Christian Metz model of genre development.

Christian Metz model of genre development (4 phases of development)

Research into existing products-horror genre. Textual analysis.

Christian Metz made the ‘model of genre development’ which was later named the ‘Metz theory’. This declared that all films of the horror genre have four ‘phases’ of horror.

·         Phase 1: The experimental phase.

·         Phase 2: The classic.

·         Phase 3: The parody.

·         Phase 4: The deconstruction.

Phase 1 is the experimental phase. For a horror, this is when the film is first made to see whether or not it will be popular in the film industry, it is testing the waters to see whether this specific genre will be successful and make a profit for the production company. An example of a film made in the experimental phase would be ‘The cabinet of Dr Caligari’. This is a film based on the book ‘Dr Jekyll and Hyde’ which was published in 1886 by Robert Louis Stevenson. It is a silent German horror film made in the 1920's (during WWI) about a deranged hypnotist who manipulates another person to commit murders for him.The war was a huge influence to the film as ‘Dr Caligari’ was a representation of a German war government. The film mirrors the book 'Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' as it was about a lawyer who followed an investigation on the two murderers - Jekyll and Hyde. Supposedly, Dr Jekyll has a mental disorder which causes him to have two personalities. This is where the writer of 'The cabinet of Dr Caligari' got the idea for a deluded murderer from.

Phase 2 is the classic phase. The classic phase is created using the codes and conventions of the genre, (in this instance, horror). One of the 5 production companies such as Paramount, Warner Bros, 20th Century Fox, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer or RKO pictures produces the film and some have turned out to be iconic and popular in hollywood. An example of a classic film would be 'Dracula' which is based on the book by Bram Stoker called 'Dracula', made in 1897. The classic film became a very influential and iconic image which from this, created a lot of stereotypes for the typical antagonist in a horror film. Dracula is now seen as a very pale middle aged male with a mild European accent. He stereotypically has dark hair, wears a long black cape, has fangs, drinks blood and cannot walk in sunlight. This stereotype is now used throughout TV and film around the world.

Phase 3 is the parody phase. This is when a spoof is made of the classic film. An example of a parody would be 'Vampires suck' which is based on the Twilight sagas (which were originally a series of books created from the 'Dracula' classic). The parody was when comedic effects were added to the original film and an ironic pun is added to the name. The word 'sucks' in the movie title 'Vampires suck' is a play on words as vampires stereotypically 'suck' people's blood.

The deconstruction is phase 4. A deconstruction combines the generic themes of one genre and combines it with those of another. For example, a deconstruction could be constructed of both a thriller and horror genre combined. An example of a deconstruction is 'scream'. Scream combines both of those genres as it holds a sense of thrill and horror as it is about a stalking mass murderer. Scream was a film designed to scare but also to be realistic due to it being about a young girl who is home alone who continuously gets phone calls from a mystery person. This makes it relatable which is why it is a thriller as well as a horror.

MR JUDGE FEEDBACK

THE FOLLOWING TASKS STILL NEED TO BE COMPLETED ASAP

1.   TEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF THE OPENING OF SE7EN WITH IMAGES AND VIDEO EMBED FOR SE7EN

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

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

4.   STEREORTYPICAL REPRESENTATIONS OF THRILLER/HORROR GENRES/CHARACTERS

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

Codes and Conventions of a 'Film Noir'.

During the early 20th century, Edison created the camera, and with it, the film era began. Cinemas began to emerge during the 1920's and became hugely popular within society. During 1939, there were more movie theatres in the US than banks and something called 'Block Booking' was created. Block booking was something that the five big production companies (paramount, Warner Brothers, 20th Century fox, RKO pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) did to create more money. When movie theatres wanted permission to play their films in the cinemas they had to pay for the film, the companies then sold the films by 'block booking'. This meant that theatres would have to buy several films in one block that contained the big film that they wanted and a few others that weren't as big at the time. This way the movie theatres would play all of the films as well as the one big film, meaning that the production company would get more money. This turned it into an industry, made to create profit.

Where did the 'Film Noir' genre originate from?
 Film Noir was one of the first genres created in Hollywood, it was created as there was no colour with the first camera so all films were black and white. These films tended to cover any taboos and hot topics at the time such as crime, sex and murder. Film Noirs were films that made the most out what the directors had, many of them tended to be set in the city or in a large house and the lighting was usually low key. People would go to a cinema and watch these films as they were most popular at the time, this meant that production companies started rolling out Film Noirs as they were preferred to other genres at the time and created a lot of profit for these companies.

How did the golden age of Hollywood reinforce genres?
Genres were created through Hollywood as when a successful film was made of a certain genre, that film would then be remade in different ways, and thus the genre was reinforced. For example, if a horror film was made and it was popular and created profit, it would be remade and tweaked to create a new film of this genre. Other genres such as romance and thriller may also have been popular and created a lot of money for Hollywood which is why they are a popular genre today.

Which Genres became popular in Hollywood?
Western was the most popular genre when Hollywood emerged, another popular film would be the horror genre. Horror films were low in budget and popular in cinema so created a lot of profit for major production companies. Most horror films were based on books such as 'Frankenstein' by Mary Shelley. Film Noir was also popular in Hollywood as again, they were very cheap to make and all followed a similar story line. Film noirs were always created in black and white and had very low key lighting which allowed them to be made very cheaply but the storyline made it very popular in Hollywood which allowed the production companies to make a large profit.

Why do audiences like film genres?
Audiences like film genres as it allows them to go to the cinema to watch a film that they know they will enjoy as they have purposely gone to watch that type of film. By having genres, audiences are able to find out which genres they do and don't enjoy through experience and will then go to watch those films in cinema if they do.

Film noirs are famously known for their man enigma/hook. A film noir is usually centred around a hot topic such as crime, murder or sex. The film will always include a female character - The 'Femme Fatale'. This character is usually a damsel in distress who is looking for help from an unsuspecting male, the male will end up falling in love with her or there will be an altercation between two men over her and she usually ends up either in jail or dead. The 'spider and fly' theory comes in here. This is where the female character (the spider) creates a web of lies or secrets and draws the male (the fly) into this web. She then gets the male involved in all sorts of precarious things such as murders and various other crimes. Many people would say that this genre of film degrades women and is very misogynistic towards them as it always portrays the women to be the antagonist. However, others would argue that it shows us that women have power over men and that they are in fact equal. Many film noirs were made after WWI or around the time of WWII which was a heavy influence on the films at the time, German expressionism was something that began to grow after WWI as there were no foreign films allowed in Germany at the time which increased the demand for domestic films.

There is always a protagonist (who is usually male) in the film who gets caught up with the Femme Fatale's lies and secrets. This male usually has a signature element about them. For example in 'The Maltese falcon', the main male character, Sam Spade rolls his own cigarettes and has a small pouch of tobacco that he uses. This character also usually has a partner who dies and then he gets caught up in this murder.

Blue Velvet opening sequence analysis.

Media – Blue velvet extract analysis.

At the beginning of the clip, the sound is non-diagetic; there is a piece of incidental music that goes with what is happening in the clip. The music is called ‘blue velvet’ and as it is being played, a title screen is shown with the name of the film, ‘blue velvet’ and the background of this title is also a sheet of blue velvet. The piece of music is very stereotypically 1950’s America, and this music plays throughout the first 1 and half minutes of the opening scene. It goes well with what is happening in the film, as we are being showed a stereotypical, happy, suburban, American neighbourhood. There is a transition at the beginning where the blue velvet title screen dissolves into a blue sky. The camera then pans downward to show a red rose bush behind a white picket fence, the colouring in this image, (red, white and blue) is again representing America, and the idea of the perfect, friendly American neighbourhood. Roses could also symbolize love, this could foreshadow what the film is going to be about. Shortly after this, there is the same blue sky and white picket fence, but this time there is yellow tulips instead of roses. Tulips are an indication of death; this could foreshadow what is going to happen in the film – death
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We get the feeling that something is not as it seems to be when a fireman drives past the camera on a fire engine with a dog. The fireman is waving to the neighbours and seems as though he is being friendly, (which again makes it seem as though it is set in Suburban America), but the fireman has no urgency about him which is unusual as usually if a fire engine was driving past, it would be for an emergency. This makes it seem as though it is not real/ something about it is fake. This could be suggesting that what seems to be a happy American neighbourhood is actually hiding something. There is also diegetic sounds such as birds chirping which make it seem

  There is also a medium-long shot of a woman (who we assume to be the man who is watering the lawn’s wife) watching television in her house. It is in a completely normal setting and she is drinking what looks like a cup of tea but when we see what she is watching on television, we see a person holding a gun. This is foreshadowing what is going to happen in the film

 

Suddenly, we see the man who is watering the garden fall to the ground (while the non-diagetic and contrapuntal music is still playing in the background). The hose that he is holding is still spraying water, and therer is a slow motion shot of  a dog drinking from the hose and jumping on the dying man while he is on the floor. The slow motion shot of the dog gives this part of the clip a comical aspect and again makes the happy, suburbia America seem fake. A baby then wanders into the garden as the man is dying, this reminds the audience of the innocence of the dog and the baby and how blissfully unaware they are.

The last shot in the clip is a close up into the grass where we see what looks like beatles or cockroaches, This final shot makes the audience want to watch the rest of the film to find out what is going to happen and what exactly it is in the grass., The whole clip suggests a metaphor that not everything is as it seems in suburban America.

Preliminary Task Evaluation.

For our preliminary task, in groups we had to ensure that we created an opening scene that included four rules. We had to follow these four rules in order to ensure we got the marks. The first thing we had to do was to make sure that we did not break the 180 degree rule, This is ensuring that we keep the camera on one side of the people in the shot when filming so that it does not look like the people in the shot have moved and so that it does not confuse the audience. We did this throughout our scene by keeping the camera on one side and the people in the shot on the other, it was almost as though we created an invisible line so that we did not break the 180 degree rule.

The next thing that we had to do was a 'Match on action' shot, This is when one person gave another person an item of interest, we had to take one shot of a person giving the item, (in our case a piece of paper with information on it) and we then had to take another shot of the other person receiving the item. We had to do it from each persons perspective.

We then had to make sure we included an 'eye-line match'. This is where we had to ensure that the two people's eyes must match in order to keep the editing looking fluent so that it looks as though they are looking at each other even if they are of different heights. To do this we used two people of roughly the same height so that it was easier to do.

Finally, we had to add a shot-reverse-shot.This is where a shot is filmed of person 1 looking at person 2 from their perspective and then person 2 looking at person 1 from their perspective. In our case, we did this when one person was speaking to another and vice versa. We also did this shot when we were following where the people were going, we alternated between each person to add the effect that they were going to meet eventually.

There were certain parts of filming that as a group, we found challenging. For example, when filming the part that involved an actor taking items out of her locker, there was a large window behind her which meant that when she opened the locker, (where the camera was), the light behind her made it so that we couldn't see her face and it was dark/shadowed as there was not enough time for the camera to adjust to the lighting. To plan how we would film our preliminary task, we created a storyboard. In this we drew pictures of what we wanted each scene to look like and where it would be set, we also added where the dialogue would be and which camera angle we would use for each scene to ensure that we added all of the correct ones that we needed to get the marks. Next time I would use a more detailed storyboard as we ran out of time while trying to decide where we should film next and for how long etc. We also used a tripod effectively and for almost all of the shots, however we used only the camera on the floor for a couple of shots when we wanted to get a worm-eye view of them walking towards each other. The tripod allowed us to ensure that all of the shots were steady and not shaky.

We used adobe premier to edit our preliminary tasks. Firstly, we made a rough edit where we had to choose which clips we wanted to use out of the ones that we filmed and put them all into the new video with spaces in between to make them easier to edit. We next had to cut down all of the clips to the right length as some of them had us turning the camera on or off at the start and end of each clip so we had to get rid of those bits. We then added a title sequence, our preliminary task was called 'The Code' and we added text over the top of the video with the directors and actors in it. We then had to decide which transitions to add to each one to make it look neat and make it look like it flows. Finally, we added a piece of sound over the video, the video was incidental, so it went along with what was happening in the video.

MAJOR ISSUES IDENTIFIED WITH ALL/SOME BLOGS Complete the following tasks ASAP 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