Task 2: Research into Existing Products

The genre i chose was horror.

A horror film can easily be confused with a thriller film. Both can have flashing images and can both scare you. The difference is is that horrors generally intend to scare, frighten, panic, make you jump, show blood and gore, screaming and chase sequences. As well as these to entertain us at the same time with terrifying features. Thrillers aren't generally made to make you scream, but to thrill hence thriller. They are mainly to do with suspense, build your tension and anticipation and invoke anxiety. Thrillers can include something to do with police or the law, espionage, mysteries and not just about people being murdered or killed in violent or gory ways.

Textual Analysis of :- Horror

Switchblade Romance
Day of The Dead
Scream
The Grudge

Switchblade Romance - The first horror film we watched was a french film called Switchblade Romance. From the opening sequence we can tell this is either going to be a horror or a thriller. The film we watched had flashing images which looked like a cars headlights, the clip its self had a car in it, and this can tell us that the narrative will be based around some sort of car journey. Other signs to tell us that this is a horror film are the blood and scratches on the characters back who is walking through the forest. The woods its self is an indication that this is a horror as this can be a scary place, however it looked like this was shot at early Winter/Autumn morning (leaves on the ground), which gave it an Erie/dark feeling.

Day of The Dead - The second film we watched was called Day of The Dead. The very start makes you jump and it scares you, this is a typical characteristic of a horror film, something that you do not expect to happen happens. After the first scene we go on to a clip where they are in the helicopter, to me this doesn't comply with the normal horror conventions. The helicopter part made me think that this is more of an action film, this is because the helicopter reminds my of warfare and fighting with is what you would normally link to an action. After the helicopter part of the opening sequence, we see what looks like a deserted town centre, and this is where the horror conventions really come into play as we start to see walking corpses or "zombies" walking, and the make-up they use is very bloody.

Scream - The third film we watched was called Scream, this is a typical horror film but the opening doesn't use typical horror conventions. Even though there is not blood or gore as yet, we know that at some point that the female character will be killed, maybe by the person on the other end of the phone. Whilst she is on the phone she is cooking some popcorn on the hob that is gradually getting bigger like a balloon ready to pop. This popcorn on the hob is symbolic of the situation, the suspense is growing and so is the popcorn until the popcorn blows that is when you know that something is going to happen to end the suspense and put the audience out of their misery. All the way through the sequence she is walking around the house and past lots of windows and patio doors, we suspect to see the person who's on the phone in the garden looking through her window. This never happens but we want it to happen and keeps us watching. Other diagetic sound we hear is a dog barking, the person on the phone said she is in the middle of no-where so why would there be a dog barking, and some of the audience may put 2 and 2 together and think it was the guy on the phone lurking around her house.

The Grudge - This was the final film we watched and in a typical style of the Japanese film industry around horror films, the opening scenes feature sounds of bone breaking but we couldn't actually see these sounds so we are left with our own imaginations to figure out what is happening here. Also the scene is very dark and unclear but we can just make out that a man is on the rampage killing a cat and killing what we can assume is his wife or girlfriend or maybe just a lodger. Horrors are supposed to frighten and panic us, and we fear this man by his looks he looks like a stereotypical maniac. A close up of his face with a look of anger and clicking his own neck with wide eyes he doesn't look like someone you really want to annoy.

Textual Analysis of :- Rom-Com's

Monkey Business
Pretty Woman
Me, Myself and Irene

Monkey Business - The Vibrant and cheer full soundtrack to the opening sequence lets the audience know this is going to be the mood of the film, which is going to be a happy one. The font of the credits at the start also invokes a happy mood on us, as it looks as if it has been hand written and not at all daunting, serious or intimidating. The actors used in the film are actors that usually star in romantic/comedy films so its more likely this is just another romantic film with a hint of comedy in it that we see from the start. At the beginning a couple, man and a woman, are going out to visit one or the others parents as gathered by the dialogue in the sequence, and the main actor is seizing to leave the boundaries of the house whether its an act because he doesn't want to go out to see his/her parents or that he has something wrong with him mentally or that he has a disability and this could go on to suggest that the woman is maybe his wife and 'carer'. At the time that that the film was made the standard of comedy compared to comedy from this day and age was pretty poor, but in them days (50's/60's/70's) it was as funny as we find up to date comedy these days.
Countless times his wife (or carer) tells the male character to switch off the lights and lock the door behind him, and so he turns the lights off but he goes back into the house and locks the door, and the hilarity of this keeps gradually getting even funnier as he keeps doing it. Now that he has done it several times the wife decides to come in and stay at home, and now she is undressing him, this could also mean that he is incapable himself of undressing him self or is this just how it was back in the 60's? Women are seen as servants to men as the cook and clean for us but they didn't undress us did they? This could then support the possibility he has a mental disability.

Pretty Woman - The structure to the opening sequence was; first teaser/credits/second teaser. In these sequences we find out about who the main characters are and their basic background. We find out that the main male character is obviously a rich, quite a well-off man who is very high up in his job, clearly very important as the party seems to be revolving around him and people wanted to speak to him. After a call from his nagging wife we see he is more interested in his job than his own personal life which is a sorry state of affairs and tells us his marriage is on the rocks a bit. During the credits after this teaser we can see that this film is set in Los Angeles with the soundtrack of "King of Wishful Thinking" by Go West, which has a link to the film in the sense that Richard Gere hoping to have maybe a little change in his life because he is obviously not happy with how is life is at the moment, leaving the party he was at the centre of attention and maybe he didn't like that, so he decides to go into Los Angeles in search of something but we aren't quite sure what it is yet.
It is rather obvious, in the second part of the opening sequence, that both Julia Roberts and Richard Gere are destined to meet at some point as the camera flicks between them. Him in his car driving through L.A. and her as she is making her way out of her flat unnoticed for reasons i will talk about next.
Julia Roberts' background is rather clear, she lives in the rough parts of L.A., likely that she is a prostitute as she is heading out of her small flat over a hotel at night, and the way she is dressed as a stereotypical prostitute will ripped fishnet stockings, very high skirt and a revealing tight top. A subliminal message is shown by the sign saying "HOTEL" as the 'T' and the 'L' are not lit up just showing "HO E " that can also suggest and support the possibility she is a prostitute. These are two very big contrasts of background and has a message that 'opposites attract'.

Me, Myself and Irene - This Light-hearted opening sequence shows a highway patrol police officer riding through long island state with a slightly humours soundtrack to go with the colourful credits which is a similarity to Monkey Business (if it were in colour) as it invokes a vibrant and happy/cheerful/uplifting feel tot he film and tells you its unlikely going to be a horror, action or a thriller. A Narrator is used to introduce 'Charlie Baileygates'(the main character), he describes him as a helpful dad, which tells us maybe he has a wife or is a single dad and that can then go on to suggest the story is based around him finding himself new woman perhaps. After this first part, the scene is switched to two people (a man and a woman) sitting on a blanket obviously a couple with each others picture on their t-shirts, he asks whether she will stay with him no matter what in the Arctic, and an element of humour is used here where he says if it means she has to eat whale blubber for the rest of her life, now we see the comedy side to this film already. This scene is followed by a wedding ceremony where the man and the woman come out after just getting hitched.
We can probably get that from the title of the film that its based around two people (possibly a man and a woman as it's a convention of a romantic-comedy), ME, myself and IRENE these are the two mentions to the main characters in this film and the relationshit they may share whether it be a love/hate-relationship even thought really they love each other, or one loves the other but the other isn't interested.

Textual Analysis of :- Thrillers

Flight Plan
Stir of Echoes
Man on Fire

Flight plan - The opening to this film begins with the credits being shown after a fast moving train whizzes by the screen rapidly with the loud noise of squeaking train tracks that makes you cover your ears and it also creates an eerie effect on the viewer because it could cause some distress among certain viewers. The fast train that passes by at great speed can suggest that the film very fast-paced itself, although that it usually a convention of an action more than a thriller as thrillers aren't stereotypically fast moving but more to do with crime solving and espionage. The opening set is a deserted tube-station where a train has stopped. The scenes we see are generally very dark and dull especially in the scene which is set in a mortuary and gives off a sense of depression, sadness and loss, we know from this the female character has lost someone close to them. I think it could be her husband she has lost (who we see is in the coffin in the mortuary) because we start to see flashbacks of her with this person, walking with him in a street linking arms, along side sad and reflective music. As this scene of her and him together is about to end, the soundtrack suddenly goes off in a tangent and becomes freaky, alarming and atonal like music, and it signifies to us that the mood is about to change and goes back to the depressing dark, dull scene of the mortuary. However, she could be imagining being with her husband, for instance at the train station right at the start, he walks over to her and they both get on the train together.

Stir of Echoes - Parts of the opening sequence doesn't conform with normal conventions of a thriller, this is because part of the sequence is just dialogue, the males main character is talking to his wife after finding out she is pregnant and this scene carries on for most of the sequence. The opening at the very start we see the credits and along with that we hear a little boy singing a nursery rhyme, and next a visual shot looking upwards at a house at dusk time and with this we hear joyful screams of young children, little like a playground at school; I reckon that from that, that the story has something to do with children/child playing a big part in the thriller sense of the film. From that scene we cut to a young boy playing in the bath with no soundtrack at this point to go with it. After his father (we assume this is his father) gets him out of the bath and dries him off he is left in the bathroom all alone and we peers round the corner as if he is waiting for his dad to have left the room completely, only now the suspense music comes in and the boy asks himself or asks someone else 'Does it hurt to be dead?' we don't know who he is speaking to so we might think he sees people that others don't and that is where the thriller element come in. After the dialogue part after the scene with the kid in the bathroom, we now see the child in bed and this is where the suspense, classical music plays and a patturn starts to occur that when ever there is a scene with the young child we get the tension building music, that can suggest that the child has a vital and important role in the film.