Christian Metz’s Model Of Genre Development

The experimental- Experimental means the early stages of film that experiments with the use of the horror genre and the narratives. Here are some examples:

The Cabinet of Dr Calgari 1919

Nosferatu 1922

These early horrors appeared after the world war had just ended, this was due to the stories that were coming out by all the soldiers that have been there.

The Classic- By classic we mean the phase of films witch established the narrative conversations of the horror genre in its most successful period of time. Here are some examples:

Dracula 1931

Frankenstien 1931

Parody- Parodies are the films that have been mimicked in some way or another but still follow the horror type. An example of these films are:

Carry On screaming 1968

Scary Movie 1998

Deconstruction- Decnonsruction are the types of films that have taken the generic elements of the horror genre and put them into different sub genres. Here is an example:

Se7en 1995

The sixth sense 1999

Blue Velvet Opening

Blue Velvet Analysis

At the start on the opening scene for blue velvet it turns out to be a happy, peaceful and safe community were people live in. When it opened it showed a traditional typical garden showing red roses and a light blue sunny sky and a white picket fence to show a typical American garden, these colour indicate the colours of the American flag to give even more knowledge that the film is set in America. Here is an example of what it looks like in the opening scene:

After this scene it then goes to show the surroundings of where the film is set, the film is set in the 1950 in America. It shows in the scene a very sunny and happy environment to show what America is like in the eyes of the audience, furthermore the scene then finishes and the goes onto showing a close up of yellow flowers witch most of the time are given at funerals to people have died, meaning it is showing us that in the start of the film it is going to be both happy and sad.

In the film sound and music are also used very well also, for example at the start of the whole film the song “blue velvet” is playing all the way through the intro, this shows us that the song is being related to the whole film name itself and also before the whole film even started there was a opening scene that was just all full of blue velvet to relate to the whole film and the song that is being played. The song also shows us more evidence that it was shot in the 1950s as the music genre of the song was what it was like back then.

In the scene where the women is inside her house watching TV it gives us even more evidence of what the film is like i know this because the films genre is thriller / horror, and the women that is watching tv is looking at a show where there is some sort of character that is playing a certain role using a gun. Therefore showing us what the whole film maybe about and what is going to happen in future scenes.

When  the man is about to have his big heart attack when he is spraying the lawn you can tell that something intense is going to happen as the sound of the water foist is building up more and more pressure leading up to when he has his heart attack. To show that the foist is building pressure he does pull focus shots on the foist and he also makes the sounds that it is making become a lot louder.

After the man has had his heart attack the music goes very creepy and dark to create more an impact that he has died and to notify the audience what is going on. The camera then goes and dives down into the grass where the music then goes and spikes up and introduces sounds of little insects making it even more creepy. The shot itself is a very dark shot and does not show full focus and you can just see un focused little bugs moving.

After the man has had his heart attack the music goes very creepy and dark to create more an impact that he has died and to notify the audience what is going on. The camera then goes and dives down into the grass where the music then goes and spikes up and introduces sounds of little insects making it even more creepy. The shot itself is a very dark shot and does not show full focus and you can just see un focused little bugs moving.

MR JUDGE FEEDBACK

1.   NO BLUE VELVET TEXTUAL ANALYSIS (COULD USE BOND: SPECTRE INSTEAD)

2.   NO BLUE VELVET SCREEN GRABS IN PLACE

3.   NO BLUE VELVET VIDEO EMBEDDING IN PLACE

4.   TEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF THE OPENING OF SE7EN WITH IMAGES AND VIDEO EMBED FOR SE7EN (Good analysis but need screen grabs) 

5.   CHRISTIAN METZ MODELS OF GENRE DEVELOPMENT – HORROR (12D ONLY) + IMAGES

6.   FILM NOIR & HISTORY OF GENRE (HSR) + IMAGES/VIDEO EMBEDS

7.   STEREORTYPICAL REPRESENTATIONS OF THRILLER/HORROR GENRES/CHARACTERS

8.   TEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF OPENING OF A HORROR FILM – WOMEN IN BLACK/SCREAM etc.

Genres

Where did genres come from?

Genres come from America in the 1920’s to the 1950s in Hollywood by all the major movie companies, for example Warner brothers and Paramount pictures. They started to role out the same film over and over and this was making the movies business a lot of money as people liked them meaning that they went out to watch them more and more.

How did the golden age of Hollywood reinforce genres?

In the 1920’s the golden age of Hollywood was started as during the time when cinema came out people was watching the films they made and the movie business were making the same film over and over and making huge amounts of money as the audience did not want to see anything else as they liked what they was watching. They still do this in the current day with many other films for example James Bond and Fast And Furious still role out the same film every one or two years but they can do this as they have a huge fan base  all around the world that want to watch the same film.

Witch genres became popular in Hollywood?

During the golden age of Hollywood there was many different types of genres or film types, but one of the most popular films is the gangster type of film noir where there is mostly one gangster and one women and the women tries  to manipulate the man to do there dirty work for them but it always ends up going wrong and the women either ends up dying or going to jail. These were the films that people were interested as they were most of the time true stories.

Why do audiences like genre films?

Audiences like genre films as in the 1920’s the people that went to go and watch films did not go and watch the film for the title of the movie they went to the movies for the types of genres they want to see and they was most the time either Romance or a gangster type of film, another reason why audiences like the genre film is because the movie companies kept on coming out with the same genre of movies making people want to watch them more and more.

Se7en Analysis

In this assignment I will be analysing the film se7en and its opening scene. With film noirs they use different features to make the film more interesting for the people viewing the film. Some examples of these features are the moods of the movie, male characters acting in certain ways for example hero or villain, female character are also used in the film and are most of the time good looking and mysterious, sound is also used in the film to create a more dramatic scene and many more examples.
Sound
First of all I am going to be talking about how the sound in the film helps it a lot by creating a more dramatic impact. For example at the start of the film you can hear all the background noise of what is going on in the city where the film is based and In this film it is based in New York, by doing this you are giving the audience what the surroundings of the film are like so they can make an image of the scene. Another example of how the sound helps the film is that it also sets the mood of what is happening in the film for example there is a calm song playing in the background then a load sound of lighting happens when the scene changes to show that it is more dramatic and more dangerous in this scene. Furthermore in the film when the detective finally goes to bed a metronome starts playing in the background, this is used to block of the background noise of the city and to help him sleep showing that it has kept a calm mood again after a tense scene.
Mise on scene 
Another thing that helps the scene is the mise on scene that is used, in the film there are many ways how they have done this during the film, one example of this is that in the apartment where the detective is staying is all white and then dark mood lighting to show that the mood of the film is going to be dark and to also show that the character is lonely as there is now items that indicate that he has no family there is also many things around his apartment that show that he is a organised person for example he has all of his items that he needs for his everyday use is laid out here is an screen shot to show the types of items that he has prepared.:

Another thing that is in his apartment is his chess set this indicates that his is really smart and patient character, I know this because people that play chess are normally very smart. When the detective went to the crime scene it shows that he is very good in what he does as he spots out the details around the crime to then help them with their investigation meaning that it is then linking back to show that he very smart.

Camera angles
Furthermore another point in the film Is camera angle, and the movements and the positioning of the cameras, At the start of the film it shows us all around the detectives apartment giving us a view of what the actual character is like and what he does. Another shot that is being used is a close up when the detective is picking up his items to leave the apartment with. When the first accident happens the camera gives us a low angle show of two dead bodies and then pans out to show the detective looking around the scene for clues of what has happened in the surroundings. When the detective has finished with the crime scene he walks out and they do a low angle shot using a steady cam so that the shot that is being taken is as smooth as possible. In the film there is many close ups of individual things that are needed in each scene for example in at the crime scene it focuses on key bits that are needed to solve each crime in the fourth scene where there is another crime it then goes onto show a pair on finger prints to then go and help them get more clues.
Editing
In this film the editing is very smooth and makes a calm atmosphere during the scenes were nothing is happening, but when the scenes get more dramatic the  transitions get a lot more fast and start to cut instead of fade. For example one scene it is in a calm location and then it goes to a dark scene and while it does this a loud lighting sound happens and then a sharp transition to the next scene to indicate something bad has happened and may be dangerous.

Se7en Video

Preliminary Task Evaluation

The 180° rule is a cinematography guideline that states that two characters in a scene should maintain the same left/right relationship to one another. When the camera passes over the invisible axis connecting the two subjects, it is called crossing the line and the shot becomes what is called a reverse angle. Match on action is an editing technique for continuity editing in which one shot cuts to another shot portraying the action of the subject in the first shot and this creates the impression of a sense of continuity. A shot reverse shot is a continuity editing technique used in conversations or simply characters looking at each other or objects and this means that when a shot is showing supposedly what they are looking at it is then followed by a reverse angle shot of the character themselves looking at it or another character looking back at them. An eye line match is based on the premise that the audience will want to see what the character on-screen is seeing. The eye line match begins with a character looking at something off-screen, followed by a cut to the object or person at which he is looking. For example, a shot showing a man looking off-screen to the left is followed by a shot of the television that he is watching.

We incorporated the 180° rule into our final film when we was filming in the canteen because we made sure that the camera didn’t cross over the line because if the camera swaps over to the other side for one of the shots, the pictures won’t work together and by doing this it made the characters looking directly at each other. This scene links in with the eye line match because we had to make sure that the one shot has to line up with the person or thing they’re looking at in the next shot and this was in the canteen when the two characters was talking to each other. We used the match on action during the locker scene. We edited this scene to make it look like that the camera cuts from outside of the locker and just as he is going to open up the locker the camera cuts to the inside making the movement of the camera one fluid shot. Lastly we used a shot reverse shot in the canteen. We did this by cutting the shots in the scene and by doing this we could focus on the one person during the shot and this assumes that the characters are looking at each other.

The filming process went well as we had a clear plan of how we wanted to film the shots and also where we wanted to film around the school. When filming around the school we had to take a few shots until we got it correct. Also on the plan that we made we made it clear what shots we was filming and when we was filming it. The storyboard was clear as we could understand what we had to do during the film making process. On our story board we found some issues because we had to change how many camera shots we were going to use whilst filming it and this meant that as s group we had to decide on the shots that we were going to use instead of using the same camera shots over and over again. As a group we found it quite easy to film around the sixth form because none of our shots was near a classroom so we didn’t get distracted but a disadvantage was background noise such as the hand dryer in the toilets, and this was because people was using it when we were filming scenes such as the locker shot. We also got to use the tripod and this contributed towards our final film because it meant that we could get still shots and it was easier to pan for shots, such as when we was walking into the canteen. We all had to input in the task so no one would be left out and we could all share ideas and if I was to do it again I would edit the storyboard so we could put more ideas on it which meant we will be able to plan in detail.

On adobe premiere I learnt how to edit the clips and how to make them shorter. At first the software seemed to be confusing but when we started to get a hand of it we knew how to work it easier. By importing the music from then internet it meant that we could choose the music based on the genre, such as thriller. We also learnt how to put in a title screen which meant we could use many fonts and this also helped as then we could choose the correct fonts in the film and this meant we could edit how long the title was on the screen for.

We did this task to the best possible standard and we used all of the tools that was available to us and we even asked the teacher to help us with the final scene so it linked in with our film, and that scene was just improvised so this also recognised our strengths.

Preliminary Task

MR JUDGE FEEDBACK

MAJOR ISSUES IDENTIFIED WITH ALL/SOME BLOGS Complete the following tasks ASAP 1. NO BLOG posts whatsoever ☹ at this stage you be at risk of not passing the whole course – no question! 2. NO PRELIM TASK VIDEO EMBEDDED FROM YOUTUBE 3. NO PRELIMINARY TASK EVALUATION EVIDENT 4. NO BLUE VELVET TEXTUAL ANALYSIS (COULD USE BOND: SPECTRE INSTEAD) 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