R16: Timeline of the horror and mystery genre

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Timeline - Kizoa Movie - Video - Slideshow Maker

R15: Textual analysis of a short mystery movie 1

 

Film: The suspect

Genre: Short murder mystery

The Suspect follows the story of two detectives who attempt to solve the murder case of a young woman.

The short film begins with a series of shots in different angles, all showing a young woman jogging in an isolated forest. These shots are presented using fast paced editing, which immediately build tension for the audience. However, the building of tension is juxtaposed by the scene taking place in daylight, but the tension is reinforced through the use of a tracking shot to follow the woman as she is jogging, which highlights her isolation in the forest and may connote to the idea that the woman is oblivious to the upcoming danger. Secondly, isolation is a convention of the horror genre as well as the mystery genre, which supports Nicholas Abercrombie’s idea that “boundaries between genre are shifting and becoming more permeable”, which means that different genres can share the same or similar codes and conventions. Furthermore, camera is also used in a way to dramatize the murder scene of the young woman because, suddenly from the tracking shot of the young woman’s back a short reverse shot is used to show a masked man jump in front of the victim holding a gun at face point. This type of shot is interesting, because it is very revealing of the details of murder scene, which often in mystery films are kept hidden until the end. For instance, the audience clearly sees that the masked person is male and clearly see how long the murderer holds the gun at her face before shooting her, which are conventionally not revealed until the end of most mystery films. As a result, this speeds up the murder scene unconventionally using fast paced editing and may connote to the idea that human life is a lot more fragile and shorter than we think. Perhaps, this may connote that the murder is not important but the narrative after the murder is important.

A sound bridge is used as a transition to move from the murder scene in the forest to a pub, where two male detectives are discussing the murder of the young woman in the forest. This sound bridge, moves the narrative of the film to a tension filled and distressed scene to a more serious and formal scene. This scene is the longest of all scenes in the short movie and throughout ambient sound of cups and tables being moved can be heard as well as dialogue from both detectives can be heard. In this point, slow paced editing is used, to almost reduce tension and bring about tranquility, but this may actually connote to the idea that the detectives are attempting to rationally think about the murder and how to solve it, instead of allowing emotion (such as grief) to interrupt their work. This may highlight and connote patriarchy in society, as it is the men who are represented as wise and sensible, because they professionally dressed (wearing black suits), in white collar professions, while the young woman is represented as being irresponsible and weak for jogging in a forest on her won, because she is the person who dies by the hand of a man, thus reaffirming the subordination of women in society due to patriarchy.

From this short movie, I think I will pull out the idea of using a tracking shot to build tension, because in this short movie that tracking of the woman did effectively build anxiety and tension.

R15: Textual analysis of a short mystery movie 2

Film: Only to exist

Genre: Short film Mystery

This short mystery movie has elements of the psychological genre, due its deliberate messy narrative and the use of unique camera work. For example, the very first scene of this film includes a high angle shot of a male protagonist’s hands, as he is washing them in a sink and this is followed by a pan that starts off with half of the protagonists face on a mirror and moves to show the other half of the man’s face off the mirror. This perhaps may have been used to start the film off with disequilibrium, because of the unsettling feeling that the first scene creates with the use of these camera movements. In addition, this element can viewed as unconventional in the horror, mystery and psychological genre, but I think contributes in the creation of an enigma code (Barthes). Once, again conventionally the protagonists are male and he is the only character in this short film, which represents patriarchy in society.

The short film then progresses to use canted angle, because the narrative seems to be about a detective who is trying to figure out the murderer, responsible for the death of many women. The use of canted angle is effective especially when the detective is going through papers and this is followed by a mid-shot to show the man throwing papers out of frustration. The combination of these two angles, give the film a mysterious and almost builds tension. This scene is accompanied by non-diegetic, choir (voice) instrumental and female whispering, which contributes to the tension in this scene and may connote to the idea that the man is facing inner conflict with the murder case and this is affecting his ability to focus on solving the case. As a result, men are perhaps represented as being unprofessional; as the protagonist is allowing his emotion affect his work.

Slow paced editing is used to show flashbacks and flash forwards in the short mystery film and the shots to represent a flashback are edited to be tinted slightly grey, connoting that these events are of the past, but they are still important in the current events of the protagonists life. Secondly, in a flashback the duration of a shot that showed a man’s hand dripping with blood was quite long and this was accompanied by the rising in pitch of string non-diegetic music. This scene, builds up anxiety, as the long duration on a bloody hand hanging out of a bathtub and the background music may connote to the idea that someone has committed suicide, which may lead people to think that the murderer makes people kill themselves. This is later confirmed when the protagonists actually shoots himself in the end of the film. As a result, this results in completely dismissing Todorov’s narrative theory of equilibrium, disequilibrium and new equilibrium

Throughout this short film, various locations are used from bathrooms, to an office and even outdoor car scenes. These various locations make up the mis en scene and once a again give this short film a sort of disturbed feeling and the use of these many locations may connote to the idea that the protagonist has many things to do but is unable to complete the, because of the conflict with himself.

From this short film I think I am going to pull out the idea of using flashbacks and flash forwards, because i think it created enigma codes and gives the film a mystery element, which I want in my film.

P3: Podcast meeting 1: Plot discussion

The camera work panning was used incorrectly, it was actually supposed to be tracking.

R14: Audience Profile: Female

R14: Audience Profile: Male

R14: Audience profile script (female)

Name: Adira

Age: 18*

Occupation: Student & works part time in the Half Moon Theatre - She fits into the catorgory E as she is a student however she also fits into D as she works part time in a theatre, thus she is semi skilled.
Studying: A levels - media studies, product design and English literature at Central Foundation Sixth Form

Adira is a ambitious girl, keen on becoming a novelist or a script writer and a hardcore fan of the Sherlock Series, both books and TV series edition. If it comes to her favourite book, it has to be A Study in Scarlet (Sherklock #1), the first of the Sherlock book series.

During the weekends, she works at a local theater called the Half Moon Theater in Limehouse, where she helps with the drama production and the script writing for younger teenagers to participate in.

During her spare time, she enjoys looking up horror movie scripts at her favourite website "Simply Scripts". She does this so that she can analyse the literature of the scripts as she believes that with good literature in a script comes with a good movie.

She also enjoys binge-watching the James Bond Series every so often when she gets the time. Her favorite author is Conan Doyle whom she refers to as "the genius of the Sherlock series".

Adira may be in the field of "Explorers" as her psycho-graphic as during her spare time she reads a lot of literature by reading novels and studying scripts to explore variations of literature that she can then apply if she becomes a writer.

* I have changed the age from 17 - 18 previously written on our audience profile notes.

R14: Audience profile script (male)

Meet Kaneki,


He is a 19 year old University student, who is currently studying animation at London College of communication, thus can be placed in category E (Unemployed, student) of the demographics table.

Being in his second year of university studying animation, Kaneki knows all there is to using technologies of all kind to create basic animation.

Originally coming from West London, Kaneki has relocated to South East London to be near his university and is currently living in an apartment with his friends studying the same course.

From young, Kaneki enjoyed watching Japanese anime particular anime in the horror genre, his favorite being Tokyo Ghoul.

Being an animation student, Kaneki has learnt to appreciate the graphics of film and thus often judges the graphics of the trailer of a film before deciding whether to watch the film in the theatres.

His favorite graphic designer is Alan Payne, who happens to be the graphic designer for horror movie The Woman in Black.

Another of Kaneki’s hobby is travelling, and on his travels Kaneki picks up ideas for his work in University. Thus, Kaneki can by psycho-graphically described as an explorer, because of the fact that he enjoys travelling and uses his travelling experiences in his work.

R14: Audience profile plan

Me and my partner both discussed how we will create our audience profiles and the content of the audience profiles. Due to the fact that, the audience profile was to be made separately for a female audience and a male audience, we decided together that I should create the audience profile for the male target audience and my partner (shakeina) should make an audience profile for the female target audience. Simply because, I don't have any sisters, but I have brothers who are in the age range of our target audience and my partner (Shakeina) does have sisters who are also in the age range of our target audience, so we thought it would be easier to create the two audience profiles this way.

R13: Interviews

R12: Focus group and podcast interview

Shakeina was in charge of filming and editing the focus group, whereas I was in charge of holding the focus group.