Analysing films

My Favourite film - Synopsis

The Skeleton Key is a horror film which was released in 2005.

The opening is of a young woman (Caroline) who cares for the elderly but decides to leave the hospice that she currently works at, to become a full time career, to help an old woman look after her invalid husband in New Orleans.

Caroline cares for a bed ridden patient (Mr Ben Devereaux) who cannot speak, and becomes suspicious of the house and the wife (violet). Violet gives a skeleton key of the huge house to Caroline, makes her way into a secret room within the attic where she discovers hair, blood, bones, spells, and other instruments for practicing hoodoo.

She starts to investigate and question Violet (Gena Rowlands), the owner of the house, about the secrets. She also senses Mr. Devereaux is asking her to help her (she doesn't know for certain because he's mute and paralyzed). She tries to unravel the mystery about the Devereaux's and their ancient house.

Once she realises that Violet is part of witchcraft the aims to escape however Violet attempts to keep her and trap her within the house. She goes to the lawyer Luke for help, but he turns out to be a bad guy and he makes Caroline unconcious and brings her back to the house. Caroline ends up escaping from them after telling Mrs. Devereaux where Ben is and she runs up to the attic. There, she does the spell which she believes is the spell of protections but it turns out its the spell Mrs. Devereaux uses to take peoples remaining years for herself. Because Caroline believes in Hoodoo now, Mrs. Devereaux takes over Caroline's body and Caroline is then trapped in Mrs. Devereaux's Body. It turns out that Luke and Caroline are Papa Justify and Mama Cecile

I find this film in captivating because it has numerous twists and I enjoy that most within a film. When making my film I will be aiming to also follow the ideas of this film by confusing the audience and making them believe in one thing but then change it so this doesn’t remain true.

Here is a list of other movies that I like for different reasons:

· Awake
· Godfellas
· Love and basketball
· The wood
· Scary movie 1 & 2


Favourite media Type

I wanted to do media to get a better understanding about how the industry works and what components are need to make a successful media type. The main reason for my passion is because I do a lot of drama work for television and have become intrigued into the production and creative side.

My favourite media type would be television. Channel Four is my favourite channel because I their shows mainly target teenagers from 15 + and they do this effectively through their shows like .
Hollyoaks is my favourite soap opera mainly because they have exciting story lines.
In my opinion, the actors are very convincing which adds to their creativity.

Form and Style






Hollyoaks is set in the Chester The style of Hollyoaks. Even from the title it proves that the show can appeal to both genders as there is a contrast of blue and pink and male and female symbols.

Representation

The show mainly consists of young families and students who attend secondary school and university. There are three venues where the people of ‘Chester’ can go to social and drink – this is where they spent most of there time. This type of representation can give viewers the idea that this is what most families and students do when they are bored. That sort of illustration is not good because it may influence to the viewers to believe that, drinking in general or excessively is acceptable and normal social values. It many ways this is a true reflection of reality in some areas, but for filming purposes it is exaggerated to create more dynamic story lines.

Audiences

It is a show which can be appreciated by many different age groups. I think it particularly address ages from 15 - 35 year olds. Their story lines range from, underage drinking and teenage mothers to infertile couples and drugs management. The controversial topics can relate to many peoples live and they also have a helpline to comfort those who are dealing with some of the issues they show.

Others favourite media types

Magazine type would be the LOOK Magazine. I like it because it mainly focuses on clothes and fashion and has a few interesting articles about celebrities.

My favourite radio station would be LBC because it has discussions and debates which are intellectual and interesting. The radio station is mainly targeted at adults but I find the opinions of others interesting.

My favourite newspaper has to be the ‘Metro’ because it is free and the articles are short and informative.

My favourite phone would be Samsung Omina because it is slim and mainly touch screen with a high specification, including the Microsoft application.

My favourite Webpage would be FACEBOOK because it allows people to reunite with long lost friends for free and also offers fun applications to interact with people.


Analysing film techniques

After drafting two plans for the opening of my film I decided that the film could be more successful if I did extensive research on key tips I could incorporate in my film to make it symbolise the traits of a thriller.


When studying the original film ‘Psycho’, which was created in 1960 and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, I decided to scrutinize the shower scene. It was when the psychotic killer came into the bathroom and stabbed a woman to death. They used close- up shots of the woman’s face to see her reaction and they also focused on the knife; that was impaling her but created a silhouette of the murder. To elongate the death of the woman they added shots of her hand, clenching and going limb, to show her life deteriorating. Once she died there was an extreme close- up of her still eye that was merged and faded from a black plug hole.






‘The Eye’ is a recent 2008 film which is the remake of the same Hong Kong – Thai- Singaporean film. At the beginning of the film they show a woman walking obliviously around in the street. She misses getting hit by car and bumps into a blonde woman, who walks straight through her. The effect of the blonde woman dissolving when walking through the protagonist and re-emerging as what seems to be a soild object/person is an idea that i think is effective as the audience is now totally confused. This could be used as a typical visual refernce point which indicates the genre of this film.T