I had animation in this week – Coraline. It is a stop motion directed by Henry Selick in 2009. Coraline was actually a dark fantasy children’s novella by British author Neil Gaiman, published in 2002. When talking about dark fantasy, it makes me relate to different words to express it – horror, fantasy, adventure… Dark fantasy is the most general and the main theme of the whole film. But then, there is no way to be a clear theme to show the feeling of one film. And now, the people categorized a film into different major genres and sub genres to support the film. In this blog, I would like to discuss about the hybrid genres of film.

Genres are any forms or types to communicate in any mode. A basic genre for film is drama, and most of these dramatic films can fall into long list of genres. The plot of film nowadays is changing, more and more diversifies to fulfil different needs of different individuals. From the time we only have those major genres like action, adventure, drama or horror until now we have so many sub genres like detective, mystery, romance, and thriller. As the time is changing now, the film genres become not only static but evolutionary. Sub genres are also evolution into minor sub genres – chase films, martial arts films, slasher films and more. Because of genres are evolving, it turns out a mixture of several genres for one film, which is called hybrid genres. In Coraline, I can tell that the most general and the main theme of film is fantasy, and it comes to adventure and little bit of horror.

Coraline is talking about a teenage girl and her parents moved into an old house and lived with others tenants. She found out there is a locked door and after she asked her mother to unlock it, they found out it has been bricked up. But then she awakened by mice squeaky sound. She followed the mice and discovered the bricked up door had become a magic tunnel that lead her to other world. In this other world, there have the same creatures with the real world. She met her “other parents”, who are completely different with her real parents – they take time to accompany her which her real parents doesn’t as they are too busy. Only a little strange thing is – the eyes of the people are buttons. She started to look forward for the other world, at the same time, the “other mother” offered her to stay but with condition – she must sew buttons into her eyes. She was scared and rejected, when return back to her real world, her parents are missing. She deduced “other mother” kidnapped them; she went back and rescues them with her intelligent and brave.

Coming back to our topic, Coraline is a hybrid genres film. The major genre is dark fantasy. From the opening credit, we can see gothic style. They said, opening credit can convey the message of a film. 

Then, there is non human hands are sewing a human doll. The colour tone and the background music matched to manufacture the dark fantasy. 

There is other genre for the film – fairy tale. It shows from the magical tunnel that led to other world. The colours used are fantastic like galaxy. In the other world, it’s like a magic world. 

The toys, the animals, the plants have their own life – can talk, will shine, move their own. The garden in other world, there is surrealistic garden – the plants are actually a portrait of protagonist and entire through colours and lively animation.

Then, we have some other genres – horror, action, adventure and comedy. Firstly, we have horror. From the beginning of the film, there is always a dark colour tone to bring out the strange atmosphere. 

In the real world, the lightning in the old house are always dull. But in the other world, the lightning is warmth. 

However, you can still find out the strange – the buttons were sewn on the eyes. When protagonist realise the other world is strange, she started resist the world and want to back to real world. The fairy tale started to collapse, the other father also not active anymore. 

The other mother no longer disguise, showed her real identity – a witch that trapped three kids in her world. The three kids have become ghost kids, trapped in the other space. And here, it included some supernatural genre. The other mother want to make sure protagonist is happy in other world, so she pin the boy’s mouth to make sure he is happy always. The fantasy tunnel became a forgotten tunnel – full of dust. The witch also did a doll of her real parents – sewing them together to warn her. Honestly, that is really scary.

Next, we have action and adventure as this film has the chase scene. These two genres showed in the climax of the film, protagonist have to fight and win to rescue her real parents. But there are many difficulties since it’s a world created by the witch, fairy tale become the monster that keep stopped her. 

When she almost escape from the other world after rescue the ghost kids, the witch lose control and trapped her into a spider nest. Protagonist have to escape from there, the duel here is tension and irritation because the witch is keeping up with protagonist.

Lastly, we have comedy, as a minor genre in this film. 

There are some supporting roles – Mr. Bobinsky, and Pink Sisters. 

From the establishing shot, we can see Mr. Bobinsky is doing exercise on the top of the roof. He always comes out with a funny way. And yes, our Pink Sisters. 

Their way of communicate always make the audiences laugh. These three supporting role added some humour for the film.

In conclusion, most of the film nowadays, or we can say all the film is categorized in many genres. Coraline combine the major genres of dark fantasy and fairy tale, with other genres of horror, action, adventure and comedy. I like Coraline, it never make me feel bored. When the other mother shows her real identity is out of my expectation. I would like to recommend this to others too.

The third movie I had is Final Destination, directed by James Wong. It is an American supernatural horror film. First of all, I would like to state that I HATE HORROR! I know horror movie has better camera position and angle (for anticipating), but the effect of “want to make you scare” make me get tired. But, I still had watched some horror film like Annabelle, Devil Doll. I noticed that most of the horror film, they have some similarities – they always relate to religion – with a cursed doll, voodoo doll. Their lighting is always dark, then some sound come out, the characters suspicious for a while, then finally the horror thing come out with the sound effect.  All the settings are helping to enhance the horror feel – the lighting, the makeup, camera movement and others. For example, Annabelle, the cursed doll. The little doll has a horrifying face, I don’t get why the characters said it is cute. The face is actually appearing at the establishing shot.

Coming back to our topic, film staging. All the staging is always a hint for the death. A window reflected a figure like plane, and it is not stable in the rain. This is the hint for the air crash. 

The number of 180 always appears, this number is a number of spirits, means that something bad will keep happening. There are many clues that give a hint to audiences of how the characters die. Another thing is, someone gave a leaflet to main character and said, “Death is not the end”.
The others hint that is obvious, which is the sticker pasted on main character’s luggage mentioned “Final Destination”. If you listen carefully, you can also hear that, a song is always come out when there is death – Rocky Mountain High by John Denver. The singer is also dead from air crash.

The costume and make up are all daily life based, it is kind of giving stress that the death can be occur in our daily life and is unexpected. Death can be around us at anytime, anywhere. After all, death is hard to predict. Apart from that, the lighting is also daily life. Production group never try hard to make the lighting too dark for manufacturing the horror feel. Just because all the setting of this film is based on daily life, it enhances the invisible fear. Another thing is – the actor’s behaviour. They will say something or doing something to hint how they die. 
For example, Tod did a pose of strangled to Alex, it means that he will be strangled. Another thing is, when Terry scold Carter “Drop dead”, it same as how she dies. 
Even a reflection figure passed through a certain part, it is also means something – as Billy watched the plane leave, the reflection of the plane was just over his mouth; when he dies, he was cut off by a piece of iron above his mouth.

Talking about mise-en-shot – camera movement, camera position and duration of each shot. First, the camera movement. When there is death happen, the camera follows the characters. It creates a sense of someone is staring at the character – like the death is looking for the opportunity to kill them. 
Second, the camera position – it places at the certain angle that enhances the danger – like Lewton is lying on the floor, she tries to get a cloth to cover her throat of blood spreading. The position is her point of view, it makes the tension for the audiences because the cloth is covering the knives. Last, the duration of each shot – they are giving the sense to audiences for more tension. The duration of each shot makes the sense of something is about to happen, and audiences can get into the movie easily.

There are some sub genres of horror film – unnatural, psychological and massacre or slasher flicks. I think it is consider a horror film because the sub genres are included. Firstly, unnatural – it has the external force threatening civilians – the grim reaper. In the opening credit, there are some hints for the unnatural. There is a figure that are like a figure of death appeared at the opening scene.

A book was blown open by the wind, and the first page wrote a word – DEVIL. In the magazine, there is an obvious hint – THIS IS THE END – using red and horror feel typography, means all the characters will die at the end. Another thing is, the main character has the predictive ability. He can see something that does not exist, and that is hinting the death is coming. He also tries to cheat death to save his friend. We thought they had won against the death, but then the death is continuing (at the end of the movie).

Second, psychological. They always give the hints for the next death – the figure and reflection that doesn’t exist, with the sound effect and facial expression of the actors. This can give the audiences tension on the death. 

Normally, the hints are the reflection or the sign. Lastly, massacre or so called slasher flicks which is the continuous death.

The second movie is Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, co-written, produced and directed by Edgar Wright. It based on the graphic novel series Scott Pilgrim and it came out as a comedy film. The story is talking about the main male character, Scott have to beat down all the ex-boyfriends of Ramona, to get their own peaceful time.

Firstly, the character that I would like to discuss is the main male character, Scott. He is caring about his girlfriend, and trying his best to get whatever he wants. There is one thing that I dislike about Scott Pilgrim. Besides how jerk Scott is, he ditches a Chinese girl, Knives that just begin their date, and find another girl that just appear in his dream who is Ramona. He actually a little bit changed his mind when he saw Ramona changes the hair colour from purple to blue. I am wondering he is falling with his dream girl or just his dream girl’s hair colour. What a weird.

The next character is the Chinese girl, Knives Chao. She is so lovely. Perhaps she is still young, everything in her eyes are so wonderful and amazing. She shows her love toward Scott in a very direct way. When Scott cheated on her, and ditched her, she did not do anything to hurt Scott. In the last scene, she actually cooperates with Scott to defeat Ramona’s evil ex-boyfriend, and let Scott goes to Ramona. I really think that she is really cute.

Second, my mood when watching the whole story. From the very beginning of the movie, the universal opening credit match with the video game sound. It shows the movie is about video gaming. 
Next, it introduces the opening of the story. It used a typography that is san-serif. The typography is giving me a sense of gaming or something that are so sci-fi. It is not straight forward and serious, but a little bit of fun. 
I also noticed that, the introduction for every character is according by name and age. Sometimes it added extra information, like rating and the nickname. The rating is like the level status of player in a game while the nickname is presenting the character personality. The typography is also san-serif, to make sure that the audience can read the information.

When the main characters are starting their band exercise, noticed that there are some special effects. For example, when the drummer is beating the drum, some illustration is coming out. This effect enhanced the visual effects; I slightly feel that the music rhythm is stronger.

Coming to the opening credits, they only using the illustration as background and add some typography. The background is interesting. They are so colourful, perhaps is telling about the brisk life of the characters – their love toward someone, their passion toward music… Those illustrations are including guitars, drums, skulls and some knives. Guitars and drums are relating to the main character – Scott – he is having his own band. The skulls and knives perhaps is telling there is some battle scene In the movie.

Starting the story, there is a lot of choppy scene, like from scene A jump to scene B, and chop to scene C. I think this is the interesting part of the film. Actually I am so confuse with the choppy scenes, like cannot catch up. But then, the jump out effect is still smooth, and it’s all connected logically.

From the scene above, they are introducing the stuff of owner. The tidy stuff is all belongs to Wallace, while the messy stuff is belongs to Scott. The scene can tell the different attitude and personality between Scott and Wallace. In my opinion, I think that Scott is an individual that cannot take care of himself because of the clothes on floor and stuff. From the lame poster, I feel that he is a person that unceremonious. He doesn’t really understand that what he wants and just according with what he wishes. For Wallace, his stuff is neat and complete. Even his coat is placing better than Scott. In my opinion, Wallace is an individual that requires the cleanliness. He might is a person that doesn’t give the council of others’ vision, a kind of “You are you, just do yourself.” I feel this from the way he talks.

There is one part of the scene from the movie I like the most, because that part literally made me get into the movie, which was when Scott battling with the second ex-boyfriend – Lucas Lee. 
When they are battling, some CGI graphics which somehow looks like what you saw in a video game had exaggerated the action. Although it was already exist from the beginning of the film, but I like this part the most. When battle with the first ex-boyfriend, there is also the same effect came out, but at first I feel strange with that. The exaggeration for the battle scene I cannot get into it. Somehow, I feel it is anticipation for me to the next battle. So, when it comes to the second battle, I can follow the flow.

Lucas Lee is an actor, he also a skateboarder. Scott have to slay Lucas Lee, he asked Lee to perform a dangerous stunt. The shot is low angle shot, and the whole armrest cover with the snow. That low angle shows the danger, and the snow enhanced the sense of danger (it is slippery). When back to Lee’s shot, he actually hesitated. He is a proud man, he is confident of his skating skill. He saw there is a lot of reporter, he wanted show he will be the winner. He lifted his head and said “Somebody get my skateboard.” He did it. The scene is full of comic visual effect and strong background music. When back to Scott, it back to normal and without background music. The contrast show Lee is performing his best while Scott confirmed he will be the winner. Lastly, Scott won.
Link -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co8kbz2NM6M (start from 1.52)

In conclusion, those battle scenes are quite nice with the video game effect but it repeated so many times, it makes me feel bored.