TV AUDIENCE TARGETING

4 key Aspect

1. you must give key details - especially the specific episode that you are studying

2. you must

3. you must link


LOST- box 2
-A mass, mainstream, almost global audience.
-mainly appeals to a more passive audience.
-a minority of conventions do cater for more active audiences
(all different types of audiences)
-Lost does offer its target audience a variety of gratifications, however the majority of the encoded conventions provide the gratification of escapism


PEAKY BLINDERS- box 2
BBC 2 GETS MONEY FROM LICENCE FEES
INFORM EDUCATE AND ENTERTAIN- BBC OVERALL
BBC2- HIGH PRODUCTIONS CELEBRATES BRITISH CULTURE

-audience who are attracted to abc 2's remit - focuses on British community and culture (PB=historical)
- conventions appeal to an active and passive audience
-fairly mainstream audience
- some areas of the narrative requires the audience to be cutlery competent - doesn't spoon feed you information, expects you to know some information
e.g. parlay - meeting to stop violence
kin- family
dump a body in the cut - dump it in the canal

Abortion scenes = use for informations




MAD MEN

- A more niche and active audience
- the text requires you to be consistently active to gain the preferred reading
-an audience who require further gratifications than simply entertainment, relaxation or escapism such as a historical information
- an audience who are gratified by having their beliefs and morals reinforced/challenged (joan sleeps with Herber?t but to escape from men and make her life better)




RESPONSE

polysemic text

preferred negotiated oppositional

link to specific episode
link to specific articles etc

the washington post - lethargic pace - active people - too slow
mad men

pb
artic monkeys
THE WHITE STRIPES
boardwalk empires
stereotypical representation

style over substance
doesn't make sense in the plot


HER

VANILLA SKY IS SIMILAR

CONFORMS TO SIMULACRA
WHAT IS REAL ISNT

SOFT SOCIALOGICAL
NEAR FUTURE SCI FI

MUSIC IS NOT STEREOTYPICAL - ARCADE FIRE
VIOLINS


fish tank

so called underclass - make sure you say this because they aren't a real class

Media lesson

audience targeting


B1. Explore the different audience appeals of your three main texts.




1. You must give key details - especially the specific episode that you are studying (stage 1 of your exam)
 lost - s1 e2
peaky blinders - no name for episode s1 e2
madmen - the other woman s5 e11

2. You must concisely describe the overall target audience of a text ( stage 2 )
This will include a variety of audiences types and audience gratifications

gratifications - what you get out of it
pies


3. you must link a specific convention/gratification to a specific audience and justify exactly how it gratifies them ( stage 3a, 3b, 3c)

passive audiences etc


4. You must supply specific scene/narrative evidence to prove each point you make. Don't just describe what occurs in the narrative, explain how it is presented.

stereotypes are easier to decode


AUDIENCE RESPONSE

YOU NEED SOURCES
ON MOODLE

polysemic = multiple meanings



preferred oppositional and negotiated

oppositional - stereotypes are portrayed in the narrative
sun and jin - out dated representation of koreans
actual actor criticising about his character Michael,


lostpiedia preferred representation
enigma codes
continuity episodes
set tasks - find things out

CULT AUDIENCES

museum of moving images
new york
positive response
Don draper - roosevelt hotel room and drink named after him


the guardian representation of women complex and praised READ ARTICLE


peaky blinders
cinematography
praised


music contemporary and decomposition some audiences
modern audiences
birhmigham mail


read about issues with the broad walk empire

Does the ‘Horror’ genre continue to change to appeal to audiences?

Does the ‘Horror’ genre continue to change to appeal to audiences?

Aim 1: influenced and affected by the context of the time they were made(technology)

Aim 2: narrative themes/gender representation

Aim 3:conventions of the horror genre have changed 


SUBHEADINGS FOR EACH AIMS
aim 1
text 1
text 2

aim 2
text 1
text 2

aim 3
text 1
text 2

My investigation will analyse my two chosen texts from the times they were made 'Unfriended (1) (2014), directed by Leo Gabriadze and 'The Blair Witch Project' (2) (1999) , directed by Eduardo Sánchez and Daniel Myrick. "Genre's are instances of repetition and difference"- Steve Neale (?). 'The Blair Witch Project' is considered the first film of 'found footage' sub genre. Therefore many other texts have been influenced by this e.g. Paranormal Activity Franchise. I will compare and contrast both films and assess  how far they have been influenced by the technological and social conditions of their production. I will therefore focus upon narrative themes and gender representations to establish how far horror conventions have changed over the last 15 years. I will also give a brief historical breakdown of the horror genre.

The horror genre has a long history (1896- present) from starting with silent films like Nosferatu (1922) - based on Dracula, supernatural creatures are highly popular within the horror genre because they enhance the fear of the unknown. The horror genre is always developing throughout the years, it has always updated with technology to make it more impressive and engage the audience but most importantly scare them. Even through changes that we probably don't necessarily appreciate as a modern audience such as the use of colour and sound. Sound is such a massive part in making horror films as eery as they are now by the use of non-diegetic sound effects and soundtrack scores. However in times such as the 1960's horror films involving 'zombies' were a massive breakthrough with the development of prosthetics. This shows that no mater how the world changes horror will always find something to make it terrifying and incorporate our deepest fears of change within motion pictures. Additionally horror has always been a popular genre because it tackles the social issues of the time. For example 'Dawn of the Living Dead' (1978) was about racism which then reflects the contextual issues of the 70's battling racism and focuses on what is the wider effects of society though apocalyptic events. However eventually the horror genre becomes too advanced with technology and people begin to grow tired of 3D and CGI, thats when horror adapts to suit its audiences and goes back to basics. However within my texts they physically put horror though the use of social media back into the hands of the audience by giving them a point of view of the characters.

The horror genre continues to change so that they can appeal to their audiences. This is because if they use the same conventions, cast, directors, iconography etc. then every horror film would be the same. This goes for many films however within the horror genre they need to be more inventive because it is harder to maintain and scare an audience if they have already seen it happen before. This is why with the development of technology horror film makers have started to incorporate it more and more into their films. You can see this with the contrast between my two chosen texts 'The Blair Witch Project' and 'Unfriended'. Because in 'The Blair Witch Project' they only use video camera's however within 'Unfriended' there is the use of apps, social media, mobile phones, laptops etc. showing the variety of technology that teenagers now use. This can also back up my secondary research (?) of how much time people spend on the internet through use of technology. My research allowed me to discover that teenagers are the most popular users of the internet and which apps they use the most. It shows that throughout modern society they are the most absorbent and influential to the internet. Looking at the results you are also enabled to see the similarities between them and 'Unfriended' as the apps that are the most popular are used within the film. This then reflects the context in which these films were made as they have adapted from 1999 with 'The Blair Witch Project' to 2014 with 'Unfriended'.

Bibliography:
1. Unfriended (2014)
2. The Blair Witch Project (1999) 
3. Repetition and difference quote from Steve Neale 
4. secondary research on internet users and apps 

ATEMPT 2

Does the found-footage sub genre of horror rely on repetitive conventions?

For my investigation I will be analyzing 'The Blair Witch Project' (1999) (1) and 'Unfriended' (2014) (2). "Genres are instances of repetition and difference"- Steve Neale (I3). 'The Blair Witch Project' is considered the first film of 'found footage' sub genre. Therefore many other texts have been influenced by this e.g. Paranormal Activity Franchise. I will compare and contrast both films and assess how far they have been influenced by the technological and social conditions of the time of their production. I will therefore focus upon narrative themes and gender representations to establish how far horror conventions have changed over the last 15 years.

The horror genre continues to change so that they can appeal to their audiences. This is because if they use the same conventions, cast, directors, iconography etc. then every horror film would be too similar and why would audiences pay to watch something very similar all the time unless it was a remake of an original film. This goes for many films however within the horror genre they need to be more inventive because it is harder to maintain and scare an audience if they have already seen something very similar happen before. For example in 'Jaws' as soon as you hear the iconic 'Jaws' music playing you know exactly what is going to happen because of the continuous repetition throughout all of the films and it then becomes embedded into your subconscious.

This is why with the development of technology horror film makers have started to incorporate technology more and more into their films. You can see this with the contrast between my two chosen texts 'The Blair Witch Project' (1) and 'Unfriended' (2). Because in 'The Blair Witch Project' (1) they only use video camera's however within 'Unfriended' (2) there is the use of apps, social media, mobile phones, laptops etc. showing the variety of technology that teenagers now use. This can also back up my secondary research of how much time people spend on the internet through use of technology (Item 5). My research allowed me to discover that teenagers are the most popular users of the internet and which apps they use the most. It shows that throughout modern society they are the most absorbent and influential to the internet. Looking at the results you are also enabled to see the similarities between them and 'Unfriended' (2) as the apps that are the most popular are used within the film. This then reflects the context in which these films were made as they have adapted from 1999 with 'The Blair Witch Project' (1) to 2014 with 'Unfriended' (2).

-NARRATIVE THEMES
The narrative themes of Unfriended (2) display a variety of popular things within society that are mainly targeted at teenagers and older age groups such as social media websites (Facebook). A wide range of people are familiar with these and it also has a lot of controversy on what it is used for, some share family pictures and happy memories like it is displayed within the Unfriended (2) trailer at the beginning and some use it for what can be called things like 'slut shaming' and it can essentially boil down to bullying within society on a wider scale across more than a simple street or school, but everywhere because of how wide the access is for everyone to be interlinked across the world. A common narrative theme of horror is to add in a popular game (usually recent) to add more fear to film because it is staying up to date with society for example Unfriended (2) uses the game 'never have I ever' in order to torture the teenagers and essentially kill them one by one. In The Blair Witch Project (1) which was made in 1999 was at a point where fear was most prominent because of the fact that there was a new millennium, therefore no one was sure what would happen which created a mass fear of the unknown like on the 21st December 2012 when the world was supposed to end. Therefore effectively the unknown 'Blair Witch' was created and it is never seen throughout the entire film which can mimic the society at the time with the fear of the unknown.

-REPRESENTATION OF GENDER

"The image of the distressed female most likely to linger in memory is the image of the one who did not die: the survivor the Final Girl" (6). In both of my texts there is a final girl Blaire and Heather. In Unfriended (2) Blaire is the last survivor out of all the teenagers and the fact that she has outlived the stereotypically more dominant gender (males) like the characters Ken, Adam, Mitch does become more terrifying for the audience as women are stereotypically known as weaker and more vulnerable.  Therefore when the online troll 'Billie' who the group assumes is Laura, their recently passed away friend, begins to count down to zero from 45. This is done within the social media platform of Skype using instant messaging creating dramatic tension within the audience. It is done by the use of the music and by the sound effects within the scene. The music is sad and calm, however added with the tension of the counting down it becomes scarier.

Tension is shown by the character Blaire, this is established by Shelly Hennig's facial expressions, they show that she is terrified and because she is terrified this then with the preferred reading will scare the audience as well. "Fear sells. Fear makes money. The countless companies and consultants in the business of protecting the fearful from whatever they may fear know it only too well. The more fear, the better the sales" (7). This shows that fear spreads fear and that by doing this horror films are able to earn more money because they are continuously updating and essentially keeping the fear fresh and up to date and as said by Daniel Gardner, fear sells.

Whereas in The Blair Witch Project (2) Heather is the final girl, just before the final scenes when they enter the house, she takes the camera and points it upwards giving a worms eye close up on her face. This then makes the audience feel uncomfortable because of how close they are too her, it becomes an invasion of space. Heather then proceeds to say "I'm scared to close my eyes, I'm scared to open them" This is more impacting on the audience because later on she will be the final girl. This then will be more worrying for the audience and create more fear within them because they already know she is terrified.

-TECHNICAL CONVENTIONS
The technical conventions in Unfriended (2) are interesting and have updated compared to how they were in The Blair Witch Project (1) because both of them are from the found footage genre they are essentially very similar however that 15 year age gap has aloud the technology to update, become more creative and adapted to human needs and this if used in the right way can be used to scare the audience. This is all to do with the fact that fear is mostly caused by fear of the unknown, therefore with the use of technology developing we really do not know where it is going to go next.

Additionally because a lot of the population are familiar with technology this is used to scare the audience through the use of point of view shots, especially in Unfriended (2) as you are purposely put into the position of the teenagers in the group chat so the sense of verisimilitude can further scare the audience. By putting the audience in the point of view of the main characters you are thrown more into the world of technology and social media and you can connect with the characters more as you are able to understand the fact of how hard it is to escape. "What makes the film work however is that if you are at home with the culture, at home with the online culture, then you know what it does is [it] says something quite interesting about cyber-bullying because many people have seen the trailer and are being 'okay, you're being stalked on the internet just log off' and the smart thing about the plot is at several points where they all tell each other just log off walk away but the point is they can't, why can't they, because they are addicted" (Item 4, Mark Kermode). Mark Kermode is a specialist in reviewing films and by him saying this shows how addicted people are to technology especially in terms of how it is established in Unfriended (2).

These diagrams (5) show that over two different age (2005, 2014) and (2012-2014) spans showing the rapid growth of how many people use specific pieces of technology and how many use specific apps and how many people use them. My research supports the fact that society has developed and through the use of technical conventions because the technical conventions have been adapted to adopt the similarity of the user of the technology. I think that this is also similar to how it is used within The Blair Witch Project (1) with the way that hand held camera is used in order to adopt the similarities and with the preferred reading to the text position the audience in with the teenage film crew. By the technical conventions of in this case with both of my texts camera work is key in order to display simple fears of not being able to escape and this is portrayed by younger generations being so engrossed with technology.


In conclusion after my research I think that my question 'Does the found-footage sub genre of horror rely on repetitive conventions?' is not true. I don't think that it needs to rely on repetitive conventions to continue on. Of course there will be some conventions that will be repeated otherwise it would end up being too different and not a horror film at all. However I think that my research shows that by horror films updating themselves to be more accurate within the times they are made makes them so much more effective and interesting. It can be clearly seen within my two texts The Blair Witch Project(1) and Unfriended (2) which are fifteen years apart. They are similar in the sense of the fact that they both have a final girl and they both are both established within the found-footage sub genre of horror, however other than that I think with the modernisation of apps and other technological sources both my texts have become something very unique themselves. Therefore I think that this particular genre doesn't need to rely on it's past history because it works better when it is constantly evolving and adapting to suit newer audiences.

-BIBLIOGRAPHY
Item 1: The Blair Witch Project (1999) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0185937/?ref_=nv_sr_1

Item 2: Unfriended (2014) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3713166/?ref_=nv_sr_1

Item 3: Steve Neale Quote https://prezi.com/3ewc87yoxddt/steve-neales-theory-of-repetition-difference/

Item 4: mark kermode quote (addicted to the internet no escape, from youtube clip)

Item 5: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/digital-media/11597743/Teenagers-spend-27-hours-a-week-online-how-internet-use-has-ballooned-in-the-last-decade.html 

Item 6: Quote from 'Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the modern horror film' by Carol Clover (1992) Page 35

Item 7: Quote from Daniel Gardner,  The science of fear

Research for research investigation

Question: Does the horror genre continue to change to appeal to audiences?

Text 1- Unfriended
Text 2- The Blair Witch Project

Does the narrative themes of the horror genre reflect societies issues?
Female representation- the final Girl theory,objectification and male gaze

Fear sells. Fear makes money. The countless companies and consultants in the business of protecting the fearful from whatever they may fear know it only too well. The more fear, the better the sales.

DANIEL GARDNER, The Science of Fear

^found on this website
http://www.notable-quotes.com/f/fear_quotes_ii.html




The way a film was marketed to attract an audience- blair witch website ?

Unfriended (Text 1)

Basic's

Made in - 2014
Director- Leo Gabriadze
Audience- Teenagers/young adults
Certificate Rating- 15  ( http://www.bbfc.co.uk/releases/unfriended-filmtrailer )
Genre- Horror
R rating
Release date- 1st may 2015? UK
Tag line - 'Online, your memories last forever. But so do your mistakes'

Potential points/things to research

How many hours to teenagers spend on social media/ internet - society effects

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/digital-media/11597743/Teenagers-spend-27-hours-a-week-online-how-internet-use-has-ballooned-in-the-last-decade.html

From the telegraph resource above

What are the most popular apps- colour blue theme - keeps you awake

From the telegraph resource above 

Desensitised generations
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-11-13/news/ct-met-tolerant-teens-bd-20101113_1_millennials-teens-generational-shift

violence linking to social media ?? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21143346

The final girl theory:
http://offscreen.com/view/feminism_and_horror
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FinalGirl
https://elizaoboadihorror.wordpress.com/2012/11/02/the-final-girl-theory/
http://2013.neutralmagazine.com/article/the-final-girl-gender-in-horror/

Review on Unfriended

Effectively cyber stalked, its the old horror trope its 'Halloween', 'Bloody Valentine', 'I Know What You Did', its the anniversary death thing, something happened a secret in the past and now the vengeful spirit is coming back but because its all played out on a computer screen this instantly isn't something that is completely original I mean if you look for example, the idea of computers as being demonic goes back to 'Demon Seed', and to 'Evil Speak' which is the famous video 'Nasty'. and then you get chat room which fails in anyway to get a handle on what online interaction looks like in this case this film is one that actually understands its skyping culture. so during the movie each of them is being cyber stalked with revelations coming out online which it causes the protagonists to turn against each other. as I said the central gimmick is that it plays out on the computer screens and as you are watching it you are seeing windows within windows following text messages and i think your response to will be to some extent how you feel about that culture. if you are an older member of the audience one of the things that can happen is you can start to feel panicky about how much there is to keep up with, where to look and also the sense that these teens are completely dextrose with this, they're not even thinking about the way its working. what makes the film work however is that if you are at home with the culture. at home with the online culture then you know what it does is says something quite interesting about cyberbullying because many people have seen the trailer and are being okay you're being stalked on the internet just log off and the smart thing about the plot is at several points where they tell each other just log off walk away but the point is they can't, why can't they, because they are addicted because they are addicted to the thing and i what i think is interesting about it is quite apart from being a horror movie which is that it has the strength of its formal convictions so if you think for example the blair witch project. the blair witch project was a film which said okay this is going to play out as the found footage of these people who went out to make  a documentary in burkersville wood and were going to say thats all there is there isn't an exterior thats what there is and at the beginning of liar witch you think that this is going to drive me mad. this is a long time this is the load stone of the found footage genre obviously it owes a debt to 'Cannibal  Holocaust' (...) But blair witch project has the strengths of its convictions and despite the fact of its shrieking young film students seen all the way through seen on these shaky hand held cameras like this is going to drive me mad but actually did it made the thing believable it made it credible. i know people who saw blair with when it came out who genuinely thought is this real is this actually real. well the case of unfriended which was at one point called cybernatural what is has is the strength of its conviction so although a movie like 'Open Windows' last year might have sort of looked at doing this, this is a complete hermetically sealed world in which actually the irony of it is whilst they are all online. trying to figure it out, is one of them playing the trick on the other one, who is? who is actually behind all this, all these Facebook messages that they are getting from someone, who's hacked into that account and they start distrusting each other and in fact what the movie is doing is is its saying you're looking the boogey man straight in the face and the boogey man is the screen itself and in many ways its a shrieky teen terrorised slasher movie. but actually below that its a film which is about the fact that cyberbullying only works if you partake in it if you cooperate with it. and all the way through the film its says don't click this link  don't do this don't do that and they do any why do they because the underlying thing with it is its to do with the fact that you can turn the screen off. (6:25) 

The Blair Witch Project (Text 2)

Basic's 

Made in-1999

Directors- Eduardo Sánchez, Daniel Myrick

Audience- Teenagers/Young adults

Certificate Rating- 15 (http://www.bbfc.co.uk/releases/blair-witch-project-1999-1)

Genre- Horror

R Rating

Release Date- 30th July 1999

Tag Line- 'In October 1994 three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland, while shooting a documentary... A year later their footage was found.'

QUOTATIONS - BIBLIGORAPHY

The term was coined by Carol J. Clover in her 1992 book Men, Women, And Chain Saws: Gender In The Modern Horror Film, a critical examination of slasher movies.- http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FinalGirl







David Cronenberg

'If you accept, at least to some extent, the Freudian dictum that civilisation is repression, then imagination - and an unrepressed creativity - is dangerous to civilisation'; and for all of horror films' often formulaic nature, the genre throws up a kind of wild creativity that just isn't seen anywhere else.'
page 1
horror films
james marriott




final girl page 35

more vulnerable
negative representation because you think she's weak have doubt that she's not going to survive
blaire dies
girl in blaire witch is the leader and the only girl and the final girl

"The image of the distressed female most likely to linger in memory is the image of one who did not die: the survivor, or Final Girl."PAGE 35

In schoell's words: "The vast majority of contemporary shockers, wether in the sexist mold or not, feature climaxes in which the women fight back against their attackers- the wandering, humourless psychos who populate these films. They often show more courage and levelheadedness than their cringing male counterparts"
PAGE 35

PAGE 37
given the drift in just four years between Texas Chain Saw and Halloween- from passive to active defines- it is no surprise that the films following Halloween present Final Girls who not only fight back but do so with ferocity and even kill the killer on their own, without help from the outside.

representation of women
shows how things that work stick with the genre
development etc etc



"The reason horror isn't as lively as it once was is because people are out of ideas"- Drew Grim Van Ess


"Horror movies are a barometer of those things that trouble the night thoughts of a whole society)" - Stephen King

http://thepopcornmuncher.com/2014/03/19/2014-found-footage-horror/



http://www.indiewire.com/article/how-the-team-behind-unfriended-pulled-off-the-most-ingenious-horror-film-in-years-20150424 more sources on cyberbullying, how they filmed it etc
^
The horror of it all came one night when we were all talking about this and he pitched it to me a bunch of times. I never understood it and suddenly when we landed on the horror it all clicked for me. I said, "Oh, I get it. You use the restrictions and limitations of a computer desktop the same way that ‘The Blair Witch Project’ used the restrictions of a single camera.” And suddenly that made sense for me. (Nelson Greaves )


http://www.refinery29.com/2015/04/85830/unfriended-movie-review
^
"One of the most frustrating and tantalizing things is when you send that text message, and it says the other person has seen your message, but isn't responding. It's that ellipses; that's something that we've learned to care about. We've learned to be afraid of it, and it's a source of tension," Greaves says. It's an update of the found-footage genre. "We used the constraints and limitations of a computer screen the same way The Blair Witch Project used video cameras."

https://prezi.com/3ewc87yoxddt/steve-neales-theory-of-repetition-difference/
Steve Neale quote