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Film Distribution Company

Considering thw scale, the film distrubution company is small. Very little people work in the UK theatrical distribution, judt 500 people, 1 % of the total film/cinema workforce. The role of the distributor's managing director is to supervise a small number of staff with specialist roles, such as:

• Marketing & Promotions
• Publicity & Media Relations
• Sales
• Technical
• Acquisitions
• Legal & Business Affairs
• Finance & Accounting
• Administration

It is believed that these departments function similarly to their demand-side counterparts in any industry, looking to work as sustainably and effeciently as possible. But handling products that are among the most thrillingly creative, emotionally charged and technologically advanced is what film distributors go through all the time. Good marketing experience for a film industry marketing position may be gained at an advertising or media planning agency, especially by working with a film or entertainment client. Being a market team member, you would habe to be bold, a creative thinker and a fast carful worker. Experience as a journalist or press officer is useful for publicity. You should be able to write succinctly and imaginatively, and remain level headed under pressure. It is also good to know knowledge of todays media, as are good professional relationships with journalists and TV producers. External agencies may be assigned to a particular project if the distributor needs specialist public relations or event management help.

Narrative theory studies the devices and conventions governting the organisation of a story into a text. We have always been surrounded by stories such as fairy tales and myths, religious storys like the Bible, scientific storys about the unknown universe, cultural plays, tv dramas and even paintings. Every day newspapers tell new stories where they are true or not, and dreams in a way are little stories. These days the media we consume is in the form of narratives, text that tells a stroy. Even when the media deals with real life it always recreates is as a narrative. Because we are into the narrative tradition these days we approach most texts with certain expectations whether we know the story or not, for example;

• the opening to give us information about who, what and when.
• there to be characters who interact with each other.
• to see a series of incidents, which are connected with each other.
• problems and/or conflict.
• the ending to reolve the action or cast new light on what has happened.

Tzvetan Todorov's Theory of Narrative
Todorov suggested that conventional narratives are structured in five stages:

1. a state of equilibrium at the outset.
2. a disruption of the equilibrium by some action.
3. a recognition that there has been a disruption.
4. an attempt to repair the didruption.
5. a reinstatement of the equilibrium.

Return of the Repressed

Freud’s repression is a normal part of human development; the analysis of dreams, literature, jokes, illustrates the ways that our secret desires continue to find outlet in perfectly well-adjusted individuals. However, when we are faced with obstacles to satisfaction of our libido's (sex drive) cathexis (change of energy in the sex drive), when we experience traumatic events, or when we remain fixated on earlier phases of our development, the conflict between the libido and the ego can lead to alternative sexual discharges.

Freud always emphasised the "indestructible" nature of unconscious material, as the irreducible character of memory traces. If we have no memories of events during the first years of life, this is because of the repression that affects them. In a sense, all memories may be said to be retained, their recollection depending solely on the way in which they are cathected, decathected, or anticathected.
 
“Every family has secrets. And what we are witnessing in the ‘family’ of psychoanalysis is nothing less than the return of the repressed.”

Mood Board

This is my mood board of the things that I fear most. I have included things such as; mutants, zombies, religon and most of all, masks. The things with masks is the fact that there is a person under it which means that it actually could be real. Things like vampires and monsters dont really creep me out, its the things that could happen in life. Also the unknown is something that i fear, its that fact that you dont know what is there or what could happen.

The Saw series is one of my favourite horror franchises. Some people may call it torture porn but yes it is very gory and sick but it has such an amazing story line which connects all the films and continues to suprise. The Saw films are also the most frightening horror movies I have seen because its the fact that its not a monster but just an every day man setting up games of death.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a classic horror movie that has been remade several times over the last couple of decades. One of the things that make it so popular and scary is the fact that it is inspired by true events involving a man called Ed Gein. In this trailer I like how we dont see the 'monster' til the end but events are happening to build up the horror. It also gives a lot of suspense, showing frightening  scenes and clips to the climax of seeing the Texas Cahinsaw Massacre.

We applied theories and ideas of four narrative theorists to 'The Shining'. Propp was a Russian critic who explored the underlying structures of folk tales and he came up with a set of universal charcaters and narrative functions which he thought were the basic for all stories. His ideas fit with 'The Shining' through his 8 character roles being; The Villain, The Hero, The Donor, The Helper, The Princess, Her Father, The Dispatcher and The False Hero. These 8 charcters are what Propp believed were in all kinds of narratives. Heros and Villains are in any type of story or drama, wheather it is from a book, film or TV programme.The other 6 character types are not always featured in a story, but can relate to those in the film, book or programme. Most of the time characters such as a Helper, Donor and Her Father can be small part character that only feature in the story for a couple to minutes but on the other hand be in the entire story. Propp also had the idea of there being 31 narrative sturctures in every story. The first being 'A memeber of the family leaves home' and the last, 'The hero is married and crowned'. Although all 31 structures may not apply to every single story every written, but elements of Propps narrative structure will be in most stories and tales.

The second theorist Tzventan Todorov suggested that stories begin with an equilibrium or status quo where any potentially opposing forces are in balance. It is a normal story structure with chains of events which things occur throughout and Todorov believed that the whole story is trying to get back to its original state. This diagram shows Todorov's Theory, how it starts with the equilbrium, then it builds up to the main event with the climax. The main event then happens and past that point, things are trying to get back to the way they were. The classic Hollywood or classic realist narrative structure is based on Todorov's ideas. His theory is shown in 'The Shining' because it all starts out normal. 'Jack' has just received a new job with his family. Then things start to go wrong, 'Jack' starts seeing things and becomes a bit insane. The main event being 'Jack' chasing after his family with an intent to kill them. The problem gets solved when Halloron returns with a snowplow which is the only escape for 'Wendy' and 'Danny'. It also could be solved because 'Jack' freezes to death so there is no longer any evil lerking, or is there?




Thirdly Claude Levi-Strauss looked at structure in terms of opposites such as; Earth/Space, Good/Evil, Humans/Aliens, Past/ Present, Normal/Strange and Known/Unknown. With Good and Evil we understand that they both are opposite to eachother but Strauss wasn't interested in the order of the events and the plot. He looked deeper into the arrangements of themes.




The fourth and final theorist is/are Bordwell and Thompson. They believed that "a chain of events in a cause-effect relationship, occurring in time and space". They did not create a full narrative theory but did come together with some interesting ideas. They believed that a narrative begins with a situation, followed by a series of changes which causes a cause and effect. It then ends the narrative with the arise of a new situation. It defines where things take place, when they take place and how quickly they take place. For 'The Shining' the screen duration is 115mins, plot duration being 6 months and the story duartion is 60 years. The screen duration is the length of the movie, the plot is how long they were at the hotel for, and the stor duration is how long the whole story lasts, throughout past and present.

A trailer I find interesting

This trailer is the horror thriller movie The Strangers from Rogue Pictures and Intrepid Pictures. It was released realeased 29th Augest 2008 and stars Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman. This Trailer has lots of different aspects of the horror genre. Starting with the location of the movie being in a romote and isolated venue almost hidden away in the trees. The house that most of the trailer is filmed in is an old farm house with barns and mills surrounding it. Most of the clips that we see of the film in the trailer are all night scenes, which obviously is typical of the horror genre.
It is seen in this trailer who the 'monsters' or people are, but they have hidden their faces with masks. The designated weapon for these three people are knives which is a much more personal way to kill someone then just using a gun.