Higher Media

1. Higher Media Categories

2. The Basics • Categories is one on the Seven Key Aspects of Media. • It is further broken down into seven parts: • Medium (e.g. print, television, radio, film, internet…) • Purpose (e.g. to inform, entertain, to persuade, to educate, to gain profit…) • Form ( • Genre • Tone • Style • Other categories

3. Medium • Cinema • Smaller, independent art-house screenings due to the fact that the film is foreign, subtitled. • Intimate viewing relationship with screen allows audience to be completely immersed in viewing with little/no interruptions.

4. Purpose • To entertain and make profit. • Fro del Toro to realise his ambition to create a more ‘pure’ artistic vision free from the constraints of interfering production companies. • This is evidenced by the way he returned his ‘wage’ from the film to financers so that he didn’t have to compromise on his idea for the film.

5. Form • Subtitled, foreign with historical context (Spanish Civil War) film.

6. Genre Think about your knowledge of different genres. Remember that in order to accertain what the genre is we often use conventions and codes evident with the film to classify what genre it falls into. Pan’s Labyrinth is more difficult as it is a: • Hybrid genre. • Fantasy-realism, horror, Gothic fairytale.

7. Looking at the poster to help you and your existing knowledge of genre try to think of the conventions that we would expect to see if we were to go and watch; a horror, a fantasy or a gothic fairytale.

9. See Propp’s character roles and thirty one functions Plot Structure • Initial situation: Once upon a time there was... (who and where) • Introduction of a complication/problem/task • Hero(ine) attempts to address the complication/problem/task • Successful resolution Typical • Hero(ine) has to leave home in order to address the complication • Hero(ine) in human and mortal • Good characters are rewarded in the end • Evil characters are punished in the end • Hero(ine) meets supernatural or magical creatures and uses magical objects, but hero(ine) does not have supernatural or magical powers themself • Magical or supernatural occurences are unremarkable; hero(ine) does not react any differently to such occurences • Magic numbers, especially 3 (or to a lesser extent 7) and its multiples • Characters are nameless or have simple generic names according to profession, social position, or family relation • Inner lives are unimportant (emotions, feelings, inner thoughts are unimportant) • Life histories are unimportant • Every character has a specific function • Third person narration • Past tense

10. Horror • Secluded location • Dominated by darkness • Monster • Characters unaware of threat posed. • Investigates alone. • Features young children – idea of innocence and naivety.

11. Gothic • Weather plays an important part on mood established, mist/fog etc. • Idea of supernatural explored. • Darkness as intrinsic to humanity. • Idea of the outsider. • Ambiguity and ambivalence.

12. Tone • Dark, serious due to the graphic nature of the violence and the dark subject matter.

13. Other categories… • Writer and director is Guillermo del Toro. • Co-produced by The Tequila Gang and Spain’s Estudios Picasso. • This resulted in del Toro’s artistic freedom to do as he pleased without the constraints that many writers find themselves.