The Butterfly Effect(2004)

Genre
The genre is Thriller I focused on this because I have already analysed
two horrors and decided I needed to draw upon some thriller ideas in
our horror/thriller piece. During the film upsetting and sometimes even
scary themes take place keeping the audience on edge, this is typical of
a thriller. The Butterfly Effect falls under Steve Neale's genre theory
perfectly as there is guaranteed meaning and pleasure of the
uncertainty of events and tension that builds throughout repetition
because the same blueprint is used for most thrillers, this can also be
explained as recognition of familiar elements.
 Narrative
The narrative in the film is extremely original and unique.
During the film, the main protagonist who can travel back in
time by reading his journals and changing what happened
then, and uses this ability to try to undo various traumatic
events he and his friends suffered as children. With our trailer
we are going to try and use some of the themes from the
butterfly effect, the trailer is very hectic, taking that into
consideration it would be difficult to use this as it requires a lot
of varied camera shots of different situations. When filming we
will look to do less shots making them longer which in term will
cause tension, which is a convention of the thriller genre.
Representation
Throughout the trailer, men and woman are seen fairly equal. Despite
this the film takes an old style narrative as the main protagonist
attempts to save a weak woman by going back In time risking his life,
this is putting her into the role of the damsel in distress this is seen in
many films and makes the males look stronger in the eyes of the media.
Another representation shown within the trailer is mental illnesses, the
trailer shows them as crazy criminals, this is a negative representation
but it also falls in line with Stuart Halls preferred reading as within the
media this is how they portray people with mental illnesses, this is done
by placing them in mental homes etc.
 Audience and
institutions
The Butterfly Effects directors were Eric Bress, J Mackye Gruber and
Ashton Kutcher (played the main protagonist) helped out when
directing. This will be similar to ours because of the small size of the
production the actors will have their say and give their opinion on what
is happening when filming. The film was hugely successful as it had a 13
million (USD) budget and it made 17 million (USD) only in the opening
weekend. The film is targeted at the young adult late teen age bracket
like most horror thrillers, this partly due to it being a 15 age rating
within the UK. Due to the this trend we will target our film at this age
range as it would in theory have the most commercial success.
Inception (2010)
 Genre
Lastly, I have gone for another thriller as I wanted to be able to focus on
the thriller aspect of our trailer and really like the idea of building
tension as I feel it makes people want to watch a film after watching. It
fits well within the genres conventions as we see scenes from across the
world and the growing tension. When making our trailer we will be
limited on locations and have to stay mainly within our area due to
budget restrictions so will have to do great work on camera and editing
to compromise and make our trailer as professional and entertaining as
possible. Steve Neale declares that 'genres are instances of repetition
and difference. Inception falls under this as the film takes the role of a
main protagonist who attempts to save the world whilst a fresh
narrative is being portrayed making the difference for the viewers.
 Narrative
During the film theirs is multiple different narratives taking place within the
one film, this would have made it difficult for the producers when making the
trailer, despite this they done good job and within the trailer you can see how
the film uses Propp's theory, the theory explains how in films their our 8 main
characters and we can see this within the trailer as DiCaprio takes the place of
the main hero protagonist, we can also see him helping a female who is playing
the role of the damsel in distress this is another character that is explained
within Propp's eight character narrative theory. Propps theory has influenced
many filmmakers by using the theory as almost a blueprint for the characters
and the role they play within the narrative, because of this I am going to try
and incorporate this theory into our trailer as I believe it works and makes for a
good narrative, it will also aid our storyline and make it easier for the audience
to understand.
 Representation
Throughout the film, different people are represented throughout, using
Stuart Halls theory we see that the producers tailor make the films to
show people how they believe they are so the audience watching make
opinions based on what has taken place on screen. This is read by the
audience as preferred oppositional or negotiated. For example in the
film we see DiCaprio as a strong character who is saving the world from
either. This is the preferred reading of white men in the media and can
be seen doing a similar hero role across films and television. Another
theory is Laura Mulveys male gaze, this talks about voyeurism and how
films are made to show females as objects and dehumanizes them. This
doesnt take place in the trailer and will not be taking place in ours as we
feel it is an old outdated way of making a film successful or appear
better.
 Audience and
institutions
Inception was directed by Christopher Nolan the well known director for The Dark
Knight Rises. The film was a joint venture as three production companies worked to
make the final film, these were Warner Bros. Legendary Entertainment and Syncopy
Inc. This would have made the film easier to make as the budget would be higher
than if only one production company made the film. The budget was estimated to be
160million (USD) the film released in July and made 292,568,851 million (USD) by
late the same year making the film a huge commercial success. The plot appealed to
both Genders but because of the action packed excitable scenes the film was mainly
targeted at males between the age of 16-37. We know this because they advertised
the film in Empire magazine which is a mainly male read magazine. Due to modern
increase in technological convergence and the huge success of the film it had a lot of
buzz around blog sites and social media sites like Twitter and Facebook