MEST 4

Task 1:
The movie I have chosen as my primary text is [REC] which is a Spanish horror movie which was released in 2007.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UcfV9oBQNM this 5 minute scene is the scene I have decided to analyse.
The way that is scene links in to my media coursework title, is the simple way it can scare the audience without using any blood and gore within the scene. They use simple lighting effects, the main light is black and the only light you get is the torch. The reason they do this is because you can only see what they want you to see. They also use this new technique which is the camera affect, this is when you can actually see through the camera and the shots are not still and it wobbles as the same as the camera. They also use get you when you least expect it, they do extremely well to build up the tension and they do the simplest thing you can do in a movie which is to shock the audience. If you compare this to a movie such as saw where they rely on the blood and gore to create shock tactics, but are clearly less effective as the community has become desensitised towards blood and gore due to other previous texts doing the same blood and gore affects as saw have done.
Issue and debate
There is one main issue and debate that is raised up in the scene which is a moral panic. The way this issue is raised is that in the scene you find out that the way this zombie attack started is through experimentation. Someone has done tests on this girl and now the entire building has become affective, so scientists have caused the problem. This is a moral panic because people believe that scientist play around too much in the real world, and in real life this could cause problems such as a new disease or virus which could destroy the world.
Theories
The main theory which fits into this is desensitisation and the movie cycle. The way in which desensitisation fits in this is that the public have got used to blood and gore, and the way in which people would get scared not is to introduce them to something new but old, this is how it links it links in movie cycle. In the past people got through stages of horror, so in certain years people will find blood and gore scary and in other year’s lack of blood and gore will be scarier. So the blood and gore stage has recently happened and because of this the audience have become desensitised and now something that has a lack of blood/violence would be scarier then something that has more blood.
Cultivation theory – this is from repeated exposure from a number of different texts will make the audience desensitised. This means people who watch horror movies or movie that contains violence will become normal, and they won’t question the text as it would become normal. But the problem occurs when groups of people such as the government thinks this leads to the person doing something violent as they think it is normal. This theory I agree to an extent as I have become desensitised to horror movies or violence, and does not scare of effect me.
SHEP-
Social – this is that people want their money worth these days, if they paying money for a movie they want the best effects out there such as ‘Avatar’. So directors using the lack of gore method could be risky as the audience could think they are getting ripped off. Also TV and internet have made movies they must watch movies and this encourages people to watch movies. Also people are desenstised towards certain scenes, so it takes something different to scare them.
Historical - The Technology has developed special effects are easier to do and looks realistic. Audiences got bored of watching the same thing over and over again, such as the same type of movie (slasher). (Media cycle). The media cycle means that some movies copy other movies from the past, or even because the same director. Such as George A Romero who made ‘night of the living dead’ and ‘dawn of the dead’ or Wes carven who made scream and nightmare on elm street. Some scenes such as the body bag scenes get copied. Audiences in the 1950-1970 didn’t see much blood/gory scenes. After some time they wanted to see more and when the technology increased they had to keep the audience interested. New types of technology have been introduced such as 3D movies (My Bloody Valentine), before just 2D and Black and White, people were happy to see colour movies. As the genre was relatively new in the 1940 there were many new ideas such as zombies, this kept audiences interested. Now ideas have been used so many times it becomes boring.
Economical - More money for the institutions which means they could spend more money of effects. (High concept films). Some special effects are cheap to make such as blood (Corn syrup + water + red colouring). Selling merchandise has increased for different types of horror movies, such as Saw or Freddy Kruger (the mask on this slide). Various products such as bed sheets aimed at many different ages’ groups’ even children. Masks and costumes sold, sales increase during the Halloween season. Some movies are easier to make due to the different styles and techniques such as Blair Witch Project cost $500,000 to make, and made $250m from sales. New technology such as 3D which means people will come and watch it to try it out, also remakes.
Political - Increased level of violence in the public, government/public link to horror movies. A few cases where movies have been linked to a murder or violence goes over the top and becomes too serious. Children watch 18+ movies at a young age through parents fault, or even cinemas as they don’t always check people’s ages. They become desensitised over the years, and nothing scares them.


Task 2-
Works Cited
Abrams, Nathan, Ian Bell, and Jan Udris. ".." Studying Film (Studying the Media). London: A Hodder Arnold Publication, 2001. 133,141,220. Print.
Abrams, Nathan, Ian Bell, and Jan Udris. "Mainstream and Alternative Film form." Studying Film (Studying the Media). London: A Hodder Arnold Publication, 2001. 136,137. Print.
Abrams, Nathan, Ian Bell, and Jan Udris. "Critical approach analysis." Studying Film (Studying the Media). London: A Hodder Arnold Publication, 2001. 182. Print.
"Best/Worst "Horror" Titles." The Internet Movie Database (IMDB). N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Jan. 2010. .
Clover, Carol J... "...." Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. 36, 37, 38. Print.
"Halloween Horror Movies May Cause Emotional Problems In Young Children." Science Daily: News & Articles in Science, Health, Environment & Technology. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Jan. 2010. .
Lister, Sam, and Health Correspondent. “Study links violence on TV to child aggression - Times Online." Times Online | News and Views from The Times and Sunday Times. N.p., 18 Feb. 2005. Web. 3 Jan. 2010. .
Muir, John Kenneth. Horror Films of the 1980s. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, 2007. Print.
"[Rec] (2007)." The Internet Movie Database (IMDB). N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Jan. 2010. .
Roberts, Graham, and Heather Wallis. Introducing Film. London: A Hodder Arnold Publication, 2001. Print.
Night of the Living Dead. Dir. George A. Romero. Perf. Marilyn Eastman, Karl Hardman, Rossie Harris. Weinstein Company, 1968. Film.
[Rec]. Dir. Jaume Balagueró. Perf. Manuela Velasco, Ferran Terraza, Jorge Serrano. Sony Pictures, 2007. DVD.
., sakura. "Do you think horror movies have become too gruesome?." Need Help - Ask a Question and Find Answers. N.p., 21 July 2007. Web. 3 Jan. 2010. .


MLA formatting by BibMe.org.


Task 3 –
The two texts that I have decided to compare is [REC] which is my contemporary text, and my classic text is night of the living dead which came out in 1968. The reason I decided to pick this a classic text is because I wanted to stay in the infection/zombie genre. Also night of the living dead was the start of the new media cycle theory, and was one of the movies that focused of effects then storyline, while [REC] does the opposite.
Night of the living dead is a black and white movie, so this is extremely hard to do as they use effects blood and gore to their best of their abilities. Due to this was new technology and was previously never done before audience found it outstanding and extremely gory, also audiences were not desensitised at this point so seeing anything gory or bloody would be new to them.
Due to society changing over time the storylines and specific things within the movie have changes. The first thing is women increasing rights in the world as well as increasing rights within the movie industry. In night of the living dead the main character is a male and more surprising a black man. This is different for movies in the era because in this time black people were barley in movies, and it was increasingly hard to find a black person as a leading character. In the years black males and females have had an increasing role in the movie industry and made names for themselves such as Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington, but the zombie genre has not changed with this being the only zombie/infection movie that has had a black person as the leading character.
Also women rights in reality and movie industry has changed, as in night of the living dead the leading lady as a co star and in [REC] the leading lady is the main character, and has the most air time. Also the increased amount of worry over nuclear or experimenting tests over the years has changed the storyline of movies. In previous years they did not explain how the infection was released and how the outbreak happens, now a day’s movies clearly have at least 5 minutes explaining how the outbreak happen. Also the reason they give does seem plausible, as in real life technology and increased amount of scientist experimenting has increased all these reasons seem like they could happen in the future.
The two texts do have many similarities and difference throughout the texts. The more noticeable one if the main character as the classic is a black male, and [REC] Is a female, this shows women are getting more rights in the movie world, and in society. A big similarity is in both movies the females need a male to save them numerous times, and without them would struggle to survive over 5 minutes, and without them could not be the leading lady, so to an extent a female needs a male to survive. Another similarity is that all the characters somehow meet a harmful death, all characters within the genre and text die, and they tend to die when they least expect it. Also there one charter who has a life changing moment and become a villain to a hero within the movie.
These show mainly 2 things firstly that women still need men for help, and without men women would not be able to survive. Also the world is still run by men. Secondly it shows that people can change in society that people that are self concerened will pull together when humanity requires help everyone pulls together.


Task 4 -
Horror movies
http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Genres/Horror/average-vote
This is IMDB top 50 horror movies and it shows the rating of the top horror. 45/50 is before the year 2000, and the 5 that are in the top 50 and the 5 movies that are after the year 2000 tends to be mixed genre, such as zombieland which is a comedy horror.

Desensitised
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061031113446.htm
This site helps me with my theory of desensitised. It talks about repeated exposure to violence to children will cause problems with them as a children. This would eventually lead to emotional problems and this leads to images becoming normal, which leads to the desensitised theory, and from this people find gory movies less scary and that’s why they are not considered scary anymore.

http://askville.amazon.com/horror-movies gruesome/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=4579313
Opinions
This site is an online forum asking the question ‘do you think horror movies have become more gruesome?’ this site gives people to say there opinion, about the situation, and most agree with that movies have got more gruesome. This links in to my course title, as I also believe this.

http://uk.rottentomatoes.com/m/1210264-rec/Review
My main text is [REC] and in rotten tomatoes it got 95% and 20 fresh and 1 rotten, which basically means it a world class movie, also all the top critics have given it fresh as well. Also all the reviews call it a truly scary movie, and creepy none of the critics say the use cheap gimmicks and use blood as a main focal point, this movie is clearly based around the storyline and shock tactics.
http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/
This is a strong website which shows me articles from the past as well as new articles, for example they talk about Halloween and the director, and how the 3rd Halloween was pointless.



Task 5
Introduction
I will be discussing my topic which is ‘To what extent has audiences become desensitised to increasingly level of violence in horror movies? I would also introduce my primary text as well as my main historical text.
1st paragraph
In the first paragraph I will talk about the development of the horror genre, and see how times have changed in society and link it to why the genre has developed. I will also look at my primary text [REC] in detail and link all my theories that I will be using which are cultivation, hypodermic needle and desensitisation theory, as well as this I will introduce SHEP. I will also be looking at a more violent text such as ‘Saw’ to support my coursework title.
2nd paragraph
In this paragraph I will be looking at my main historical text which is ‘night of the living dead’ as well as making reference to my 2nd historical text ‘Rosemary’s baby’. I will taking about rosemary’s baby lack of violent and graphic scenes, but have yet become a cult classic. My reference to night of the living dead that it was the start of the graphic area, and people were shocked and scared about the new use of technology, and as it has been over done now that why the media cycle needs to restart into none graphic horror.
3rd paragraph
This paragraph is to compare my two/three/four texts and I will look at the similarities and difference, through the storyline and the techniques which are used. I will need to definitely need to mention saw as it is a gruesome movie and like into my investigation, and then link it to night of the living dead and talk about how technology developed. Then link [REC] with say and talk about how ones based on effects while the other is purely on the shock tactics, and then finally link rosemary’s baby which is the least graphic movie but has become a cult classic, I would mention my theories in this paragraph as well.
4th paragraph
This paragraph mostly talked about the media cycle, and why people want violence in horror movies, and why the less gory movies how now become the new thing. I will also be talking about society and refer to zeitgeist such as nuclear testing. I will also talk about how society has changed such as women rights, and how this has affected the genre. This would be consistently linked to my current and historical texts, mainly the cultivation theory and the media cycle theory.

5th paragraph

The last paragraph I will be talking about media institution and how they do the effects to make money. Also the moral panic as movies is being based on situations that could actually take place. Also I will be talking about the cultivation theory and how it could be people over reacting, as there is no evidence which says violence leads to movie. Then link it to new movies and how they are doing what they did in the past, and say this could be encouraged as people would not witness anything to graphic meaning they would not become desensitised to images and gory scenes.

Conclusion
the final part of the essay I will come to conclusion, so I will say if movies have become too violent just because they have the technology or if institutions do have the technology why not use it. Also if society is taking the issue of people getting influenced by horror movies is taken too far.


Media – Critical Investigation - Task 6

To what extent have audiences become desensitised to increasingly level of violence in horror movies?
Throughout the years horror movies are increasingly taking the centre stage but not for the best reasons, the use of new technology has taken the attention away from horror movie storylines and focused the movie on its ‘overpriced and overused effects’ [1]. The text I will be focusing on is a text which came out in 2007 called [REC], I will also have a second contemporary text which is ‘Saw 5 (2009), these movie are completely opposite the only similarity they contain is they come under the horror genre. My two primary texts is ‘night of the living dead (1968)’ and ‘Rosemary’s baby (1968)’ from these movies you can tell the horror genre has developed dramatically
The horror genre itself has had a big change from the past, storylines, characters and effects have been used to improve but at the same time ruin the genre. The storyline somehow uses real life situations and makes the unimaginable to it, for example the slasher genre they take the serial killer and make them into un-killable monsters. The characters have certainly helped the genre reach its full potential with characters such as ‘Freddy Kruger who society has fallen in love with’ [2], these characters may be violent but still their characters that have become cult heroes. The effects is the only aspect of the horror genre which could be considered of running the genre, the affects where extraordinary to start off with, but now ‘they have been over used, the thrill of horror movies has gone down the drain’[3]. Movies such as ‘Saw 6’ rely on the blood and gore and without the movie would be pathetic, while my primary text [REC] goes back to old fashion horror and uses lighting and camera skills to shock the audience.

Big Bang Theory – Marxism and Pluralism

The show that I have picked for my case study is ‘Big bang theory’ and I picked this because it’s related to my topic which is nerds. Nerds or geeky people are portrayed as people who are smart, have no social life, love games, Sci-Fi comics and superheroes. They can’t get any girls and stay within there social group, and this is stereotype have chosen.

Marxism –

Within the show 4/5 main characters are white while 3 of them middle/upper class with good jobs, the 5th member is Asian but also is middle/upper class who are all males, and the final member is white female and she has the lowest job which is waitress and is a failed actor. The show already links into males are the people who have to power over females as they have hire jobs in society and more important jobs, this is also broken as they have a Asian character.

The jobs of these 4 characters are scientist for one of the biggest universities, and this shows the power the characters have and how they are big in society as scientist is an extremely intelligent job. Marxism fits within the text later on in the series as the Asian character Raj loses his job and relies on the main white character for a job, so this shows that in the end of the day is the upper class white people are the people who help out everyone else.

The 4 characters may be all friends but they are groups within the group, the Asian (Raj) and the Jewish character (Howard) are the 2 close friends, and they 2 pure white people (Sheldon and Leonard) are the closer of the friends and show relies on them. As well as this Sheldon who is the smartest of all of the friends is the most powerful, and everything he wants to do he gets to do and he owns the group.

Pluralism-

The show tried to show different cultures to try to keep many different types of people interested. You have Raj for Asians, Howard for Jewish, Leonard for Christians and Sheldon for atheistic. This is how Big Bang theory tries to keep many different cultures and audiences so they continue to watch the show.

Also the job scientist is a high class job and by big bang theory making fun of it, this is the opposite of Marxism as they make these big jobs seem funny. Also as scientist is a rare job and much people don’t see much about it, they may want to find out more about it and how the scientist live and this may encourage them to continue to watch.

Females

THE RING

The text I chose to compare Flight Plan with is The Ring.

Traditionally horror movies don't have a post-feminist representation of females, with women in horror movies vulnerable and "feminine". However, similar to Flight Plan, the Ring has post-feminist representations. The mother is going taking a more "masculine" approach by going through her way to save her daughter imposed to the stereotypical narrative of a killer chasing the main heroine.

This is similar to Flight Plan which bears a similar narrative; while completely different genres, both show the representation of mothers in movies.

In both movies the protagonists are both mothers, however during the film both actresses take more masculine roles; a gender swap where they are taking the roles of what the father should be (going against patriarchal ideologies). They are both represented as lone-parents, where they don't need any male help to achieve their goals. In our society (which has gone through drastic social change) this has become more appealing to female audiences; Uses and Gratification theory. The audiences want to be like these actresses (a new type of action hero).

This has come alight in our society through how both sexes have swapped gender roles, in some cases men have become more feminine (feminists argue the idea of the "new man" who takes on roles that women take) and vice versa.


With the growth of feminism and the gay movement, the media has created this post-feminism trend of gender swaps. Now in the media powerful male role-models are represented as having a feminine side, e.g. Bruce Willis Die Hard 4.0 (caring father and action hero).

Both movies have similar narrative plots; while different genres the main focus of both is the mother trying to save her daughter. However both movies you can argue that there are some stereotypical values, with both roles being mothers. In the film industry, the only strong representations of females are being mothers. While it does glorify rise of feminism there are hardly any representations of women being more than just mothers.


It connotes that while in our society we can accept a strong mother we can't accept a woman saving a man, and in cases where it has happened films that do these tend to do badly in box office. While it can be argued Kill Bill was a success, in reality she was getting revenge for her daughter.

In conclusion, both movies do show post-feminist representations, through the roles they have, saving their families, are lone parents, don't seek male advice etc. However both movies, and others, that have post-feminist representations are about mothers and therefore to a certain extent still patriarchal. There's still a glass ceiling between that big step to achieve equal roles with men.



Estelle questions
1)
The first text is her acceptation speech from winning the MOB. Her portrayal, while the award is for ‘best female artist and it would see that women have a strong role in the industry. However, many key things within the text that shows there is a hierarchy within the industry. The first is how each of the female nominees all have just have one name such as Beyonce and Duffy compared to males artist such as Michael Jackson or John Legend. The reason that females have one name is that for males it tend to be more sexually appealing, and would encourage males to buy there records. Also in Estelle’s acceptant speech the people she acknowledges are mainly if all men. From John Legend (male artist) and Atlantic records which a male owned company is. These show that there is a hierarchy in the music industry, where males own and most likely make most decisions, and at top of the hierarchy structure.

The second text is her website. The website has one dominant image which is of Estelle. The image is of her in a quite moderate pose, which could mean she trying to say she’s the same us everyone else. There also a bit of cleavage shown and this is mainly for the male gaze, which shows that she has changed over the years. Before she was an independent artist that sang grime music, and didn’t need mean. But her industry has changed her and she has become male dependent to make her sell her albums and males to buy her records.

2)
Programmes such as the MOBO awards are aimed at the young/older teens. The MOBO awards air on BB3 which is aimed at teenagers and young adults. The MOBO awards air lives on BB3 and a prime time audience, this is when most people would be watching the channel and this increases the MOBO popularity. But the problem is that the people who tend to watch the MOBO is a niche audience and this means mainly one target group would watch the awards.

The media awards repeat once on BBC 1 and this should be good for the channel as it is a big TV channel, and you would think it would increase the popularity of the MOBO. But the problem with this is that the show airs past midnight and this is when nobody would watch the show. The rating at this time decreases dramatically as no one tends to watch BBC 1 at this time, and the main reason they put the MOBO at this time is mainly to waste time as they don’t have that many shows to show at this time. Also by BBC showing it at BBC 1 they can show that they give every audience and culture group a fair time to show themselves that there multi-culture channel.

The final reason that BBC shows these awards are to give a good representation towards teenagers and knife crime, but mainly black teenagers. Recently teenagers have not got a good reputation as these increased involvement with knife crime, and by BBC showing these awards It hopefully shows the other side towards black teenagers, and how music is a way of life for black people and could change there life forever.
3)
There are many advantages and disadvantages for using the internet as a marketing tool. Internet is fast becoming the biggest media platform and it runs on advertising as people tend to be influenced by advertising on the net. Websites such as YouTube and MySpace is a place where you can go to listen to much artist music illegally, and this could cost artist a lot of money as if there song stays on websites people can listen to it for free. But sometimes companies do this as an advertising method, if people listen to the song they may enjoy it and this could encourage the audience to buy the song, but this only happens on the artist websites. The artist website is good for people to communicate with each other as they could discuss there views about the artist with each other, and download many things linked with the artist on there site.

Other sites such as Wikipedia, artists are getting more awareness for their work. The internet has bought in the information about artists, such as age, lifestyle, life before there were celebrities so you can find out many things about artists, the main information comes from Digg or Wikipedia.

Guardian 100 work
What is the Guardian 100 and who are the panellists who create it?

Peter Barron –male
Peter Bennett-Jones – male
Brent Hoberman – male
Tessa Jowell – female
Siobhan Kenny – female
Andrew Neil -male
Trevor Phillips –Male
Chris Powell-male
Janine Gibson-female
Jane Martinson –Female

How many women are in the top 100?
26

What companies do these work for?

Jane Tranter
Jay Hunt
Lesley Douglas
Jana Bennett
Helen Boaden
Ruth Jones
Marjorie Scardino
Elisabeth Murdoch
Ashley Highfield
Rebekah Wade
Julian Bellamy
Nicholas Hytner
Carolyn McCall
Gail Rebuck
Sly Bailey
Arianna Huffington
Dawn Airey
Veronica Wadley
Jane Bruton
Lucian Grainge
Joanna Shields
Caroline Michel
Katie Price
Eileen Gallagher
Emily Bell


What percentage of the list are women?
26%

How would you assess the balance of power in this list and why do you think it is this way?

Males clearly dominate the list, and 74% of the list is males, also in the top 10 only one person I female and she is at number 10. one reason that males could be higher then females is that most males are bought into money and power, more then few people on the list have family that have are wealthy and they were lucky enough to inherit that money and with that money they invested in other businesses. Also as most business are males based this makes it easier for males to invest in the business. Also most channels are mostly aimed at males and because of this it would be easier for a male to own the business and get the right material to appeal to other males.

Capitalism –An economic system in which the production of distribution of goods and services in society is organised via a free market for the purpose of maximising profit.

Hegemony-the total cultural, economic and political dominance achieved by the ruling elite in a society.

Feudal system- this is different social groups and was invented in the middle ages,
with the king being highest peasants at the bottom. Now it’s known as upper, middle or lower class.

Marxism – ideology derived from the writings of the sociologist Karl Marx (1818-83) which sees society as a dominated by capitalist structures which maintain the hegemony of the ruling class and lead to the exploitation of workers.

Pluralism – The view that where a society is comprised of a wide range of social and ethnic groups with different values, political and ideological beliefs, representations by the media will naturally reflect this diversity.

High concept films- a film with a big budget and state-of-the-art special effects, usually associated with US productions.

Movie analysis – District 9

The movie District 9 is new as it was released in 2009. The movie genre is Sci-fi as it is about aliens. The movie has become a instant success with critics calling it one of the best movies of all time, and it has been rewarded as it had reached IMDB top 250 movies at number 44# with a average rating it 8.6/10 with 48,000 votes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjihaK7HfGs&feature=fvst



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgSR71FjPQw

‘Peter Jacksons rewrites sci-fi history with a new a new take on the Alien genre.’ -Rotten Tomatoes

'Aliens. We’ve had cute ones. We’ve had nasty bastards with great big pointy teeth. We’ve had stupid ones, smart ones, ones that look like Jeff Bridges, and ones that eat bridges for breakfast.
In fact, we’ve had so many of the extra-terrestrial buggers that putting a fresh spin on the movie alien is clearly a tricky thing. But, as newcomer and Peter Jackson protégé Neill Blomkamp proves with District 9, it’s not impossible — even if, on closer inspection, there’s nothing really original about the movie’s components. Hero metamorphosing into something more than human?' - Empire Magazine

'District 9 is that modern rarity: an adventure thriller that’s even better than its advertising campaign.' - Daily Telegraph


These Reviews are from 3 different but all say the same thing, they movie is different and will be one of the biggest movies of all time.

Represented

In this movie 2 Specific groups of people are represented these are South African people and the government.
The government are portrayed in 2 ways which are loving and evil. There shown as loving at the begging of the movie this is when they help the aliens and give the AID, they also try to look after the aliens by making a specific area where they can live among humans as the aliens are stranded on earth and cant return back to there planet. Towards the middle of the movie you see the evil stereotyped government, this when they start to have secret experiments and have specific thing they cant show to humans. This links into real life as many people do no trust the government and believe they hide many things. So the government are portrayed as sneaky and evil by the time the movie ends.
The second people group of people that are portrayed is the South African people. South African people are known as poor and find it hard to live and because of this they turn to crime, in the movie they stick to the same stereotypes and because of the aliens also turn into crime and start to live as the South Africans live in shanty towns. They South Africans are portrayed as poor and would do anything to survive.
The reason there seen like this is because of the director Neill Blomkamp from previous experience. The director is from South Africa and the characters in the movie are from his previous life and what he has seen before in his life. The reason he represented the government like that is because he used his own stereotypes.The representation is not accurate and if anything over stereotyped. The South African people are seen as evil poor, violent and money hungry which is a general stereotypes for the entire African nation. The government are also seen as evil and very secretive and from what we know we cant say the government do this.



Genre

The Genre for this movie is Sci-fi. Within the movies there are many generic conventions to show the movie is a Sci-fi movie. Firstly which is the most obvious is that there are Aliens in the movie which is the whole meaning of Sci-fi. Other generic conventions are such things as alien weapons and the round alien ship which is associated with an alien spaceship. This movie gives something new to the Sci-fi and the audience don’t expect it coming. Most alien movies contain some sorts of dooms day and how aliens try to take over the world. In the movie the aliens as incompetent and would of dies if the humans didn’t look after it and its human striving for power that creates this dooms day scenario. The audience don’t see this coming and because of that it shocks the viewer and the scenario is new and has never be done before, and this has contributed to the success to movie and why it would become a instant classic.
The other reason the movie has been success is because is stared a unknown cast and a unknown director, the only known face is Peter Jackson who is the producer of the movie. Peter Jackson is associated with this fantasy sci-fi genre as he has produced and write movies such as king kong, and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and I think this helped him to produce this movie. The previous experienced help do something new to the sci-fi genre.

Narrative

The narrative movie is a linear movie. For the movie the audience are positioned very we’ll positioned, the reason for this is because you can relate to people in the movie because it based in the slums of South Africa and Aliens and humans struggling and you see this in the news all the time. So it creates sympathy for the movie and attracts you into the movie because you want all these people/aliens to survive. Heroes or the main character in the movie changes from a villain to a hero. At the beginning you dislike the character as he shows no respect towards the aliens and this creates rage towards him, halfway within the movie something happens to him and you start to feel sorry for the character this makes you bond with the character and by the end of the movie you get emotionally attached to the character. The villain in the movie starts of as a villain this is shown trough his personality and how he abuses his power, the character could have a defence as he has to take orders but its his enjoyment when he does it which people know he’s evil. The sound/music follows the narrative and suits the mood for example is there an action scene they wouldn’t have romantic movie because it does not suit the mood. The sounds also help show it’s a sci-fi movie such as the weapons as the guns they follow an alien type sounds. The genre is followed in certain ways but also changes as it uses a new type of storyline which hasn’t been done yet. The mise-en-scene for the movie is different and new these movies alien situation from other movies usually happen in places such as New York, but in this movie the alien ship is in South Africa and the reason for this because it makes the narrative easier to follow in the later stages in the movie.

Media institutions

The company that made the movie is key creatives which is a new company which is not big, but they have another blockbuster coming out soon ‘lovely bones’.

Media audience

The movie is sci-fi and this makes you think of teenage boy’s ages around 14-18. But because this movie doesn’t follow the normal alien theme and could target many other audiences. The movie can appeal to people who enjoy action movies and people who like drama movies as it contains many elements of that.