Alex Harris AS Media Blog 1: Horror

Shot 1:  The opening credits text. This involves a narrator talking about the tragedy of 5 youths, getting viewers exited/on edge for the film. Shot 2:  This black screen came with various sounds such as sawing, digging, cracking and snapping with some creepy ambiance, suggesting that some vile work is being done in secret. Shot 3:  Occasionally, there is a flash, and some decomposed body parts appear on screen, confirming our previous theory of secret evil. Shot 4:  The high-pitched sound that happens whenever the body parts appear put the viewer on edge. Shot 5:  This shot is the second image of two pictures in quick succession, suggesting that something else is about to happen. Shot 6: We finally get a clear shot of our dead body. The orange sky indicates that there is a sunset, so whoever put these dead bodies here could do it secretly when everyone else was in bed. Shot 7: The camera zooms out, showing that there...

Shot 1: In this shot, a man is pushing some trolleys into a trolley-parking area. While he is not currently a member of the living dead, his blank expression does make him appear rather zombie-like. The empty area may be meant to make readers wonder: "What happened to everyone else?" Shot 2: In this shot, every single cashier is doing exactly the same thing in exactly the same way, with blank expressions as if they are sleepwalking, making them seem even more like zombies, which is the theme of the film. The long line may represent how many of us are inclined to simply go about our lives in a zombie-like fasion. Shot 3: In this shot, again, blank expressions, simultaneous actions. The characters may just be tired, but the zombie similarities are present. Shot 4:  This shot has an ally full of people acting like zombies, when in fact, they are (probably) very much alive. The scattered papers indicate a messy area (which makes sense in a zombie collapse, ...

Recently, I made a mind-map about some horror conventions I know of. Check it out! (You may want to zoom in) Alex Harris 29/9/2016

For my media A-levels, I have to research horror films and identify tropes and features. This isn’t particularly helpful considering that I don’t watch many horror films, so I think that it’s best that I look at the history of horror. Of what I have researched on the internet, the first horror film ever made is called “ Le Manoir du Diable” by  Georges Méliès  in 1896. “ Le Manoir du Diable”  means “The Manor of the Devil” if translated into English. It is 3 minutes long, and, while not scary, and in fact, designed to amuse rather than scare, taking on a pantomimic approach, it is still considered to be the first horror film, as It contains many Gothic horror elements such as dark castles, ghosts, vampires, and sudden disappearances. It isn’t much, but it's a start. In 1908, the first film-adaption of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was released, based on the original work by Robert Louis Stevenson, and directed by Otis Turner.  The film lasted 16 minutes, and was si...

Recently I have been thinking about how much I use media in my day to day life. When I thought about it, I really do use it way more then I previously thought. For a start, I spend a lot of my spare time playing online video games and endlessly browsing the internet for hours on end. While I cannot say that this is especially healthy of me, the media allows me to communicate with everyone else in the world and see their opinions and creations, and it also lets me drive complete strangers to madness from across the world (I can be annoying to play against in DotA 2. That probably means that I’m doing it correctly.) It also lets me know when new games or films come out or if something else of interest happens, as I can check on official websites, Facebook or YouTube to see if anything new has happened. It has also helped me when I want to see a film by allowing me to order tickets online, but I don’t go to watch films on a day-to-day basis.  One form of media I definitely don’...