Essay About Fictional Media Violence And Alternative Demon

Fictional Media Violence – an Alternative Demon
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FICTIONAL MEDIA VIOLENCE
PRACTICE-LED ASSIGNMENT
An Alternative Demon
An Alternative Demon is a 4 min screenplay that juxtaposes different categories of
film violence throughout its entirety, these could include Morrisons (1999) Playful
Violence and Authentic Violence. Its aim – to be categorised in Rutsky & Wyatt
(1990)Serious Pleasure and Fun. It has Mixed Modalities (King 2004) encoded
by Soundtrack with its own hidden narrative, inspired by Deutsch (2007) , Barnes
(2007) and Chion (1994).
This essay will example how the use of fictional media violence theories and
concepts have been linked to the creation of An Alternative Demon. I will evaluate
how the piece is formed by the blending of the theories and concepts into my practice
textually and sub-textually.
Firstly I aim to critically analyse The open scene of An Alternative Demon using
Morrisons (1999) strategy to define the interpreted violence, from my own
perspective.
Secondly I am going to drawn upon sound by Deutsch: Soundtrack (2007) to define
and decode the soundtrack of An alternative demon My aim is to scrutinize the
tone that the soundtrack provides and how the meanings generated by the layers of
the soundtrack, are an an essential part of the narrative.
I propose an argument that is structured around these two aims. Through
examining how the original design of making the soundtrack have it owns narrative,
I have mixed modalities of violence (King 2004) through the stylistic design which
has enabled me to get away with and present pleasurable representations of
violence that might otherwise be more disturbing (King 2004, Pg 126)
In the first instance, Morrison (1999, Pg 3) poses the question; how do viewers define
violence? He devised three categories, to place fictional violence within, Playful
Depicted and Authentic This is broken down further into violence with a little v
a big V and Massive V.
Playful violence is unmistakably performed violence and is seen as unreal. It is
mostly comical and always of a weak nature and never of a strong or graphic
constitution. Playful violence is usually for the comical value. Morrison (1999)
states this is generally placed into the category of violence with a little v as this
does not assault the sensibilities.
Depicted violence is characterised by how realistic it is portrayed, or how close it
appears to real life. Often this is represented by graphic images with use of close ups
shots and the impact of injury is clearly seen. This can certainly assault the
sensibilities and is seen as violence with a big V.
Authentic violence is portrayed in a world the audience can recognise. Morrison
(1999)uses the example of domestic violence. This type is designed more than any
other type to make the viewer feel as though it closer to their own lives. It is not as
simple to make the distinction of whether it is little v, big V or Massive V as it
has the potential to be all three, this depends upon how the scene is presented. This
type has the potential to assault the sensibilities very strongly. The types of footage
that fall into this category are all fictional types of violence yet real life screen
violence, such as news footage, documentary etc. Morrison (1999) calls this
Actuality material.
The analysis of An Alternative Demon will define which of these categories its
form and content (Corner 2000) fit into and explore how the intertextual meaning
causes cross overs within these Morrisons categories and creates debate about its
categorisation.
The open scene to An Alternative Demon creates an aural sensation of distorted
radio waves against a black screen. The Skushhhh tunes to the upbeat melody of
Rock n Roll in Screamin Jay Hawkins Little Demon.
Fade In the fast forward effect visual and we are confronted with an angry boy who
later appears with a knife with a look of hatred in his eyes.
Visually