Critical Investigation tutorial 09/12/15

Essay plan

Intro: Needs a little more – discuss some of the pleasures and perhaps include some stats to back up what a successful genre it is? Also consider that idea of a killer quote to open the investigation (before the title). 250 words.

Section 1: Pleasure of horror – media theory and research. This is a perfect opening section and contextualises all the analysis to come later. This will be an extensive section – loads of research and quotes here please! 600 words.

Section 2: The horror audience – bringing in gender and audience statistics. This could include more theory – but don’t drift off your question. Keep focused on horror genre and audience pleasure. 400 words.

Section 3: Primary texts – Insidious and Paranormal Activity. Link the first two sections to your primary text and have a strong section of textual analysis of key scenes. Link and refer back to theories you have already discussed. 750 words.

Section 4: Historical texts and criticism of the horror genre – particularly in terms of recent films not living up horror classics like Scream. 500 words.

Section 5: Institution context – is horror important for the film industry? Is new technology changing the genre? More people watch films on PC/tablet than in cinema now (recent change) – how does this impact on horror? This could bring in the future of the genre. You may need a little more research on this or bring in some stats from the earlier section. 300 words.

Conclusion: summing up argument and returning to the core pleasures of horror. 150 words.

Next steps… update/finish your plan based on this tutorial. You don’t need to stick to the above by any means but hopefully it has at least clarified your thinking and provided a potential structure that will be easy to follow.

Work on your intro paragraph and I’ll have a quick read next week.

This essay has great potential – it could be SERIOUSLY good! But always keep it focused on the question – horror and audience pleasure. Good topic sentences and using the wording from the question is crucial.

Critical Investigation tutorial 25/11/15

Notes & Quotes document just over 2,500 – this doesn’t include Task #1 Textual Analysis but even so it’s looking a little short (plenty of others are at 4,000+). Hopefully this tutorial will give you academic texts to read and analyse which will beef up your N&Q document.

Textual analysis – some good points but I’m worried that there isn’t much detail aside from the trailer… and that will make it look like you didn’t bother to watch the film. I know this isn’t true but be aware of it. Go back to the original movies, choose a 1-2 minute sequence and analyse the hell out of it. Why is it like that? What does it tell the audience?

Academic books/journals definitely the weak point to your research. The bibliography is very short – obviously it is unfinished but needs to be 5-6 times longer to reach the top grades AND include proper academic sources. Hopefully the BFI trip will help with this.

Where is your Media Magazine research? Loads of references to Horror – you simply need to take the time to go through each one and read it/collect relevant quotes.

Why haven’t you looked at the books in DF07? There are loads of general film books that will ALL have big sections on horror. Again, without this you won’t get anywhere near the top grades. This will also help you get media theory into the essay.

Search the Guardian again – you’ve got some web research but again could do so much more.

Bibliography needs much more – keep going back to this as you read each new text, hopefully next time I see it you’ll have 30+ sources in there.

Historical text analysis and resear

FILM ART - AN INTRODUCTION

''The first horror films are surreal, disturbing pieces, owing their visual appearance in part to expressionist painters and in part to spirit photography of the 1860s.''

' In later decades, other low b udget filmkaers were drawn to the genre. Horror became a staple of the 1960's U.S. independent production, with many films targeted at the teenage market'

PAGE 122

LINES 17-19

'George Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968) was budgeted at only $114,000, but it success of college campuses helped revive the genre'

PAGE: 122

LINES: 19-21

- Nineteenth century audiences enjoyed seeing ghosts captured in still photography and magic lantern shows


technique: 

used photographic trickery to explore darker stories with psychological and supernatural themes, recognizable as the first horror films.



texts: 

The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari (1919)

 Director: Robert Wiene 

Writers: Carl Mayer, Hans Janowitz

take on reality is a disturbing experience - heightened by the jagged asymmetry of the mise en scene.

• diegetic world is wholly artificial, 
• surreal landscape

The Golem (1915/1920)

Director: Carl Boese, Paul Wegener

Writers: Henrik Galeen, Paul Wegener

FIRST monster movie

 about a clay man created by a magically-inclined rabbi

Nosferatu (1922)

FIRST vampire movie

baldly plagiarising the Dracula story to present Count Orlok

He changed the names of the central characters, but did not alter the story

THE DEBATE:

The horror films of the early 1980s show a new energy and delight in the genre

Special effects creators created sequences that had never been attempted on film before.

Essay plan

CRITICAL INVESTIGATION ESSAY PLAN

 

KEY:

• QUOTES  

• THEORY

• HISTORICAL

• ECONOMIC

• SOCIAL

• POLITICAL

• MIGRAIN​

• Quoted by

 

Why do audience continue watching horror movies such as insidious and paranormal activity, and what are the specific audience pleasures of horror movies?

 

INTRODUCTION:
 

HORROR is a prevalent genre in Hollywood which is why it’s a significant topic to consider and study …
 

“The pleasure comes from the relief that follows. It provides a cathartic effect, offering you emotional release and escape from the real world of bills and mortgages and the economy and relationships.”                                                              

                    John Edward Campbell

 

My primary texts are INSIDIOUS and PARANORMAL ACTIVITY…
 

 

SECTION 1: pleasures of horror movies

 

In this paragraph I will be talking about the pleasures of horror movies from what I have found out in my research…

 

 ‘It is suggested that the former, active and particularistic conception is to be preferred and that this necessitates a renewed attempt to grasp the diversity of what is, after all, a heterogeneous audience capable of taking diverse pleasures from their favored genre

 

Section 2: gender
 

GENDER
 

 

In this paragraph I will talk about the gender related topics with horror 

MALE:  “Teenage boys enjoyed a horror film significantly more when the female companion... expressed fright,

 

FEMALE:  whereas teenage girls enjoyed the film more when the male companion... showed a sense of mastery and control,”

 

Section 3: statistics.

In this paragraph I will talk about the statistics to back up my points on gender

Barclay (1961) presents the results of a survey of 2,526 boys and 2,794 girls conducted by the Scottish Educational Film Association.

49 per cent of fourteen-year-old boys and 37 per cent of girls of the same age chose horror as one of the four film types they liked best

41 per cent of fifteenyear-old boys and 56 per cent of girls of the same age chose horror).

Girls increasingly professed a dislike for the genre as they matured (of sixteenyear-olds, the number of boys liking horror remains steady at '10 per cent, for girls the figure dropped to 25 per cent).

By the age of eighteen, these figures have fallen to

• 29 per cent of boys

• 15 per cent of girls who liked horror films;

• 30 per cent of boys

• 64 per cent of girls most disliked genres
 

 

Section 4: criticisms

In this paragraph I will talk about why horror may not be a popular gender and how it has failed to pleasure audiences recently 

BAD REVIEWS FROM MY TEXTS SUCH AS INSIDIOUS.

Section 5: historical context
 

In this paragraph I will talk about the historical context of horror movies

....

‘During times of economic deprivation, as between 1931-1933, horror films like Dracula, King Kong, and The Mummy were highly popular; ditto for the late 1960s to the 1980s, the era of Halloween, Night of the Living Dead, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.’
 

 

Section 6: HISTORICAL TEXT:

In this paragraph I will be taking about my historical text which will be the movie scream

I will be analysing the text and comparing it to my normal text 

 

Section 7: primary texts INSIDIOUS

In this Paragraph I will be talking about my primary text insidious and talking about the success of the movie as well as the background information

.....

 

Section 8: Migrain and theories of INSIDIOUS

  

In this paragraph I will be talking about the analysis I done for insidious 

Analysis on video as well as the movie

Section 9: PARANORMAL ACTIVITY

In this Paragraph I will be talking about my primary text insidious and talking about the success of the movie as well as the background information

.....

 

Section 10: Migrain and theories of PARANORMAL ACTIVITY

In this paragraph I will be talking about the analysis I done for paranormal activity

Analysis on video as well as the movie

 

CONCLUSION

In this paragraph I will write a distinct conclusion about it the overall pleasures of horror movies I will also include a quote I gained from the BFI Library 

 

....