Representation of women in horror films.

Women are represented in many different ways in films, some might be represented as a victim/ weak character, and some might be represented as the 'scary, villain' element of a movie.

In the movie 'The Exorcism of Emily Rose' the girl is represented as a scary/possessed person. She has had an exorcism performed on her by a priest which adds the religious element.  Emily Rose is a young girl, and often to make movies more scary and more sinister filmmakers use young girls or boys to be the villain, to be the possessed person, or to be the person with a mental illness. Emily Rose is a child so she has that sense of innocence about her, and as you see the link between her and ghosts/spirits in the movie, the viewer feels more emotion towards the character than if the role was played by an older women. In a way the film is made frightening by the fact that the child is a young girl because young girls are stereotypically nice, sweet, and innocent but none of these qualities are shown in film so the viewers would be more interested.

In the movie ‘Psycho’ (1960) there are two main women represented, the first women is the typical women who works as a secretary. She steals money from her employer’s client and runs away with it, subsequently she gets murdered, and she is shown to be the victim in this. This is the stereotypical role we would expect to see from a ‘blonde women’ as they are usually considered to be the weaker characters or even the ‘damsels in distress’. The second woman is an older woman who is quite the opposite to the first women. She is first shown as a motherly, old character who lives with her son, and they both own a motel. Later on in the movie she ends up being shown as the murderer, as she kills any people who do stay at their motel, we never actually see her face so we don’t know what she looks like but from the way she is described we can tell that she has always been like this. In this film there are two very different women who might seem similar to us at first but as the movie progresses we get to know what they are like, and they contradict each other massively.

To conclude i think that there are many different ways in which women might be represented in films, like victim, villain etc, and sometimes the viewer can predict what the characters role might be or how they are going to end up in movie, for example blonde, dumb characters are usually the ones who get killed off first or the victims. But other times , it might not be so easy to guess what a certain character is going to be like in a movie as it might be that the way the character is shown to us at first is not actually how the character ends up to be in the end, for example the mother in Psycho. 

Analysis of 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' opening sequence

In the Opening of 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo we first hear non- diegetic sound,with a black screen, this grabs the attention of the viewer. Images and text then begin to flash onto the screen, this is effective as it gives the viewer a feel of what the movie is going to be about, if the images and text had faded into the screen we could have made the assumption that the movie was going to be of a different genre to what a movie with flashing images could be. The viewer sees many different images that at this point don't seem to be of a particular thing, the colours are mainly blacks and greys and we see a black liquid kind of thing which seems to be covering other objects, a kind of suspense and curiosity is created at this point, as the viewer is left wondering what relationship these images have with the rest of the film. Also the colour black could symbolize darkness or danger.
We then see the title of the movie appear on the screen and the black liquid kind of 'hits the words' and covers them up entirely. the sound (non - diegetic) has been playing the entire time, from start till now, and at this point the sound appears to be getting louder. The sound is the 'Immigrant song' by Led Zeppelin.
At this point the viewer can make out the image of a person struggling, also surrounded by the black liquid. The camera seems to be following the black liquid and is going wherever it goes, sometimes there are even point of view shots that make the viewer feel like they are the black liquid and they are the ones surrounding words and on keyboards etc.  We then see fire, which could also symbolize danger, or an element or horror. As the sound speeds up, so do the images as the flash onto and off the screen.

Research on Directors.

(Information from Wikipedia)

1. Brian De Palma

Films he has directed:
- Dressed to Kill (1980)
- Scarface (1983)
- The Untouchables (1987)
-Carlito's Way (1993)
- Mission Impossible (1996)

Themes:
- Psychological thrillers ( Dressed to kill)
- Commercial films ( Mission Impossible)

Most of De Palma's films have graphic violence in them, and some of his films, like Scarface, have been at the center of controversy with the 'Motion Picture Association of America, Film critics' and the viewing public.

Camera Shots:
De Palma often uses slow sweeping, panning and tracking shots throughout his films.
To put emphasis on a dramatic scene he often uses a 360-degree camera pan.

Awards:
De Palma has won many awards, some of them include:
- Blue Ribbon Award (best foreign film, 1988)
-Silver Lion (best director, 2007)
-Saturn award (best director, 1981)

2. Tim Burton

Films he directed:
- Alice in wonderland (2010)
- Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
- Sleepy hollow
- Beetlejuice

Camera shots:
Tim Burton uses Dutch angles, Stop-Motion, Point of View shots.

Awards:
Emmy Award - outstanding animated program (Beetlejuice)
National Award of Review award- best director (Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet street)

Preliminary exercise

preliminary exercise evaluation

WWW: we used precision editing to make the shots flow and look more continuous, and we merged the sound together to make it sound more even, so the sound on one part of the clip merges into the second, so there are no jumps.

EBI: When we were merging the sounds, on some of the clips we moved the sound instead of stretching it, so it was out of sync with the clip.

preliminary exercise evaluation

WWW: We used a number of different shots, e.g. close ups, wide shots, establishing shot, over the       shoulder shot.
We also used the 180 degree rule.
We took a number of shots, so when editing, we could choose from which shot to use to make it flow.


EBI: we could have used lighting, as some of our shots are more in the dark than others.
we could have also filmed more extreme close-up shots, e.g. to show expression on their faces.
In some of our shots we couldn't make it flow when editing because when filming we made small mistakes like in one short, an arm is up and in the next the arm is down.

How is the chicken used as a metaphor is the opening of 'City Of God'?

In the opening of  'City Of God' the chicken plays and important role in telling the viewer about what the rest of the movie could be about, in other words the chicken is a metaphor for the events that occur in the rest of the film.

The sound playing throughout most of the opening sequence is non-diagetic music; this music represents the fast tempo of what is happening in the scene. At the beginning when we first see the knife the viewer feels as if something is about to happen, and it obviously would have something to do with that knife this could either indicate death or that something is about to be cut, we then see the chicken, the camera angle make the chicken look like it is showing fear, this is done by the camera cutting to the chickens face, as a close up then quickly cutting to a different shot. We then see the vegetables being cut with the sharpened knife which could represent that aye the chicken is about to be cooked. After one of the chicken's is killed we see the other chickens face again, it looks frightened again, the camera at this point looks quiet shaky, so it could be a hand held shot, we then see a close up of the rope tied around the chickens leg this makes the viewer feel like the chicken is about to escape or tries to escape before it, like the other chicken, gets slaughtered. throughout all of this the sound is pretty much the same- it is non-diagetic music. we then see another close-up of the chickens face, at this point the viewer gets to see what the chicken is actually looking at, as the camera cuts from a shot of the scared looking chicken to to that of the chicken that is being put into the cooking pot. 

we then see the chicken escaping from the piece of rope tied around its foot; this could be of significance to the rest of the film as it might be giving the viewer hints as to what they might expect to see in the rest of the film. the viewer might guess from this that the film is about a murder, or someone escaping from somewhere or from someone. the killing of the chicken at this point, looks brutal and to have a killing at a very early point in the film could indicate that the rest of the film will be about pretty much the same thing, and the chicken would represent many more brutal deaths to come. then we see the chicken running away from the people, the people look quiet dangerous,from the way they act and their speech. at this point we start to hear diagetic sound- which is the speech of the people who run after the chicken. 

The people look and sound like catching the chicken is fun for the, and killing it is like their entertainment, they run after it desperately. There are quiet a number of people running after the chicken, most of which are holding guns, which shows the viewer the type of place they live in and the viewer gets a sense of location (this is called an establishing shot). there are a couple of wide shots in which the viewer gets to see what is around the people, the place looks like a small village, in a LEDC where the economy isn't very established and there is a great deal of black market/informal economy, in this particular place. there are many shots of the chicken running and there is also tracking shots of the chicken which gives the viewer the feeling of running alongside the chicken and having the people chasing them. 

We then see two people conversing, walking down stairs, they look like they are important characters as the camera focuses on them and follows them down. then we see the people running after the chicken again, and the viewer feels like the people talking and the people chasing the chicken are going to have some sort of vital confrontation. The camera is behind the chicken and he viewer sees it running and they feel like they are the chicken and they are seeing the place from the chickens point of view. then both sets of people come out into an open space and we see them both looking at each other for a few seconds, there seems to be some sort of tension between the two groups, the people chasing the chicken take their guns out and point them at the other person, the camera goes behind the other person and we see that there is police standing behind him. and in the other side we see he people who were chasing the chicken. the man is in the middle of the situation so he looks like he is in the middle of a very 'on edge' scene, and it feels almost as if he has been in this kind of situation before or he is going to be in a similar situation some time in the future. the man feels like a key person in the movie as he is the focus of the shot. the chicken is also standing in the middle with him, so the chicken is a metaphor for how the man in the middle is the one being chased and is almost like the chicken and he needs to escape and run to be able to survive. as the camera is turning around the man, the scene around him is changing and it looks like a flashback of when the man was younger, it looks like he has been in a similar situation and he is well aware of what is going to happen.