Chavez

Adrienne Chavez

Professor McClure

Writing 39B

5/17/2017

The Girl RIP

For this rhetorical analysis assignment, I worked with my group to make a film that

reflected the fears of our intended audience. Our film was made to be shown to my

instructor and peers in the writing 39B English class and so as a group we agreed that we

wanted to create something that would appeal and relate to the majority of our audience.

According to the article Horror Films by Tim Dirks, Senior Editor and Film Reviewer for

AMC Networks, Horror Films are unsettling films designed to frighten and to invoke our

hidden worst fears while captivating and entertaining us at the same time in a cathartic

experience. At this school, midterms are constant and nonstop and so we made the main

issue for out protagonist stress, because she has to balance doing well in school with a

social life. The cultural context of this film is about UCI students in a modern college setting

so that the film could be relatable to the audience. The text that we wrote for this film

focused slightly on dialogue and mostly on setting and actions thats would take place to

make this film fulfill the horror genre characteristics. Most of the dialogue takes place at

the beginning of the film and so words play a small role in the film. The genre of the film is

horror and so we focused our film in less on words and more on action to bring the desired

effect. The setting in out horror film is a trope that can be recognized in a lot of horror

situations according to the website TV Tropes. Our film is an embodiment of anxieties that

modern college students face when choosing to pursue higher education. We wanted our
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film to fulfill the qualities of horror presented in Nol Carrolls article, The Nature of Horror

to show that we understood the standards of the genre.

The purpose of this project is to make a film that would demonstrate my

understanding of the horror genre by fulfilling the typical qualities expected of the horror

genre. In order to do this, my group and I used cultural context to parallel the actual fears

and stress that our audience faces. The cultural context of our film is about a modern

college student at UCI. We focused on the culture that surrounds our audience and

ourselves. Midterms are always constant and so this leaves a lot of us with stress over

studying enough and doing well in class to receive good grades. According to Nol Carroll

in The Nature of Horror, the current ascendancy of the genre of horror may be the mass

popular expression of the same anxiety concerning criteria that preoccupies the more

esoteric forms of postmodernism. This means that the art of horror often focuses on a

popular anxiety among the audience that it is intended for. Many college students face

stress because of the pressure that is placed by them and often times also parents. Many

people feel the need to do the same and fear that there is never enough time to study

enough our do everything as well as they would like. Tim Dirks states [h]orror film can

be extremely potent film forms, tapping into our dream states and the horror of the

irrational and unknown, and the horror within man himself. We accomplished this by

creating a protagonist that is under pressure from her mother to balance everything and do

well in all of her classes. The monster in this film terrorizes the protagonist and other

characters much like stress is constant and is always affecting someone. For out film we

made the monster a metaphor for the stress that terrorizes many college students. The

monster in this film only goes after students that are stressed about school. This
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demonstrates the cyclic patterns of stress among college students and how it will continue

to affect people if we allow it to hurt us.

Another way that we added horror qualities to our film is through the tropes that

we chose to use. One of the main tropes that we used is that the protagonist enters an

abandoned area. According to TV Tropes, an abandoned area creates suspense and

increases the surprise when it turns out that the place isn't really abandoned. This is the

perfect setup to give the character vulnerability and give the monster unmatched strength.

In our film project, the protagonist enters a bathroom alone and is reluctant to leave once

she notices that things are strange despite there being signs that she should leave. The

abandonment helps to build suspense and once it is revealed that the protagonist is not

alone the film is able to invoke fear in the audience. She is alone to witness the monster and

so this creates an uneven struggle between her and this interstitial being. Even when the

protagonist in the film tries to escape, the door does not open and there is no one else

around besides the monster to hear her cries for help or to do anything to stop her from

being attacked. The monster in our film appears to be human girl with some unsettling

attributes that make her a typical horror trope. Her face is never revealed which adds a

sense of mystery and fear that the monster cannot be identified like in slasher films where

the murderer is rarely reveled. Her arms and legs are also covered in blood, which

demonstrate that some damage has been done. Limbs should not be covered in blood

normally and so this demonstrates that the monster has either gone through damage and

perhaps is willing to do the same to its victims. The bloody eye is also a very important

trope that we used in the film to cause a bit of discomfort and fear in the audience.

According to TV Tropes, audiences get squicked out by horrible things happening to

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our body or our eyes, so too do they get absolutely sickened by the thought of something

horriblehappening to our faces. The bloody eyes show something abnormal and the fact

that they are in our protagonist and monster demonstrates that the two might be similar

and connected. An audience is inclined to support the protagonist and so by making the

two opposites similar, we are able to inflict panic and dismay.

For this assignment, I helped to contribute to making the horror film by being an

actress and an editor. I was girl 2 and my role was very small and brief. My character is a

representation of what everyone else tends to see, which is normalcy. The role of my

character says few lines but she is only able to see the surface and is unable to see that

anything terrorizing will happen. My character is not able to understand that stress that

terrorizes those around her because she does not care to look for it. As an actress, I helped

to write the lines for my character in this final scene in order to make everything seem

natural and as natural as possible. I also helped to give input on the scenes I was in. I

adjusted my lines and also suggested where the scenes begin so that the entrance would be

clean and flow well.

Another role I had in this film is as the editor. I was responsible for putting the

whole film together. Since there were many takes and many shots of the same scene taken

from different angles taken it was difficult to make everything work as seamless as possible

and sometimes it was difficult to make scenes work together. In order to make the editing

work well, I was also there during the entire filming process. Although I was not a major

actor or had a major role in the whole filming experience, I had to be present in order to

observe how everything was being filmed and take note of the best scenes and how the

takes should be placed in order. I worked a lot with Diana, who was in charge of filming, to
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make sure that the shots were made from the same angles so that transitions between

takes could fit well together. We wanted the scenes to be clear and portray the desired

effect. One of they trickier scenes to film was the one with the girl with the bloody legs. It

was a very brief scene but it was difficult not to get shots that were too high and showed

Sharon or Nellys pants because they are supposed to be in the bathroom. It would be

difficult to know how to make everything work without being there in order to understand

the experience. Since the filming did not take place in order, I had to rearrange and choose

the best scenes so that they would work well together. I also added sound effects and music

to the film. The sound is more important than I had realized because it can help to alter the

audience reaction to the film and so getting the music to work well with the scenes was

more challenging than I anticipated. A lot of times the music did not work well with the

pace at which the characters were moving in the film and so a lot of time I was dedicated to

making it work well with the film itself. I put the film together as we filmed so that we

could film iffy scenes again and add as was necessary.

Working on an assignment in a group always presents its benefits and challenges.

This project has taught me about my ability to work well with others as well as how to

understand and compromise. The more people that are in a group in a group, the more

challenging it is to include everyones thoughts and ideas. I think it is great to work in a

group because everyone can take a role within the film and different ideas and criticisms

are present. One example of this is when we wrote the first draft of the script. A member of

the group was confused by the purpose of the knocking sounds the protagonist heard. After

explanation, the group member was still confused and so this allowed us to know that we

should not have to explain so much what we are trying to show so this pat of our film is
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weak. We added more and changed a bit of the script so that it could be clear that the

knocking was a sign of an ominous presence. This worked out well because the confusion

allows us to work towards improvement. I think it was difficult to incorporate everyones

ideas well together and finding a time for everyone to meet together because everyone has

such different schedules. I think we focused on Dianas ideas because she had the best ones

and so we wrote the script around that. I also feel that some people did more work than

other because it is difficult to distribute the work evenly when there are five people

working on one assignment. I do not think that anyone tried to slack off, it just happened to

be that some people contributed more to the project than others. I think that overall the

group worked well together to get the script and filming done and was very respectful of

each other.

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Work Cited

Carroll, Noel. "The Nature of Horror." The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 46.1 (1987).

Web. 16 Mar. 2017. <http://www.dif.unige.it/epilog/Carroll-horror.pdf>.

Dirks, Tim. "Horror Films." Film Site. American Movie Classics Company, n.d. Web. 17 Mar.

2017.

"Facial Horror." TV Tropes. Http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FacialHorror, n.d.

Web. 17 Mar. 2017.