Emily's A2 Media blog

1. It was shot from December 17 through December 23, 1959. The three-minute scene features 77 different camera angles — most of which are extreme close-ups — and includes 50 cuts, which can be very intense and jolting for the audience - making them feel as if they are having a heart attack. 2. The blood was chocolate syrup, which was dominantly used for fake blood in black and white film as it turns out better than red fake blood. 3. The sound of the knife stabbing Marion Crane was done by plunging a knife into a melon. Marli Renfro 4. Janet Leigh claimed she never had a stunt double in her shower scene. However, on the other hand, there are some people who argue that this is not true, in particular Robert Graysmith, who wrote the book The Girl in Hitchcock's Shower. He said that Marli Renfro, a playboy bunny, played Leigh's body double. 5. All of the screams heard belong to Leigh - although some are diegetic and some are non-diegetic. 6. The...

Ever since its release in 1960, Hitchcock's Psycho has become known as the best horror film of all time. It is a seminal slasher. An influential film. It set a new level of acceptability for violence and defiant behaviour in film. It is controversial - it was the first film to show a toilet on screen. However, some may argue that Psycho is not a slasher, and that the victimised characters were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. But in Mark Kermode's article, he explains why Psycho is a seminal slasher. Norman Bates in Psycho (1960) Freddie Highmore who plays Norman in the prequel TV series, Bates Motel Kermode starts off by saying how Psycho is based on Robert Bloch's novel, who was inspired to write his "potboiler" by news reports about the murderer and necrophile, Ed Gein, who appeared to be an ordinary Wisconsin man. Gein made ornaments and clothing from skin of the dead - which I suppose influenced Norman's intere...

In a Slasher film, a common trope is when there is a 'final girl' who survives, ostensibly the one left to tell the story. The critical theorist, Carol J. Clover, suggested that the final girl is androgynous in some way - she'll have a unisex name and is not sexually active. Sometimes, the final girl will have a shared history with the killer. Meanwhile, young women who smoke, drink, party and are promiscuous in slasher films are often killed off quite early. Clover argues they are being punished. Clover states that in order for horror to be successful - a female has to be terrorised rather than a male be terrorised. It is interesting, in a genre popular with males, that there is almost always a female lead. However, Clover argues she is masculinised through 'phallic appropriation' as she kills the villain with a knife, chainsaw or gun. She is no longer the 'damsel in distress,' - thus causing the audience identification to become unstable. A well known ...

There are a variety of key concepts and conventions that belong to a 'Slasher' film. They may include: a psychotic killer who is masked main characters being young adults/ teenagers a sequel, where the killer makes a return a final girl The monster or killer's identity is often unknown, this is achieved by a mask or through creative lighting and camera techniques. This is to keep the audience on edge because they don't know who the killer is and so leaves the killer without an identity. It is almost likely to be a man, and their weapon of choice would either be a knife or chainsaw - anything that is sharp or jiggered really. The killer's identity is usually revealed at the end of the movie, and the reasoning behind his killings is because of childhood experience. The killer is often made out to be understood by the audience and is pitiable - they usually don't speak very much and are extremely unstoppable; able to survive stabbings, fall...

Before the 1930s horror was not called horror it was described as gothic or melodramatic. 1889-1900s : The first aspects of a supernatural genre appear in the silent shorts created by the French filmmaker Georges Méliès in the late 1890s. One of his horror projects was   La Caverne maudit e , which is translated into The Cave of the Demons. Japan were making  ghost story films during this time too.  In 1908, Selig Polyscope Company produced Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde . 1910s-1920s: The first filmed adaption of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was made during this period. The first vampire-themed movie was also made here too, it's known as Nosferatu . The macabre nature used in these films is what makes them synonymous with the horror genre. Many of these early films were considered dark melodramas because of their emotion-heavy plots that focused on romance, violence, suspense, and sentimentality. 1930s-1940s:  This period produced the...

The first feature film was The Jazz Singer, directed by Alan Crosland in 1927. It is known as a 'talkie,' a sound film which includes synchronised dialogue. Its release heralded the commercial ascendance of sound films and the decline of the silent film era as it demonstrated the profit potential of a 'talkie' film. It was made with Vitaphone, which was at the time the leading brand of sound-on-disc technology.  A Vitaphone projection setup at a 1926 demonstration. Like The Birth of a Nation , The Jazz Singer was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" motion pictures. However, unlike The Birth of a Nation , the use of blackface in this film is not racist. The scholar Corin Willis says "blackface imagery in The Jazz Singer is at the core of the film's central theme, an expressive and artistic exploration of the notion of duplicity and ethnic hybridity wit...

The Birth of a Nation is a 1915 American silent epic drama film directed by D. W. Griffith. It was the first 12-reel film in the United States. Griffith's innovative techniques and storytelling power have made The Birth of a Nation one of the landmarks of film history. In 1992, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. Here are some of the innovations the director developed: shots designed to elicit an emotional response, e.g. dramatic scenes are cut faster edited to create a lengthy, dramatic epic narrative subtitles filming at night tinting panning close-ups to show emotion cross-cutting varied camera angles - like high-angle shots and panoramic long shots Griffith did all of this with only one camera and two lenses, in a mere nine weeks. However, the problem with this film is that...