Analysis of ‘Transylmainia’

A convention is something that we associate with a specific genre of films. Vampire films also have conventions. The vampire trailer that I studied was called Transylmainia, a recent film that uses humor to capture its audience. It is about  a group of college kids who went on vacation to Transylvania and have to defeat vampires whilst they are there.

The filmic techniques used are the tradition low key lighting and dark music. These are often used because it makes the film seem more sinister and scary. Also, the techniques used are similar to that of other vampire films and a wide range of camera shots have been used. Such as close ups, long shots, medium shots and reaction shots.

Iconography is also very important in films, in vampire films they generally use coffins, fangs, pale faces, full moons, lightning and more often that not it is set in a dark castle. Transylmainia is no different and still uses all of this. Also in this trailer they use steam trains and a horse and carriage, this has been lifted from the Dracula film. As this film uses humor, they have made a joke about the vampire having no reflection, which again, has been lifted from the film Dracula.

However,  in order to keep people interested, the film maker must change certain aspects of the film so you are not just watching the same film over and over again. But at the same time must keep some things the same so that people recognize what genre it belongs too.  In this film the difference is that the vampires did not fly and also did not turn into bats, so there is a slight twist to the film.

The narrative of the film is the plot and structure, it also is any predictable situation that occurs. A predictable situation in this film is that the vampires try to kill people and a vampire slayer tries to defeat them. The conflicts and resolution also seem the same as any other vampire film from what we can see in the trailer. We can not tell if the whole narrative is the same as the trailer only picks out the best bits to show.

Stock characters are similar types of characters in certain genre of films. In this film the stock characters are the vampires, the vampire slayer and the victims. Most of these are portrayed in the same way, except from the victims. As they are college kids they give off the impression of being ‘unpure’.

Transylmainia is a hybrid film as it is two genres in one, and the plots have been mixed. In this film the main themes are sex and humor. The element of sex is generally used in a vampire film. Whereas, usually they are out to scare the audience, this film aims to make people laugh.

Like many other vampire films this is set mainly at night, because as we know vampires can not face the daylight or they die.  Also, it is set at Halloween which adds to the creepy feel. Also it is set in Transylvania, which is generally where vampire films are set, as vampires originate from Eastern Europe.

Star Wars V Swede Evaluation

For our Film Studies project we had to remake a film, the film we chose was Star Wars V.  Considering the time limit we had to complete this, I think we done a reasonably good job as one of us had ever made a swede before and so could not anticipate how difficult this was going to be. We thought it was a simple matter of writing a script and then just filming it. Although, we had to get the actors together and take so many different shots from different angles so we had the ones we needed. We then started to make the film and were faced with many problems.

First of all, nobody in our group had ever acted before and because we had such little time, we just had to make do with using ourselves as the actors. To overcome this problem we only had two main characters so the others in the group could work the camera and direct the film. Also, it was easier  to control what two people were doing and get them in the shot, rather than having lots of people.

Lighting in our film also could have worked out better. Because we were filming over the series of a few days, the weather changed and where we were filming outside, the shots do not quite match up. Also, we were meant to be in space and the lighting was very bright which didn’t really work. If we were to do it again, I would make sure that we filmed the shots outside on the same day so that the lighting was the same and maybe found somewhere that looked more like where we were meant to be.

Also, the sound in our film was incredibly hard to do, because of course we were not on earth. Also, sometimes we forgot to use the external microphone and so some unwanted sound was picked up on the internal one. Finding sounds to dub over our film was also hard as we had to make them ourselves.

Costume and props was also a really hard part of making our film, before we chose what film we were going to make, we should have thought about how easy it would be to find the things we need. Although, I think we manages quite well with what we had, and in the time span we had as well.

When we were trying to edit the film the camera we begun filming with would not connect to the computer. Then we thought it would just be simple as we could remove the tape from that camera and put it into another one and connect that one to the computer. However, the tape was stuck in the camera and so we could not get the data onto the computer in order to edit it.

By making this film I have realized that it is not as easy as it seems, and also that you need a plan before you start. If we were to do it again, I would sort out a better plan, and use our time wisely.