Narrative Theory in relation to The Crazies

Levi-strauss: His theory is on binary oppositions.

Sane/Insane - The Sane people within the text are the uninfected, where as the insane, are those who have become infected and dubbed 'The Crazies'.
Male/Female - Our two protagonists here show the conventional male and female roles, David is being the strong male role model, and Judie is being the stereotypical woman in horror that doesn't normally survive, she needs caring for and looking after each step of the way.
Known/Unknown - The known obviously being everyday life for these people, living in a small rural town where everybody knows everyone, and there isn't a single thing in town that gets past anyone, and then the unknown being this mysterious cargo plane, that seems to appear at the same time as the infection.
Normality/Chaos - This is important within the film, as at the beginning we see a disruption in which the town is in flames, but then it returns to the equilibrium where everything is fine, these two slowly transcend into one another.
Infected/Uninfected - One of the biggest binary oppositions in the film, showing the distinction between those who are fine and those who need a bullet in their head.
Light/Dark - The most common in horror films, the technique being used, when everything is light, everything is fine, but when it becomes darker, we know that something is not right.

Vladimir Propp: 

Villain: The U.S Army are the villain in this movie (not often you'll see an american movie do that!), as they are the ones who release this bio-weapon into the town. although it was not purposeful, it was their doing.
The Hero: David our protagonist is the hero, as he rescues his wife and several others and escapes from the quarantine. He is also one of the only ones alive at the end of the film.
Donor/Helper: Deputy Russell Clark qualifies as both the Donor and Helper. He is the donor because he gives his life so that David and Judie can continue theirs. And he qualifies as the helper because he saves David’s life on three separate occasions.
The Princess/Father: Judie, David'd wife, qualifies as the princess because she is married to David and he is trying to save her and create a new life. She also qualifies for the role of the father as she attempts to protect ad save Rebecca throughout 
The Dispatcher: Rory seems to fit this role as he is the first person within the town to become infected.
The False Hero: The Mayor is the false hero as he refuses to turn off the water for the town and by doing so he allows the virus to spread throughout the town.

Tvetan Todorov: 

Todorov's theory states that the movie should start with an equilibrium, I believe in this movie it does, we see an equilibrium of the town in flames, and destroyed, you may not think this is an equilibrium at first, but it is the 'new equilibrium from the US Army's point of view, the narrative then soon after returns us to the original equilibrium. There is no real resolve of equilibrium from the protagonists point of view, but that is not who you have to look at this theory from.

Bordwell & Thompson

We do not see all of the events unfold on screen, we only see a portion of them, for us, we start at a baseball game, in which a supposedly drunk man, stumbles onto the field with shotgun in hand, we later learn about the crashed plane with the bio-chemicals on board which is the apparent cause of this behaviour, this leads to the other events unfolding; people become infected, they then become crazy, the crazy people begin to kill the normal people, the crazy people get destroyed by a nuclear blast, survivors/carriers continue into closest city for help, infection starts again.

The Teaser to The Final Product

THE TEASER

 FINAL PRODUCT

Film Distribution and Marketing

Film distribution is the process in which a film is made available for an audience to access.
A film distributor is a company or individual responsible for the marketing of a film. The role of the distributor is to make a ‘distribution plan’ for the film, this is a key factor in the success of the film. The distributor has to select a varied and large target audience to get maximum publicity of the film. When working on a distribution plan, there are three main things that the distributor must keep in mind; Market Knowledge, Statistical Research and Commercial Experience. If he/she uses these to the best of his/her ability it will maximise profit, increase sales, and boost the popularity of the film.The distributor can set the release date of a film and the method by which a film is exhibited or made available for viewing., e.g. a red carpet event, private screening, etc. 

The 'Reach',  is the volume of people that get have access to the film and its advertisements, it can give the distributor an idea of where to distribute the products to across the country/world and how much to invest in certain areas and audiences. For example, there would be less invested into a smaller portion of the target audience, such as the youth (under 18) as they are unable to view the film, so more money and time will be invested into 18-32 the prime viewing age for the horror genre.

A marketing plan is a business document written for the purpose of describing the current market position of a business and its marketing strategy for the period covered by the marketing plan.The three main aspects of a marketing plan are, advertising, publicity and promotions.
Advertising is a form of communication in marketing used to encourage or entice an audience into buying a product or service, in the world of tv and film it is to purchase tickets to see the film, and buy DVDs and boxsets. There are many different forms of advertising, some of these include TV adverts, billboards, posters, internet advertisements, magazine entries and in game advetisements on handheld devices. Advertising is an essential part of marketing as it reaches out and targets a specific audience, which then sometimes even overflows, and draws in more people from outside of the target audience.
Publicity is managing the public's perception of a product or service. From a marketing point of view, publicity is a component of promotion and therefore marketing.
Promotion is all about communication. Promotion is the way in which a business makes its products known to their current and potential audience. As you can see in the image above here, there is a promotion for the film Anna Karenina, this appeared online to me when I was using Facebook, social networking sites play a major part in promoting new media products, as over a billion people use them and can share images and texts they find on there about different products. The main target of promotion is to make the audience aware of the existing products.

Analysis of horror trailer 3

Whilst looking at the trailer here for 'The Crazies' I picked up on a couple of things, one being that, in this like many horror trailers, it shows what seem to be our protagonists in extreme or dangerous situations, almost life threatening ones at times, but it does not show us them escaping/being killed, it leaves us wondering and wanting to see the full length feature film for an explanation, this is a very good concept to use when creating my own trailer. Like many other trailers, this contains brief pauses, in which we get a small amount of narrative through overlay text, giving us more of an idea of what to expect from the movie.
I will take aspects from this trailer, such as the fast paced shots when there is more action going, and the slow shots, when we are not expecting anything. I will also take from this, the very good use of sound effects and music, it plays a piece of music, mad world, which is contrasting in tone, yet spot on lyrically for the narrative of the film, the sound effects are used to good effect also, adding emphasis onto some parts where it is needed, and sometimes even the lack of sound in silence to bring tension to the audience when building up to something big. 

Audience Questionnaire Results

Gender

Age

Favourite Genre

Favourite Horror Film

Place Most Likely To Watch A Horror Film

Does a specific Actor convince you to watch a movie?

 Does the age certificate affect the likelihood of you viewing a movie?

History of Horror Powerpoints - Ghosts, Zombies, Satanism and Your Family

Analysis of a Horror Character

Jigsaw (Saw)

Jigsaw, the serial killer from the Saw movie franchise, who never once directly took the life of another human, is one of the most iconic horror characters of the last decade, if you hear his voice, it is instantly recognisable, as it strikes fear into you, as it is designed to, his signature line being 'I want to play a game'. He is not your conventional killer in a horror movie, he is a lot more elaborate, his system gives his victims a chance to survive, it is not instant death as in most horror films, he gives those who take life for granted a chance to prove themselves, to show that they truly deserve to live another day on this planet. The Saw franchise began in 2004 with the release of the first of soon to be seven movies, it was a low budget film that managed to keep the audience on the edge of their seats throughout, the most iconic parts of the film are the 'saw doll' shown  in the image above here, and the voice used by tobin bell (left), the actor who portrays jigsaw in the series. Jigsaw's dialogue played over the tape recorders in the films is often accompanied by the gripping theme tune to saw.

Jigsaw's murder's are very psychological, he plays on his victim's fears and habits, their traps will be related to what is wrong with their lives, for example, if they are an alcoholic, he will place them within a trap that involves drowning themselves in something, or if they are a drug user, they will have to inject themselves with something, or as we see in saw2 one of the victims has to jump into a pit full of syringes.

Many audience members are scared of the saw films, as they're very realistic, these are events that could take place in real life, as there are people who are like this in the world, it is not some sort of demonic possession film, or where there is a creepy monster that appears due to some past mishaps, it is a very real relate-able film. This fear makes his character to me one of the scariest in horror.