Blog 8 Analysis of DVD covers

Jennifer’s Body

The DVD cover conveys the teen horror genre very well, as it has blood and other items commonly featured in the genre. More specifically, the DVD cover is set in a school classroom, this gives the teen aspect of the film and represents the where the plot is mainly fulfilled, it tells us a lot about the film.

Its primary target audience is men who are attracted to Megan Fox, the makers of the DVD cover have made sure that men are attracted into buying the DVD by having Megan Fox in a seductive and also innocent pose.  By using language such as ‘Sexy Temptress Megan Fox is hotter than hell’ it appeals to the male gender a lot. The language used is very informal.

The DVD appeals to both genders with how it portrays the horror genre, the blood and scratches on the classroom indicate violence and the hand reaching out on the seat indicate that Jennifer (Megan Fox) is responsible.

It would also appeal to women because the main cast is made up of female characters. It is also emphasised by the fact that the protagonist and the antagonist characters are female.

The font used in the title relates to the film’s plot, where Jennifer the character, starts out normal at the beginning, but as the plot develop she turns into something not so normal. Just like what has happened to the title’s font. The most significant colour on the DVD cover is red; this connotes danger, passion and gore.

Sorority Row

This is the DVD cover for Sorority Row, the cover is based around the plot of the story, and obviously the genre it is representing, teen horror. The designers of Sorority row cover have represented the teen horror genre very well. They have used many aspects from the genre in the DVD cover. For example featuring the main cast, all attractive women, attracts their primary target audience to buy the DVD cover. Women may also buy it as for once the main character is a man, this would be their secondary target audience. This is supported by the contents of the DVD cover, the majority of the DVD's colour scheme is black, this provides a dark crepy atmostphere which not only symbolises the genre, but also the plot. Black also emphasises the metallic colour of the handmade weapon consistently used to kill off the main characters in the plot.

The two tie irons, with welded on blades represent the fact that a madman can turn something normal like a tire iron used to change wheels on tires, into something deadly to be used as a serial killers weapon.

The Serif font adds a gothic feel to the DVD cover, thus having links back to the original gothic horror genre. .



Blog 7 - Production task outline

For our production task, I have analyse two DVD covers and two film posters. This will help me as then I can understand what is included in both items and why they are used. This will help me for when I have to do my film poster and DVD cover.

After creating the DVD cover and film poster i have to evaluate it and discuss why I have included the items that I have. I will also need to point out the strengths and weaknesses of my productions compared with other media products.

Blog 5 - Evidence of Wider Reading.

The Horror Genre

The genre of horror is nearly as old as the film industry itself,  It was used to provoke emotions out of its target audience causing fear. Even though they wouldn’t be scary today, horror films caused quite a stir in the 1890s when film was without sound, this was known as the silent film era. Whilst the horror genre was as old as film itself, it didn’t feature a monster to the early 20^th century, in the film Quasimodo, which was the first full length horror film.

Even though there were monsters in the films now, they didn’t exactly look like them, so common monsters were always ones that look very similar, like the vampire themed film Nosferatu.  Other antagonists were zombies and serial killers. Most of these monsters drew inspirations from novels such as Dracula and Frankenstein.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein wasn’t adapted into a film to the 1930’s and then became a big hit universally and popularized the horror genre, it also encouraged many actors such as Boris Karloff and Bella Lugosi to make careers in film.

1940s not only brought the Wolf Man but brought better make up and costume designs, they were more convincing to the audience, and made the films a lot more scary.

As technology improved, special effects could be better, and more convincing for that matter. The horror genre shifted towards the science fiction than keeping with the traditional gothic horror that the genre started out with.

Large low budget films featured the human race overcoming threats from aliens from other worlds. It was also used as a way of causing political paranoia, this was portrayed in Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers that aliens to depicted the Soviet Union rather than directly attacking them, thus avoiding controversy. 

Horror became more self-mockingly ironic, especially in the latter half of the 1990s. Wes Craven's Scream movies, starting in 1996, featured teenagers who were fully aware of, and often made reference to, the history of horror movies, and mixed ironic humor with the shocks. Along with I know what you did last summer; it boosted the popularity of the horror genre.

The 21st century brought a rebirth to the Zombie sub-genre of horror, and also continued the comical values that can be associated with some horror films today such as the Scary Movie Quadrilogy which are parodies of other horror films.

Blog 2 - Target Audience

Sorority Row

As we can see here on the graph of User Ratings from http:/IMDB.com, the audience was mainly male, judging from the votes.  From this I can estimate that the target audience was mainly 18-19 year old men, with a low percentage of women. This may be because of a all mainly female main cast, and the feature of parties and alcohol.  Compared to Jennifer’s Body (Below) it probably wasn’t as popular it didn’t have the obviously prominent actors in its main cast.

However it did have the daughter of Bruce Willis, Rumer Willis, and Carrie Fisher, who is famously known for playing Princess Lea in the original Star Wars movies. So this may have attracted the Action and Sci-Fi fans.

It wasn’t surprising to see that the number of aged under 18 to voters was low as this film was rated as an 18.

 Jennifer’s Body

Like Sorority Row, Jennifer’s Body has a much larger male target audience. Again because it is rated 18 we see that the age group is 18-29.

This tells us that the film was aimed at mainly men, who were probably attracted to the fact that Megan Fox plays a promiscuous role in the movie. However, surprisingly it has been voted an average of 5.3 by men, and 5.7 by women.

This may have been because some of the target audience hadn’t found it gory enough, or it was too similar to other films.

Compared to Sorority Row, and judging by these graphs, Jennifer’s body was more popular, this may have been because the target audience may have been interested in its lead cast. However most that liked Sorority Row liked Jennifer’s Body.

Blog 4 - Analysis of Opening Sequences.

Jennifer’s Body

This film is about a Nerdy bookworm, nicknamed Needy who is best friends with a arrogant popular woman called Jennifer, although they have hardly anything in common, they are like sisters.

In the opening sequence we see Needy in a mental institute, she then tells us, the viewers, why she has been interned there, narrating it. The setting has a dull, grey feel to it, creating suspense and building up to the violent kick in the face of a nurse.

When the story begins we see a shy quieter Needy which is in stark contrast to the violent kicker we see at the very start, this encourages the audience to keep watching to find out what happened to Needy that made her so loud and violent.

At this part of the movie the audience is also introduced to Jennifer Check, one of the most popular girls in the high school that the two main characters attend. At this point we see them as both Protagonists.

First impressions of Jennifer portray her as promiscuous and arrogant, The fact that she wants to go see a band at a greasey bar because the lead singer his attractive, further supports this and also makes the audience wonder why she would pay attention to a nerdy bookworm.

Sorority Row

We see a group of sister-like friends play a prank on Garrett, who has cheated on one of them, for revenge. It soon goes wrong when Garrett stick a tire –iron in Megan’s chest killing her.

The common mix of alcohol and a party has always been a build up moment for something going wrong.

However , at first the audience doesn’t realise that the Sorority Row (After which the film is called) Sisters are playing a prank on Garrett, but we think they are playing a prank on Megan, that is until Megan simulates that she is having an overdose. It was all part of a plan to get revenge on Garrett for cheating on fellow their Theta-pi sister.

The party had a bright theme to it, well lit and thumping music, the contrast compared to the next scene was to help building up the suspense.

The unexpected murder of Megan was done to make the audience be surprised, making them watch the movie to see what happens next.

The discussion of what they would do next made the audience think of what they would do in this situation.

Blog 3 - Institutional Contexts

Sorority Row

With a estimated budget of $16,000,000 the film makers of Sorority Row didn’t have a lot to work with, however with a $11,915,856 gross income after 3 weeks of screenings in the UK, and another 7 weeks of showings in the USA. It was obviously more popular in the USA as it made $10,090,805, however it only made £1,825,051 in the UK.

Made by Karz Entertainment and Summit Entertainment. Karz Entertainment has never really had a history of making horror films, or films for that matter, they have a long run of TV shows up to Good Luck Chuck.

Summit Entertainment, like Karz Entertainment, has had a history of making comedy films such as American Pie, and Around the World in 80 Days; however they are now more famous for making the new Twilight saga.

Jennifer’s Body

With the same estimated budget as Sorority Row, Jennifer’s Body made a gross income of $16,195,529 (USA), this was substantially more than what Sorority Row, even though they were aimed at the same target audience. This may have been, in my opinion, that it had a better storyline than Sorority Row. It also featured actors that were popular at the time, such as Amanda Seyfried, who was famous for starring in Mamma Mia, and Megan Fox, who was in Transformers.

Made by Fox Atomic, branch off from the FOX media company, it already had some good reputation from the public as  being a prominent horror film maker, having already made 28 Days Later, and The Hills Have Eyes. So they already had experience in the horror film industry.

Fox Atomic and Dune Entertainment haven’t just come together to produce this film, they have also, have also produced the Hills Have Eyes II, sequel to Dune Entertainment’s The Hills Have Eyes I,  another horror film that has been successful.

Blog 1 - Introduction - Pre-Production

My task is to devise a shooting script for the own teen horror film. As well as producing the script I have to choose who I want to aim this teen horror film at, this will be our target audience. The target audience will effect what the personality of the characters in the film are, what the location is like, this will ensure I reach out to our target audience. However I have to ensure that I keep the film in the genre of teenage horror movies, so research into this genre will be imminent.

I will also look into companies that also create teen horror films as then I would be able to see what are their budgets like, and how my work will reflect the impact of these factors.