The close textual
analysis of Fictional Media Violence
Clip1: Outlast I’m
Getting my Fingers cut off
Outlast is a video game where players take the role of a
journalist who is sent to research a place where he cannot escape. In the scene
where the journalist/gamer have their fingers cut off in the game the build up
is cleverly constructed, with the character being wheeled from one room to the
other by a masked, yet somewhat disfigured man, dressed in a surgical apron.
Everything in this building seems to creak and squeak sadistically building
tension, whilst revealing that the journalist is not the only person being
tortured in the building, which reveal a similar set up to the film Hostel. The
clip is interesting as it is all seen from the POV of the gamer, adding a sense
of realism and the idea that this is happening to you. When “your” fingers are
cut off “your” vision becomes blurred, you are then set to wriggle to free
“your” hands where “you” stumble forward and are violently sick on the floor.
The scene is extremely graphic.
Close Textual
Analysis: Media Texts
Technique
1-
Watch/ listen to clip (content, genre)
2-
Re-Watch the clip: look at mise-en-scene
(specific elements and make notes)
3-
Re-Watch the clip: Mise-en-shot
4-
Re-watch the clip: Soundtrack
5-
Re watch: Narrative (MACRO features)
6-
Refine your notes looking for themes…meanings,
connotations within the example.
Themes for Outlast
By the character being portrayed in such a way with constant
POV it gives you an extra feel of active relations within the game, instead of
the passive relation which is created in TV and Film. Gameplay involves
characters, our surrogates for us, that carry us through the game.
Gaming:
Narrativeology Vs. Ludology
Narratology
Study of Narrative
(story/plot/character)
(Structures)
Games Defined by Narrative Structure
Ludology
The study of Play
(structure/experience)
Games defined by interactive play
Perceptual
Immersion
Sense dominated by being in the game
Psychological
Immersion
Player drawn in to game world at the level of imagination
Flow
State of mind when involved in challenging/pleasurable
activity, that increases in difficulty over time leading to better rewards/
feedback.
Temporality and Spatiality
Historical
Context- technology and form the look of FMV enhanced by:
Technologies
-
Computer hardware and software
-
Industrial practises and processes.
Special Effects
- Blending fantasy and realism
- Complex
visual effects.
Clip 2: Elevator
Drive
The scene starts by changing to a real life set up of three
people in an elevator, then the protagonist sees a gun in the antagonists belt,
the scene then changes in pace to become very slow moving and stylised, with
the lighting becoming dimmer, as he pushes the girl gently against the back
wall of the elevator and kisses her the music is classical and slow moving to
match the pace of the scene, the kiss continues for what feels like a long
time, the audience are locked comfortably on the couple, the light then becomes
brighter to resume its original set up, and then the protagonist engages the
antagonist in a fight, the antagonist is quickly parted from his gun and then the
protagonist begins to pound the mans skull in, the diegetic sound during this,
is graphic in itself as you hear the antagonists skull cave in, the girl
removes herself from the situation by exiting the elevator and standing just
outside, at the end you watch as the protagonist looks at her with heartbreak
in his eyes, you then have a close up shot on the back of his jacket which is a
golden scorpion. This links to mythology that a scorpion cannot change its
nature. An interpretation of the kiss can be taken, that it is his last chance
to embrace her before she comes to no longer see him as the hero but rather the
villain. The scene shifts from being artistically romantic, to brutally and
graphically violent.
Overt and Covert FMV
Clip Three: Thriller A cruel Picture
A woman who suffers a severe
trauma, and then seeks her revenge.
The fight scene is slow paced,
and is accompanied by sci-fi esc music. The men our covered in blood but her
hands never make contact with their faces. The sound then changes to something
similar to the sound of a heartbeat, this sound effect then fades out to hear
the sound of her high heels walking away.
Clip Four: End Scene; Death Proof
Man who ent around killing meets
his match in 3 masculine appearing women who proceed to chase him, crash in to
him and beat him in some what of a bully circle set up. This scene is somewhat
comedic as they punch him for a longer period of time than any man could stand.
Comparison of Clip three and four
Three is very stylised the fight
scene was dragged out to make it feel ridiculously long. This has a particular
effect on the audience designed to be dill where as four was designed to be
filled with violence. Three draws upon the style, forms and conventions of art-house
cinema and Bertolt Brecht’s theatre style, whose slow pace draws our attention
to its deliberated artistic intention to question how violence is portrayed and/
or this instils a comedic effect. Four, as much as it shows 3 women getting
revenge it can be interpreted that it is show in a way to appeal to the male gaze
rather than the female gaze. However it illustrates that they enjoy being
violent towards him in a more light-hearted respect.
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