Textual Analysis:Red Lights (2012)

This textual analysis focuses on the opening scenes to the 2012 film, Red Lights by title designer Jorge Calvo. By analysing this title sequence, I will be able to assess what works well for a title sequence and what does not represent or ''fit in'' with the storyline. This title sequence will also give me idea of what route I would like to go down with my title sequence. 


Synopsis

Dr. Margaret Matheson and her partner, Tom Buckley are the world's foremost investigators of paranormal phenomena. Professional sceptics, they have debunked dozens of fraudulent mind readers, ghost hunters, faith healers and the like by detecting what Matheson calls red lights, subtle clues to the trickery behind each of these supernatural occurrences.

But when the legendary blind psychic Simon Silver comes out of retirement after 30 years, his once-fearless adversary Matheson warns Buckley to back off. Suspecting that the charismatic, spoon-bending mind reader was involved in the mysterious death of his most vociferous critic three decades earlier, she considers him far too dangerous to confront.

source: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1748179/synopsis

Red Lights (2012) - Art Of The Title

Firstly, the title sequence starts rather plainly, with just a few key names of those involved in the film appearing on a black background. Following this a pair of hands appears within a small spot light, behind the text, becoming the key feature of the shot and adding just a small amount of white, creating a sense of some good intention or ''heavenly'' aspect to the film. The shadow of the hands is, however, quickly replaced by the dark background and white text almost immediately after it appears, only accounting for a few seconds of the title sequence before it is abruptly cut and the titles of actors continues. The use of this shot may also suggest that the story is going to based on a specific individual in which others are interested or who has a significant story to tell.

When the title of the film is actually shown, the reappearing white ''lense-flare'' type lighting turns to red, obviously matching the name of the title. The lights are shown to be both focused and unfocused potentially suggesting that the storyline is not all it seems and is connected by ideas that are certain and motives that are slightly less certain or unclear to those in the plot, creating the perfect thriller storyline of uncertainty, danger and leads that both follow the plot and create dramatic plot twists. The title ''Red Lights'' refers to the idea in the plot line of two investigators of paranormal phenomena, who are professional sceptics,  chasing down fraudulent mind readers, ghost hunters, faith healers, etc, and finding their ''red lights'' - subtle clues to the trickery behind each of these supernatural occurrences.



A main focus of the title sequence is an eye, in which we only see the pupil and iris against the dark background. By only seeing this part of the eye, so deep and closely, there could be connotations to the idea of the film following the supernatural profession and how they are associated with ''seeing into the future'', ''seeing into the past'' and ''seeing into the soul''. This would create the effect of hinting towards the audience that they are going to see the ideas but in a different way than they anticipate. For example, the background and the pupil are both black without any kind of detail, this could suggest that the audience are going to see the darker side of the supernatural and experience truths that they would have never have associated with the profession in a negative light. The feature of only black and white colours could also support this idea. 



Another symbol displayed in the title sequence is a crucifix. This could symbolise that the supernatural is linked to the doctrine of creation, religion and the creator, God. For example, the idea of ghosts and spirits links into the idea of a heaven, hell and purgatory (a place between Heaven and Hell, where the soul is not bad enough to be sent to an eternity of damnation in Hell, but not good enough to go to Heaven, so it is sent there temporarily where the person suffers, and is purified so that it can be sent to Heaven). The crucifix could also symbolise purity, which the two investigators are trying to achieve by chasing down the fraudulent professionals within the business and removing them of their ''red lights''.

 Possibly following the idea of ghosts and spirits, Jorge Calvo then adds a male face the sequence, which is continuously moving and blurring to create the blurred polaroid below. The face looks rather fierce and angry, perhaps a ghost or spirit that is hunted by the ghost hunters, using the polaroid photo for evidence of his existence. The male is also very stern
 and unforgiving in his looks, possibly creating a sense of a ''red light''. The fact that the picture is also a polaroid photo implies that those who are part of the paranormal profession stick to the old traditional way of doing things, with the added motive of their ''red lights'' that create a cheat way of performing their talent. 

The blurred photograph has a lack of features to create the ''ghost-like'' look that the paranormal professionals are hunting, however this lack of features may also suggest that the profession is a con as clearly no identity can be found from this photograph and no specifics are revealed. 


The non-diegetic music that accompanies the title sequence is quite discordant and creates tension to add to the array of  different objects and images flashed up throughout the opening. The music is very typical of a thriller film, very strong/regal but with hints of little sounds or noises that make the audience feel uncomfortable or build tension before the film has even started. This title sequence involves sounds high pitched tones, possibly supplied by a violin, to create an uncomfortable atmosphere and also uses a drum beat to keep the pace of the opening sequence.

Thriller Opening: Filming Day 3

The aim of today's shooting schedule was to film all the indoor shots needed for our piece. We filmed our shots in the interior of my house, and used my sisters room to film in, due to it being more appropriate for the story line. We also used the satanic symbols, drawn by a friend, in the room to hint at the idea of the ''thing'' under the bed being more than just a coincidence. 

We managed to film all the shots we intended to and stuck to the shots on the shooting schedule. We were also able to experiment with the mirror and how we could create different meanings with use of the mirror from different angles. We were also able to experiment with shots from within the wardrobe and the room altogether before the character had even entered, which gave our thriller opening more depth due to the fact that we had tried this alternative shots, rather than the average midshot.

We didn't problems with filming, apart from the fact that Jake couldn't make it, as we had planned carefully how we would work around things. The only challenging aspect was trying to ensure the cat did not ruin shots by making noises whilst we were filming, which occasionally proved difficult due to the fact that Oliver was new to him and he was intrigued. Overall, filming went very smoothly and we filmed the correct amount of shots to finish our film as well as some surplus shots to experiment with.

Thriller Opening: Filming Day 2

The location of filming today was the street that I live on as we needed to continue to film the journey home of the female character, and it made more sense to do this in this location (as we will be filming inside my house) than use a different location and try to fit the exterior of my house into the context of that location.

We decided to keep this part of filming short and snappy, but with a lot of extra shots as both Jake and Oliver lived in different areas and would need to find alternative ways of getting home. 

We started off by filming our female character walking up the street, filming at roughly the same time for continuity in the darkness if the scene, and walking to the house. We shot many different angles and ways of creating this journey so we would have many different options when it came to sequencing our film and putting together our final piece. 

We also got shots of the character opening the door and going inside as we thought this would complete the journey, rather than filming it when we filmed the inside shots, as it would be better for continuity and made more sense with the flow of what we had filmed already. 

Much of the filming done today was central to getting the last part of the journey done before continuing to film the indoor shots.

Thriller Opening: Filming Day 1

We planned to film our thriller at roughly 5.30pm and film until we felt the lighting was not longer appropriate for the scene or until it was too dark to create any affect.

Unfortunately, Jake could not make this day of filming due to other commitments, so Oliver and I headed into the town centre to film part one of our outdoor shots. We took the basic equipment we needed (DSLR Nikon Camea, LED Light attachment for DSLR, standard tripod) to the location we had decided best to create the best feel and tension for the storyline.

We decided to film down by our local theatre as it had quite a sinister feel, and led to a bridge which we felt we could get some good shots on to coincide with our idea of harnessing peoples fears. These shots would be used for the first 45seconds (approx.) of our film and will follow the journey home of our character (a 17 year old girl).

We managed to film all our outdoor shots for this part of the journey without any problems, despite having to work around the public and them commuting home. We filmed a lot more shots than we needed for our thriller and shot many of the same shots a few times so that we could choose the best looking one for the final sequence of our thriller. However, our footage looks rather yellow due to the street lights in the area so we will need to alter the colour and saturation of the clips before rendering and exporting the final piece.

Overall, filming went as planned and did not cause any problems for us or the storyline of our film.

Regional Identity

For our thriller opening, we need to consider the way that our regional identity will affect the way the thriller is interpreted by others. Although the regional identity of our piece cannot be changed, we need to make sure it makes sense to the story line and fits in with the mise-en-scene.

Below I studied a few regional identities and how they are represented now, compared with the past.

Thriller Opening: Defining And Reaching Our Audience

For our thriller opening we need to have a specific audience that we want to target and reach out to. As a group we sat down to think about the different groups of people that we felt most suited to the plan of our thriller.

We concluded that we should aim for an audience roughly our age. As a certificate, we believe we would give our thriller an age rating of 15, therefore we can explore mature ideas and thriller conventions without being too explicit or inappropriate. Our thriller target audience is also aimed at the niche audience of late teens, the thriller targets those who take for granted the comfort of their own home, the safety of familiarity by turning everyday fears into a reality. Using the film Mirrors as an initial model to play on the audiences fears we can create a sense of realistic horror, this would be scarier than making a monster-thriller and we can experiment greatly with readily available items such as mirrors, beds and wardrobes.

We decided we would reach our audience by advertising primarily on Netflix and after shows such as ''The Fall'' and ''Sherlock'' by creating a sequence of clips that are aimed to access deep-rooted phobias and horrors of the past. By getting a contract with Google and websites we could use cookies and key words so whenever somebody types in “phobias” or “clowns” somebody expressing their fears, they see an advertisement for Under The Bed, this will fear and interest them. Using demographics we can reach young adults 15 to 20 year olds by advertising based on our common audiences interest. For example 8pm until 11pm on BBC3 and Channel 5 frequently to extensively hit our target audience.

  To advertise we could use a guerrilla marketing scheme where we place people’s obvious fears in public places in an attempt to scare them and advertise our film more. Using word of mouth and viral marketing with video clips and this unique idea buzz would get generated easier.

Technically we could begin with a montage of people’s phobias; spiders and clowns, heights and being buried alive, this will immediately set the tone and register of the film, it’s psychologically teasing and will intrigue a lot of the audience initially. Followed by the quote “an eye for an eye makes the entire world blind” by Gandhi which is the metaphor and theme, notion and morals behind the creation of Under The Bed.

The Kuleshov Effect

The Kuleshov Effect is the idea that the cut away in a scene can change the meaning of a simple emotion. This helps viewers to derive a deeper meaning from a sequence of shots rather than just watching it and experiencing the expected emotion.

 Me, Oliver and Jake attempted to create our own version of the Kuleshov Effect, using simple scenes that ultimately displayed different emotions. We did this as we thought it was important to understand the use of cutaways and how they can shape a scene before filming our thriller opening for our AS Coursework.





 ''The Kuleshov Effect is a film editing (montage) effect demonstrated by Russian filmmaker Lev Kuleshov in the 1910s and 1920s.It is a mental phenomenon by which viewers derive more meaning from the interaction of two sequential shots than from a single shot in isolation.'' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuleshov_Effect

I feel we successfully managed to create a Kuleshov experiment that changed the meaning of the smile with the use of 3 independent cutaways that all held different meanings. Another famous example of the Kuleshov Experiment is Alfred Hitchcock's video...