Textual Analysis 1 (Blair Witch Project) (End Sequence)

The first textual analysis will focus of the use of the genre I am using to create my film, therefore I will look at how the use of the conventional elements are brought together along side the main for stylistics (Mise-en-scene, Cinematography, Editing and Sound) are brought together to create a sequence. The scene I will look at is the final scene of the film and shows the two remaining characters entering a house in the woods believed to be the Blair Witch’s home. The scene ends with the main character falling on the floor and dropping the camera, the film then ends leaving the audience wondering what has happened.

The mise-en-scene of the clip follows the basic conventions of a horror genre, however as found footage is a postmodern genre ( a mixture of genre conventions used a the foundations for a new genre) as uses the conventions of horror and documentary, this means horror conventions become found footage. The first main conventional aspect of mise-en-scene is the use of isolation in the clip with the two main characters in the woods follows a cliché of horror/found footage as it sets the audience up for what they think will happen next. With the use of the hand held camera ( A cinematography aspect) the colour and lighting within the sequence also falls in to place as we can see the use of lighting automatically becomes quite low to give that feeling of total darkness giving the audience more fear about the event that will unfold, furthermore the use of colour is also determined by the type of the filming (night), the place of filming (the woods), this again allows the audience to determine the genre of the film they are watching. The next location we see in the clip is the use of the house in the isolated location of the woods. The house again follows the main conventions of am horror film, a scary location in a isolated area. Once inside the house we get a fearful feel from the use of the hand prints (of blood) on the wall again gives a creepy effect to the scene however with the use of the camera we also get a realist feel. As the two characters continue through the house we get more use of the mise-en-scene within the house with the use of the abandonment of the house giving it a broken down and scarier feel. The final use of mise-en-scene I will look at is the use of the costume of the to main characters in the scene, they both wear quite average costumes, mainly focused around the idea of camping, therefore we seem them as average people, giving the perception to the audience that hey are average people and becomes more appealing to the audience.

The cinematography in the scene is focused primarily on the use of the handheld camera, which adds to the effect of realism also adding to the verisimilitude of the film and giving a more personal viewing experience for the audience. The use of the shots in the scene, seem to be made to look amateur do to the angles of the cameras position again this adds to the use of the verisimilitude within the digesis. The use of the camera follows the basic conventions of found footage as we have the shaky filming and the use of the jilted angles to give a real first person view of the events unfolding. We also see the sue of a mixture of shots used in the sequence due to the amateur theme the cameras are structurally set up to film the footage in a rushed manor due to the narrative of the film.

The next twos stylistics I will look at is the use of editing and sound. The main sound it the diegetic sound of the characters dialogue, we also have the use of the witches scream the fast paced sound gives the audience significance of action within the narrative. There is also the use of the camera noises such as the use of the recording of he camera and the noise it makes adding to the use of verisimilitude. Secondly the use of editing in the sequence gives a first had point over view that the genre is found footage, the main us in the use of the jump cuts in the sequence as it cuts from one scene to another. This gives the impression that the tape is being played back and sections are being fast forwarded to the actual events. This gives the audience the feeling that they are the ones watching the events after they have happened.

















http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMQQpmm5u3w

Textual Analysis

To help gain inspiration for my creative project, I will analyse three clips each having a different use towards my work the three clips I have chosen to analyse are:

• Blair Witch Project (1999) (End Sequence) - Use of Found Footage Genre.( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMQQpmm5u3w )
• Breathless (1960) (Car Scene) - Use Of Jump Cuts and French New Wave Cinema. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KUVwKp6MDI )
• Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) (Hitchhiker Scene) - Horror Genre/Use of Mise-en-scene. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-73BUDHcCCc )

Narrative Structure Chart

Equilibrium

Protagonist (Family members)
Antagonist (Killer)

Disruption
The Family hit the killer
The killer begins to kill the family members.

Quest
The family try to survive, the killers wrath.

Climax
The killer murders all the family members, and the camera is found by the police.

Resolution
The police find out what happend to the missing family, However the killer is never found.

Requalibrium

Synopsis

Synopsis;

A family set out on a holiday which is filmed by a member on a handheld camera. Whilst driving they neglect to see something on the road and hit it with the car, whilst shock is initially felt through out the car, the drive goes to check what they have hit. Once everyone gets out of the car they see that they have hit a person and presume that they killed him. Not knowing what to do they throw the body into the woods and begin to drive on, still full of fear and shock, suddenly the car tyres are punctured by an unseen object. As the group inspect the damage they notice they have no signal on their phones, this causes them to panic. They then decide go find help, however unbeknown to them their tyres where punctured by a trap laid earlier by the person they hit, one by one the characters begin to be killed of as the hit and run victim tracks them. The camera is later recovered by authorities who play it back and find out what happened to the missing family.

Aim and Context

Context:
For my creative project, I will be creating a short sequence taken from my imagined film ‘Lay By’. The sequence will be the opening to the film and show the characters going to their destination (Holiday). The sequence will be in the genre of Found Footage.

Aim:
My aim will be to allow the audience to identify the genre but also create a feeling of realism within the sequence with the aid of the conventions of the genre (Found Footage) and the use of method taken for French New Wave Cinema, to install the feeling that the film Is real footage rather then a film. I will look at the use of jump cuts taken from French New Wave cinema from films such as Breathless, (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960) whilst combining this with the use of found footage genre conventions by looking at films from this genre such as Blair Witch Project, (Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez, 1999). Alongside this I will also look at the other stylistics I can apply with the aid of the conentions from this genre such as isolation created for the use of mise-en-scene.

Found Footage Conventions

The conventions of a Found Footage Genre are;-

• Isolation of the characters.
• Use of handheld footage.
• Documentary stylistics; such as, a theme or topic based around and investigation.
• Post the events taken place.
• All (or with the exception of one) the characters are killed.
• Amateur cinematogrpahy to create verisimilitude.

Genre and Conventions;- Found Footage Genre (Sub-genre)

The genre I have chosen to look at is the genre of found footage, this means the film is set post the events of narrative, the genre has been identified as a genre as it has become popular within the last few years with film directors and has been used in an array of film, mostly horror or thriller, which raises the argument of it actually being its own genre or a sub-genre of horror.

The first usage of the genre was in 1980 in the form of the film, Cannibal Holocaust (1980). It was then establishes as it’s own genre after the release of ‘The Blair Witch Project’ (1999), ‘Cloverfield’ (2008) and ‘Paranormal Activity’ (2009). As well as being used in horror and thrillers it has also been used in science fiction films such as ‘The McPherson Tapes’ (1997) and ‘Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County’. The actors tend to be average looking, amateur "everyman" types with whom we can identify. Even if you don't believe the events of the film did happen, the informal acting and style of film making causes the viewer to feel a sense of "this could happen to me" much more so than a slick high budget production. The genre still can be classified as a sub-genre of horror as it features main of the same conventions and stylistics, such as; the feature of character isolation for example [REC] (2007) the use of the isolation is emphasised with the mise-en-scene and cinematography. However it combines the conventions of modern horror alongside that of modern documentaries, such as; to document events to allow the audience to understand what is going on. This allows found footage to create its own conventional code. With a mixture of different genre conventions this also allows a mixture of stylistics with in the narrative of the production. The main example of genre conventions within the genre of found footage, is the main idea of the horror genre the idea of isolation of the characters, meaning they are put in a situation alone give the feelings of the horror genre; sacredness, loneliness, endangerment and many more. However with the use of this convention from the horror genre along side the conventions from the documentary genre,; the one to one experience the audience gain from documentaries, this allows the audience to get a up front and more personal look at the genre of horror thanks to the use of the mix of conventions from both horror and documentary’s. This means the effect of the film becomes much more realistic as the audience are seeing it through the use of the conventions. For example The Blair Witch Project (1999) ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMQQpmm5u3w ) this can be seen in the end sequence when the ‘Blair Witch’ it shown attacking the characters. This then gives a much scary appeal to the audience as they are put in the perspective of the character. Many more films use this approach such as; [REC] (2007)

Another main convention of the found footage genre is that either one or none of the characters survive the narrative this is all based around the idea of the footage been found by somebody else and played back to find out the events post of them happening. Or if somebody does survive them showing the footage to somebody else, either way many of the characters do die in a found footage film. This can be seen in films such as Paranormal Activity (2009) with the single female character surviving the story (depending on which of three endings are shown) and [REC] (2007) ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfczJAB-lKk&feature=related ) with the final remaining character dropping the camera and being dragged away, the last image we are shown is her being dragged away in the camera screen. Another conventional feature is that the characters fate becomes sealed as soon as film begins, the audience already know that characters with be killed within the narrative, secondly all the characters are killed equally and there is no real judging of the character, where as in a traditional horror film, there are various reasons in which a character may die such as slasher films the main antagonist has a grudge or something similar against the character giving them a reason to become a killer and follow basic narrative structure. Furthermore the genre of found footage also breaks the rule of narrative structure as we as a audience only get to see the footage through the eyes of the main characters, therefore we see what they see and get no back story or insight as to what is happening unless the characters themselves discover what is going on, this can be seen in Cloverfield (2008) the characters don’t know what is attacking New York or what is happening therefore us as an audience don’t either. This can be seen as a positive convention as we as an audience are place centrally into the story of the film and are made to be like the characters not knowing what is going on.

A final convention I have chosen to look at for the genre of found footage is the convention is the use of mixed footage for example in the film; Cannibal Holocaust (1980) ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ-Xp6VC7RQ ) the film does show found footage however it also shows footage recorded in the method of ‘normal’ cinematography such as in traditional horror films. Meaning that the film is a mixture of filming techniques. However there is also positive to the use of non handheld cinematography in the genre of found footage. It allows the use of handheld footage to seem more believable within the digesis. This is because we as an audience begin to see the digesis through traditional film techniques once we are introduced to the narrative when we are show what we believe to be real footage through the use of found footage it becomes more believable for us, as we have become accustom to the characters. This means it is just as effective as a whole film in the same stylistics.

To conclude the use of the conventions of the found footage genre help to create films which seem believable to the audience as we are put right at the centre of the film and place in the same scenario as the characters. This creates a good basis for a psychological twist for the audience. Furthermore the use of a mix of conventions from both the horror genre and the genre of documentaries allows the verisimilitude to collide with the creative writings of script writers and directors to allow a film which works well in generating horror yet making it seem real to the audience. With films such as The Blair Witch Project (1999) and Paranormal Activity (2009) the genre of found footage will create better and more adventurous films which will appeal to generations to come.