Drag Me To Hell Case Study

Drag Me To Hell is an American Horror/Thriller about a woman who works in a bank. She wants a promotion so decides to evict an elderly gypsy woman from her house. The gypsy then curses her and she is forced to seek help from a psychic before the evil spirit she was cursed with comes to claim her soul.

Production Info:
It is dicected by Sam Raimi and stars Alison Lohman, Justin Long and Ruth Livier. The film was released on 27th May 2009 in the UK. It had a budget of $30,000,000 and has a gross revenue of $90,850,000. The film was produced by Universal Pictures and has a runtime of 99 mins

Narrative Structure:
The film has a linear structure and there are no flashbacks, but the end does link back to the opening of the film in that the woman that tried to help Christine (the cursed woman who works in the bank) is the same woman who tries to help a small boy escape the same curse.

Conventions of the Thriller genre:
The movie follows some conventions of the Thriller genre such as the notion of being watched. This can be best shown with the example of the scene where Christine is walking back to her car and feels like she is being followed. This voyeurism is a popular convention of Thriller films. Another convention in this film is being chased. The woman is contantly being chased/hunted by the evil spirit who eventually claims her soul.

Semiology:
In the film, flys are a reccuring symbol. In the opening, when the child reveals the necklase he stole from a gypsy wagon, a fly comes out of his pocket too. When christine is cursed, a fly crawls into her mouth while she is sleeping and comes out during a dinner with her boyfriend's parents. This fly could symbolize that they are cursed and it is like a disease so people should stay away... Also, eyes are seen throughout the film, which is another reference to the notion of being watched. The old lady who curses Christine has different colour eyes, the symbol in the psychic's wondow is an eye and an eye appears in the cake in the scences during the dinner.

Sound:
During the opening of the film, there is choir-like singing and high-pitched screeching. This creates an eerie atmosphere - perfect for the opening scenes of a Thriller movie. The dialogue in the opening is in Spanish, giving you a sense that you don't belong here, and you are an outsider intruding on the scene. It also has the effect of disorientating you slightly as you do not know exaclt what is going on - there are subtitles, but not all dialogue is subtitled.
Throughout the film, during scenes of high tension and anticipation, harps and other stringed instuments are used to build the eerie sensation as well as the screeching noises. Bird song is used immediately after one scene where Christine is being taumented by the evil spirit. This has the effect of making you think that it is all over and everything is back to normal...

Camera Shots/Angles:
In the scene where Christine is cursed by the Gypsy woman, high angled shots are used of the gypsy and low angle shots of Christine as well as a shot-reverse-shot technique. Combined, these have the powerful effect of giving the impression that the gypsy woman is the dominant one and Christine is the weak one. This is mirrored in the narrative as it is the gypsy woman that is putting a curse over the other woman.
In scenes where the evil spirit is tormenting Christine, the camera is tilted slightly on the side, this has the effect of distorting the viewer's perceptions. This has been used in order to make the viewer feel sort of the same as Christine would in these scenes - as if she has no idea what is going on and it could all be a dream...

Gender Representation:
The female gender role is represented fairly stereotypically in the movie. Christine is shown to be a young and attractive woman. Even in the graveyard scene where she has just dug up the body of the woman who cursed her and is covered in mud, she still looks attractive. This links to the theory of male gaze (Mulvey, 1975) where females are prepresented as passive objects of male desire. Christine is shown to eat ice cream for comefort and also to want cake, highly stereotypical of women. You get the impression she is opressed in the work place by her male co-workers as she believes that her boss favours her opposition (a man) for the promotion she desperately desires. This could link to the feeling of opression she might be feeling in life as you could say that she is being opressed by the evil spirit.

How Does Your Music Magazine Target Its Audience?

Q magazine is an alternative music magazine aimed prodominatly at people in their 30's and 40's. The front cover has the magazine name at the top right hand sinde meaning that it is the first thing you look at. It is also large and on a red background, again in order to draw the eye straight to it.
This issue has a small label over the magazine name which tells you that is is a 'bumper' issue. This has the effect of making the consumer feel like they are getting more for their money so they are more likely to buy the magazine.
Madonna features on the cover. A close-up of the singer, with her name in red capital letters across the line of the lower third of the page, this use of the rule of thirds is probably used to make the magazine look more aesthetically pleasing. The red capitals almost shout at you about who the main interview is with in this issue.
The cover also has a banner at the bottom of the page advertising the free 70 page special booklet about women in music. The picture used is of a young and attractive woman in a slightly domineering pose. This could be to show how sexy women in music are and to appeall to the male audience (which is the majority of the target audience for Q Magazine). Or, on the other hand it could be to show the power and success of women in music and to appeal more to female consumers and pursuade them to purchase the magazine.
The theory of male gaze is used extensively on this cover. This can be shown by looking at either picture used in this issue. The picture of Madonna shows her wearing lots of make-up, in a sexy pose, the picture is also probably extensively airbrushed to make her appear more attractive. The picture for the Women In Music portrays the woman as a sexual object, with her legs open... However, it does counteract this slightly by talking about 'girl-power' below. This has the effect of women seeing them as icons and idols and perhaps buying the magazine in order to learn how to be so successful...

No Country For Old Men Coin Toss Analysis - Sound

In this clip from No Country For Old Men, Chigurh walks into a gas station and asks the man at the till to call a coin toss, the man does not realise but he is calling it for his life.

In this scene, there is actually no non-digetic sound used. Only digetic sound is used, this could be in order to build suspense in the silence between the dialogue. When neither character is speaking, the silence creates a sense of feeling uneasy, like the feeling the man in the gas station would actually be feeling in this situation.

The dialogue itself is quite quiet and both characters have low voices, this has the effect of building tension because you find yourself on the edge of your seat, waiting to see what is said next... The other digetic sounds used also help to biuld suspense. For example, Chigurh's footsteps at the beginning of the clip when he first walks into the gas station. You cannot yet see him, the camera focuses on the attendant, but you can hear his slow footsteps as he approaches the till. This can have the effect of making the viewer question who is going to appear as they might expect that the director would try to throw them off track with a red herring, so they might expect it to be someone other than Chigurh.

The sound of the coin being tossed in this scene also appears to help the director build that sense of uneasiness and tension. This high-pitched 'ding' helps to break up the dialogue, which is quite soft and gentle. This juxtapositioning of sounds sort of throws the viewer off track, surprising them slightly. You do not actually see Chigurh ge the coin out of his pocket so you do not expect the sudden 'ding'. This could be used to break the tension in this scene to then build it back up with the dialogue, like a false climax.

Thriller Opening Mind Map

Here is a mind map I did when we were first given the task of thinking up the opening of a thriller movie. I have included various films to look at for inspiration for some of the ideas...

Rough Edit Screening

On thursday 25th November we screened our rough edit of our thriller to other media and college students. We hope to gain constructive criticism as well as some positive feedback from this session so we can make our final edit the best it can be.

Here are the feedback questions that were handed out to viewers:

What did you think was going on during the film?


What do you think the rest of the story might be?


What are your thoughts on the characters? (whether you liked them, your interpretation of them)


Do you think the music was appropriate for what was happening in the film?


What was your favourite aspect of the film?


What improvements do you think we could make to the film?



The feedback we got was mainly positive, the criticims were mostly about the length of the first few shots panning round the woods... People seemed to think it was too long and started to get bored.. We hope to overcome this by putting our credits/title at this point, not at the end of the film which was where we originally planned to have it.

People also liked the part where Rhys is looking around and seeing the gas mask wearing figure everywhere. Some people thought that there was supposed to be many different gas mask figures surrounding Rhys and did not understand that the figure is a figment of Rhys' imagination. This is the effect we were trying to achieve as the viewer would then think that the gas mask figure is real and it would be a good twist to the story when they find out that she is merely a hallucination.

It was also good to watch the openings that the other groups in our class had created. We can take inspiration from aspects of their openings that we like such as transitions and effects and include them in our final edit.

Thriller Questionnaire Analysis

As a group we analysed our questionnaire and how useful it had been to us, where we went wrong and what we could change / improve.

1) Please select your gender…

· We asked for this information to identify the gender of the majority of thriller viewers, different genders would probably require slightly different content within a thriller film.

· We found that within our sample group the majority of thriller film viewers was male.

2) What age category do you fall into?

· We asked for this information to be able to suit our thriller to the majority age category, different age groups will require different content.

· We found that most of the asked audience was aged between 16-18

· Our thriller is intended to be aimed at this audience, as we have included violence and more-adult themes.

3) What type of sub genre (of thriller) do you prefer?

· We asked this question in order to establish what most popular ‘sub-genre’ was among our selected group. We will then be able to write our thriller to suit our target audience.

· The results show that the most popular sub genres are horror and psychological thrillers.

· Our thriller film is going to be psychological.

4) What would you be looking for in a thriller?

• We require this information in order to gain ideas for our thriller, we will consult these ideas (the most popular and relevant) when it comes to writing our thriller.
• The most popular themes within a thriller was gore, unexpected endings and twists.
• Our thriller will therefore include violence and ‘red-herrings’

5) What is a recent thriller film that you have enjoyed?

• This question was asked so that we can get a rough idea of what sort of thriller our main audience would enjoy, we can therefore take inspiration from these films.
• The most popular film was ‘Shutter Island’, selected because of it’s suspense and plot twists.
• We will therefore include these conventions within our thriller to suit our audience.

6) What kind of characters would you expect to be featured within a thriller?

• We can utilise the answers from this question in order to design our characters and what good character conventions an audience is looking for.
• We found that mainly people expect murderers, psychopaths and victims within a thriller.
• We therefore will include these characters; we have created both a villain and a victim.

7) How would you describe an ideal villain? Visually and personality wise.

• We need the information from this question to give us an idea of what our audience is looking for in their ideal villain; we can then meet these expectations when it comes to character design.
• Our results showed that people generally wanted a villain with intelligence and mystery about them.
• In our thriller our villain will be female, dark and mysterious.

8) What is an ideal location for a thriller film in your opinion?

• We can use the information given to determine the best location for our thriller film, according to our audiences expectations.
• Our results identified that people generally wanted a space that was normally associated with safety, in order to make the audience unsure and no longer feel safe.
• One of the second highest rated locations was a forest, where we will be filming our thriller as we feel it fits the story line better.

9) Where is you favourite place to view a film?

• We can use this information to determine what the best hypothetic release for our thriller would be; cinema release, straight to DVD, or simply an exclusive internet release.
• The highest rated place to view a film was the cinema.
• This means that if we were to release the film the best way would be to release the film in the box office, so that it would attract more of an audience.

10) Which would you rather do? (Various different places to purchase or see a thriller film)

· As the previous question, we can use this information to determine what the best hypothetic release for our thriller would be; cinema release, straight to DVD, or simply an exclusive internet release.

· Again, people chose to view a film once at the cinema.

· This means that we would release our thriller in the cinema as it would probably be more successful that way.

Storyboard

Soundtrack

In our group, Jordan was given the task of finding a soundtrack for our thriller opening. We took inspiration from the trailer for the game Dead Space in which there is a lullaby-like song being sung by a small child, then there are sudden screeching noises that coincide with the video at the flashbacks... He found some copyright-free music on freeplay, but it was not long enough or exaclty what we wanted so he edited it on garage band on the macs... The soundtrack he created could not be just put onto the video as we had not yet edited the film together so we did not know when the flashback sounds had to be but we contered this by just cutting up the soundtrack and just putting it in the correct place during editing on final cut express...

Thriller Questionaire

Media Questionnaire

View more documents from MissBehaviour.

This is our group's media questionairre for part of our audience research

Thriller Script

In our thriller opening, we decided not to have any talking or digetic sound. We are relying soley on the music to create the correct atmosphere. Our thriller is a psychological thriller, so a lack of dialogue, we decided as a group, would give the effect we wanted. We thought it would be much more powerful to have some non-digetic sound as this can create the effetc of warping the viewer's perceptions. Our masked character's sense of mystery would be improved with a lack of voice too.

Prelim Task - The Passing Hat

Shooting Schedule

2:30pm

• Arrive at Cawston Heath
• Begin to set up all of the required equipment

2:45pm

• Begin filming the flashbacks - Gas mask woman and Rhys

3:15pm

• Begin filming the rest of the thriller opening - Gas mask woman and Rhys

4:00pm

• Pack away equipment

Character Backgrounds

Here are the links for the Character backgrounds of the lady in the gas mask and Rhys on Catrin's blog...

Location, Location, Location....

We went to look for locations around the Reepham area... We found a couple of places in Reepham but the brambles and other plants were too overgrown. We had a look near Cawston on Marsham Heath and have decided to film there...

Here are some pictures of the location we are filming at:

This location has been selected as it uses the conventions of a thriller in that it is in a big crater, which refers to the feeling of being trapped...

Also, the trees could represent bars, another thriller convention...

Casting Choises

Rebekah Bigwood as The Lady in the Gas Mask

Becky from our group has been chosen to play The Lady in the Gas Mask. Our reasons for this include the fact of convenience, as it's easier to choose somebody from our group to be apart of our film as then we don't need to sort out filming schedules with a lot of people. By view of appearance, Becky is a good choice as she has a feminine build to clearly show that the character in the gas mask is a woman. She is also fairly tall, which adds to the character's feature of intimidation and power – this goes against many film conventions of women being submissive and powerless to the comparison of men. Also she has longish brown hair which is a feature we wanted for the character, and extends on what she and her features represent i.e. brown hair is fairly generic and not necessarily modern which could build on the fact that gas masks were also used in wars a long time ago which perhaps could represent the duration that this woman has existed. There is also the point that Becky owns the appropriate clothing and props to be used for her character.
In high school I worked with Becky in making videos for certain subject projects and she is a very agreeable person to work with and also holds fairly good acting skills.

Jos Banham as Rhys

Again, for convenience we decided to choose Jos to play the character Rhys to prevent having to arrange a filming schedule with people outside of our group. Rhys is a character that looks fairly normal but in fact is not; and Jos is pretty ordinary looking and has a fairly casual personality which fits the appearance of our character. As Rhys is meant to look fairly ordinary, but in actual fact is not. He is also relatively tall and has dark hair, so could come across as frightening and suspicious is filmed in the proper way to emphasis this. We chose this kind of character in order to show the audience that ordinary-looking people can have severe background stories and problems; the casting of Jos allows us to create this illusion of a normal person.