Contexts of Practice - 13TH January - BCOP

Wednesday 13th January 2016                      Contexts of Practice                   Lecturer: Lucy Leake

Monsters Session 2

At the start of the lesson, we had a recap on the story Bluebeard which I must admit I did quite like, we started to discuss what we thought the moral of the story was, I thought that I might be able to answer this question as I thought that it could have something to do with temptation, Bluebeard's wife gave into temptation by using the key to open the door, leading to her finding something horrific i.e. the bodies of Bluebeard's other wife's when he specifically told her not to open the door.

We started to look into words that I had never heard off, everything that we did throughout the lesson, linked back in some way to being monstrous or popular culture.

Orientelism - Parts around the Mediterranean - Middle East - Orient almost a European invention, the place of Europe's greatest richest and oldest colonies, sources of it's Civilizations and languages.

Subjugation - To put down a culture i.e. beliefs, skin colour, when someone feels they have more power in a sense, they feel over empowered.

Tenopgobic - Be scared of a different race

Diaspora - Scattering of a race

For the second half of the lesson we looked at the different types of monsters in popular culture, can we really categorize them;

Here is a list of the categories that we found out;

1) Fairytale - Myth/Legend Folklore

2) Body Horror - Metamorphous

3) Taxonomy - Medical Gaze - Science

4) Monsters Difference/ Other - Notions of difference and normality

5) Monstrous Feminine

6) Technology turns bad - District 9, War of Worlds

7) Home - Disturbing the neighbourhood - We locate new or recognisable places on a daily bases (mundane) - In some sense it could be said that some of us are really engaged with monsters.

Group task

We were asked to create a mood reel

Ideas that myself, Dan and Emily came up with in lesson was minimal as we didn't have much of an idea about how to start it, I came up with a few ideas to cut together some clips from films portraying transformation, just like what happened at the end of the film, District 9. With the ideas that I had in mind I started to think about what category that the mood reel would link into, I thought about Taxonomy as well as body horror, when the human body changes into a monster.

I came up with the idea of using clips from similar films to District 9 to tell the narrative for our trailer, I started to look into fan made trailers for films, this got me thinking what if I was to try to re-create a fan made trailer and then link the shots to special scenes within my film.

Teaser Trailer - I started to think about monsters, scientifically created beasts, how they are all portrayed powerfully across which entertains us and gets our blood boiling, perhaps I could show this but with a sense that they are never seen, move fast paced through the trailer, catch a small glimpse. Now I am starting to think into the category Technology is bad etc. Here is my trailer that I have created.

 
Disturbia - 2016 from Luke Curno on Vimeo.

In order to create this action packed trailer, I took a look into films of a similar nature i.e. used scenes from District 9, BladeRunner, AVP Aliens vs Predators, Predators the final fight etc. I started to look into fan made trailers for District 9, wanted to give the impression that there was a search for the unknown beast, as well as giving a few ideas as to what the monster looks like, creating suspense which was helped by the fast paced music, got louder as the trailer went on.

I wanted to give the audience an idea as to the havoc and destruction that the unknown monster has created. As the viewer, you are given hints to try and interpret what it is, why is it after everyone, who disturbed it? The scene from AVP Aliens vs Predators I think works well by the way that it grips the audience into thinking why is someone hiding (see debris and frames being smashed and rocked), gives a sense of enigma as you want to find out what it is.

The hardest part to edit together was at the start from the film Blade Runner, this is where Rutger Hauer can be seen jumping of a roof, I wanted to give the impression that he has disappeared and descended into the mist, where has he gone, the idea was to create metamorphous as he appears human and next we see a prawn from District 9 leaping onto a building roof which could suggest that he has transformed into a monster. The idea that I had after that was to use different film clips to show the monster as a threat, everyone is searching, running and hiding for this unknown beast. However, the words throughout the trailer work well in a sense that they bring the footage alive, it brings the viewers in by asking questions, WOULD YOU HIDE, WOULD YOU RUN, WOULD YOU ACCEPT.

References

District 9 (2009) Directed by Neil Blomkamp [Film] USA: Sony Pictures

AVP Alien vs Predator (2004) Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson [Film] USA: 20th Century Fox

Blade Runner (1982) Directed by Ridley Scott [Film] USA: Warner Bro's