Develop a Case Study- Theorists- The Movie Old

1.

    Using Lacey's idea about having a repertoire (the entirety), it represents the body of different styles, forms, and themes that exist within a specific media form. For example, if you observe the movie Old from the horror/ sci-fi/ enigma genre you can see the setting at a beach that seems to have something off about it. Eventually we find out it’s almost like a time machine where the people age 1 year every 30 minutes. A common occurrence we can see in this movie, like other horror movies is the idea that people must fight for their lives to survive, and many die trying. Often times the characters in horror movies like this are also very similar, we can observe that many horror movie characters are usually just normal people usually teens to mid 30's that have something bad happen to them, and they have to fix the problem. These types of conventions can help define the horror genre and give the audience an idea of what to expect.

2.

    Neale's concept of repetition offers the audience a pleasure of familiarity, because often times genres will repeat many of the same ideas and concepts as times before. For example, often times in a horror movie there are people hurting or killing others and this creates suspense in the film. We can see this in the movie Old, because as I stated before, many of the characters in horror movies get into a situation that seems completely normal but ends up being a super huge and terrifying problem the characters try to escape from. Seeing this trend over and over in the horror genre can give us the pleasure of familiarity when watching a film, because it feels like a good film we have seen before and enjoyed.  

3.

    Using Neale's concept of difference, the text offers the audience something new and interesting, because even though with many genres it is easy to identify what type of movie you will be seeing, there are also many different elements that will be changed to make it less like a movie you have seen before. Again, in the Old movie we can tell it is not a simple horror/ slasher movie we tend to see, such as the movies Halloween, Scream, and Friday the 13th. Instead in this movie is more of a sci-fi mystery on what’s happening on the beach they’re at and what’s the cause. This idea keeps the audience watching the same genre of movies, because everything in the movies won't always be the same each time, offering a sense of difference, keeping the audience engaged.

4.

    According to Buckingham, genres are not fixed and can evolve to reflect the changes in society and culture. They can address and explore social and cultural issues that are relevant to their time. For example, if we look at films from the early 1900’s most of them were about 30 seconds long and were used to try and tell a story without sound. In the later 1900’s when sound and color were available, movies were much longer but mostly focused on different issues in their time, like slavery and wars, these films attempted to create stories out of those events that happened in their time. Whereas now if we look at the movie Old there are more issues revolving around science and its experiments, since that is what made the beach, they were on dangerous and caused the people to age exponentially. The science aspect of the horror movie can relate to a societal issue, because scientists are constantly working towards the concept of aging and how we can age slower/ not age. However, this movie explores the opposite of what would happen if time was to move faster and aging was quicker, creating the plot of the movie a little more suspenseful.

5. 

     Finally, some marketing materials used by production companies to help give information about what the audience will be watching could be things like their movie poster. For example, if there are a lot of bright colors and people in their movie poster, we can most likely infer that the movie will be a happier and more uplifting movie, whereas if the poster has a lot of darker toned colors and maybe a creature or a hurt person pictured, it is easier to tell that the movie will have more suspense and could be a scarier movie. We can see this concept in the Old movie poster, because there is a skeleton leg pictured next to a human leg on the beach with the saying "it's only a matter of time" on the sand. This causes us to question as to why the dead skeleton leg is next to a live human leg and what do they have in common with each other in this particular movie, and why is "it's only a matter of time" on the sand. Other marketing techniques could also be their trailer because it is easy to tell that the movie could fall under the horror genre by showing something terrifying like dead bodies/ creatures, and people disappearing on the beach. The trailer also gives us the idea of people aging extremely fast. Another technique could be their advertisement on social media, where many of the actors mentioned it on their social media. The creator of the movie also appeared on the tonight show, and the movie poster was advertised at the super bowl, and so many more interviews, billboards, and social media posts.