Film StudiesIntroduction to Unit 25: Film Studies

Aims of Unit 25:

• Understand how films are created for specific audiences.

• Understand how films make meaning for those audiences.

• Exploration of industry practices and the application of a range of theoretical approaches.

• Inform and enhance your production activity.

Learning Outcomes

LO1: Be able to apply different analytical approaches to films.

LO2: Understand the relationship between films and theirproduction contexts.

LO3: Understand the relationship between producers andaudiences.

LO4: Understand the relationship between audiences and films.

Assessment Criteria

1.1: Apply approaches to analysing films with some appropriate use of subject terminology.

1.2: Describe the relationship between films and theirproduction contexts with some appropriate use of subject terminology.

1.3: describe the relationship between producers and film audiences with some appropriate use of subject terminology

1.4: Describe the relationship between audiences and films with some appropriate use of subject terminology.

Unit Success

To succeed in this unit you need to:

• Watch a lot of films!

• Be an active viewer, not a passive film viewer.

• Understand film as a powerful medium.

• Be analytical.

• Know that several different theories can be used on one film.

Genre Theory

• ‘Genre’ literally means ‘type’.

• Genre helps us catergorise films.

Task:

• Look at the following trailers and consider which genre they belong.

• Make notes as to why you think it belongs to a specific genre.

Trailer #1Notting Hill

Trailer #2Scream

Trailer #3Speed

Trailer #4Ace Ventura: Pet Detactive

Why is genre important?

• Good way to communicate meanings in film.

• Makes the information in films more controllable.

• Makes characters more predictable.

• Genres are used to create meaning.

• Very easy to market a ‘genre’ film.

• Audience knows what to expect – REPETATIVE.

The Language of Film

• How do films ‘speak’ to us?

• Codes / Conventions? The familiar and predictable forms and techniques.

• Setting? Where is the film set, geographically, urban, rural.

• Props? Symbolic props – Crucifix, knife…

• Costume? Period costumes, well dressed, ‘cheap’ clothing.

• Lighting? Gloomy, sunny…

• Sound? Happy, atmospheric, SFX.

• Iconography? Eiffel Tower, specific props.

• MISE-EN-SCENE: What is in the scene.

Case study: HORROR

• ‘Horror has often been the most peculiar and the most predictable of genres’ (Hutchings)

• What is your favourite horror genre?

• Consider the list on the previous page and consider why your chosen film can be defined as ‘horror’

Horror synopsis

Task:

• Write the synopsis for a made up horror film.

• What makes it a horror?

• Again, think about, storyline, characters, setting…

• Find an image to accompany your horror film synopsis.

Arguments against genre

• Clear, identifiable and sustainable boundaries?

• Sub-genres?

• Hybrid genres?

• Created by critics, not filmmakers?

• ‘Ultimately, perhaps we need to remember that the concept of genre is a little like stereotyping. Once you start investigating real people in all their complexity, stereotypes tend to fall apart; similarly, once you start analysing a complex media text, generic labels become fairly meaningless.’ – Media Magazine