Theorists Linking With My Short Film

A genre theorist who links strongly to my short film is Barry Keith Grant. He stated 'all genres have sub-genres that have familiar and recognisable characteristics'. The link to my piece is that although my film does fit within one conventional genre which is catastrophe, there are small features that merge with other genres. This in a sense is a form of convergence.



With regards to narrative, a theorist who epitomises my film is Tzvetan Todorov. Todorov states that 'every narrative has an equilibrium, a disruption and a new equilibrium'. My film follows a similar narrative, with the equilibrium being the girl walking around following her finding out her boyfriend has cheated on her, the disruption being her killing herself and the new equilibrium being her waking up at the end of the film. The major feature where my film differs from conventionality on this quote is the fact that the equilibrium of the piece could be considered a disequilibrium in many other pieces.



A Representation theorist who's quote links to my short film is Laura Mulvey. Her theory on the male gaze whereby she states 'that women are objectified through the masculine point of view', has some resemblence to aspects of my film. Although I was not attempting to do so, the end of the film when the boyfriend pulls her out of the bath to save her shows the female vulnerability (death in this case) and the reliance on the male individual (saving her from death).



Dennis Mcquail's view on audience was fascinating, and given the long tail theory and the sense of niche audiences changing drastically, this seemed quite fitting. McQuail states that 'An audience is a 'temporary collective'. The temporary nature of them shows that film is created in the moment and catered for specific people who may be interested in a type. Thus films trying to appeal to huge audiences through specific characteristics will not succeed, given these changes in audience.



Media language had the greatest relevance to my short film. Stuart Hall stated that 'Texts can be encoded by producer and meaning is decoded by audiences'. When I was creating my short film, there were small features which I attempted to place within, almost creating a sign orhint as to what may follow in the narrative. The subtelty of these depends largely on the target audience however as if it is for young audiences, then these codes have to be more obvious so that they can digest them. For an older audience however, the more difficult the code to understand, perhaps the more interesting it is for them to try and decrypt it.