What is the role of a distrubution company?

The role of the distributor is to come up with the target audience to the films that they are working with, this audience has to be large to secure large numbers of sales. They have to make sure they keep with the current times and make sure they understand the ways in which media is being shared across the world and to different audiences. The main challenge in this job is to find the target audience and figure out the best way to distribute the films to them, and satisfy all of their needs. At the end of the day, if there are happy audiences, there is more money coming in.

The most important thing for distribution companies to take into account is audiences, which are the most important factor. Not only do distributors have find the target age of their audience but they also need to know a whole list of other things such as gender, lifestyle, working state, destination. All of these things effect a person and therefore effect the choice of target audience. There are many different ways that a target audience can be acquired, the main one being questionnaires and surveys, this way thousands of people who attend a certain genre of film can fill in a survey and then instantly the distributor can calculate his target audience from the data and information received. An example of this would be that it is known that the predominant genre which goes to view romantic comedy films are females and then for action it is male. It is also well known that 15-30 year olds are the predominant users of social networking sites along with other forms of digital media such as web browsing and 3D cinemas. To take all of this in to mind the distributor needs to have a plan, and this is to:

1. Develop a strategy in which the film would be released and then determine a suitable date for this.
2. Show this to film exhibitors who would come to an agreement which would result in the film being classified suitable for screening and the rating would be reviewed.
3. Finally come up with different marketing techniques such as trailers, to get the audience engaged and looking forward to seeing the film by the time it is released. 

Distributors look carefully through a film for things they can single out to publicise the film more, and make it bigger than other films which are also being released. This way, they are keeping on top of the competition which can be a big problem for distributors. This all helps to create the best profit possible. 

Distributors need to be able to think on realistic terms and come up with combined decisions while developing a film because their is no room for mistakes in the media industry and film will just become a failure and henceforth become a waste of time and money. Something which distributors need to be familiar with is the ever changing ways of audiences and how people follow trends, if the distributors don't keep with the trends then they will not hit the mark and not for fill the needs of the audience. A way to make sure they are hitting the mark correctly is to have test screenings in which a certain number of the target audience can go and view the film before it is released and feedback on it. This gives the distribution companies a heads up on if they are going the right way and makes their job a lot easier. Trends are also important in other sectors of film such as Actors, because lots of people go to view films purely on the fact that it includes an actor they are fond of and this is why distribution companies need to keep in check with which actors are in high demand and which are slowly becoming less popular in the public eye.

Overall i think that film distributors have a very  hard job because they are constantly needing to keep updated with trends in the media and need to always keep in time with their target audiences. The main aim of the game in the media industry is to make money which is why distribution companies have such a weight on their shoulders because they are the most important thing about a films success. If a film has a bad distribution company and the film is not made a success, there is not going to be any money intake. Which is why film directors usually go with the larger distributors because of the trust barrier that has been made and film successes which have passed through the same companies.

What is the difference between a teaser trailer and a main theatrical trailer?

 Theatrical trailers are normally longer than teaser trailers because they are usually shown in the cinema to audiences so it engages them more and makes them want to view the film more. They are usually only longer by about a minute or two but in trailer terms, that is a fairly long time. The Theatrical trailer will show much more of the plot and story line than the teaser because a teaser is only there to give little snippets and get the audience excited and wanting to see more. Theatrical trailers are normally released near the time of a film being released because it is another chance to get the audience engaged before being released and is usually the thing which gives a film its premature publicity. Although most big films have teaser trailers, it is not something which all films have, this is for multiple reasons, the main ones being time and money, or just the fact that there isn't really any necessity. There is no clear line which determines which type of trailer is more effective because they both serve a different purpose and in my opinion, including both of these types of trailer is the method which engages the audience the most and gets them hyped up to seeing a film, because after seeing a teaser trailer, there is always the want to see more and a theatrical trailer serves this purpose.

The return of the repressed

The return of the repressed is the term in the media and films in which something has happened in the past and then it returns/happens again at a later date ether in the same place or to the same person/family. In horror terms this could mean that in 1990 a family were murdered by their own child and then for the return of the repressed to have taken place, in 2000 or any time in the future, this child killer could return to kill other people in the same area that the original crime took place. In many cases this could become very repetitive for the audience because it would mean that a story/plot of a film would become predictable and there would be no genuine shock factor or turns in the story. To be fair, there are not actually that many films with returning of the repressed involved, well modern ones anyway. The narrative is something which old films feature a lot more than new ones because film directors are constantly trying to create new plots and stories instead of sticking with the same old stereotypical ways.

Carol Clover, in men, woman and chainsaws argues that horrors representation of gender is very interesting because it frequently offers its core target audience of young males an identification with a female character, unlike any other mainstream genre. To what extent do you think horrors representation of gender challenges dominant representation?

The media industry has very strong representations to gender which has been challenged in recent years but by no accounts is sorted. Males still are favoured and shown as the dominant sex, shown as strong and intellectual people with a lot of authority. Females on the other hand are seen more as objects and focused on their physical beauty, one of the main ways woman are shown is through relationships with men. Jeremy Tunstall's book “The Media in Britain” in 1983 suggested that there are subcategories that woman are commonly placed into, those are domestic, sexual, consumer and marital. These categories are all very sexist and none of them express any form of independence, it all connotes a sense of dependancy on other people. Although the majority of men are marital too, this isn’t shown in the film industry as a very relevant factor, the marriage is shown through the female, while the husband is shown in other ways, usually something masculine or heroic. Another thing that is often shown in the media is men outside the home, while woman are doing house work. This implies that woman aren’t as capable having paying jobs, or even that men are superior?

As well as representations of gender in theory, there are also ways that the media look at woman using the camera. Theorists such as Laura Mulvey have talked about “The Male Gaze” which treats woman as objects that the audience observe completely based on their outer beauty, for example the camera focusing on certain parts of the body (Legs, Chest, Face) which divide a woman into separate body parts to be admired. The audience are all almost always males which gives off such a negative representation to woman, which obviously gives the media a problem when it comes to female audiences who are annoyed with being objectified and revoked of their independence. When the theory is studied further, the clearer it is that there isn’t a female gaze as such because males are seen as dominant in media which leaves a large hole in the representation of gender.

In horror films this stereotypical representation of woman is challenged which we can learn more about through people like Carol Clover in “Men, Woman and Chainsaws” 1993 which talks about a “Final girl” in the movies which is always the woman who survives right to the very end. This of course totally challenges the representation of gender because in the average action movie the last person to survive or main character would be a man, but in this case we are seeing more and more woman who are the final characters. In the film “Halloween” 1978 the main character is a woman called Laurie who is a quite boyish character, which straight away is different to the classic representation because she isn’t particularly beautiful and defiantly doesn’t give off any sexual vibes and isn’t seen as an object through the camera. She just seems like an average actor in the film. As the story develops her friends who are more alike to their stereotype are also sexually active get slowly killed off one by one. This connotes that the women are getting punished because of their sexual antics? Another thing Carol talks about is how throughout the film there is nothing sexual related to Laurie and she is shown as virginal which may be one of there reasons she survives. Towards the end Michael (the monster) turns on her and she ends up fighting him off and surviving. This is a very progressive representation of woman and was a large step towards change in the way that women are shown through films. Since Halloween there have been a number of horror films which have a “Final girl” such as Buffy Summers from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” 1997-2003 or even Alexa Woods in “Alien vs Predator” 2004 which is a much more recent interpretation of the final girl, which shows the lasting fight towards levelling equality between the sexes.

Although the final girl is a very strong way of challenging typical gender representations there are still many other horror films which show woman in a more conservative state, such as “Scary Movie” 2000 which shows woman as very stupid and connotes right from the very start that woman are pretty useless in dangerous situations, for example Carmen Electra playing the role of Drew Decker who chooses a banana over a knife or a gun on a weapons table. Another negative representation of woman in this scene is how sexually visual the woman is to the audience, showing strong cleavage and verbal sexual puns. Carmen Electra is a very typical actress to be playing this kind of role and when an audience is watching a film with her acting they expect it to have some kind of sexual related scene or feminine stupidity, which shows how even though many woman fight for the equality in media, there are still many woman who act out these roles and make the representations of their own sex even worse. This creates a vicious circle because there are vast numbers of woman who want to fight to fix the issue and also large numbers of woman who are not making it any better for themselves by carrying out these roles and enforcing this stereotype.

Woman are also far more likely to loose acting roles with age because of the way they are viewed to the audience; the older they get, the less roles they can play. Although this is a very negative way of thinking, the media connotes that audiences don’t want to see an ageing woman, they want to see a young beautiful woman. Which objectifies even more, because they are just being used as a face and body, rather than a whole person. Men on the other hand play many roles even when aged and old, for example the “James Bond” films which don’t have a young main character, in-fact he is middle aged and is still shown as a very strong, intellectual hero. When you compare this example to woman, it is very hard to think of a film in which an older woman is shown in a similar manor.

I think that horror films and Carol Clovers “Final girl” are very progressive representations of woman and it is definitely a strong way of fighting to equality. Year by year we are seeing more progressive ways women are being shown through the media and in an ideal world, one day the sexes will be seen as equals in the media. Personally I think that even though this would be much fairer, its not a realistic prospect, and I think that men will always been shown with some kind of dominance. Yes the gap between men and woman will get smaller and smaller, but I don’t think the gap will ever totally close, because even though on paper it all seems very unfair and sexist, it makes money, and thats the main thing media industries and film directors care about.

Existing Horror Trailers

 "Paranormal Activity" has a very striking trailer because of its strong sence of hand held camera work. The whole trailer engages the audience with the film and makes them feel part of it through the way that its filmed. The most scary things on Paranormal activity are also the most simple of things, such as lights swaying and bed sheets moving, doors shutting by themselfs. These are all really doable effects and are things i would like to include on my horror film trailer, another major thing i would like to include which is a massive part of Paranormal activity is hand held and manual security cameras.

"Grave Encounters" has a really eary feel throughout because of how there is lots of silence and its all hand held camera work. The actors seem genuinely scared and this makes the viewer believe that the things happening inside this hospital actually happened. There is also a very scary bit at the end where a woman's face goes demonic as shown above on the preview of the trailer, This gives a big shock factor to the audience while watching and makes them want to go and watch it even more. Its more impacting because throughout there is no real evidence of CGI, and then we suddenly see some right at the end of the trailer.




"Atrocious" is very similar to the other two trailers above accept from there is a totally different story line, in this case it is about and old murder and the ghost coming back to the house to haunt people. There is a maze in the garden and this is the centre piece of the bad things happening, this is a really good aspect to the trailer because the thought of being lost in a maze is very frightening because it gives a feel of clostrephobia. Another frightening thing about the Atrocious trailer is the eyes on the girl when she gets possessed, because the black pupils really stand out and give a scare.

Narrative Theory

We applied the theories and ideas for four theorists to The Shining.

Vladimir Propp was a Russian critic who explored the underlining structure of folk tales and proposed a set of universal character and narrative functions which he thought were the basis for all stories. His ideas are an uneasy fit with The Shining because his predictions for the general narrative for horror films fit the film very loosely, The start of his theory is pretty bang on about a member of the family leaving home and a rule being broken but for there on it starts getting much harder to match his theory to the film. For example there is no deception of the victim early on in the film and the villain doesn't harm a member of family until much later on into the film. Throughout the rest of his theory there are patchy matches but the majority of predictions are far off the actual occurrences in the film. One thing Propp did get correct was his character types, and in this film particular it is easy to match his ideas to the characters in the film: The Villain - Jack/Delbert Grady. The Donor - Halloran. The Helper - Tony/Halloran. The Princess - Wendy. The Hero - Danny/Wendy. There are two character functions which don't fit so well in the film and they are the dispatcher and the false hero. Overall i think that Propps theory has some kind of sense and similarities to The Shining but the main majority of the theory is still quite far from reality.

Claude Levi-Strauss was a Belguim anthropologist born in 1908, His theory was about the Binary oppositions, for example:

Good/Evil
Past/Present
Known/Unknown
Light/Dark

This is definitely a factor in The Shining such as the past events with the previous Janitor and then the Present evens with Jack as the new one. There is good and evil aspects when the woman in the bath is a normal looking pretty woman and then she suddenly turns into a diseased wreck. Also the unknown at the end when Jack is seen on a photo which was taken from a ball at the hotel many years before, its one of those open things which leaves the audience questioning what it links too.

Tzvetan Todorov suggested that stories have a set path which are normally followed, for example the Classic Realist film has a narrative structure with an initial equilibrium, an disequilibrium and a series of events resolving this which finally leads onto a new equilibrium. In horror films the structure is very much the same because there is a path in which the villain is being defeated and then he/she comes back and gets resolved again. An example of Todorov's theory can be seen on the chart below.

Horror Film Trailer

The trailer above is for the film Paranormal Activity 3 (2011). Its setting is a small community in suburbia which adds to the isolated horror of the film. The main house the film is all set in is quite average and family friendly, the fact that children are involved in the film also tops up the fright factor as they are usually associated with horror films. The trailer shows clear horror conventions such as darkness and also the hiding of the main problem, these two things create a massive want to see the film and understand totally what is going on. The Narrative is shown clearly and the story is explained in a substantial enough way to engage the audience and not too much that you feel that you know everything that is going to happen already. Overall i think that it is a very strong trailer in the way of scaring the audience and drawing them to see it, it labels itself as one of the scariest films of the time which also makes a massive difference to the overall audience sizes and growth in popularity of the film.