Media Language Essay

Media language essay. Media language does not refer to the words spoken by and actor in the text, but the language and codes of the medium. Semiotics is a major topic when exploring media texts in horror films. They are used to describe how meaning is constructed through language and codes for example a sign is anything that carries meaning, it can be explicit icons, implicit symbols or iconic signs. I will be exploring different theorist’s beliefs and theories on media language in horrors. The first theorist is a man called Ferdinand de Saussure, he explored the signifier and the signified. He stated that the signifier is the physical form of the sign, the signified is the idea that the signifier produces and the referent is the real thing it stands for. Regarding my summer there are many elements that relate to Ferdinand de Saussure’s theory. For example in my trailer we use the weapon of a knife to stab and harm the protagonist. The referent would just be that it was a weapon used against someone to hurt them. On the other hand the knife is also seen as a signifier used against the protagonist to signify penetration. Instead of stabbing the protagonist, the antagonist is penetrating the protagonist sexually. It explores the idea of male dominance and power that they have over someone usually a woman. Symbolic codes are also explored through the media language of a horror. A theory was created in regard to symbolic codes, this was that mise-en-scene is a way the media language is shown through. These are things like costume, props and setting and lighting. Lighting was explored through my media summer trailer extensively, it is a very important aspect of films as different lighting helps to establish setting, characters and moods. I made sure I filmed at night in a setting that didn’t have a lot of light. For example a lot of it was filmed in an alleyway next to a field. This only had street lighting and the occasional use of a camera torch, I found this effective because the darkness behind the main subject of the scene created enigma and suspense. This is because no one knew what was happening and therefore was scared in suspense. Technical codes are also explored through the media language of horror films. When describing movement with the camera in a film we consider the primary and secondary action. For example the primary being the movement of the characters and the secondary being the movement in the camera relating to those objects. The camera shots and angles we use is very important in horrors because it lets us create different scenes that are effective in different scenes of a horror. For example in my summer trailer we used multiple tracking shots of the protagonist in things like chases, this is an effective camera movement because it creates suspense and puts us in the point of view of the antagonist. I will defiantly be using this camera movement in my actual teaser trailer because I know its effective and will help achieve the way I want my trailer to look. Editing is widely effective and explored in filming too. A lot of the important work for films and their pre-production is done in the editing suite and can be broken down using a range of language. When my summer trailer was being created we filmed a lot of long scenes and therefore felt we needed to edit them. This was great when we wanted to do shorts clips that helped create a montage. Instead of filming short clips we just edited long ones down to short and smaller ones. This was very effective and I know for certain if I hadn’t edited the trailer before presenting it then it would be nowhere near as good as it was as its final product. Finally audio codes are used to be explored in horror films, this is sound. Sound refers to the strong relationship between dialogue and visuals and the effect sound has to a text. A main type of sound that is explored in horrors are diegetic and non-diegetic sound. Non diegetic sound was widely explored in my summer trailer. I used a soundtrack that fitted my horror genre and scenes well and it was therefore really effective in my final product. I will definitely be using it in my real final product. In conclusion media language has been explored by many theorists that created different explanations about the horror genre. After analysing their theories against my own summer trailer I feel it has helped me improve on my previous work in time for my future work. I now won’t make these mistakes that are identified through the theories and it will therefore improve my grade for the future.

Audience Essay

Audience essay. Every media company wants to target a particular type of audience, therefore, media companies produce texts that target a particular “type” of audience. Therefore in this essay I will be exploring these different types of audiences, these are normally analysed by different theories that theorists have created overtime to explain why the audience of horrors are the audience. The first theory that is used to explain audiences in horrors is called “The Hypodermic Model” This is the belief that the texts are injected into the audience by powerful media. The audience is powerless to resist and therefore the media works like a drug that the audience is addicted to. Another model that is explored in relation to audience is called “The Effects Model” This model is the consumption of media texts has an effect upon the audience. It is normally considered as a negative effect. Audiences are powerless to this theory and that makes them not easy to prevent the influence of the model. The power is always in the message of the text in the horror film. Due to the fact that my horror trailer had the sub-genre of slasher, may suggest that people could start to act in a violent manner in the future after watching the film. Because of all the violence in my trailer it may continue the bad effect on the audience that we have targeted at. A theorist called Stuart Hall developed an active theory titled “encoding and decoding model” that analysed the relationship between the producer and the audience of the horror. He identified three types of audience readings of the text, the one that relates to my summer trailer would be “negotiated” this is where the audience accepts, rejects or refines the elements of the text in light of previously held views. For example to further this explanation I can relate it to my horror trailer that I created over the summer. Because it was a slasher there was a defined audience that we aimed at to achieve. We chose a similar audience that other slashers would have chosen. This is how it fits into the negotiated section, due to it being a similar audience to other slashers, they are used to the elements that are highlighted in media texts like my trailer. They are then used to the elements because they have seen them before and are less likely to have a strong opinion on the elements. A psychology theorist called Mary Jones created the theory that talked about desensitisation. She believed that the more violence that the viewers of the horrors are exposed to then the less sensitive they will come to it and therefore the violence no longer seems to bother them in the sense as it did before. This was a major negative factor towards my summer trailer. Due to the situation it was in and the way we did it, it was full of desensitisation elements. For example we used conventional and stereotypical weapons with a stereotypical story line. This would have been viewed as boring to the audience because it’s what they are used to and therefore wouldn’t come out of the film happy because their needs haven’t been fulfilled. On the other hand this is a positive because in the future I know to think outside the box on how to go around the conventional elements of horrors. Another theory regarding horror audiences would be the copycat theory. This is when audiences will copy what they see in a media text. It refers to how the media can influence and affect the audience’s behaviour. I don’t believe that my horror trailer would create the copycat theory to happen. This because it wasn’t an as effective trailer for a well-known theory like that to occur. On the other hand, because of the stereotypical aspects we have in our own horror, I believe that we in a way copied other slasher films and it made our own horror less effective. In conclusion audience has been explored by many theories that created different explanations about the horror genre and its audiences. After analysing their theories against my own summer trailer I feel it has helped me improve on my previous work in time for my future work. I now won’t make these mistakes that are identified through the theories and it will therefore improve my grade for the future.

Representation Essay.

Representative Essay. Representative is a typical class, group or body of opinion, in regard to horror it is the typical groups or people that appear in conventional horror films. A lot of the time media theorists explore the subtext behind different characters in a horror that unlocks a whole new underlying truth to why the horror storyline is the way it is. I will be exploring a wide range of theorists like; Berger, Mulvey, Clover and Dobbs. A theorist called Berger believed “ men act and woman appear, men look at women and women watch themselves being looked at” to further explain this they believed that defining genders is a biological classification but if we think about it the words “masculine” and “feminine” creates the social construction we have today. Males in horrors are seen as dominant and strong however women are seen as submissive and passive. The way that gender is represented through the horror genre are shown through the subgenres of horror, however the cons of gender are represented through my summer trailer. It is clear that my horror trailer follows the theory of Berger quite vividly. The protagonist (a woman) is shown as a very passive character in my horror trailer. She is shown easily giving up in the middle of an attack between her and the antagonist. The antagonist is also shown as dominant throughout the trailer having a special control over the protagonist especially in the attack. The subtext beneath this may be the reoccurring issue with the inequality between men and women and the fact that the women in my trailer are not going against this inequality and are just admitting defeat. Another theorist that goes by the name of Mulvey focuses very strongly on “the gaze” in the horror genre. She stated that when a woman’s body is displayed on the screen, the men get exotic pleasure from seeing this and therefore controls the woman. This is done by camera angles and shots used throughout the film that shows them as decorative objects for the men to gaze at, this is called “the male gaze”. We as a audience are then forced to this objectifying of women whilst identifying with the male. Mulvey identifies that the cinema is a largely male dominant based industry so therefore men are in control of the cinematic text, especially in a horror film, particularly slashers have been criticised for being the product of “the male gaze” since most directors are men. Recently men have been portrayed as the decorative or sexual objects that the woman or homosexual men of the target audience can now look at, this is now being called “the female gaze” However on my horror trailer there is only use of “the male gaze” throughout the trailer. For example in the scene where she wakes up attacked from her dream, there is a close up shot of her chest area showing the objectification of women and allowing men to view her as a decorative object. Due to this, it is clear that Mulvey’s theory s widely active throughout my summer work creating many analyses that I can go deeper into in my conclusion. A theorist called Clover create a theory about the last girl standing in a horror film, she called them “the final girl” normally she is left to confront the killer/ antagonist. In horrors, the viewer begins by sharing the killer’s perspective but then experiences a shift of identification with the final girl towards the end of the film as she keeps getting away from being killed. She is stereotypically a virgin, with a more masculine look and sometimes a unisex name. She is normally seen as pure by the killer and therefore he doesn’t kill her because the antagonist has no reason to. She becomes masculine when in front of the killer because she takes on masculine features in order to defeat the antagonist. Audiences often identify with the male protagonist however Clover argues that the horror is popular with males as they identify as not being on top of the “macho hierarchy” for example every male has been intimidated at some point. Clover argues that for a horror to succeed, the survivor must be a female experiencing terror as viewers would reject this being a male. I would say that my horror trailer has a attempt of a final girl without the masculine features, for example she has more feminine features then a final girl should have, this may be due to the fact that I didn’t know about this key convention in a horror and therefore couldn’t incorporate it into my trailer. I know to do this next time. Finally the last theorist I will be exploring relating to the horror genre and my work is Dobbs, she explore feminism in the horror genre. She stated that horror has confused relationships with woman, you are likely to have a women victim in this genre or a romcom and they are frequently seen as decorative objective. She continued this statement by explaining that the most famous women in horrors are actors, she creates the opinion that it would be nice to have a more common interest of females included on the other side of the camera. Dobbs also said that there is no reason why horrors should have a gender preference, you don’t need to be a male to enjoy being scared, horrors allow audiences the thrill of the unknown and females are allowed to feel that. She also continues adding her part on the final girl, she believes that there is a problem with the frequent final girl, she asks if there is really a need to have a final girl in every horror. On the other hand there is something wonderful about it to, the fact that she survives. No matter what happens to her in the film, she gets her revenge in the end by killing the antagonist. After learning about Dobbs and her opinions, I found it hard to be able to link it to my summer work, this is because I never knew about her way of analysing horrors and therefore couldn’t apply it to my own work. However I think this is a good thing because its helped me be able to plan my future trailer and how to make it more effective. In conclusion, it becomes clear to me that there are many media theorists that explore the representation side of the horror genre. After analysing their theories against my own summer trailer I feel it has helped me improve on my previous work in time for my future work. I now won’t make these mistakes that are identified through the theories and it will therefore improve my grade for the future.

The collector analysis from oliviacolgate