Analysis of 3 similar products to main piece

Morgan CloughMedia Advanced Portfolio – A. Product ResearchAnalysis of 3 Similar Products to Main Piece

Film Number One – Mother Diedhttp://www.bloodycuts.co.uk/films/ep4-mother-died/

Genre elements Conventions presented in MOTHER DIEDPerformers/Characters – representations, stereotypes, behaviour, body language, specific pop stars

Young girl who is represented as an innocent girl dressed in grungy dull clothing challenges the stereotype at the beginning of the film when she kills her mother thinking she is dead but just as she stabs her, her mother is awake. Uses Neale’s repetition and difference theory because although the film is using repetition by using a young naïve girl as the main character she turns out to kill her mother even if it is for the right reasons.

Strange attitude of the girl character acting as the villain of the film when stereotypically in horror films she would await to die or not. This creates a new genre of horror film making it more modern.

Stereotypical killer characters at the end of the film – Zombies tell the audience that it is a horror film.

http://www.bloodycuts.co.uk/films/ep4-mother-died/


Girls appearance is quite pale which connotates with innocence and naïve – challenges the stereotype (although at the end of the film you find out that she has done it for a reason at the beginning the audience wouldn’t know that)

Genre Type: Performance, Narrative or Conceptual? Are there elements of each? Describe them. If there is a narrative, what type of narrative is it? (Linear/Non Linear?)

The genre type is narrative because the story is being told throughout the film it is a linear narrative because it’s being told in chronological time order – whilst the voiceover is giving an insight into what has already happened leaving the audience to guess what the ending of the film will be.

Iconography – props, symbolic codes

The props used in the film symbolise horror films and tell the audience that they are watching a horror film. E.g. the knife the girl uses to kill her mum symbolises horror as it is stereotypically used in most popular horror films e.g. Scream.

The use of white colour used at the beginning of the


film challenges the stereotype of horror films because white has the connotations of innocence and purity – The girl is killing her mum although she looks innocent what she is doing isn’t. The white bed sheets symbolise heaven as the woman is dead on the bed, wants the audience to assume she has gone to heaven.

Setting- mise en sceneThe mise en scene of this film is traditionally stereotypical of a horror film because it is set in what seems to be an abandoned house which is a stereotypical setting for a horror film to be set in. The audience will then be able to tell from the setting of the film what genre the film will be.

Technical and audio codes – camera use, editing, lighting, diegetic/non diegetic sound, sfx

Slow paced non diegetic sound to build up tension (makes audience squeamish wondering what will happen as the music builds its pace)Non diegetic sound of girl character playing the voiceover telling the story as the film is being played.High key lighting challenges the stereotype of horror films at the beginning of the film because stereotypically horror films use low key lighting – this confuses the audience leaving them to question if it is in fact a horror film they are watching.


Neale’s ‘Mental Machinery’: How does the text meet audience expectations? How does it conform to convention and/or deviate from convention?

The text meets audience’s expectations because the producers of the film try to target the mainstream audience who like horror films by including typical horror conventions including the typical villain of zombies who are trying to kill everybody.


Film Number Two – Stitcheshttp://www.bloodycuts.co.uk/films/ep2-stitches/

Genre elements Conventions presented in STITCHESPerformers/Characters – representations, stereotypes, behaviour, body language, specific pop stars

Young girl who is represented as the attractive young girl who is perhaps naïve awaits to live or die in the stereotypical mise en scene of a horror film (big dark house)

http://www.bloodycuts.co.uk/films/ep2-stitches/


Stereotypical conventions of a killer at the end of the movie – creepy man who has escaped from prison is set out to kill someone. Body Language of the killer was stereotypical as he was set out to kill somebody e.g. the girl.

Intertextuality is used as the killer in this film Stitches references to the 1990 film called ‘It’ by Stephen King.


The genre type is linear narrative as it is a continuity edit because the story is being told in a sequence. It builds tension for the audience and gives a viewer time to build up their own version of events before they actually find out what happens.



The props used in the film symbolise horror films and tell the audience that they are watching a horror film. E.g. the big knife the clown uses – this shows that the film is horror because typically in horror films these are used.

It also uses Intertextuality when referencing to the film Scream at the beginning of the film when the phone is ringing and the young girl answers but nobody is replying. Straight away this tells the audience that it is a horror film because they know they have seen this scene already in a popular horror film.

Setting- mise en sceneThe mise en scene of this film is traditionally stereotypical of a horror film because it is set in a big house where there is nobody home. Traditionally the tv signal is going off leaving


the girl with nothing else to do.


Slow paced non diegetic sound to build up tension (makes audience squeamish wondering what will happen as the music builds its pace)A mixture of faster paced music which almost sounds like music that would come out of a childrens music box added with an eerie slow paced style of music leaves the audience wondering what kind of film this actually is.Low key lighting throughout the film tells the audience straight away that something bad will happen in this film.

Neale’s ‘Mental Machinery’: How does the text meet audience expectations? How does it conform to convention and/or deviate from convention?

The text meets audience’s expectations because the producers of the film try to target the mainstream audience who like horror films by including typical horror conventions like slow paced music. The stereotypical young girl who awaits to live or die and also bringing a character who has been seen previously in another scary film e.g. the clown, Targets an audience of mainstream horror genre.

Film Number Three – Preyhttp://www.bloodycuts.co.uk/films/ep3-prey/

Genre elements Conventions presented in PREYPerformers/Characters – representations, stereotypes, behaviour, body language, specific pop stars

Attractive young girl challenges the stereotype of typical horror films because at the beginning of the film you see her being drugged by the male character – at this point in the film the audience would think that she would be the one to die.But as seen at the end of the film she turns round and kills the man because of what he did to her.

http://www.bloodycuts.co.uk/films/ep3-prey/


Male character stereotypically plays the male antagonist at the beginning of the film – strong, masculine. Uses Neales repetition and difference where the male antagonist looks like he will be the killer but the role gets turned round where he finds out that he will be the one who dies.


The genre type is linear narrative as it is a continuity edit because the story is being told in a sequence. Although they are cut backs to what had previously happened to tell the story more to the audience giving them an insight into what could happen.



Use of the colour white during the film connotates with innocence – this could symbolise that the man thinks he is innocent and that he did nothing wrong to the girl as he says ‘see it wasn’t that bad was it’ this could confuse the audience making them start to wonder if they are watching a horror film.

Setting- mise en sceneThe mise en scene of this film is traditionally stereotypical of a horror film because it is set in a big house where there is nobody home. It is also stereotypical because they are in one room where the door is locked so that could symbolise that there is no way out of what he did to the young girl.


Throughout the film a fast paced sound is used to build the tension and potentially to make the audience jump.Diegetic sound is used when the young girl is killing the male character to show the effects of her killing him – his flat mate unable to hear so walks out and doesn’t help him.Low key lighting throughout the film tells the audience straight away that something bad will happen in this film but then when they are in the bathroom a high key lighting is used – this could make the audience question if they are watching a horror film or not.

Neale’s ‘Mental Machinery’: How does the text meet audience expectations? How does it conform to convention

The text meets audience’s expectations because the producers of the film try to target the mainstream audience who like horror films by including typical horror conventions like slow paced music. The stereotypical young girl who awaits to live or die and also using chandlers conventions of horror and Neale’s


and/or deviate from convention?

repetition and difference theory of that the chandlers conventions are that the male and female characters are used – at the beginning the male character is made to look like the antagonist but the difference is that the roles get turned round.

Analysis of 3 similar products to main piece

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