Wednesday 14 March 2012

Homework


Analyse a similar product to your main task production in relation to audience theory.

This is the trailer for the horror film 'Demons Never Die' we can relate this trailer to theorists of the audience theory. 
The first theorist Adorno came up with the theory called the 'Hypodermic Needle Model' this theory suggest thats the piece of media we see has a direct effect on the audience. In relation to the trailer for 'Demons Never Die' we can say that the film is imposing that if one of your friends commits suicide that you should all do the same, and follow in their footsteps. As extreme as it may sound this is what Adorno believed to be true. That what we are directly influenced by what we see on our screens. The message being portrayed in this trailer; making a pact with your friends to all kill yourselves because your friend did is far fetched. Even so it is still believed that it is the message that a piece of media portrays that is injected into the audiences mind.

Another theorist that we can relate to this trailer is Hall, Hall's theory of Encoding and Decoding suggests that the people who created a piece of media, so in this sense the directors of the film. They encode the piece of media to have a preferred reading. This encoded preferred reading is then decoded by the audience as they watch the piece of media. Relating it to the trailer, we can see that the preferred reading is of a group of friends making a pact to kill themselves after one of their friends did, but instead of killing themselves they are all being stalked and killed by a masked being. We can decode this preferred reading my several things that we see unconsciously in the trailer. For example the weary music as the trailer get further and further on. Also  the use of weapons, we see a gun at the very beginning of the trailer, then knives. This tells the audience that the preferred reading isn't going to be about a group of nice teenagers graduating from college. We can also relate the fast paced editing to the preferred reading. the longer the trailer goes on for, the faster each clip gets. This adds suspense, and makes the audience question what will happen. It is the basic conventions of a horror film that allows us to decode the preferred reading.