To what extent can reality TV and the modern rolling news exemplify Strinati’s idea about reality and Debord’s theory of ‘the spectacle?’

Postmodern Media describes the ideas and beliefs that we now live in a media saturated world, where the mass media and popular culture have a lot of power. Also how things such as the news and reality TV shows are manipulated and manipulate the public and create a fake reality. The news used to reflect reality, but it now is the reality we live in. This is all part of Strinati’s ideas of about reality. Debord’s theory of the ‘the Spectacle’ also suggests that popular culture and media images dominate our sense of reality, and the world around us more and more. We now live in a simulated world and we are part of the spectacle.





One example of people becoming a commodity comes from a Big Brother contestant called, Jade Goody. She became a commodity by becoming famous from being on Big Brother. She was accused of being stupid by the media, which bought her more to fame. She would go on more and more day time TV shows, including Celebrity Big Brother.  On this show, she was accused of being racist and became badly represented by the media, bringing her to more fame. She went on Indian Big Brother, possibly to help fight the claims of her being racist. While she was on this show, she was live broadcasted of her receiving a phone call telling her she has cancer. After this, the way she was represented by the media quickly changed. She was represented as being sweet and the public were lead to sympathise for her rather than dislike her.  She used this to gain loads of money as she went on many TV shows about her and her cancer. She also had a ghost written Biography, which is another way she sold herself and her illness. She also sold the rights to her wedding. She has become part of the spectacle as she is now part of the fake reality that we live in. Her fake story is now the accepted truth. She compensates for our own lack of productive activity as people as a society now talk about fake things, like what we have watched on telly and fake characters like her, instead of their own lives and real thoughts and feelings.



Another example of the ideas of postmodernism comes from Charlie Brokers comedic TV show called screen wipe. In one episode he talks about how fake reality TV shows are. He makes a parody of reality TV shows to demonstrate this. He talks about, and shows examples of different ways editors of reality shows manipulate and change the story. For example, they may edit together a clip and a sound bite to create a different version of someone. If a negative sound bite is played over top, the clip can seem very different. They also edit a clip of someone’s reaction of something in a different place. They also will edit all the boring bits of someone being nice, if they want to manipulate that character to be sort of a bad guy. This all shows that we have become part of the spectacle as we accept those characters to be real and the whole TV shows to be reality. It shows that we are just part of a simulated world. Again, people in reality TV shows become a commodity because they sell themselves as characters and allow themselves to be manipulated to for the shows benefit and profit. It also gives them more fame, and are likely paid to be on the TV show.



 In conclusion, as fake realities are everywhere and in many different forms, our society is completely immersed and can’t escape from the fake, simulated reality we now accept as the truth. Although there are clearly some people who realise this, such as Charlie Brooker.

Audience Research

Proposal 3:

• Young woman moves into new neighbourhood
• very Christian neighbourhood
• We realise the woman is quite promiscuous (maybe shown through how she dresses, men coming to her house, turning the eye of many men, not going to church)
• We hear a lot of angry remarks about the woman's behaviour fro the neighbours. We start to fear them and they have a very creepy feel.
• Audience is made to not mind her promiscuous behaviour, but the neighbours do
• Priest of the town is informed of her behaviour by two neighbours.
• Priest goes on angry rampage and swears to God he will kill the woman 
• He wants to torment her first as punishment (ironic similarities to the devil could be interesting to pay with).
• He breaks into her house, while trying to scare her as much as possible
• she tries to defend her self and runs away etc
• she manages to hid in a room and calls the local police
• When they pick up they sound nice at first, but then revel that they want her to die and she shouldn't behave how she does.
• she manages to escape the house but now has no place to go
• she realises she cant trust anyone
• manages to find some modest clothes and manages to escape to get very far away from the neighbours
• someone who seems very friendly asks to help her and she accepts, but turns out he is part of the neighbour and brings her back to the priest. She then is killed 

Propsal 2:

• Boy lives in creepy house with mother
• Scared into staying indoors his whole life by mother
• She scares him by telling him scary tales about devils and witches
• Boy and audience thinks she's lying to torture her son and to keep him in the whole time
• Boy one day want to leave and tries but turns out there are real devil and witches and monsters everywhere out side the house
• Audience then later realise its the mother creates this horrible world and she is the Queen of evil witch
• Then the boy realises this because one day he is in her room and finds books of spells on how to create and control these beasts outside the house.
• boy attempts to kill mother, vey tense cat and mouse game.
• Eventually achieves it and can now leave the house.

Propsal 1:

• Girl and father move into a new, eerie neighbourhood
• The film is more focused on the girl
•  She doesn’t feel like she fit in and people are cold and unfriendly
• 
  Then one person seems nice and tries extra hard to be friends with her
• This neighbour starts to feel too nice and fake, then audience starts getting hints and feelings that the neighbour doesn’t have good intensions.
• Although the girl isn’t sure she trusts the friendly neighbour, the neighbour still manages to manipulate her and gets her to become part of their friendship group
• Turns out the friendship group is a cult that they have managed to make her a part of
• She finds out her dad is in it, so we think he planned this and this is why they moved into the neighbourhood
• We find out he was manipulated into it too
• She starts becoming brainwashed and starts slipping into the cults way
• Until they make her do something terrible (maybe kill a child)
• Snaps out of being brainwashed
• Runs away but can’t get her dad to come with her
• Eventually comes back for him and they escape, but still with the mental damage from being in the cult

 

Focus group

Do you often watch horror/ horror-thriller films?

What’s one of your favourite horror films?

Why is this film your favourite?

What’s your favourite type of horror? (eg. Vampires, religious/cult, isolation, home invasion, ghosts,)

Do you like the trailer?

What draws you in?

Does it make you want to watch the film?

Were there any bits you didn’t like?

Were there any bits you particularly liked?

Was it scary? and why?

Did you like the graphics and why?

Explore the genre and conventions of your chosen media test.

The genre I have chosen is thriller-horror. I have researched a variation of trailers in this genre. Ive look and older ones, newer ones, high budget, low budget. It is important to look a low budget trailers, because I can get more useful inspiration from it as my film will be extremely low budget. I wanted to work with the genre for a few different reasons. Firstly, the trailers of horrors have strong conventions, such as fades to black, atmospheric sounds being enhanced, sounds. Also they are often filmed indoors in regular places such as homes and sometimes outside in woods. Both these locations would be easy for me to film in. Also because there are lots of effects and editing skills that can be used to make a good horror-thriller trailer.

Horror trailers have many conventions. One example is there being music that builds up by getting louder and louder and more high pitch. Then it stops suddenly and it’s a black screen with a dramatic sound bite. Dialogue that is commonly used includes things like, ‘what do you want?’ and ‘Who’s there?’ and ‘Somebody help!’ Another convention is any chaos or disruption of normal life is highlighted and shown a lot. Another convention is titles and credits are used to break up the action. Also the title screens often have scary imagery such as spider webs and woods, or have a blue or grey colouring to them. Sound effects, such as twigs snapping and screams, are often enhanced and made louder. This creates a more eerie effect.

From watching many different horror/thriller trailers, i found there were many similarities between them. They mostly follow the three acts rule. This starts with establishing the genre, characters and setting. (most genres start with the establishing being peaceful, but horror often has hints of something being not quite right). The second act is the start of disruption of equilibrium. The final stage is struggle and chaos caused by the disruption of equilibrium. A good example for the three acts is ‘When a stranger calls’. 

I also found that enigma has a very important role in making a good trailers. Especially is it is caused by contradictory information. For example in the trailer for the film ‘Shut in’ (which was then changed to ‘intruders’), the audience is manipulated  to constantly change who they believe to be  good and who they believe to be bad.

Another key feature in horror trailers that make them successful is the use of sound. In ‘shut in’, the very beginning has water being poured. It has been edited to make it very loud, this makes it more eerie. The use of sound bridges is very successful, especially when it is paired with a black screen. For example tense music building up, then black screen and silence, then a scream. 

Pace of camera shots is also a very successful way of creating a tense trailer. Having a varied pace, is key to a successful trailer. It makes it less boring as there is variation and also slow, lingering shots are useful for tension and eeriness and a fast montage is creates tension, drama and emphasise terror.  A good example of this is shown in a trailer for the film ‘Morgan’. It starts of slow with many lingering shots which are also used to establish the scene and start to explain parts of the story. Shots are less and less long and at the end is a very quickly edited montage. A countdown voice over saying, ‘9, 8, 7…’ creates even more tension.  

Generally, what I found to make a good trailer in the horror/thriller genre is making sure it doesn't give much away. The ones which most make me want to watch the film, so are successful, seem to create more questions then it answers. It should confuse, but engage the viewer so they are curious enough in what happens, to go watch the film. I also found that the best trailers, are tightly edited. By this  I mean that there should a clip should end as soon as the important bit in the clip is over. For example if someone says, ‘how could someone do this?’, the clip should end as soon as they said this. If not, the trailer seems to lose the thrill and feels more awkward.

Any points that I have picked up on making a trailer successful in this essay, I will try to put into my own trailer, as they are the key aspects of what I believe makes a good trailer.

Children of Men

Children of Men

The establishing shot is a open frame of a crowd of people. The open frame makes the crowd feel never ending and gives a sense of chaos as it gives a lack of order and control.

Magazine research

Empire

This magazine is a very mainstream film magazine that can be found in shops like WHS and isn't a subscription magazine. It has a glossy finish to the cover. This is likely the company trying to make it feel more expensive as it is more cheap. This gives an non-tastful aesthetic. The paper inside is very thin. Making a cheaper magazine to produce as this magazine if fairly cheap to buy (£3.99).

Audience

The 'Reception theory' comes from some one called  Stuart Hall.

His theory in short means that the director encodes and audience decodes meaning from films.

This means there can be many different readings of the same text.

If there is clearly a ‘preferred reading’. This reading will likely fit in with genre throiugh codes and conventions. CLEAR moral sign posts are important and linked to audience certification and experience

There are ABERRENT  readings (wrong reading). The less clear the reading then it should be a higher rating, because its not clear whats good and whats bad.

There are also NEGOTIATED READING which are largely clear but there is some room for alternatives.

There are also open and closed meanings.

There is another theorist called Roland Barthes, who says theres 5 different narrative codes:

-engima code; puzzle and queries (keeps us Hooked by the narrative)

-action code; identify the familiar situation and certain key elements (we construct the plot ourself)

- semic code: details about the charecters and we build up a profile of each one

symbolic code: symbol and themes are used

-cultural code: details that show cultural context/ values / fashions

Shut In

Lots of sound bites are used. This means that there can  be two narratives at one, visual and auditory. This condenses the trailer and makes it feel more action pact and puts in a lot of information for how little time there is in the trailer.

The very beginning tells the beginning of the story of the film and sets the scene. It starts slow and simple. Then the story starts to develop but we are still left with enigma. The story then gets more and intense and complicated and there is a fast montage. This builds up more and more tension and leaves the audience with more and more questions, making us want to watch the film.

At the beginning, when water is being poured on the boys head, the sound an the water is enhanced and loud. This makes it sound more eerie.

Distorted riser - up and up and

synthesised sound

distortion booms

pulsating atmospheres.

bowde metal sound

When a stranger calls - trailer

 This trailer has a conventional 3 part narrative. The first part establishes the setting and is foreshadowing. The girls father says 'I don't want you driving here alone this late at night'. We are also shown around the house she has to baby sit in. This lets us get a feel of how big and daunting it is. However it is not a completely conventional trailer as we are shown signs of horror straight away. There is a zoom in on the phone, which is a central part in this film, and there are flashes of a woman in black and white screaming. This clips have been edited to look like they are they are like a TV losing connection. This gives  sense of isolation and tension because it gives a sense of not being able to call out for help.



At the very end theres a build up and then it quickly calms down, so you think its over. But then theres one last scream. The effect of thinking its over, makes it more of a jump scare for the viewer when she turns around and screams at the end at a figure.

Good People film trailer

The genre of this film thriller.


The trailer starts of with slow cuts to emphases the positive in the good times that are shown in the clips chosen.(clips to show the good before the bad include; clip of female getting wine glasses out, couple dancing, couple about to have sex, sound clip of, ;'few days on a good job' and 'I promised you a good place to start a family' and 'your so lucky to have him'. While these clips are playing, there is soft, uplifting music being played in the background.


After the last shot, that represents the good times, there is a 'boom' sound and the uplifting music stops. This shows a sudden turn of events and that things are about to get darker and a lot more interesting. We quickly learn that someone is dead and they have left loads of money, but we do not know why or anything. This keeps the enigma.


There are lots of fades to black and booming sound effects. This creates tension and drama. The music towards the end gets tense and fast. Showing how the feel of the movie changes over time. At one point there is a clip of a planning which is angled downwards, flying, through a window. At the end of this clip it starts flickering to black. The plane flying down gives a sense of doom and the flickering creates a sense of eeriness. This adds drama to the trailer.


Towards the end, there is montage with lots of quick cuts, which creates tension and excitement. The types of shots used are full of more gripping things such as, guns, chase-scenes etc, car crashes etc.

Sand Castles - Trailer