Signs Textual Analysis

Target Audience research

Textual Analysis: Blade

How is the genre constructed in the opening of Blade?

At the start of the opening the audience is thrown straight into action, as the camera comes in media res. We then have a shot reverse shot between the two characters. That’s when we first get the idea that the film is in the horror genre, the mise en scene of the women is indicating that she is not who she says she is. The lady has red hair, and stereo-typically red heads are feisty, she also has pale skin which indicates that she doesn't get much sun light, which could indicate that she is a vampire.
Whilst they were in the car in editing technique shot reverse shot was used to portray the emotion on each of their faces. The women looked extremely mysterious and almost excited to have the man with her in the car (we later find out that she was seducing him) , the expressions on the gentleman’s face conveys excitement.
In addition, all the credits are in a bold font and coloured red, which represents danger, this indicates to the viewer that something bad is going to happen. The credits run through the entirety of the opening minutes.

The camera then goes to a tracking shot, it tracks from a distance the two characters walking through a factory of pig caucuses. The camera tracks them from a distance as in-between the camera and the characters are the caucuses of pigs, this is indicating that something bad is going to happen to the man. It is also very weird to be walking through a factory at night, we know it’s night time because of the car scene. We then get a shot of a man working, he has a cold colour pallet which represents death. There is then a shot which shows the man looking at something, but the audience don’t see what it is until he turns around, before there is a medium long shot you hear the man say "What the fuck is that" which is diegetic sound. We then get a medium long shot to show that in the plastic bag that originally blocked the audience’s view, is filled with dead bodies. This tells the viewer that something dodgy is going on with the women.

To make the opening fit with the horror genre even more, we get a long shot, to show the viewer a very large man standing next to the door. The 'bouncer'  is taller than the door which is very intimidating and you wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of him. The man on the door is again very pale skinned, also in dark clothing and you could argue that he is attractive. With these characteristics he again can be compared to a vampire.

The next piece of diegetic sound is when the women yell's at the 'bouncer', she shouts at him in a different language and we as the audience can only assume, she is speaking in a Eastern European language because of the accent. Vampire's are stereotypically from Transylvania, which is in Romanian, this again is hinting at the viewers that these people are actually vampires.

The door then opens into darkness and the mise en scene completely changes, the lighting becomes very club like, bright and flashing, the sound gets extremely louder and a montage of people in the club comes onto our screens. Its becomes very blurry on the people in the club and only focuses on the typical american boy that is being suduced by these vampires. We  then see a man who is sitting with two girls and having a fun time, this conveys to the viewer that these vampires don't think they have rules and they do what they want.

All of the characters in the club are in white clothing preparing for the blood to come down, we see a women dancing and we get non-diegetic sound, as it sounds like she is moving but we don't see it, this again is hinting that they are vampires as vampires move quicker than the speed of light. When the women is dancing it has been edited, to make it slow-motion, this sexualises the women dancing as you are foucused on her moving. As the American man walks through the crowd of people we see them looking at him, they look at him like he is a piece of meat and they want to eat him, this also conveys to the viewer that these people aren't human beings.

We then focus on the American man, we see blood drop onto his hand, at first he isn't aware that it is blood, but then he tastes it and you see his facial expression change and he looks very worried. We then see all the people in the club are starting to raise their hands up to the roof, and you only see the hands behind the man.This is to show the audience that something will be coming down from the celling, before the hands go up we get a close up shot of blood falling from the ceiling so as viewers we assume blood will be coming don from the ceiling. In addition, behind the DJ, there is a big sign saying 'Blood Bath' this also illustrates that, it is something to do with blood and there is going to be a lot of it, hence the word 'Bath'.

The camera then focuses on what looks like a tap, we then get a shot of many tap's on the celling of the building. Blood then starts to be sprayed out of these tap's all of the abnormal people are embracing the 'Blood Bath' but the human man looks extremely scared and then we get lots of diegetic sound of animal noises as these people aren't human.

We get a point of view shot, from the man, he then gets punched in the face and we see him on floor so its been edited to show him hitting the floor. Whilst, he is on the floor he is being punched and kicked and only stops crawling when he reaches the feet of an unknown man. We see the big black combat boots, and then the man on the floor looks up at the man in the boots but we as the audience don't seee him. It then cuts to the blood tap stopping and the then the camera pans up the man, but stops at his chest we then get the reaction of the DJ then all the people covered in blood moving out of the way of the man in black so the audince can see him. The tone of the club changes and all of the people in the club look frightened to see this man, which conveys to the audience he is a man in power the protagonist.  

Narrative Structure

A narrative is the story line of the film.

There are two types of narrative structure:
Linear-  Its a structure which is in chronological order, it has a beginning,middle and end.
Nonlinear- Does not always start from the beginning, it usually jumps around the timeline of events.

Todorov and his equilibrium theory:
The equilibrium theory says that all narratives follow a three part structure:
Beginning                 Middle                     End    
Equilibrium               Dis-equilibrium      New equilibrium 

Key terms: 

Generic Convention- The ingredients of the genre 

Audience expectation- When a film uses generic conventions an audience then creates an expectation of what they will experience

Repertoire of the elements- When the ingredients of the genre are repeated over time they form the basis of audience expectations. 

 

Main- Brief Introduction

For our main-brief we as a group have to create the opening to horror movie which includes a variety of different shots and last between 2-3 minutes.
 I will be recording all of my research and planning on this blog.
Whilst completing my brief I will try to achieve:

• Gather and collate research using the checklist
• Write blog entries summarising lesson, work done using terminology
• Produce a continuity task - mini brief and Evaluation. Audience
• Produce main task outlined above
• Complete 4 textual analysis using this as a guide
• Show evidence of planning by writing a screenplay opening and storyboard.
• Decide on and source relevant props

• Write an evaluation of the pre to post production stages

Whilst making my brief I will try to achieve the codes and the conventions of the horror genre. People who go to see horror films are expecting to see be scared. The use of dark colours is linked with the horror genre, as things to do with horror are usually very dark, whether it be the storyline or the way the films had been directed. Also, specific character types are used when making a horror films, there is usually a psychopath or a damsel in distress. The setting of the film is key as the mise-en-scene portrays a lot to the audience as if it looks scary, the audience will be more on edge as they will have fears, something might happen to the characters.  

Evaluation of mini-brief

Mini Brief HACKED

Story Board

After our recce we created a story board which shows the different angles of shots and the timings of the shot:  

Mini- Brief Character Analysis

Piper Brookes

    Piper Brooks is a 21 years old woman with short strawberry blond hair and blue eyes and a petite frame. Her fashion sense is dark and simplistic. She has peculiar interests which include her pet snake, which she is profoundly fond of, and her shoe fetish which includes her treasured red stilettos. 

    She grew up in a foster home where she felt lonely and secluded. During her late teens, she met bad boy boyfriend, Blade who had a negative influence on her. He is caught up in a drug addiction that he is drowning Piper into to and she is desperately trying to support him out of this situation. Her significance in this mini-brief is that the other character (Joe Gardener), has data of Blade's clients linked to his drug problem and Piper is trying to retrieve the data off Joe after she found out he was the one that had copied the data on his personal data stick. She is kidnapping Joe to get the data in order to demolish it and to avoid Blade going to jail.

Joe Gardener

     Joe Gardener is a shy 19 year old boy with a compelling interest in hacking. He has blond hair and green eyes and slender physique. His interests include coding and computing but his strongest hobby is hacking.

     He grew up in a friendly neighbourhood and a happy home, both of his parents had successful careers and were a motivating influence on him. At school, he was a quiet, shy student, but his talent in computing didn't go unnoticed. He stumbled across Blade's data when Blade was unaware that he had forgotten to log off in an internet café. Joe used this computer next and saw a intriguing tab open, that he couldn't resist to look further into. Knowing that this data was an injustice, he saved it to a data stick to look at a later date. Blade remembered that he had left himself logged on and sent Piper to the internet café to find out who logged on after Blade. She then went on to stalk Joe down to retrieve the data, which has lead to his kidnapping in this mini-brief.

Script

Mini-Brief Script

(Piper walks up the stairs and into the room where Joe is tied up to a chair)

(They exchange glances)

(Piper uncovers Joe's mouth)

Piper: Tell me where it is.

Joe: Tell me where what is.

Piper:(Grabs his collar and pulls him closer to her face) You know what I'm talking about.

Joe: Never

(Piper hold a knife under Joe's chin and looks him in the eyes)

Piper: You'll be sorry!

(Drops knife and walks away)

Mini-Brief Recce

 As a group we went on a recce around our school trying to find locations to film our min-brief. At this point we have created a spider diagram between the three of us and are trying to find out where the best locations would be.

As we like the proposal and the interrogation ideas we went for a recce to see if we could find locations suitable for them. On our school grounds there is a pond, we thought that you could have the proposal scene here as it looks very romantic. However the specification states that a character has to walk through a door and start a conversation, we found it difficult to find the nearest door and when we did it would have taken a long time for the conversation to start. So we continued our recce elsewhere.

We went and searched for dark rooms, so we could have an idea of what the interrogation scene would look like. Under our school stage there is a dark and dingy room. We looked around the room and found it more suitable and easier to film so we assessed the room and placed ourselves in the position we would have liked our actors/actresses. There were pipes in the corner of the room which we thought would be perfect for the hostage to be ties up to.

We decided on the second room we found as it was easier to fill the specification, of a character walking through a door, as the first venue was too difficult to film coming out the door.

Mini-brief Ideas

When we first receive the brief specification, as we group we created a spider diagram to help us come up with different ideas that we could use. One of our first ideas was to do a conversation including a romantic proposal, to extend the idea further we thought a gay proposal would be a good idea. However, we couldn't go through with the idea because when we went on out recce we realised that a character wouldn't be able to walk through a door, which the specification states. We thought an interrogation scene would be best to do as our main brief is based around horror films, so to get us used to the camera angles and the different editing techniques which made the hostage scared (like in a horror film)

Mini Brief Editing Styles

For our mini brief project we have to create an exchange of dialogue and include a number of different editing techniques throughout. The three shots we have to include are: Shot reverse shot, match on action and the 180 degree rule.

Shot reverse shot:

This is a camera shot which usually includes in conversation between two people. The shot is to show the reaction and emotion on the face of the people in the conversation, shot reverse shot ties in with 180 degree rule to retain continuity by not distorting the audiences sense of location of the characters in the shot. 

Match on action:

This is an editing technique continuity editing in which one shot cuts to another shot portraying the action of the subject in the first shot, this creates the impression of a sense of continuity the action carrying through, it draws the viewer's attention away from the slight cutting or continuity issues. 

180 degree rule:

The 180 degree rule is a filming guideline that participants in a scene should have the same left-right relationship to each other, with filming only taking place within the 180 degree angle in which this is maintained in a conversation. 

Shot-reverse-s