Institutions

Time Warner have many layers of vertical integration, owning hundreds of other businesses. One of their subsidiaries is Warner Bros. Warner Bros then vertically integrates into many other businesses, one example of a Warner Bros subsidiary is New Line Cinema. This means that New Line cinema is owned by Time Warner, but its parent is Warner Bros.

Vertical integration is where a business in the same distribution and production chain. For example, Time Warner owns Warner Bros and so can distribute films globally that New Line Cinema and Castle Rock Entertainment produce (other vertically integrated subsidiaries owned by Time Warner). These films can then be distributed to other subsidiaries that Time Warner own such as Cinemax (a US premium cable film channel) and Warner Horizon Television (an international TV company). Warner Bros owns both their suppliers who make the films, and their distributors who can shows what the suppliers make.

Horizontal integration is a media company's ownership of several other businesses of the same or similar value. This can be seen in the media industry as owning magazines, books, radio, television and newspapers. Time Warner own Mad (a magazine), CNN Newsource (radio) and HBO entertainment (TV). This helps create more money for the business as it will meet a wider target audience because some people would prefer a newspaper, where as others would prefer news via the TV or radio.

New Line Cinema are a subsidiary of Time Warner, with Warner Bros being their parent company. They were founded in 1967 making 521 films as the distributors and the producers, and 440 as the production company since 1967. Those 440 films were distributed by Warner Bros. Time Warner are one of the big six multinational media conglomerates within the industry that create the oligopoly in the market. An oligopoly is where a few businesses own the majority of the market. This means that it is hard for other companies to gain a large share in the market and receive a large scale audience.

Minor and major film institutions vary in many ways. Major institutions such as Universal have large budgets at their disposal, meaning they can cast their characters from a wider selection of auditions (including the best of movie stars), they can have a larger production team making filming and editing easier and quicker, as well as being able to distribute their films to a much wider, international audience. On top of that, major institutions have the funds to buy the best equipment for their films such as cameras and microphones etc, allowing better quality films for the audience, they can use CGI to make the special effects seem more realistic, and furthermore, they make more money from films which can then reinvest it into future films. Minor films studios have not got the same capabilities that major studios have so the films produced by minor institutions tend not to be as successful in comparison.

They have produced lots of famous horror films, including Conjuring (2013), Conjuring 2 (2016), The Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), The Nightmare on Elm Street 2 (1985) The Nightmare on Elm Street 3 (1987), The Nightmare on Elm Street 4 (1988), The Nightmare on Elm Street 5 (1989), Annabelle (2014), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974, 1990, 1996, 2003, 2006), Seven (1995), Friday the 13th (2009), Snakes on a Plane (2006) and Critters (1986, 1988, 1991, 1992) to name just a few of their more successful horror films.

Annabelle, a film produced by New Line Cinema and Distributed by Warner Bros,  had a budget of $6.5 million, which is quite small in comparison to many other films distributed by Warner Bros such as Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone which had a budget of $125 million. New Line Cinema, although they have the money available for them to use from Time Warner, use small budgets for their productions. Despite the small budget, Annabelle had a box office of $256.9 million, showing that small budgets can still create big revenues. Budgets can be very important for production companies because the quality of the film can be improved by investing more money into it. However the businesses will have to decide whether the film will generate enough revenue to be worth investing a larger budget or else the film could make a loss.

Annabelle has been nominated for 5 different awards in 2015. The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA nominated Annabelle as the 'Best Horror Film', and so did the Empire Awards, UK, nominating it as the 'Best Horror'. The People's Choice Awards, USA nominated Annabelle as their 'Favourite Thriller Movie'. The film was also nominated for the success of two actresses in their film, Annabelle Wallis was nominated by MTV Movie Awards with the 'Best Scared-as-S**t Performance' and Alfre Woodard being nominated for 'Best Supporting Actress' by Fright Meter Awards. These nominations shows that the film was widely received in both the US and the UK as it was nominated for awards within both countries.

A Change Of Plan

At first when having to decide between doing a trailer and a short film, we decided to go with doing a trailer as we saw it as the best option for us to do the best work however, after working on our narrative we realised that doing a short film instead would best suit as to what we have to offer.

We were originally planning on making a horror trailer, with the many different elements that would be expected from a horror film by the audience such as jump scares etc. We were originally going to base our narrative and characteristics off of the 'Conjuring 2'. Now that we have fully decided upon our narrative,we saw it best to do a short film instead, and have also decided to base our film upon that of 'Chucky'. We believe our cinematography skills outweigh our editing skills, thus us making a short film would benefit us further as a trailer focuses upon editing more so, whereas a short film requires better cinematography with less editing involved.

Character Costumes

Characters - Conjuring 2

This is the main character from 'The Conjuring 2'. She is possessed with a 72 year old man who is trying to get her to "commit the ultimate sin". The 11 year old girl is wearing her pyjamas which portrays her innocence and vulnerability to the audience. This makes the audience feel bad for the young girl as she has no control over who she is. The protagonist has a long fringe with curls at the bottom of her short hair, suggesting again that she is very sweet and childlike. Her facial expressions suggest that she is very scared and confused, wondering what is going on in her bedroom. The girl almost seems lost which really makes the audience feel sad, but also worried if they if they were putting themselves in her shoes. The girls body language can also portray what she is thinking. In this image her shoulders are slumped. This makes her seem very submissive to the audience because she isn't standing up for herself. The director would have done this in order to make the audience feel compassion and empathy for the protagonist.

This is the antagonist from 'The Conjuring 2'. In the image on the left, the nun is in at the end of a long hallway. Her facial expression is very serious, showing little emotion in the image. Her body positioning is very relaxed, but leaves the audience on edge as horror movie stereotypes suggest the nun is scary so her stance is very creepy to the audience. On the right are two images from the same scene. The above image shows the reflection in the mirror of the lady trying to help the protagonist and the nun. Here we see a close up of the antagonist, scaring the audience more as the nun is very expressionless. In the below image on the right, we see the lady come face to face with the nun, creating a jump scare for the audience, The director uses an extreme close up of both the characters to show each of their emotions in great detail. We can tell that the lady is petrified of the nun and fearing her life. This scene is very dramatic for the audience as it is one uncut scene with lots of mystery involved, ending with a loud scream, frightening the audience.

If we look at the lady on the left of this image, we can see a great detail about what she is thinking just by her facial expressions and her body language. She has just seen seen the reflection of the nun in the mirror, turned around and nothing has been behind her. This image was then taken when the lady turns back around to look at the mirror and the nun is in the reflection behind her. The lady has a very shocked expression on her face, clearly showing the fear that she feels. Her body positioning indicates that she was surprised as her arms are bent at the elbows, showing she is very tense and nervous. This feeling is then passed onto the audience who feel the same as the character in this scene.

Overall Narrative

The main character is happy as they walk through the park. As they are walking through the park they receive a text message from one of their parents informing him to return home immediately. Feeling worried about this they return home straight away in a bolt. As they get home their parents are sitting around the lounge with their heads down in their hands and flowers by their sides. They are then informed that their Grandma passed away earlier in the day.

With time having passed on, the family decide to all together move house away from the troubles that they have all faced with it.

Having moved houses, the family starts to realise that something that they threw out start to appear randomly in the house. After sometime the family see one of their kids toys that they threw out before moving, a Golliwog, starting to appear in random areas around the new home. Feeling as if the others are playing a prank on them none do anything about it however, after sometime passes and the doll keeps on appearing around and even moving when the family isn’t in the house.

Trailer Plot

Trailer Plot

• Main character walks through a colourful park in autumn. The protagonist gets a text that reads “come home urgently”.

• They are sat crying, holding a bunch of flowers.

• The protagonist’s family decides to move house, and escape their troubles.

• They move house and find their golliwog, however they know for a fact they didn’t pack it.

• The golliwog changes places everyday and scares the protagonist.

• A stop start animation of the golliwog moving.

• The protagonists brother jokes about, holding up the golliwog and mocking the protagonist.

• Protagonist gets really scared.

• Decides to bin the golliwog in the big bin outside, but it finds its way in their bedroom again.

Todorov's Narrative Theory

Todorov's narrative theory suggests that most films will follow a basic five stage narrative. These five are the following, equilibrium, disruption, realisation, restored order and equilibrium again. Todorov suggests that these five elements are common to most plot lines in films.

The Equilibrium is the start of the story where you are given a neutral narrative to start you off with the film, so as the audience you know what is going on within the characters lives. An example of this would be within 'Kingsman: the Secret Service', where the main character, Eggsy, is shown with living his normal life in London, this being him messing around with his friends.

The Disruption in the film then is when Eggsy is arrested by the police for breaking into a car, and then as he is in prison uses his one phone call possible to call a number that he was given to as a little boy when his father was killed. This gets him through to the Kingsmen, a secret service that completes super dangerously missions across the globe.

The recognition of the disruption in the film is when Harry Hart dies and Eggsy starts to uncover the truth about the leader of the Kingsmen, this being that he is in corporation with the antagonist of the film and tries to discretely poison Eggsy.

The attempt to restore order in the film is when Eggsy sneaks into the base of the antagonist to try and stop the plan being executed fully, that being having control over all people and make them fight to the death at his command, leaving only the rich and important people across the planet alive, thus creating a dystopian future.

The restored equilibrium happens after Eggsy defeats the antagonist and his sidekick, thus stopping the mind control of people across the world however, in that process killing all the people the antagonist planned to keep alive.

Audience Pleasures

Focus Group - Answers

Focus Group - Questions

1. What do you think are the conventions/themes for horror films?

2. What kind of characters do you expect to see in a horror film?

3. What do you think a good trailer should include?

4. How much of the storyline should be revealed in the trailer?

5. Are any trailers you know of that you think were really good?

6. What are your thoughts on teaser trailers?
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We asked these questions so we could gage our focus group to what they enjoy about trailers and what they think a good trailer should include. We asked our focus group key questions such as how much of the plot they think should be shown in trailers because it is a good indicator to us of how much we should include of the plot in our trailer. The focus group also told us their opinions of teaser trailers and whether we should create one to increase hype and marketing of our film. We also asked them how much of the storyline should be revealed in a trailer so we can make sure we could figure out the correct balance between an interesting trailer, but not giving to much away so that the film gets ruined and isn't worth watching.