28-11-14

7.) What characteristics link this to pomo texts so they look empty or absent of any fixed meaning.

Hybridity- "nothing is new anymore" so pomo texts use hybrids to create something new. As there is a lack of new texts it suggests the
Superficial-Looking into texts for deeper meaning, and seeing it is not real (all a dream etc) Leaving the audience feeling empty.
Simularcra- Not being able to differentiate between what is real and what is hyper reality, leaves the audience with an absence of answers.



8.)If postmodernism was a person who would it be.
Russell Brand-
Modern views
Cynical
Challenges dominant ideologies of society

Ralph-
Breaks and challenges genres, tradition and stereotype
Challenges binary opposition-(Strauss)
Wants change

Audience Theory

representation essay

My thriller conforms to certain traditional structures of representation but it also challenges these structures going against them and trying to portray a new postmodern approach.

In my thriller we do conform to the ideologies and representation structure, especially the marxism theory. We have a motherly figure who cares for and is worried about her child. This is common sense and is dominant ideology because you would expect this from a mother. The way the scenes are edited shows that the child is a illusion in the mothers imagination because the child has actually died. The fact that the mother still cares and sees the child conforms to the motherly ideology.

Our thriller does not conform to the structure of feminism and Laura Mulveys theory that women are a 'male gaze'. Our main character is a girl but her costumes does no convey her to be sexualised, it is a long white gown, showing pureness and prominence on the screen. We use close ups, not of her body parts or in a sexualised manner but of her face to show intimacy. Many women are shot sexually traditionally in hollywood films but we have chosen a different approach to shoot our main character that challenges the 'male gaze' representation. 

The stereotype representation according to John Berger states that people have to conform to the dominant ideology and what is the 'norm'. In our case we challenge this as we cast a women to be our lead actress not the traditional male. This challenges Bergers theory that 'men act and women appear'. We also did not cast any male roles in the thriller opening reinforcing that we are challenging this traditional representation that males always take the lead roles 

Our thriller uses hyper reality as our character has psychological issues and does not live in the real world. She has simulations of reality as Baurillard suggests. She has visions of her dead child and flashbacks so we are not seeing her life as it is now. This is a post modern theory and as it is not a traditional structure of representation we are breaking the conventions of traditional representations again.

Overall i think that our thriller challenges the traditional structures of representation. Although we conform to one of the theories we could also argue that we challenge this because even though our character is portrayed as motherly she is the one that kills her daughter, so this is not common sense and dominant ideology. 

genre essay

The genre that we chose for our film opening was thriller. I think that our thriller conforms to most of the traditional structures that make up a thriller.We haven't evolved the genre and given it new meaning, but we tried to stick to the conventions and keep within the one genre.

Daniel Chandler said that there is a distinctive type of text/genre. We conformed to this as we did not break the barriers for a thriller and didn't attempt to mix genres together. We kept to the thriller theme by the use of shot types, fast pace, quick shot changes and a lot of close ups to show mystery. The  lighting and editing we used was also mysterious as it was dark and the editing of the camera gave effects such as shaking and this was suppose to give a trippy feel to interest the audience. The soundtrack we had created ourselves and this was made with the intention to sound creepy, it was slow paces pianos which is relative of a thriller theme. We did however break the male role stereotypical rule as we cast a woman for our psychologically troubled role.

Altman said that media texts have genre to create emotion,visceral and intellectual meaning.To some extent our thriller caters for the emotional meaning because there is a mother and daughter reltionship. This is not very apparent to the audience though so this is a faint connection. Our thriller is categorised under the sub genre of 'psychological thriller' this creates mystery and keeps the audience thinking. This could be classed as intellectual because the audience is not fed all the information they have to try and piece things together.

Steve Neale  said that genres are dynamic and evolve over time. We did not evolve the thriller genre very much. We cast a woman to attract more women as thrillers are mostly watched by the male audience. But apart from that we broke no boundaries and stuck to the main rules of creating a traditional thriller opening.

Mittel says that genres are a way of selling to an audience. We tried to make our thriller apply to a wider target market than just the 12-25 year old men. We tried to broaden the audience type so

that we would not limit the people we could sell too. So we broke this traditional structure of genre as we tried to cater for the needs of different target markets.

To what extent does your thriller conform to the tradition structures of Representation?

In our thriller we followed the structures of representation, so that the majority of social groups would be able to understand and follow the ideas of the film. If we was going to challenge the structures of representation we would have had to focus on a niche group of people and follow their ideas of stereotypes and dominant ideas.

Our film followed Marxism in the way in which we reinforced the representation of the psychologically damaged, we represented this character through the mise-en-scene. However by having the film from her point of view challenged the dominant ideologies typically shown in films. As they are seen as 'different' to the majority of people, by giving her a voice in why she is like that and suggesting their is a reason behind her states gives people a different view.
David Gauntlett said that "artists play with the idea of identity in modern society", which I believe we have done as we have distorted the representation of our main character by giving her power of the film. A message behind this to our audience, is that people often ignore psychological issues in reality, and it should be brought to more peoples attention.

We challenged the structure of stereotypes in our thriller,as the main character is a mother but does not look or come across like a typical mother figure. Dyer said that "stereotypes depend on the different social groups", so we have tried appealing to different social groups by challenging her stereotype.
 Another stereotype we have challenged is the woman as the female we used is not portrayed through voyeurism. Berger said that "men act, women appear" which is not the case in our thriller because she is the main character, and in our opening no male characters appear. Having the point of view from a female character also reinforces the idea of feminism. In comparison to the majority of Hollywood films, where the main character or the point of view is shown from a male.

Baudrillard explored the idea of hyper-reality, which is what our character explored through her hallucinations. From the audiences point of view they have to resolve what is reality and what is hyper reality. The reality of the film, is the characters hyper real world, which confuses the audience as this is a post-modern characteristic of film.

Representation

Does	Doesn’t
Marxism	Stereotypes
Feminism
Postmodernism- Hyper reality

To what extent does your thriller conform to traditional structures of genre?

The opening for the film which we made, was made for a thriller movie. Our thriller, did conform to the conventions of a psychological thriller. This is the sub-genre which is more commonly used in modern film. 

Our film began showing  the main character, who is dressed in mental hospital clothing and her costume was made to be dirty to suggest her insanity. This is a convention which we used from typical thrillers. Chandler said that genre is "a type of film, with familiar conventions and characteristics to identify it by". We have used these "familiar conventions and characteristics" within our opening to set up the genre. As well as our main character, we used a young child who we edited to make her sem like a hallucination to the audience this questioned the main characters mental state and again showing her with psychological difficulties.

The location, where we shot did not conform to the typical conventions of the thriller genre as it was a normal garden however the reason for this choice was because it was secluded so that we could emphasise the characters loneliness. To make the location conform to the genre we used editing to darken some of the shots, and decrease the sharpness of scenes to let the audience see the dazed point of view in which our character is in. 

Steve Neale said that "genres evolve and develop over time" contrasting to this theory, our opening and plot for our thriller was made to conform to the basic rules and structure of a thriller. More specifically we conformed to the sub-genre, making our conventions more specific. Creating a hallucinating effect on the camera influenced the stock characters, which we used.

Altman, another theorist, explored the three pleasures in which he believed are provided for audiences. These pleasures being, "emotional, visceral and intellectual puzzles". Our thriller conformed to all three of these pleasures. First of all our film is shown from the main characters point of view creating a bond and bias like for her. This bond is continued throughout with close ups, and learning she was/is a mother because she is then seen as a mother figure to the audience. Sympathy is created as the enigma code is revealed to the audience, because they learn that she has ended in this mental state because of an abusive and struggling past.  

Secondly our thriller conformed to creating a visceral pleasure. The largest example of this was created through our soundtrack and foley, because we used this to create suspense  The foley of the main character scratching the wall was used to make an eery atmosphere, and as this is at the beginning they do not know anything about the character therefore do not know what is going to happen. Following this the enigma code in our thriller is the intellectual puzzle, for the audience to work out. The mystery which we gave our audience was "what has happened to the character?" and "who the child is?"

To guarantee that we created a thriller movie, we had to thoroughly follow the conventions of the genre. When planning it seemed very difficult to challenge the genre without resulting in making a different genre film. This is what challenges Abercrombie's theory that "Genre is dismantling the boundaries and therefore becoming more permeable". 

Genre- Thriller

Does	Doesn't
Chandler	Metz
Neale	Buckingham
Mittell
Altman
Abercrombie

Conclusion- Our thriller opening, although conforming to many of the typical conventions of a thriller as the genre has developed we followed a more specific take. We created a psychological thriller, this is a sub-genre.

Explanation	Evidence
Our thriller followed the typical thriller "genre", by using the conventions which make it obvious as to what genre it is.	Chandler
More specifically our thriller is a psychological thriller, this is conforming to Steve Neale's theory that genres are processes and therefore develop and evolve over time.	Neale- sub genres
Mittell says that genres are a way of selling films to the audience through culture, our thriller personally is aimed at a general audience. However the conventions we have used are what audiences will typically understand.	Mittell
We have tried to apply all the 'pleasures', emotional, visual and intellectual in our thriller for the audience to enjoy. Emotionally the audience connect with our main character as it is from her point of view and as a mother figure you feel sympathy for her. Visually we have created a pleasure by the amera editing conforming to the genre conventions. And intellectually we have challenged the audience with the mystery/enigma code of the film.	Altman
	Metz Stages of genre 1.experimental 2.classic 3.parody 4.deconstruction
We have followed a sub genre, psychological thriller, which is a dismantled more specific thriller genre.- Without the detective etc.	Abercrombie
Genre is constantly changing, however we have conformed very closely to the typical conventions of thrillers.	Buckingham

Narrative- thriller

Conclusion- Our thriller does not conform to traditional narratives, this is because if it did the it would not fit the thriller genre. The thriller conventions involve mystery and confusing the audience, the majority of Hollywood narratives are very simple so that the audience can understand and follow them easily. Although our thriller does conform to some, like including an enigma code (Barthes), it is because without any narrative there would be no plot and therefore not a film.