Distribution Companies.

Digitisation has changed the way the distribution industry operates now because of how hardrives and computers can hold films instead of paying thousands it simply can be done for free, and this way indie companies or even new film makers like us can stand a chance against the big time distribution companies, this is because most films now are distributed digitally by either social networking or other sites on the Internet.

Indie/Studio.

Indie Film Company

Studio Film Company

20th Century Fox and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc, would be high end budget films , with the money to spend on casting like famous stars and the filming equipment where as Indie companies such as Optimum Releasing will be under a tighter budget and won’t often have Hollywood stars and would normally have actor that will be starring for the first time in movies, an example of this is Wes Craven’s original nightmare on elm street (1984) where Johnny Depp starred for the first time and this was by an indie company New Line Cinema whereas when he starred in the first Pirates of the Caribbean (2003) it was by a studio company Walt Disney Pictures with a high budget because by this film he was a well known actor.

SlasherEG5: Halloween rem

Halloween
 (Rob Zombie, 2007)

PRODUCED BY: Dimension Films, Nightfall Productions, Spectacle Entertainment Group
DISTRIBUTED BY: Dimension Films (USA), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (USA), Paramount Pictures (UK)

BUDGET: $15m

BOX OFFICE: $80m

IMDb RATING: 6.0

RUNNING TIME OF OPENING: 26:45 mins

IDENTS: Dimension Films is the only production company mentioned as the others weren't as it's the only studio company with importance, and like other idents it stays on screen for about 6 seconds making it seem like this is the common time for idents to be on screen.

TITLES:  The film title is shown straight after the production company ident is shown, it's before all the titles for the casting which isn't what most slasher films do they normally reveal the producer, director or stars before the film title. However this film is an acception, also it's gone for the more serious colours of font by using the white on a black background instead of what the other Halloween's used with a red font on a black background, this white font makes it look more serious and give the sense of realism along the the sans-serif font which is commonly used in slasher films giving the preferred reading.

LENGTH OF TAKES + EDITING PACE: Unlike the old slasher films such as the original Halloween these modern slashers use fast pace editing for the killings which make it more realistic and make the preferred reading stronger, because with the long take in the old films it started to become unrealistic with the killings and in some cases start the opposite reading , where as with the fast-paced editing used now it's much easier to get the preferred reading in the slasher genre.

 NARRATIVE ENIGMA V EXPOSITION: 

 This film goes against Barthe's theory about the narrative enigma as there is no mystery into who the killer might be as we see straight away that it's Mike Myers, so no information is held back from the audience instead exposition is provided in revealing the killer straight away. Also the audience is given a date and place in the opening scene when it's show as " HADDONFIELD, ILLINOIS OCTOBER 31" .

 

 

Scream Queen

REPRESENTATIONS:

They use the stereotypical scream queen in this film opening with her being blonde, busty and sexually active, and also even though we know who the killer is he still uses a mask so the setreotypical masked killer is used here as well.

 

 

 

SHOT VARIETY: 

Over the shoulder shot

 As it's a modern film we see a lot more camera shot variety than we do compared to the old slasher films where they took long takes , this way the audience can experience more, for example in the close ups when they're used in the shot reverse shot in the conversation the audience can see the emotion that the characters are feeling.

Medium close up

 

 MEMORABLE ASPECTS: 

What shocked me in this film was that there wasn't really any narrative engima been given which is surprising as it's very common in slasher films infact most slasher films if not all.

 

Possible Distributors

Unfortunately it's highly unlikely that my film will be distributed by any of these as they're for mostly highly budgeted films where as my film will be a low budget or virtually no budget, and there won't be any big movie sta
Donkey Punch
Is a low budget film which we can look to as an example for the distributing company Optimum Releasing, and even though it didn't make as much of a profit as most slasher films we can still use it as an example to compare with as our film will be a low budget slasher and aimed at indie distribution companies.
Optimum Releasing

The Slasher Audience and the Narrative Structure

The Audience:
Different genres attract different audiences, different films will attract different ages, races and cultures, and each genre's audience will hold expectations for their genre.
Slasher movies are a sub-genre of horror. The audiences will expect generally high levels of violence involoving a lot of blood, and most genres have the binary opposites with the protagonists being a group of teenagers and the atagonists the killer. Friday the 13th (Danny Steinmann, 1985) is a good example of this and in showing the narrative structure of the contemporary slasher film, with the killer with a mysterious identity who attacks the group of young teenagers.
The first box office success was John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978). The film cost only three-hundred-thousand dollars to create and made roughly fifty-million dollars, and films like this persuaded Hollywood to continue creating them which is where the slasher genre was made.

Narrative Structure:
Slasher films rarely stray from Tordov’s structure of narrative, and a classic film that demonstrates this is John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978). For example this structure starts with a state of equilibrium, where the couple of teenagers are being as a normal teenaged couple. There is then a disruption to the equilibrium, where a killer begins to stalk them. The disruption is then noticed when the girl is murdered. The attempt to get things back to normal is when the killer is sent to a mental asylum, but then breaks out. Equilibrium is then reinstated when either the ‘killer’ is killed or the final teenager is killed.

THE FALSE SCARE

Slasher movies are fun because so much of their energy involves lulling their audiences into a sense of calm and safety and then unleashing a jolt or a stinger. These jolts then alternate with the murders, and consequently the audience is kept on edge, leaping out of its seat and not knowing which comes next, a false scare or a death.

One of the most common jolts is the cat jump. This involves a hissing or meowing cat leaping suddenly into frame and startling a character, usually the final girl. Halloween II (1981) and Halloween V (1989) both feature this.

Another popular false scare involves the backwards walk or the reverse jump. In real life, you may not commonly see people going in reverse, but it's a common mode of transit in the slasher film. Characters creep backwards and then bump into somebody and scream. Usually, they're just backing into a friend and everybody laughs.

The last false scare is the practical joke, in which a not-very-nice friend pulls a nasty pran on a final girl, but it's all right in the end. Since many 1980s films chart the gulf between fact and fiction, real and fantasy, the practical joke is a crucial situation. In some cases the practical joke is also the precipitating transgression.

Source:

Horror Films of The 1980s

Book By John Kenneth Muir

SlasherEG6: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre Orig

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 
(Tobe Hooper, 1974)

PRODUCED BY: Vortex

DISTRIBUTED BY:  Bryanston Distributing (USA)

BUDGET: $83.5k

BOX OFFICE: $ 30.8m

IMDb RATING: 7.5

TITLES:

This film starts by giving the audience a sense of realism, even though it might not be fully correct it still leads the audience to believe that this film is based on true accounts, this sense of realism is used in quite a few slasher openings as it adds to the scare factor in making the audience believe that the films based on a true story making them think that it could happen to anyone.

It then goes on to reveal the date giving away exposition which is also a common convention in most slasher films.

SOUND + MUSIC:
This film is more about what you can hear at the start rather than what you see as it uses these sounds very well and in a way using narrative enigma as we can hear stuff going on but we don't know what it is leaving the audience in a sense of mystery, and this is using Barthe's theory on narrative enigma well.

NARRATIVE ENIGMA V EXPOSITION:  

Then when this body is shown there's a radio in the background playing giving away the exposition to what has happened which is also used in most slasher films.
   

However this film goes against todorov's 5 part theory as it starts with a disequilibrium instead of a state of equilibrium where it's normal and hasn't been disrupted but here it's been disrupted from the start, which also acts as a genre signifier giving away the thought that this films a slasher or horror.

 

Also the theory of the final girl from Carole Clover is used in this film as the girl is brunette and seems to be the sensible one in the group, and there's also the 'other' in the group with his disability in the wheelchair making him the outsider.

 

Vodcast on the editing in a sample stalk/slash scene

I chose to do the well known stalk scene in the original Halloween by John Carpenter as it's a good example to analyse the stalk scene as it demonstrates key skills when making a stalk scene.