Christian Metz - theory of horror genre

Certain representations have now become stereotypes (a widely held but fixed and over simplified image of a particular type of person or thing).
Christian Metz in his book language and cinema explored the development of genre film and suggested that there are four main theories: firstly the experimental, The cabinet of Dr Caligari, 1919, secondly the classic Hollywood films such as Dracula and Frankenstein, 1931 next the parody Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein, 1948 and finally he deconstruction Se7en, 1995
The experimental means the early phase of films which explored and experimented with the horror theme.
The classic is the phase of films that established the narrative. the horror genre was the most successful.  
The parody Films that mimicked the horror genre.
The deconstruction Films that include two genres together for example a horror mixed with a thriller.

codes and conventions of a film noir

Codes and conventions of a film noir

The classic film noir consists of many things that run through all of the films and is a sequence in what happens. The films is set in black and white to show mystery, this is because shady characters appear more mysterious in black and white which adds to the affect of the whole film. There are often three main characters in a film noir: a detective, a bad guy and a femme fatale. The detective often wears the same clothing: a fedora hat, a suit with an over coat and they are often smoking.  The visual style of the film is to have low key lighting when something happens such as a killing. Film noirs use detectives instead of police men as they can bend the rules and make things more interesting. The femme fatale often has a motive through out the film which makes her do what she does.

Films such as maltese falcon demonstrates all of the things that happen on a typical film noir. The start of the opening scene is an establishing shot of the city it is based in, big cities such as san Francisco are often used in film noirs as most of the bad guys that are in it are from the down town are of that location. In maltese falcon the killing happened in a dark alley, this is to add to the mystery to what happened, this is the enigma for the film as it is what the story is based about and what the detectives are trying to find out. Straight away you see the detective in his office, he is smoking and wearing the typical detective gear ( fedora hat, suit),  he is also smoking as that was very popular at the time. Angel is the character that helps the detective and appears to be glowing when she comes into shot. This may be to represent her character and that she is the good person out of everything that happens. She then greets in another woman, this woman is wearing posh clothing to show that she is high status. the detective look up and down the woman, this is because the director wanted to show how controlling the femme fatale is even when she does not say much. The woman is the femme fatale in this film, we know this early on as she says that she will be in the hotel after talking about the problems that are happening, however when they go there she is checked out and moved o, this is because she wanted to cause trouble.

After the woman leave, the next shot is a killing in a dark alley. The shot has low key lighting and all you can see is the gun and the man that got shot four times. This scene is the enigma for the film as it is what the film is based on as the detectives want to find out who killed him. The mystery that is created by the low key lighting also acts as the hook for the film which makes people sit on the end of their seats. The detective then gets a phone call in his room about the killing. The setting of his room is very typical, he has a newspaper, clock and a hanker chief on his be side table. The room is quite dark which could represent how dark the timing is at the film as someone just died. When he is talking on the phone he has no change in his voice as it stays the same tone. This is to show how the detective does not have many feeling as his friend just died but he does not seem to be upset about it.

The next shot is the two detectives questioning a man on what he knows about the killing. The two cops play the good cop bad cop routine, this is very stereotypical for film noirs as it is seems as the most affective way and most well known way of interrogating someone. The man seems suspicious as he is hesitant in his answers, this is done to keep the viewer thinking of what could be happening and if he was the killer. They then start drinking whiskey which is very common for the detectives to do in this film genre, this is to show that they are tough characters.

evaluation of preliminary task

evaluation of preliminary task

The 180-degree rule is a basic guideline regarding the on-screen spatial relationship between a character and another character or object within a scene. An imaginary line called the axis connects the characters, and by keeping the camera on one side of this axis for every shot in the scene, the first character is always frame right of the second character, who is then always frame left of the first. A match on action is when you see two people exchange something from both sides and perspectives. An eye line match is when the characters eye lines are both at the same height in the scene. A shot-reverse-shot is a series of shots between two characters in a continuous fashion.

We incorporated the 180-degree rule when we filmed the dialogue between the two characters to show both perspectives. The match on action was used to show the transfer of the phone between the two characters. The eye line match was used throughout the scene but mainly when we filmed the 180-degree shot. The shot reverse shot was used when we recorded dialogue.

The film making process went reasonably smoothly, this is because we were clear with what we wanted and how to achieve this through the shots we used. The story board we had was the main structure to the film making process and made it easier for us to film. However it could have gone better if we completely stuck to the story board as at times we did not use it and improvised on what we were doing. At times the filming was made difficult as students would leave lessons to go on break, this meant that we had to get the shots we need quickly so people were not in the background of the shots.

We learnt a lot of skills on adobe premiere as we were new to this software and had chance to experiment with it. Cutting down clips was one of the most used tools and was extremely useful, this is because we would often start recording a few seconds before and after to make sure we had the right framing on our shots. Adding titles was also extremely straight forward as all we had to do is create them and then drag them into where we needed them. The tools that were on adobe premiere were very useful in making our film good  as it helped make it look smooth so it did not seem confused.

MR JUDGE FEEDBACK

Complete the following task ASAP 3. NO PRELIMINARY TASK EVALUATION EVIDENT 5. NO BLUE VELVET SCREEN GRABS IN PLACE 6. NO SE7EN TEXTUAL ANALYSIS IN EVIDENCE 7. NO SCREEN GRABS FROM SE7EN TO ILLUSTRATE POINTS 8. NO work on GENRE from Mr Rutherford