Theory Notes - 14th November 2018

CULT FILM

Cult Films have limited but very special appeal. Cult films are usually strange, quirky, offbeat, eccentric, oddball, or surreal, with outrageous, weird, unique and cartoon like characters or plots, and garish sets. They are often considered controversial because they step outside standard narrative and technical conventions. They can be very stylized, and they are often flawed or unusual in some striking way.

Most cult films cut across many film genres (science fiction, horror, melodrama, etc.), although some film genres are also more prone to being cultish, such as the horror or sci-fi genres. Teen comedies are also more often rated as cult films, such as as American graffiti (1973) , (National Lampoon's) Animal House (1978), Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), and Dazed and Confused (1993), with quotable lines of dialogue, and memorable characters and scenes. A sampling of the wide range of film genres (and sub-genres) covered by cult films includes:

Cult Road films: Easy rider 1969

Two-Lane Blacktop (1971)

Cult Musical: The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

Tommy (1975)

Pink Floyd: The Wall (1982)

The sound of music (1965) the - 'sing-along' version

Cult Blaxploitation: Shaft (1971)

Cult Westerns: Johnny Guitar (1954)

Cult Teen 'Chick-Flicks':

Heathers (1989)

Clueless (1995)

Mean girls (2004)

Cult Sci-Fi: Blade Runner (1982),

Repo Man (1984)

Cult Comedy: Harold and Maude (1971)

Pee Wee's Big Adventure (1985)

Cult Documentary or

Exploitation: Reefer Madness (1936)

Showgirls (1995)

Task 1- Audience theory & planning

Reception Types

· Psychologist David Moorley

· 70’s and 80’s

· How audiences reacted to television programming

· Preferred or Dominant reading, Negotiated reading, Oppositional reading

Uses and gratifications

· Blumer and Katz 1974

· 4 simple needs or wants

· Diversion – need to escape their own reality

· Personal relationship – Media being used to fulfil personal and social relationships

· Personal identity – Media being used to find out more about yourself

· Surveillance – Using media to educate us, finding out about what is going on around us

Cultivation theory

· George Gerbner – Mid 1960’s, he studied whether watching television influences viewers and to what extent

· Ideas of what the everyday world is like

· Attitudes ideas and values become normalised or ‘naturalised’

· Accepted rather than considered or questioned

· The audience becomes desensitised over time towards harmful / violent representations

· Cultivation theorists argue that television has long-term effects that are gradual and indirect but cumulative

· Desensitisation

Hypodermic needle theory

· "Hypodermic needle theory" - mass media had a direct, immediate and powerful effect on its audiences.

· Mass media in the 1940s and 1950s, perceived as a powerful influence on behavior change.

· Passive audience

· People believe whatever ‘the magic box says’

· No individual differences

· Emotional interference

Presentation

We worked in teams of three to create an idea for our ‘Don’t dream it, be it’ project. We have the challenge to come up with a cult film screening idea which we have now pitched to our audience by a presentation.

During preparation the key aspects we need to think about are:

· Audience profiling – Demographic, Physiographic and socio-economics

· Strong market research – qualitive and quantitative results

· Mainstream and possible alternative niche audiences

We chose the film ‘A nightmare before Christmas’ We thought this was very appropriate as our given date is either the 19th of December or the 9th on January. We propose to screen ours on the 19th of December because this is a perfect time due to our chosen film.

We were contemplating a few popular cult films to begin with such as Pulp fiction, kill bill and the original Charlie and the chocolate factory. We narrowed down the pro’s and con’s reflectively and in the end we made a decision. We chose ‘A nightmare before Christmas’ after reflectively debating as a team on our mandatory demographic.

We discussed how we would actually be able to create a successful and suitable interactive screening with films such as kill bill and pulp fiction. We have to keep in mind significant scenes and prominent ideology in order to set the atmosphere during our interactive screening as a representation of the film, for example; Charlie and the chocolate factory – we could have a large range of chocolate bars with golden tickets inside and who ever gets the most golden tickets wins a prize etc.. we decided this would be overly difficult with kill bill or pulp fiction due to the overuse of drugs abuse and violence. This would make our job extra difficult when creating an interactive screening for these certain films as their ideology is not so appropriate for our demographic.

Our screening will not only be shown to 2nd years (17-19yrs old) but it will also be shown to the 1st years where by the vast majority are under 18yrs old. We wanted to screen a film rated age appropriately at PG so that it is 100% suitable for everyone.

In terms of physiographic, we considered people’s values, attitudes, lifestyles and interests. Particularly interests around upcoming December. Everyone is prominently excited in the lead up to Christmas and it is already a topic of conversation, which is why we throughout our idea could be such a success because of its relevancy specifically due to the time of year, as opposed to our other initial ideas that may not be as relatable to everyone to the extent of a Christmas film.

Our presentation included the following:

· Concept

· Activities

· Interaction

· Cost and budget

· Audience research and plan

· Roles and individual roles

· Marketing

My individual role as part of the team was to research and present ideas based on Interactivity and the cost and budget side, i made sure to highlight the fact we will be encouraging people to dress up and get involved by making it cheaper for the people who are in costumes to come and see the interactive screening.

We also highlighted the creative activities we have planned out in our three to try and sell our idea as best we can and intrigue people by doing something different, therefore making it stand out.

A vote was made by the year bellow students and our cult film screening for ' A nightmare before Christmas' happend to be one of the most popular. I predict this is because of timing during the upcoming to the festive season. This is something we took into account when we were picking our film and it managed to pay off.

Our plan