Independent NDM case study: Media Factsheet research

Horror films

• The most common way to consider genre is through the identification of its most commonly used visual and aural characteristics. These characteristics, sometimes called iconographies or codes and conventions, are used by media audiences to identify the genre of text being accessed. 
• Once recognised, these iconographies ‘frame the audience’s expectation’ (Chandler) of the type of story the text will tell and the way the story will be constructed. The horror genre can be considered in this way and there are some iconographies that are often associated with horror films.
• There are many techniques used by horror films to attempt to scare the audience. Some are relatively simple to identify such as the use of atmospheric music or sounds to create a feeling of unease or uncertainty. 
• Jump cuts in editing, camera techniques like extreme close-ups and low key lighting can create a similar impression. 
• All sub-genres of horror use a range of deliberate media language choices to promote the appropriate audience response for the text.
• It is a good idea to think carefully and note the way that texts you are analysing are using media language choices to attempt to frighten the audience.
• However, horror films have been around for a long time and when watching texts from other eras often we, as modern audiences, find that horrors lose their impact. Clearly then, creating fear is more than just a collection of eerie and creepy media language choices.
• In addition, audiences get bored. Whilst it is important for a genre to be recognisable from its use of iconographies, if these codes and conventions are overused, audiences may find the genre too predictable and clichéd. One of the main challenges that film makers have to deal with is how to find a middle ground between a recognisable genre text and one that offers something new and unique to its audience.
• The best way to create fear for the audience in a horror text is to play on the fears that already exist. Tudor identifies this as he says that horrors provide a ‘monstrous threat’ and this threat is ‘based on notions…from the producing society’. Horror films won’t meet their primary objective of scaring the audience if they do not in some way represent the fears of the people watching them.
• A useful way to identify the type of fears being identified by horror texts is for analyse the monsters within the films.
• Neale identified that horror texts have different types of monster. The monster is the source of the fear.
•  The External Monster – an outsider. The external monster will be one who comes from‘somewhere else’ and brings the threat to a community.
• Vampire films are good examples of this as traditionally they come from Transylvania and were shown terrorising a British community.

Representing the world

• Representation is: the constructed and mediated presentation of people, things, ideas, places etc.
• Everything in the media is a representation – everything we see is being represented.
• The media re-presents people, ideas and events. What we see in the media is in some way a ‘second-hand’ version – it is clearly not the thing itself. The representation has been created or constructed by the selection of specific media language elements. In addition, everything we see in a media text has gone through some process to get to us – this is called mediation
• Sometimes, representations are seen to be a deliberate attempt to create associations and ideas for the audience.
• Advertising can be seen in this way too as the linking together of ideas and images to a product is used to persuade the audience to act in a certain way.
• Even though some media texts can be seen to be very deliberately creating ideas and associations through representations, this way of viewing the media can lead to an undermining of the audience. There is an assumption here that these intentionalist methods are always successful and the audience is ‘victim’ to the ideas created by the media. It assumes they are passive and unable to recognise the techniques being used. Clearly this is a simplistic view of the audience and does not take into account their ability to interpret information for themselves. However, advertising does work. Successful products and brands rely on it to alert the audience to the existence of their product and to persuade them to choose it over the alternatives that are available. They pay large amounts of money for space on TV, in magazines, on billboards etc. specifically for this purpose.

Media Language

• Media language is the combination of elements that are used in the construction of a media text. For example, newspapers use combinations of words, pictures and design elements such as columns to convey meanings to its readers. Films have their own media language system which includes the use of:
• Camera – the way the camera is positioned, angled and how/if it moves 
•  Editing – the way one camera shot moves into the next: techniques include a straight cut, a fade to black or white, a dissolve from one image to another
•  Mise en scene – the way sets, props characters are designed and arranged within the camera’s frame
•  Lighting – the way light is used in the: e.g. high contrast (low-key) lighting and coloured lighting create different effects
•  Sound – diegetic sound is the sound within the film and non-diegetic sound is placed over the image
• An analysis of the media language in a film is simply a study of the way film directors have used these five elements to create what we see on the screen.
• The establishing shot presents a large field of ice and then a drilling station. The wide angled long shot which tracks over the ice emphasises the vastness of the location and makes the drilling station seem small and vulnerable. There is an edit to a close-up of the American flag which identifies the nationality of the characters we see and implies that American values will be important in this film. The ice cracks and it is shown in another long tracking shot which reinforces the danger to the scientists.
• Any sign that can be specifically linked to a genre is called an icon.
• The signs identified in the two images are part of the film’s iconography. Iconographies and their connotations can also help identify the genre of a text.
• Genre is a formula or pattern that enables producers and audiences to categorise film texts by their similarities. When a genre of film is successful, producers are usually keen to repeat the film’s formula to bring the audience’s back to the cinema again.

Mise - En - Scene

• Even the smallest Hollywood movie has a budget of many thousands of dollars. However, for your coursework production, you are likey to have no money at all. You cannot hire expensive studio space or rent locations for you to shoot in so you are limited to locations that you can access for free.
• When shooting your film, give some consideration to set dressing. If you have written a scene that takes place in a restaurant, your best bet is to try and shoot it in a real restaurant; it will be worth the effort. If that is not possible, use scenery carefully to make your set look like a restaurant
• Making even a small effort to dress your characters in appropriate costumes can make a world of difference to your film. A lot of student productions feature actors who are just wearing the clothes they happened to be in at the time and that tells the audience next to nothing about the characters. Also, make sure your actors arewearing exactly the same clothes every time you shoot to avoid issues of continuity.
• Giving a character a prop to hold or use can develop their character or just provide some visual interest in the film. Make an effort to find objects for your actors to use that help us make sense of their character.
• Just as important as what you put into your mise-en-scene is how you present it to your audience. A lot of student films are shot in college and you may want to pretend that your classroom is another location entirely. You can bring in as many props and bits of scenery as you can to dress up your set but if you film it in a wide shot, classroom elements will creep into the frame and it will not be convincing. Make sure you frame your mise-en-scene tightly so only the bits you want to been seen are in the frame.

Twilight cross media case study 

• The elements of the Twilight marketing campaign were spread over the three media platforms: print media, broadcast media ande-media and, as such, are an example of synergy
• Marketing can be defined as the ways an institution builds relationships with audience members in order to attract them and encourage them to spend money on their products.
• Twilight is targeted at teenage girls. The audience are supposed to be able to identify with Bella, who is represented as an average teenage girl. She is not incredibly beautiful or exceptional in any way so the audience can see themselves in her place.
• There were three official Twilight posters in the print campaign, accompanied by cinema-only posters featuring lone characters. Each poster featured the Twilight logo. This acted as branding, linking each part of the marketing campaign to the other parts. Bella and Edward were featured on all three posters and James and his coven were present on the billboard poster
• The broadcast media element of Summit Entertainment’s marketing campaign was comprised of trailers. The purpose of trailers is to create hype and excitement about a film and to get the audience talking about the film before it is released. Some films, such as Twilight, have teaser trailers
• Three different theatrical trailers were made for Twilight: a teaser trailer aimed at teenage girls which featured the romantic scenes from the film, a teaser trailer aimed at teenage boys which featured action and sports scenes from the film and the main trailer which explained more about the film’s narrative
• The official Twilight website: www.twilightthemovie.com, featured key images used in the poster campaigns and hosted the trailers and music video, creating a link between all three media platforms. Users could download badges, widgets (which counted down until the release of the film in theatres and then on DVD), IM icons and wallpapers from the site.
• The purpose of this was to encourage users to promote the film, through their use of social networking sites, such as MySpace and Facebook, by embedding the key images and logo into their profiles.
• The same website has subsequently been used to promote the second film in the saga, New Moon.

The impact of new and digital media: Television 

• Newspaper circulation figures have been in decline for a number of years. The newspaper industry has been keen to counter this by using the internet to its advantage, allowing audiences to access their product on-line. The television industry too has had to adapt to allow for the impact of new digital media, as have all of the traditional media industries.
• In terms of audience demographics, today’s teenagers have grown up in a digital world and as a result are sometimes referred to as ‘the internet generation’. This generation is familiar with new media and the interactive opportunities that goes with it.
• New media not only facilitate opportunities for interactivity, they also make geographic distance obsolete, increase the volume of communication and help create convergence. For example, smart phones have made it possible for anyone who has access to the necessary equipment to capture footage then upload it on any number of websites
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• Due to new media technologies, they are able to utilise the television itself to access content via ‘on demand’ software, such as BBC iPlayer and 4oD. Such technologies may be one way of explaining why people do not realise how much television content they are consuming.

Introduction to Audience

• Every media text is made with a view to pleasing an audience in some way. Success is measured by the audiences response to a media text and those that do not attract and maintain an audience do not survive. At the heart of this is the fact that all media texts are created in order to make money.
• If a media text is deemed successful it needs to attempt to ensure it offers appropriate pleasures (gratifications) its audience. Each media text will be targeted towards a specific group and the way it is constructed will be carefully considered in light of who the target audience is.
• Some media texts attempt to appeal to a broad range of people. Although difficult to achieve, this is an ideal way to create very large audiences and, therefore, maximise the potential for success and ultimately profit. This group, consisting of males and females, young and old and a wide range of social groups is often called the mainstream or mass audience.
• The mass audience is not the only one that can make a lot of money for media producers. Some media texts are created with a specific sub-section of the audience in mind - a niche audience. Whilst a niche audience is likely to be smaller in number than a mass audience, there are many ways appealing to a specific group can be profitable
• It is important for media producers to recognise and identify who their target audience is. It is the knowledge of who the audience is assumed to be that enables media producers to make specific choices about how to construct their media texts. This knowledge will help them decide on what content to include and how to present the content. The first consideration will always be attempting to appeal to and maintain the interest of the identified audience. Media producers are keen to give their audience what they want so that the audience are more likely to watch or read again.
• Members of a media audience cannot all be exactly the same. Media producers need to consider their target audiences as a mass in order to attempt to appeal to them. In reality there will always be differences in the way audience members access texts and the interpretations they make. The aspects of ourselves which make us individuals may also impact on the way we interpret a text. These aspects have been called subjectives… they are the things which add to the way we view and define the world around us and include: • Gender • Age • Nationality • Life experience. 
• Subjectives may go some way to explain why you and your parents like different media texts – the differences in your age and life experience means you will interpret media texts differently, will have different ways of being entertained and will have different perspectives on the content of texts. Products which aim at a niche audience attempt to capitalise on these subjectives but texts which aim at a mass audience attempt to limit their impact by focusing on things that different people are likely to share.