Unit 26: Film Studies

Me and My Movies

What genre have I chosen?

The genre I have chosen to do is comedy, the reason I have chosen this genre is because I think everyone loves a good comedy, plus laughing releases endorphin’s which make you feel good on the inside. Comedies are a type of genre where you can watch them over and over again and not get bored where as if you were watching a horror film you already know what happens and the suspense is gone but with comedies it’s all about having a laugh.

Fandom

The term Pepperpots refers to the middle- aged, matronly types played by the men in Monty Python. A Pepperpot is normally overweight and wears old fashioned hats. Pepperpots are given different names in various sketches such as Mrs Premise, Mrs Nesbitt, Mrs Smoker, Mrs Conclusion and Mrs Non- Smoker.

Another Fandom is Laurel and Hardy’s The Sons of the Desert; they are the official international appreciation society. It began in Birmingham in 1953 when a meeting between Laurel and Hardy and a young American student called John McCabe, a friendship began between these three and when John suggested to Stan Laurel that an organisation should be made to promote the study and show the work, The Sons of the Desert was formed.

Intertextuality

What is Intertextuality?

Intertextuality is when you reference text with another text.

How is it used?

It’s used a lot in comedy films; the most famous film that uses Intertextuality is the scary movie franchise. Scary is basically a whole intertextual film because it’s a parody of a selection of horror films and copy’s scenes and situations from famous horror films.

Another film that uses a lot of intertextuality is Epic Movie, this also depicts scenes from other films such as The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Tim Burton’s rendition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Harold and Kumar Get the Munchies.

Social Network

Social networking is a huge part of marketing for films, and is used often, especially in the comedy genre; there are official Facebook pages for films such as The Hangover, Superbad, Bridget Jones, Identity Thief and Silver Linings Playbook. Some of these pages have millions of likes and Facebook also tells you how many people are talking about it so the page creator knows how many people are talking the film.

I also went on twitter and looked for comedy actors and I found a twitter account for Happy Madison which is Adam Sandler’s production company and found that they promoted their films by uploading trailers and posters and progress with new films coming out such as Grown-ups 2, they also have an Instagram account which contains photos of posters, actors and them on set which then builds a buzz around the film which then flocks in the audience to see the film.

Preview/Post Experience

I looked at the film Hot Fuzz and went on www.totalfilm.com and looked at what was written before the film came out, on this website it seems as though there is a lot of hype for this film and people seemed excited for this film, even Total Film itself! They have uploaded trailers and posters to get the word about. When I looked at a video on YouTube I also looked at the comments below and the ones from before the film came out are about how good it looks but the more recent comments state that the trailer shows all the best bits of the film, unfortunately this happens with most trailers but there is also comments saying that the film is amazing. I also had another look on Facebook to see what had been said and it was basically just full of fans posting how much they love the film even now, the last post was on the 12^th of May 13 so even 6 years after the film’s release its still a big hit.

Bibliography

Laurel and Hardy Photo- aramblingguy.wordpress.com

Scary Movie Photo- doblaje.wikia.com

Hot Fuzz- www.imdb.com