World War Z

World War Z can fit in to two main genres. These are Action and Horror. The reason it can fit in both of these genres is because it has aspects of all of them shown throughout. Action films feature one or more heroes in a a series of challenges that typically include physical feats, extended fight scenes, violence, and frantic chases. This can apply to the film World War Z as it shows all these features throughout the film. 

The Horror genre is a film genre seeking to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's primal fears. This can apply to World War Z as in most of this film the characters are shown in a very bad situation and often come very close to death. This can give it a fearful vibe as you fear for the characters you've grown to like lives throughout. The film is also set mostly in the dark which is a big fear of many people as it is the fear of the unknown. It also features zombies throughout the whole film which are traditional shown in horror films. 

World War Z comes under the Hollywood production context. This is because the film is distributed by Paramount Pictures which is consistently ranked as one of the "Big Six" film studios of Hollywood. It also has big named actors in the film which Hollywood films tend to have such as 'Brad Pitt'. This falls under the idea of the Hollywood 'Star System' introduced in the classic Hollywood era which was the idea of big names meant more money from viewers. The director of the film is also known for doing other big budget Hollywood films such as 'Quantum of Solace' which also tells us that this may be a Hollywood film. Hollywood also tend to choose ideas they know are going to sell. The idea of World War Z come from the 2006 Max Brook horror novel of the same name. This was a very popular book which meant that it will most probably make a very popular film. 

The main Star involved in World War Z was Brad Pitt. One reason he is in this film as his name would often influence peoples opinions on weather to see it or not. Because he is a very popular actor many people may see he is in the film and go and see it because he is an actor they like. If there wasn't any big names in a film not as many people will tend to see it as there wont be any reason for them to see it. Another reason Brad Pitt is the main character in this film is because also an owner of  'Plan B Entertainment' which is one of the production companies that worked on this film.  

The narrative relates to the Hollywood production context as it is a linear narrative. Hollywood films will most of the time have a linear narrative as it appeals to a bigger audience as it is a lot easier to follow. It is a lot safer for a Hollywood film to use a linear narrative because that is what is most popular in Hollywood and if an audience is new to an nonlinear film they may not get it and see it as wrong. 

A lot of the film was set in America and the main character throughout the film is American. This is because it is a film aimed at mainly Americans as they are the country that the film will be the most popular and make the most money in. 

This film is very high budget and used very high budget technology to produce it. The films budget came to a total of $190 Million. Throughout this film there is a lot of CGI used which is technology which wouldn't usually be seen in British or Bollywood films as the budget would be to low. This is the case in the Bollywood 2014 horror film Ragini MMS 2 which effects and technology is considerably lower . This films budget instead was $3 million. This meant the film would be very different to World War Z as it wouldn't have the funding to follow a narrative on this huge scale.

Relationships Between Producers and Audiences

Sony released there first clip of 'The Amazing Spider man 2' which showed Jamie Foxx as Electro in July 2013. This was in hopes to encourage peoples attendance at Santiago Comic-con International. At this panel they then premiered a four minute trailer of the film which at the time was not publicly released but was later leaked on the internet.

Tumblr was used to market the film when 'The Daily Bugle' (a fictional newspaper shown in spider man) appeared on the site. This included references to the film and the spider man franchise.

Later in 2013 on December 8th an announcement was made that stated that a new trailer would be premiered on new years eve in Times Square,New York.  This event had a character dressed as spider man shown taking part in the Ball Drop Celebration and a message from creator of 'Spider Man' Stan Lee.

Stars of the film including Jamie Fox, Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield took part in 'Earth Hour' campaign launched by the WWF. These stars of the film were present at the launch event in Singapore.

Evian, the water company, followed up there  its wildly successful “Baby & Me” online campaign with one that stars Spider-Man and a miniature version of himself mimicking his every move in the streets of New York City. 

'The Amazing Spider-man 2' didn't win any awards however it was nominated for some. It was nominated for five awards at the Golden Trailer Awards including:

• Best Summer 2014 Blockbuster Trailer
• Best Action TV Spot
• Best Summer Blockbuster 2014 TV Spot
• Best Summer Blockbuster 2014 TV Spot
• Most Original TV Spot

It was also nominated at the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists for best editing. 

The total cost spent on marketing for The Amazing Spider-man 2 was between 180 and 200 million which is a lot more than what is usually spent on a film like this. This was nearly as much as what was spent on actually making the film.

At the premier of the film Andrew Garfield took a group of children from the charity 'kids city', a London based charity providing childcare and out of school activities to children in Lambeth, Merton and Wandsworth, to see the movie . 

Sony Pictures had advertising pact with NBCUniversal which meant that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 would be advertised across channels such as Bravo, E!, USA, Syfy, Telemundo and mun2, as well as on a customized page on Fandango, the company’s web-based movie-ticketing service.

Feminist Film Theory

Feminism is based on the belief in society that women are unequal to men. Feminists argue that the media reinforces this idea that women are unequal to men by representing a small range of images of women. Feminism is the movement that includes both women and men who want the world to be equal with no boundaries. These boundaries being discrimination and biases towards gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status and economic status.Often film is used as a tool to counteract these stereotypical images of women.   

The feminist film theory focuses on the function of female characters as a reflection of societies view of women. These characters would be the stereotypical female characters we would expect to see in films.

One example on a stereotypical female character shown in films is 'the male gaze'. This is when women are shown as an image and the man is the bearer of the look. Laura Mulvey, a feminist film theorist, coined at the term 'male gaze' in 1975. She believed that film audiences have to view characters from the perspective of an heterosexual male. Jonathan Schroeder argued in 1998 'to gaze implies more than to look at - it signifies a psychological relationship of power, in which the gazer is superior to the object of gaze'.

'Freud' is the combination of our society and looking as a pleasurable act that creates film as an outlet for female sexual exploitation. This means in the narrative there would often be sexual diversions in active and passive rolls.

'Femme Fatale' characters are female characters who use there power to trap male characters. These characters are often popular in the genre 'film noir'. Male characters who are usually seduced or manipulated by these characters usually end up in bad conditions. The words 'femme fatale' are actually french for 'fatal woman'.

Feminist films however are set out to specifically to discus women's experiences connected to the female gender.  Feminist films are not films that just feature women as the main roll, they have to discus issues about feminism and gender. Examples of feminist films are Jennifers Body and Thelma and Louise. The film industry was always traditional male orientated with the biggest percent of directors being men. Times now however a slowly changing and more women are starting to get involved in the film industry.

In the film 'Scream' the death scene of Drew Barrymore's Character 'Casey' can relate to the idea of feminism. In this scene the female character Casey can be seen as the Male gaze.  She is shown as the image whilst the person she is speaking to the phone, obviously a male voice coming from the phone, can be scene as the bearer of the look.

Her Character is shown in very light coloured clothes whilst her killer is shown wearing black. This shows makes her out to be very innocent whilst her killer is in black to show he is bad. Another technique shown in this film is the repeated use of a high scream coming from the female character. This is seen in many horrors and when happens it reminds us that a women is the one scared as a man wouldn't be able to usually scream in this way.

When She is being stabbed, she is shown to being stabbed down at her chest in the direction of her breasts. This indicates to us that she is being killed in this  way because she is a women.

Analysing film Editing

Film editing is part of the post production when the film or soundtrack is cut and sliced to fit together in a specific way.

In camera editing is when the film is constructed in the order of when the shots are taking meaning there is no post production editing. This technique was started by the magician ‘George Meilies’. He used this technique on his trick ‘the vanishing lady’ in 1896 when he used the tool of editing to make it appear as he has made a person disappear.

Linear editing was first used within television in the 1950’s. This is when the film being used is shown to tell a story in the correct order. Non-linear editing however is when the film can be arranged in any order. The first non-linear editor was in 1971. The first non-linear editing system was the CMX-600. Examples of films that are non-linear are ‘Batman Begins’ and ‘Pulp fiction’.

Splicing is when film is edited by cutting sections of the film and rearranging or discarding them. This is very straightforward and mechanical. It can be done with a pair of scissors and splicing tape however is not a very practical option as usually a splicing machine is used. This method was used when first ever cuts of films were made like the 1898s ‘Come along, Do!’  

When editing you have to consider the genre of the film you are editing and the style you are editing in. For example in a horror film you would expect the edit to be fast paced showing quick shots when the tension is building in maybe a chase scene and close ups of the characters showing fear in there facial expressions. You would also expect very dark shots.

Editing Techniques:

·        Following the Action – This is when the camera follows the action or movement in the scene. One use of this is a pan or tilt. A pan is when the camera rotates across horizontally whilst a tilt is when the camera rotates up vertically on an axis or tripod. Another technique to help follow action is to use a dolly or a truck. A dolly moves the camera either closer or further away from the subject being shot whilst a truck moves from side to side.

A sled and vest system can also be used to follow action. This consists of a waited camera sled, an elastic arm which can appear to show human movement, and a vest which the person shooting the film would wear to distribute the weight of the gear evenly. This helps move past characters smoothly to show the view of characters. Another popular camera technique  to follow action is to use a Boom. This is a camera on an arm that can pivot on a fixed point. This can be useful when doing shots very similar to ones done by a tilt or a pan. However a boom is also useful to also to

Many other shots, including high end shots.

·        Continuity – When editing you need to remember that the footage all needs to be continues to everything links up.

·        Montage – a montage is when short shots are edited in a sequence. A famous example of a montage is the training montage in ‘Rocky 4’ to the song ‘Hearts On Fire’

·        Manipulating Dietetic Time and Space – This is when something is shown to change. It could be a person, an object or an environment.

·        Multiple Points of View – This is when a scene is shown through more than one person’s point of view.

·        Speed – Slowing down and speeding up shots can give a film a complete different effect. An example of a big use of this would be ‘The Matrix’.

As well as techniques within the shots an editor can use within their film, there are also a wide range of transitions that an editor may use to go from one shot to another. Commonly used ones are:

·        A cut – A straight cut. One shot straight to another.

·        A Fade – Often done to show time passes. This is done as one shot fades out to full opacity whilst the new shot fades in.

·        A Wipe – This shows the new shot coming sliding in from one side.

Examples

For my first example of an edit I chose the opening fight scene of the 2009 film adaption of the graphic novel ‘Watchmen’. This films genre is action, mystery and sci-fi and is unrealism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8i7l6Mh6giE

This scene is a fight scene between the old superhero ‘The Comedian’ and a character that appears at this point of the film to be unknown. The character is very dark as well as most of the shot to show something important is there but you just can’t see it which communicates the mystery genre.

The use of dark colour also adds to the very dark tone of the film and communicates how it’s not going to be a really fun family superhero film. The colours on a lot of the close up objects used are very unrealistic bright colours to make them stand out and also give them the tone that they would have in a graphic novel.

Many shots shown in this film are exactly the same as shown in the graphic novel to give it the tone of the superhero unrealism film. This scene has very unrealistic and over the top sound effects to also communicate the unrealism of the film and the graphic novel it has adapted. Many of the sound effects are also shown to be a lot louder than they probably would be in real life to also give the impact that they had. There is also a technique with the use of very calm quiet music in the background of the fight scene to give it soundtrack dissonance.

This scene uses a range of quick shots to show the fast passed fight scene however there are many slow-motion shots also shown. These slow motion shots are often the shots adapted from the graphic novel to communicate to the viewer that this is the adaption of the graphic novel.

The scene is also scene from multiple points of views as when the shot starts it could be seen from the Comedians view however when the door is broken open it is shown from the other characters view.

There is the technique following the action throughout most of this scene. One use of the truck technique is when the Comedian is thrown across the room. This shot follows the comedian going from one side to the other. Straight after this shot the Comedian looks at a set of knives. A dolly may have been used here as we see the knives from the comedians point of view and the shot looks forward in too the set of knives. After this shot He throws the knives. Here a pan would have been used as a pan follows the knives being thrown from one side of the room to the other with a horizontal turn. Towards the end of this scene there is a tilt. As the comedian is thrown out of the window, the camera tilts down on him falling.

My second example is the car chase scene from ‘Pineapple Express’. The genre of this film is comedy but could also fit in to the category of action or crime. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uddXJ_USe2U  

This scene shows the two main characters of the film, Dale Denton and Sol Silver, in a car chase with a police officer. This chase scene uses a lot of quick shots to make the chase seem really fast passed. It also uses very tense music to add to the tenseness of it.

In this scene there is a lot of the technique of the camera following the action. Towards the beginning of the scene before the scene begins Sol tries to stop the cop car he later drives however the driver isn’t looking and runs into him. This shot where the car runs into him is taken from the car. A dolly may have been used here to show the car moving forward.

Throughout the chase scene the camera is shown to be a bit shaky. This makes the viewer see the chase scene as very rough and tense.