Been a bit quiet on the blogging front and that's because for the last week I've been working on clarifying what my thesis is actually aiming to do. It's taken me eight drafts to get this right. I won't bore you with the details but for anyone who is interested. This is the nuts and bolts of what I've been researching for the last year and a half and what I will be working on for the next three and half years:
Identification, Self-Consciousness and
Proof in the ‘First-Person’ Contemporary Horror Film
My investigation will focus on the use
of the mock-documentary format in contemporary horror cinema, and more
specifically on those films such as The
Blair Witch Project (Myrick and Sanchez, 1999), Paranormal Activity (Peli, 2007) and Cloverfield (Reeves, 2008) that create the impression of a
character within the film being in control of the camera. It is my aim to
analyse the aesthetic, technological and perceptual elements of these films in
order to:
- Ascertain all the key influences on the body of films studied here as concerns production, reception and aesthetics
- Establish who or what the audience is encouraged to identify with when viewing the films and why this identification occurs
- Establish the aesthetic, technological and psychological means by which the audience is primed for the viewing experience of these films
- Ascertain how the level of self-consciousness (e.g. the characters’ awareness that they are being filmed) impacts on the viewing experience and thought processes of the viewer
- Determine how video recording technology is used as a method to gain proof and often fails in the task of collecting evidence of the supernatural by the characters in the film
So that's it bascially. That's what I'm spending five years of my life and a shitload of money on. If anyone does have an interest in seriously academic analysis, I will try and do the occasional update on this but I can completely understand if you think this sounds desperately boring and pretentious. And if so, my humble apologies!Meanwhile in completely unrelated news, have you seen the Skyfall teaser?
What do you reckon, best Bond ever? Well until Nolan grabs the reins (fingers crossed)!
