MEST4 Coursework Blog: Summer Project

Media Representations
Who is being represented? In what way? By whom?
Children - being possessed, child has been possessed by the evil and then kills the family
Male - the father finds old video clips in the new house, does all the research about them and what had happened to the families and children in those clips
Female - the mother stays at home cares for the children and her husband

Why is the subject being represented in this way?
Typical nuclear family, represented in a way where their would be a resolution and a cliff hanger

Is the representation fair and accurate?
The representations are accurate as the father is the hero in the family as the daughter gets possessed and attempts to kill everyone, he tries to help and protect his family. what makes it unfair as to how the children are being presented as children are presented as harmless innocent people but in sinister it goes the complete opposite.

Media Languages and Forms
What are the denotative and connotative levels of meaning?
the denotation is evil, children, haunted, devil, possession
the connation is child being possessed, family move into a haunted home with a load of old video clips been found with a devil who consoles the soul of human children and possess them to kill their family.

What is the significance of mise-en-scene/sets/settings (CLAMPS)?

Lighting - key light on the characters faces and filler lighting to soften shadows - under lighting+ low key lighting.

Camera Framing- long, close up shows that the film consists of a family; able to see the facial expressions of the father who is scared and is protecting his family.

Stereotype of men and women - parents are loving and very protecting over their family.

Setting - In the big new house, quite haunted as there has been a lot of murders in the same house as the ne family have moved in to it.

What are the dominant images and iconography, and what is their relevance to the major themes of the text?
There is a kind of demon who appears to be in every video clip, once the devil is shown some sort of death appears to happen. The devil influences the child to be bad and then gets possessed and kills their families and they are being told to do this from this demon.

What sound and visual techniques are used to convey meaning (e.g. camera positioning, editing; the ways that images and sounds are combined to convey meaning)?
There is slow music which gradually becomes louder, when the devil pops up the camera movements tends to be fast and edits are flashy. The type of shot usually used is a close up of just the devils face so it gets quite jumpy and creates tension between the characters and creates suspense for the audience.

Narrative
How is the narrative organised and structured?
the equilibrium is that it starts of with a normal introduction as the family have just moved into a new house. The disequilibrium us that the father finds old video tapes of children killing their parents in the present house, there is a demon who has influenced the young girl and her possessed her in to killing her brother and parents.

How are characters delineated? What is their narrative function? How are heroes and villains created?
The heroes are the brother, mother and father who are all innocent throughout the movie.. the villain in the movie are the children but the main people is the demon and the daughter as they are possessed by evil and girl then kills her family.

What is the role of such features as sound, music, iconography, genre, mise-en-scene, editing etc within the narrative?
the music sound and iconography matches the narrative as when the narrative becomes intense the sound becomes louder and faster which builds tension and when the narrative has a softer touch to it, the music tends to be quite slow but had dramatic sounds throughout the scary scenes.

Genre

To which genre does the text belong?
Horror

What are the major iconographic features of the text?
Image result for sinister title

Just from looking at the title, it automatically gives the impression to the audience what genre the movie is going to be. This is because of the background colour as it it dull and gloomy. Also the outline of the title looks like dripping blood as you can see a hint of red in there.

Media Institutions

In what ways has the text been influenced or shaped by the institution which produced it?
As sinister was a successful movie as the the same producer was the same film make of the well known movies such as paranormal activity and insidious, not surprised that sinister was a popular movie, there is now a part 2 to the movie which will hopefully become another success to the film industry.

How has the text been distributed?
Posters, magazines, YouTube videos and trailers, social media etc.

Media Audiences

To whom is the text addressed? What is the target audience? (Demographics, Psychographics)
The target audience of the film is for the younger ages of 16-35 this is because this audience are at the age where they like the thrill and excitement of scary films, and if they enjoy to watch the first part then they will be tempted to go watch the second parts

What assumptions about the audience’s characteristics are implicit within the text?
The primary target audience are males ans females aged 16-35. The promotional material relates to the target audience because the trailer is quite jumpy representation of horror and also the poster only using dark colours, like black and red which connotes to blood, shows the audience that it will be a suspicious, scary movie which is what the audience like to see.

In what conditions is the audience likely to receive the text? Does this impact upon the formal characteristics of the text?
Youtube trailers and videos, TV adverts, posters, social media

What are the audience pleasures, uses or gratifications? (Refer to theory)
the excitement, and tension being built up by the audience.. explorers

How do you, as an audience member, read and evaluate the text? To what extent is your reading and evaluation influenced by your age, gender, background etc?

As a student, i enjoy watching horror movies and the main target audience who get easily attracted to horror movies is the younger generation, as we love the thrill and excitement it causes...

Sinister Trailer