Halloween - Narrative Representations

Halloween (John Carpenter,1978)

Budget
$320,000 (estimated)

Gross

$47,000,000 (USA)
$60,000,000 (Worldwide) ( 1978)


First we fade straight in to simple white text on a black background. The font used is sans serif, basic and plain white. Exposition is provided, with the date and location appearing on screen. After the next scenes do not involve dialogue. Then we start with a long camera shot and a low angle which signifies the house has dominance and is some what important, also the house is lit up compared to its surroundings so it stands out and the viewers are drawn to it.

The shaky hand-held camera  signifies a point-of-view shot that we are looking through the eyes of a character.

The carved pumpkin has more obvious connotations with Halloween itself.  Until now the film has been in a state of equilibrium, the change in the score coupled with the slight dutch angle here suggests this is about to change. The light being switched out in the bedroom marks the first appearance of non-diegetic sound in the opening, and acts as a signifier to the audience. The camera still moves through the house as a point-of-view shot, and we are given hints as to the identity of the character whose we are seeing. We look at the sofa where the couple were earlier, suggesting that they are the target.

Our character is cautious to approach the boyfriend, who leaves the house as if he knows who he is. The character then puts a mask on, this then blocks out the rest of the shot through editing. It gives the sense of unease to the audience as they can't see the whole picture. We then get a look at the half-naked girl, suggesting vulnerability and weakness as she is covered in blood and on the floor. The camera through the killers then looks at the messy bed signifying to the audience something sexual has happened.

The murder itself is shown by using diegetic sound rather than shown on screen, we get screams from the girl. Also non-diegetic audio is used, sound effects and the score reaching a crescendo provide most of the scenes tension and horror.

Then we finally have the killer revealed and is a shock for the audience. Through out the opening scene we are given a high angle from the killers eyes, then suddenly the camera goes to a high angle of the killer showing how now he is vulnerable to the world around him as he is revealed to his parents.

Slasher Film Opening Pitch TBC

Working Title

Tapp

Idea

My Idea is that the film is set in a house in a rural town in England.First we get a establishing shot of the house. It is showing a scene back in time from 1992 which will relate to the film later. I starts of with a girl lying down in bed by herself. We have a time place and date come up on screen over the video. She is sleeping however the bed quilt starts floating up as if there is a supernatural presence entering her bed. To do this i will edit the video using composeting, this means having to versions of the clip (one original/background and the other where you are making the affect happen). By doing this you can then mask out where you are on the video by masking it and put the original in the background. After the quilt sheets move, she wakes up looking at the camera in shock as if she is having a night mare. The camera angle with be looking down at her while shes asleep in her bed. Suddenly she hears tapping and gets out of bed to find out what it is. As she walks down the hallway with a torch with her she hears her shower on so she goes into the bathroom. She opens the door and finds the shower is turned on with the shower curtain open across so the person in the bath is hidden. She then drags the curtain to the side and the shower stops instantly, there is no one in the shower (this is the false scare). Suddenly she hears another loud tap so she walks around the top floor to find out what is it. When she gets back into her room she finds the sound coming from there l. Then while she's just in the middle of the room, the light turns off, so she turns her torch on and it lightens up her face. As she stands there in fear, suddenly in the background the face of a person appears as if a torch has been turned on underneath their face. While both faces are on screen the light switch suddenly turns back on and they both appear. The women turns around and then the "killer" slashes her neck and blood spurts over the camera. It then fades out to the titles.

Its X Meets Y

I am comparing it to two other existing films of which is the Grudge and ---. First the film Grudge (Shamizu Takashi, 2004) of which influences my idea. This is because right at the beginning of the film a women hears noises in coming from another room. This leads her to go searching for the sound's of which then appears to be a child hidden in the wardrobe. We are given a false scare thinking the noises are from a cat. However then straight away shows the child. This is what i'm doing in mine. 

The second film i compared it too is Paranormal Activity (Oren Peli, 2009) this is a "found footage" film which was a huge succeess. It relates to this film because there is a lot of false scares in the film which i plan to use. This creates more tension between the characters and the audience. Also in the film they use a lot of bangs and taps to create a scare. This makes the feel more of a horror and will scare the audience.



Narrative Synopsis
The opening of the film is flashback in time of what the killer has done. He is in jail at the moment, and he can't remember any thing he has done. He has killed several people and is a serial killer.

Narrative Exposition, Enigma , Propp, Todorov etc
The narrative exposition in this film is that we are given the time, date and location. This gives the audience information of what the film is about. We are told that it is in the past as it is set in 1992. The narrative enigma used is that we hear the sounds, and also see the quilt float up signifiying that their is something there. However when sarah gets murdered we are given the face of the killer.

Genre Signifiers

The genre signifiers in this are that the setting is at night time, she is in her house alone by herself which shows she is vunerable to anything. Also their is a knife which shows that this is a horror/slasher. Another thing is that the build up of tension with the sound effects and tap's show that it is a horror and somehting scary is going to happen.

Locations
The location is set in a rural town in England. It is in winter and the first scene is set at night. The rooms used will be her room, the bathroom, the hallway and spare room.

Other Mise-en-scene e.g. Props 

The setting of the bedroom is that it will be a small room however the room will be spread out so there is a lot of space. The small room helps because it will make it a small confined room where she can't escape. The probs needed will be two torches, one for each character. A big butchers knife for the killer.

Cast + Characteristics 

Sarah Myers - the women who dies

Killer

The Killer
The killer is a middle aged man, who is a serial killer. To date now he is in jail and the opening scene is a flashback.

Media Language
There will be a varitety of shots used in this film, inlcuding shot reverve shot, the 180 degree rule and also panning shots. I will use quick pace editing to give the film more tension and a sense of horror. The editing in the film will be that i will edit the quilt moving up and floating. Also the face of the kill will be edited so they look even scarier.

Target Audience: Primary + Secondary

The target audience will be aimed at 18-30 year olds because it will be too violent for under 18's and also not really appropriate for 50+.

The secondary target audience is from 30-45.

Summary: Why Yours

We should use my film idea because it has a lot of shot variety. It is very easy to record as it is set in a house, and we hardly need any props. Also we can use our editing techniqes to do quick pace editing on the scenes, aswell as editing the quilt effect.

13 Films Analysed In Class

Slashers (2001)

Budget - £165,000 

Box Office - Unknown

No opening indents and credits shown at the beginning. The opening starts as the beginning of a TV show.

Urban Legends (Jamie Blanks, 1998)

Budget 14m

Box Office USA 38m

Uk 1.1m

Idents

Phoenix pictures 

Titles

Pheonix prictures presents

URBAN LEGEND

Names of actors 

Scary Movie (WAYANS, 2000)

Budget 19m

Box Office 157m USA

9m UK

Idents

Dimension Films

Titles

Scary Movie - black background with red title.

Mad House (William Butler, 2004)

Idents

Lions Gate Films

Titles

There is no place like home - written on wall like blood dripping.

Lions Gate Film Presents

A Madhouse Production

Names of Actors appear

Directed by William Butler - last title (very important) begins and ends with this title.

Black Christmas (Bob Clark, 1974)

Opening shot of an establishing shot of house.

Titles

Black Christmas

Staring... (actor names)

Cry Wolf (Jess Wadlow, 2005)

Idents

Rogue Pictures

Rogue pictures presents 

Hypnotic pictures

Titles

Cry Wolf (Serif, half of letters missing, carrier font which signifies typewriting, decay and death.)

Donkey Punch (Olivier Blackburn, 2008)

Idents

Warp Films

The Uk Film Council  

Film 4

In acosiation with Screen Yorkshire and EM Media presents

A Warp X production

 

All The Boys Love Mandy Lane (Jonathan Levine, 2006)

Idents

Occupant Films

Titles

All The Boys Love Mandy Lane (Blood, sharp edge font on words)

April Fools Day (Fred Walton, 1986)

Ident

Paramount 

A Gulf Western Company

Titles

April Fools Day (Film starts in Background, colour of title signifies comedy)

Baby Sitter Wanted (Jonas Barnes and Michael Manaserri, 2008)

Idents

The Independent Film Company

Big Screen Entertainment company group

Titles

Babysitter Wanted (blood splat on background)

5ive Girls (Lauren Sonoda, 2006)

Idents

Alliance Atlantis

Archetype Films 

Titles

Names of Actors (don't appear until 5 minute in, decayed background of forest, trees and blood splatter)

A Film By Warren P Sonoda

Leprechaun (Mark Jones, 1993)

Budget $900,000

Opening Weekend $8.5m

6 films in the franchise, another been made in 2013

Franchise 

Leprechuan 1

Leprechaun 2

Leprechaun 3

Leprechaun In space

Leprechaun In the hood

Leprechaun back 2 hood

No Final Girl

Scream Queen - Jennifer Anniston (Brunette, Not busty or sexually active. Not like your typical stereotype scream queen)

Weapon used is a Pogo stick

Lots of merchandise to buy to keep money rolling in to keep the franchise going.

Leprechaun

(Mark Jones, 1993)

Budget

$900,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend

$2,493,020 (USA) (10 January 1993) (620 Screens)

Gross

$8,556,940 (USA)

Filming Dates

28 October 1991 - 3 December 1991

An evil, sadistic Leprechaun goes on a killing rampage in search of his beloved pot of gold. Here is the trailer.

In this Franchise we had to talk about the opening scene to film. We will cover many points in the video. There was 7 films made in the franchise and here is a grid showing all of them in detail.

Film

1. Leprechaun

2. Leprechaun 2

3. Leprechaun 3

4. Leprechaun 4: In Space

5. Leprechaun: In the Hood

6. Leprechaun: Back 2 the Hood

7. Leprechaun: Origins

Overview

In the original Leprechaun (1993), Daniel O'Grady (Shay Duffin) captures the Leprechaun (Warwick Davis) while in Ireland, takes his gold and smuggles it back to his home in North Dakota, unaware the Leprechaun has followed him. Confronting O'Grady and demanding his gold the Leprechaun is injured by O'Grady and sealed in a crate with a four-leaf clover, though before O'Grady can kill the creature he suffers a stroke. Ten years later the Leprechaun is accidentally released by Tory Redding (a then-unknown Jennifer Aniston) and her new friends, and goes on a killing spree in search of his gold, which Alex Murphy (Robert Gorman) and Ozzie (Mark Holton) had discovered. After the Leprechaun reclaims the bulk of his gold he is defeated when Alex shoots a four-leaf clover down his throat with a slingshot and Alex's older brother Nathan (Ken Olandt) blows up the well the Leprechaun falls into.

In Leprechaun 2 (1994) the Leprechaun seeks out a new bride in modern day Los Angeles, one thousand years after an earlier attempt to claim a bride was foiled. Claiming a fussy teenage girl named Bridget (Shevonne Durkin), the descendent of his original choice of a wife, the Leprechaun holds her captive in his lair and terrorizes her boyfriend Cody (Charlie Heath), who had taken one of his gold coins. In the end Cody saves Bridget and defeats the Leprechaun by impaling him with a spike made of wrought iron, one of the few substances that can harm a Leprechaun.

Leprechaun 3 (1995) begins with the Leprechaun, having been changed into a statue by a magical medallion, being sold to a Las Vegas pawn shop. Assuming his original form when the clerk removes the medallion, the Leprechaun kills him and goes on a rampage through Las Vegas in search of one of his wish granting coins, which is passed from hand to hand. The Leprechaun is ultimately defeated by college student Scott McCoy (John Gatins) and Scott's new girlfriend Tammy Larsen (Lee Armstrong), who blast his gold with a flamethrower, causing it to vanish and the Leprechaun to burst into flames.

Taking place in the future, Leprechaun 4: In Space (1997) has the Leprechaun abduct and begin courting snobbish alien princess Zarina (Rebekah Carlton), seducing her with promises of wealth. After being blown up by a group of marines who rescue Zarina, the Leprechaun is reborn on the marines' ship via exploding out of the groin of one of an unfortunate man, Kowalski. He then goes off in search of his stolen bride and gold, killing all those who get in his way. After being turned into a giant via an enlargement ray, the Leprechaun is ejected into space by the survivors of the massacre, Tina Reeves (Jessica Collins), Books Malloy (Brent Jasmer) and Sticks (Miguel A. Núñez, Jr.) 

Set in Compton, California, Leprechaun: In the Hood (2000) has the Leprechaun being turned to stone once more, this time by pimp Mack Daddy O'Nassas (Ice-T), who uses the Leprechaun's mind-controlling magic flute to become a successful music producer. Years later, the Leprechaun is unknowingly changed back to flesh and blood by a trio of wannabe rappers led by Postmaster P. (Anthony Montgomery) who rob Mack Daddy, taking the Leprechaun's gold and the flute from him with the intent of using the objects to become successful. Hunted by both Mack Daddy and the Leprechaun, Postmaster P., after his friends and Mack Daddy are killed, is brainwashed into becoming a servant of the Leprechaun.

Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood (2003) begins with the Leprechaun stalking Father Jacob (Willie C. Carpenter) trying to get his gold back, only to be dragged into the ground by demonic hands when the priest uses four-leaf clover laced holy water against him before dying from a heart attack. One year later the Leprechaun's gold is discovered by eighteen-year-old Emily Woodrow (Tangi Miller) and her friends, who use the gold to fulfill their wildest fantasies, unintentionally releasing the Leprechaun, who goes after Emily and the others to get his gold back, killing everyone who gets in his way. On the rooftop of the abandoned community centre Father Jacob had been building using the Leprechaun's gold Emily and her boyfriend Rory Jackson (Laz Alonso) defeat the Leprechaun by knocking him and his gold off the roof and into a pool of wet cement below, where the Leprechaun sinks and becomes trapped.

Leprechaun: Origins is coming late 2013, all we know is that the producers are WWE and Lionsgate

There is no final girl in leprechaun (1993).

Final Girl

Laurie Strode

Laurie Strode (Halloween 1,2,3)

She represents the final girl archetype in the film Halloween.  She is very intelligent which is a signifier that she is the final girl. she forgot her biology book at home and got worried about it. her friends laughed the 'scream queens'. she wears not very glamorous clothes long cardigan and white thick tights. usually the final girl is brunette. the scream queen is usually blonde and busty. Usually the final girl is a virgin, however the scream queen usually have and can get a girlfriend unlike the final girl. the final girl is usually responsible unlike the typical scream queen. the binary opposition is smoking and non  smoking between the c=scream queens and the final girl. Her chemistry book is a real big deal for her leaving it.

Sydney Prescott

Sydney Prescott (Scream 1996)


She is signified as the final girl by denoting her night dress is long, old fashioned and quite childish. We can also denote when we first see her she is doing her homework. Her room is very neat and tidy showing she is a responsible moral character being signified  She has the conventional brunette dark brown hair.

There is a false scare at the begging of her boyfriend  he comes in a talks about their lack of sex, insinuating shes a virgin. "I wouldn't dream of breaking your underwear rule".








Men, Women and Chainsaws: The Final Girl 

The final girl is a thriller and horror film (particularly slasher) trope that specifically refers to the last woman or girl alive to confront the killer, ostensibly the one left to tell the story. The term was coined by Carol J. Clover in her book Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Clover suggests that in these films, the viewer begins by sharing the perspective of the killer, but experiences a shift in identification to the final girl partway through the film. The final girl has been observed in dozens of films, including Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Hellraiser, Alien and Scream.

Examples of final girls

Before the release of Alien 3, Clover identified Ellen Ripley from the Alien franchise as a final girl. Elizabeth Ezra continues this analysis for Alien Resurrection, arguing that by definition both Ripley and Annalee Call must be final girls, and that Call is the "next generation of Clover's Final Girl". Call, in Ezra's view, exhibits traits that fit Clover's definition of a final girl, namely that she is boyish, having a short masculine-style haircut, and that she is characterized by (in Clover's words) "smartness, gravity, competence in mechanical and other practical matters, and sexual reluctance" being a ship's mechanic who rejects the sexual advances made by male characters on the ship. Ezra notes, however, that this identification of Call as a final girl is marred by the fact that she is not a human being, but an android.

Christine Cornea disputes the idea that Ripley is a final girl, contrasting Clover's analysis of the character with that of Barbara Creed, who presents Ripley as "the reassuring face of womanhood". Cornea does not accept either Clover's or Creed's views on Ripley. Whilst she accepts Clover's general thesis of the final girl convention, she argues that Ripley does not follow the conventions of the slasher film, as Alien follows the different conventions of the science fiction film genre. In particular, there is not the foregrounding in Alien, as there is in the slasher film genre, of the character's sexual purity and abstinence relative to the other characters (who would be, in accordance with the final girl convention, killed by the film's monster "because" of this). The science fiction genre that Alien inhabits, according to Cornea, simply lacks this kind of sexual theme in the first place, it not having a place in such "traditional" science fiction formats. 

Laurie Strode (from Halloween I, II, and H20) is another example of a final girl. Tony Williams notes that Clover's image of supposedly progressive final girls are never entirely victorious at the culmination of a film nor do they manage to eschew the male order of things as Clover argues. He holds up Strode as an example of this. She is rescued by a male character, Dr. Samuel Loomis, at the end of Halloween. He holds up Lila Crane, from Psycho, as another example of a final girl who is saved by a male (also named Sam Loomis) at the end of the film. On this basis he argues that whilst 1980s horror film heroines were more progressive than those of earlier decades, the gender change is done conservatively, and the final girl convention cannot be regarded as a progressive one "without more thorough investigation".

Williams also gives several examples of final girls from the Friday the 13th franchise: Alice from Friday the 13th, and the heroines from Part II and Part III. (He observes that Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter does not have a final girl.) He notes that they do not conclude the films wholly victorious, however. The heroines from Parts 2 and 3 are catatonic at the ends of the respective films, and Alice survives the monster in the first film only to fall victim to "him" in the second. The final girl in Part 2 is carried away on a stretcher, calling out for her boyfriend (which Williams argues again undermines the notion of final girls always being victorious). Moreover, Ginny's adoption of the monster's own strategy, in Part II, brings into question whether the final girl image is in fact a wholly positive one. 

Kearney observes that in the middle 1990s the trope of the final girl in horror films was "resurrected, reshaped, and mainstreamed". She points to Sidney Prescott (in Scream I, II, and III) and Julie James (in I Know What You Did Last Summer and I Still Know What You Did Last Summer) as examples of this.

Other characters identified as final girls include Sally Hardesty of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Nancy Thompson of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise.

History

According to Clover, the final girl is typically sexually unavailable or virginal, avoiding the vices of the victims (sex, narcotic usage, etc.). She sometimes has a unisex name (e.g., Teddy, Billie, Georgie, Sidney). Occasionally the Final Girl will have a shared history with the killer. The final girl is the "investigating consciousness" of the film, moving the narrative forward and as such, she exhibits intelligence, curiosity, and vigilance.

One of the basic premises of Clover’s theory is that audience identification is unstable and fluid across gender lines, particularly in the case of the slasher film. During the final girl’s confrontation with the killer, Clover argues, she becomes masculinised through "phallic appropriation" by taking up a weapon, such as a knife or chainsaw, against the killer. Conversely, Clover points out that the villain of slasher films is often a male whose masculinity, and sexuality more generally, are in crisis. Examples would include Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Clover points to this gender fluidity as demonstrating the impact of feminism in popular culture.

The phenomenon of the male audience having to identify with a young female character in an ostensibly male-oriented genre, usually associated with sadistic voyeurism, raises interesting questions about the nature of slasher films and their relationship with feminism. Clover argues that for a film to be successful, although the Final Girl is masculinised, it is necessary for this surviving character to be female, because she must experience abject terror, and many viewers would reject a film that showed abject terror on the part of a male. The terror has a purpose, in that the female is 'purged' if she survives, of undesirable characteristics, such as relentless pursuit of pleasure in her own right. An interesting feature of the genre is the 'punishment' of beauty and sexual availability (Leading to the idea that "Sex = Death" in Horror Movies)

How Laurie Strode defines the final girl archetype

she is very intelligent which is a signifier that she is the final girl. she forgot her biology book at home and got worried about it. her friends laughed the 'scream queens'. she wears not very glamorous clothes long cardigan and white thick tights. usually the final girl is brunette. the scream queen is usually blonde and busty. Usually the final girl is a virgin, however the scream queen usually have and can get a girlfriend unlike the final girl. the final girl is usually responsible unlike the typical scream queen. the binary opposition is smoking and non  smoking between the c=scream queens and the final girl. Her chemistry book is a real big deal for her leaving it.

Idents - My Idea

We are making idents for our videos and films. This is to go at the start of them to show the audience what production company has made the film. Station identification (idents or channel ID) is the practice of radio or television stations or networks identifying themselves on air, typically by means of a call sign or brand name (sometimes known, particularly in the United States, as a "sounder" or "stinger", more generally as a station or network ID). 

This may be to satisfy requirements of licensing authorities, a form of branding or a combination of both. As such it is closely related to production logos used in television and cinema, alike.

Station identification used to be done regularly by an announcer at the halfway point during the presentation of a television program, or in between programs. 

Here is some famous Idents which you will be very familiar of.



Some Idents may be altered to suit the movie, for example here this was from the movie Pink Panther (Shawn Levy 2006).



What Idents should include:

• Company Titles
• Audio/sound
• Animation
• Company Logo

 For my idents I came up with the company "Twitch Productions". For this i will have the word TWITCH fade in, it will be white with a black background.

The word twitch with then animate with things growing on it.













Finally the word Productions with fade in underneath, then suddenly the whole screen will "twitch" away.








For an example of what twitching is, here is a clip showing an Ident with the twitch effect. However i would make my titles Twitch more.



Here is my final Idents which i used After Effects and Livetype to make them. 

Slasher Opening Sequence

Nearly all Slasher films have a vary of the following.

• Non diegetic music.
• Fade to black
• Dutch angle
• Credits
• Idents
• Narrative Enigma
• False Scare
• Intertextuality
• Post Modernism
• Exposition
• Anchorage
• Polysemy (withold info)
• Audio bridge
• Chase scene
• Slice n Dice
• Stalk n slash
• Scream Queen
• Genre Signifiers (Easily recognisable)
• Binary Opposites (Blonde Busty Fit girl dies first... Brunette Ugly Geek dies last.)
• Serif font in the titles (Usually Red)
• Fast pace editing.
• Short takes (Violence usually)
• Establishing shot.

Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock 1960)

Box Office

Budget:$806,947 (estimated)

Gross:$50,000,000 (Worldwide)

In the film is was shot in black and white because of the blood censorship, they could get away with having it as X rating. At the time this was one of the highest ratings for a film however is equvalent to a 12A/PG now.

Also this film brought a great argument to film as it was the first film to ever show a flushing toilet because usually it is seen as disgusting in 1960.

Saul Bass was the creator of the famous title sequence in the 50's and 60's in Alfred HItchcock's film Phycho. The titles where created very cleaverly and have an animation of being "slashed" through by a knife which works well with the film. You can also see in on the film poster how the title has been slashed. Throughout the title sequence the main cast was in large font and the less known was smaller. Janet Leigh as Marion Crane was the highlighted cast as she was the most famous actor in the film at the time in 1960. Alfred Hitchcock was mentioned twice in the titles to identify the director with the film Auteur.

Opening Scene

In the opening shot it almost lasts 2 minutes long to establish the setting. It includes the following.

• Extreme Long Shot as the Establishing shot.
• Signifies the city setting.
• Panning/birds eye shot.
• Cross dissolve transition.
• Titles on screen provide exposition.
• Four panning shots
• Extreme long shot.
• Cuts off.
• Hand of fate.