Cape Fear (1961)

Cape Fear at IMDb

"Small-town lawyer Sam Bowden's life becomes torturous when Max Cady re-enters his life. Cady went to jail for 8 years after Bowden testified that Cady attacked a young woman. Now that Cady has been released, he begins to terrorize Bowden and his family, particularly targeting Bowden's daughter, Nancy. Initially, Cady uses his newfound knowledge of the law (learned in prison) to annoy the Bowdens, then poisons the family dog... Who's next ?"

After watching this film I noticed some similarities with the plot of our project. Here are a number of things it has in common:

• A notable disparity between civilisation and the wild
• A protagonist pursued relentlessly by someone/something from their past
• Horror based on shock and suspense
• A final "showdown" set far from the city/home of the characters

A useful thing for our group would be to consider how it presents some of these features. The final scenes where Bowden confronts Cady emphasise the natural setting by having the action take place right in the water and the dense woods, compared to the beginning, which is set almost entirely indoors. We can use this method in our teaser trailer by accentuating how the locations we use are at different places in the narrative, for example something we already know of which is the contrast in colour of the forest shots and indoor shots.

Our teaser already has shock and suspense, but before we are too heavily influenced by the shocks in Cape Fear (such as the camera quickly revealing a woman's bruised face) we have to remember that what was shocking in the early 1960s is not shocking today as we live in a world with films like Hostel and Saw. Obviously cutting off limbs etc. is out of our capabilities in filming but by combining shock with well thought out suspense we can enhance how frightening the shocks are. I think an effective way of building up tension, as we do not have much running time to build a whole set piece, is through music. At present we only have one piece of music, running uninterrupted throughout the trailer. If we alter this slightly and choose exactly where the music shall reach its climax so it is synchronised with the action, the shocks will be more effective. Of course we have to keep our film atmospherically scary as detailed in earlier posts so we cannot overdo this.

How are features of a film website arranged?

The Shining

This website of The Shining is from a larger Warner Bros. hub and is sorted by director; it is on the Stanley Kubrick page, who has a heavy influence on the webpage. His name comes up in bold capitals at the top of the page, because the style of The Shining is highly specific to Kubrick and the title-like presentation of the director categorises the film into that style on the website as well.
The bulk of the page is taken up by a trailer and synopsis, the two largest elements of a site in terms of explaining the film to the user. The scrolling synopsis allows the components of the site to be fitted in compactly into one screen, attracting a more casual audience to read it.
As many other film sites are, this is very commercial. The page has several links to buy films from warner bros. and links to other productions on the larger hub, maximising the sales and only providing the basic information.
Our film currently looks like it could lean towards two kinds of target audience. 1: An audience who like coded horror, for example, The Wicker Man, where wilderness and civilisation parallel insanity and sanity as in our teaser. 2: An audience who watch movies like The Grudge, as the lingering image of the girl in the dark is very similair to other contemporary horrors involving young girls as monsters. We will choose one of two very different website styles to direct the film to its target audience, using similarities to films like The Wicker Man and The Grudge to mould that style.

Teaser Trailer (WIP)

Ancillary Task research - What are the features of modern film websites?

Donnie Darko



I chose this film in particular because it is similair to ours, in that an entity exists in some part in the character's mind. The site creates an unnatural atmosphere by using interactive elements, such as the very first part; Donnie is shown in a fake but believable Windows Internet Explorer pop up, and the viewer has to mouse over a button and click it to proceed. The sequence of orders are unsettling to the viewer because it is as if the film is taking over their computer. This is successful in the sense that it creates an ideal mood for its audience, but restricting because it is time-consuming and difficult to find ordinary information about the film, which would not work for us in our ancillary task as we ideally want to create an initial homepage that links to more specific areas of information about our film.

The Blair Witch Project



This website is much more of a simple accessible site than the Donnie Darko site. First, a few lines pop up: "Celebrating the tenth anniversary..." etc. that would not apply to our film. However, when the user reaches the main page after 20 sec or so of titles, it is very simple; containing headers leading to the areas "Mythology" "The filmmakers" "Aftermath" and "Legacy". These subjects are intrinsic to the plot and concept of the film, and make the website similair to the Donnie Darko site, in the way it shows a log of events involving the forest, for example, which let the ordinarily imaginary content of the film intrude on to the user's computer, the same place they would get information about real life, although the button on the homepage "order now" dispells the illusion and makes the page more commercial, a real fault in the website.

1408



This is a much more conventional movie site. Following the link first takes the user to what is essentially an advertisement, with snippets from reviews and stills from the movie on one page. After clicking the "Enter site" button, there is another page showing the theatrical trailer of the movie, then after this finishes, the poster of the film is the background to the page. The user then has to click "Enter site" again, which takes them to the main site which is pictured above. A "room service menu" contains links to "trailer" "synopsis" "cast & crew" "photos" and "tv spots". It also makes very clear the stars John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson's names beneath this. The links provide a more casual source of information about the film, most likely targeted at an audience who are interested in the film or have seen it and want to know more, and the links provide some simple information and features for this audience. In contrast to the previous two sites, there is much less content that brings the film into the real life of the user; it is more centric on the commercial interests of the consumer. Considering 1408 was less of a success than Donnie Darko and The Blair Witch project, perhaps the choice of website features was not as much of a success either.

From this research, it seems that films similair to ours in concept and tone can have websites as high concept as the films, and the main aim of these websites is to create an atmosphere that brings the film close to reality. Also, the weaknesses of these websites are that in making a fourth-wall breaking bridge from film to user, it detracts from the movie's identity as a film and its commercialness by not having any black and white sections like "about" "cast" and such. At this stage our website should somehow bridge the gap between commercialness and an atmospheric creation.