective in terms of the effect that it has on the audience. Not knowing who the killer is much scarier than knowing who the killer is. This is due to the fact that individual place there own fears behind the mask which is much more effective as every individual can imagine what they believe to be scary behind the mask or even place the fear of the unknown behind the mask.

A convention is that most of the characters are teenagers and we stuck to this convention because the intended demographic are teenagers and are more likely to be able to relate to a teenage character than any other aged character.

Another convention is that the killer is a man which is scarier than having a women because men tend to be stronger and less emotional therefore making them less likely to sympathize with the frighten characters, which also portrays the ideology of what a woman should be and what a man should be, which is that woman shouldn’t be physically stronger than men and men shouldn’t be physically fit, which should a sense of the patriarchal society.

Functional is the other approach to the study of genre. This looks at contemporary life and basis the film aspects on issue that are faced in society in the present moment. So with this in mind one has to question what frightens the society in present moment?

From these issues in society, that society fears create sub genres within the horror genre.

For example, the fear of there being ghost and paranormal activity creates the supernatural genre within the horror genre.

Looking at our trailer and the fears that we have included, there seems to be a fear of being in a place or a situation where it is hard to escape from, represented b y the woods. Another fear is being in an unknown place where it seems to be deserted represented by the house and the woods. The iconography of the mask holds a fear of the person watching as they imagine what they fear to be behind the mask. Having teenagers play the victims represent the fear that society has that teenagers are naïve and tend to get them self in terrible situations, Having the killer as a man represent the patriarchal society, keeping the last girl remaining the least promiscuous and the first girl to die being the most promiscuous show the fear that society has of teenagers having sex at a young age, which sends a message to the audience that being promiscuous isn’t good.

Narrative

The narrative and its structure are important as the narrative is what the film is based on. Without an interesting narrative and a well thought-out structure the film is essentially just clips that are put together. It is crucial to show aspects of the interesting narrative in the trailer to attract the audience and engage them into the storyline.

Tzvetan Todorov believed that every story has the same basic structure, which consists of the equilibrium stage, followed by the disruption stage and finally the new equilibrium stage. This structure can be applied to many film narratives in the mainstream and niche sector.

The equilibrium stage is when storyline explains normal life of the characters. The disruption stage is when normal life of the characters have been disrupted, creating an enigma. The new equilibrium stage will only take place when the enigma has be solved and everything as been restored, meaning that the characters have found a new way of living.

In our trailer there is a sense of the equilibrium, when the final girl, Carly is at school talking to her friend. In the trailer the equilibrium shot doesn’t necessarily need to be at the beginning, as it isn’t telling the story, it is just getting as sense of the narrative. Having the normality of the characters lives put into the trailer allows the audience to relate to the film and the characters, as the intended demographic of the trailer are teenagers, so by having the shot of the girls in school talking, reflects most teenage audience’s lives.

Our trailer is mostly made up of the disruption stage, as it is this stage that the film would be about. In the trailer the disruption stage first comes into action when the enigma is identified, which is at the beginning, when the first girl to die gets a phone call from a friend stating something, this is when the enigma comes to the character’ attention.

The new equilibrium stage isn’t shown in the trailer as that would unravel how the enigma has been resolved and which characters survive the disruption stage.

Vladimir Props, is a Russian theorist who inspected Russian fairytales and recognized a series of recurring function/ narrative strands.

These functions can be seen in many today in many film narratives, especially in the action and adventure films.

One of Props narrative functions is the hero is tested, interrogated and attacked. In our story Carly is the hero and is constantly tested by the villain. In our trailer be show quite a few clips where Carly sis being chased, stalked and attacked by the killer.

Another one of Propp’s functions is that the hero will meet a benefactor, in out story the benefactor is the teacher, and he is shown in the trailer giving advice to the students, however we have created him to be the red herring making the audience unsure if he is the killer or the benefactor.

Claude Levi Strauss looked more at there are stories unlike Todorov, looking at the structure of stories. Levi Strauss believed that stories were told to explain things, such as contradictions and therefore believed that a story would be full of binary opposites.

Looking at our trailer the most palpable binary opposite is good Vs evil and hero Vs villain, both of these binary opposites are seen in one frame when Carly is one side of the wall and the killer is on the other side. This could explain that villains are bad as the side of the wall that the killer is in is dark and nearly black, which has connotations of death and evilness, whereas the side that Carly, the hero is in is lighter and brighter, which has connotations of pure and good.

Another binary opposite is seen in our trailer when the killer is in the girl’s bedroom when she is sleeping. The binary opposite seen is male Vs female. The way that we have captured the scene makes the female look submissive, passive and weak whereas the male/ killer is seen as powerful and dominant reinforcing the dominant ideology of the patriarchal society.

Roland Barthes is a structurelist thinker who identified a number of codes (set of conventions, which help find the meaning of the story). Barthes believes that every story have the same codes and conventions behind them.

He came up with 5 codes. The first being the action code, this code is about seeing if there is something generic in the story. The second code is the semantic code. This is the character’s point of view that the story is told from. The third is the enigma code, which is that every story should have a problem or a mystery. The fourth code is the referential code, which means the mise-en scene. The fifth code is the symbolic code, which are symbolic connotations to help represent and portray certain characters and situations.

The codes that are apparent in our trailer are the semantic code and the enigma code. In most of the shots in our trailer Carly the many character is present showing that the film follows her life, which is the semantic code. The enigma code is visually seen in the trailer by the killer being present and wearing a mask, so the mystery is who is the killer?