Media presentation for Cloverfield on postmodernism.

1. Postmodernism

2.  Director – Matt Reeves
 Produced by – J.J Abrams, Bryan Burk (2008)
 Writer – Drew Goddard
 Stars – MikeVogel, Jessica Lucas, Lizzy Caplan
 Synopsis – A group of NewYorkers enjoy and going away
party, little do they know they will endure the most terrifying
night of their lives. A creature the size of a sky scraper
descends upon the city, leaving behind death and
destruction in its trail. Using a hand held camera the friends
record their struggle to survive as NewYork crumbles around
them.
IMDB rating-

3.  Intertexuality – Cloverfield is a film that belongs to the age of ‘terror’ ; it was produced at a
time where the world had became obsessed with the idea of terror and terrorism .The film
references events such as the 9/11 that took place in 2001 through its use of visual effects
and imagery.
 A lot of diegetic sound was used in Cloverfield such as people running around shouting and
screaming, glass smashing, buildings collapsing, heavy breathing because they are scared
and out of breath from running, explosions.TV news report of an attack in NewYork
reminds the audience of 9/11 with buildings falling. The Director shows the audience of
what it would be like if you were in a situation like this trying to survive

4. Throughout the film there are numerous references made to other films of the same genre
such as ‘The Day AfterTomorrow’ , ‘World of Wars’ , ‘Independence Day’ and ‘Godzilla’. The
producers are making the assumption that the audience is active and not passive therefore
they will understand the intertextual references.
All of the above movies mentioned are big disaster movies that fall into hybrid genres like
Cloverfield consisting of horror, action and sci-fi. Modernist film usually only stick to one
genre whereas postmodern films like to blend genres together which adds to the idea that
they are expecting to have an active audience. The blurring of genres does not provide the
audience with an comfort or ready made assumptions – something that modernist film
steer away from because they are catering for a passive audience. Therefore, in this
instance Cloverfield can be considered postmodern.
Many of these disaster films carry a similar narrative – the monster/aliens came to attack and
humanity have to survive. However, though Cloverfield has a similar narrative the audience
is forced to look at of from the a different perspective (POV) point of view shots makes the
audience feel like they are in the actual film, interacting with the characters an.This makes
the film seem more fresh and original and different from the films referenced. Due to this
we could consider Cloverfield post modern.

5. A teaser trailer of the film was shown before the 2007 summer blockbuster
Transformers.The trailer did not name the film and only gave a release
date after showing glimpses of apparently home-made video of NY
being attacked by something, culminating a shocking image of the head
of the statue of liberty crashing through a NY street.This created
audience curiosity and generated interest into the media text.Those who
had saw the trailer were left wondering what they had seen and what
genre was the film, why had they just been shown a home movie rather
than a slick Hollywood movie? – could this marketing technique be
considered POMO?
The trailer’s placement gives an indication to the target audience, one which
is a difficult market for advertisers at the moment; teens and young
adults.These groups are becoming hard to reach for advertisers who rely
on conventional methods.

6.  Merlena – Is a particularly strong female character who save Hud from
the spiders.We are stereotypically used to the male characters
protecting female characters. Here Cloverfield is going against this idea,
subverting the ‘norm’ representations made of characters.
 Beth on the other hand is the stereotypical damsel in distress who
constantly needs help. She is even rescued from the top of a tower.The
audience is familiar/used to this ‘type’ of character as we commonly see
them in media texts therefore, in this sense Cloverfield isn’t being very
POMO.

7.  Rob and Hud are men of action, however Rob is clearly the leader between
the two, Hud being more of a sidekick.
 Rob is seeking for his love Beth (the damsel in distress). Here Cloverfield is
again following a very simple narrative ‘guy gets girl’ making it in this sense
not overly POMO.
 Many people have argued that the monster is female as is spawns young
spiders. If so this suggests a monstrous female and therefore female are
represented as destroyers and alien. It could be argued that the female
monster is bringing destruction to an easily peaceful, young society and it is
the men in the film who lead the action against its rampage.
 The monster is effective because we never really see it, it remains in our
peripheral vision and seems to be mutating and changing. It embeds the
notion of terrorism as it is a weapon of mass destruction – it is irrational,
without meaning, murderous and incomprehensible. Like the terrorist is
neither can or should be understood – again intertextualy referencing terror
attacks.

8.  Equilibrium – Characters introduced at normal flat
party
 Disruption – Ground and buildings start to shake
disrupting the party, an unknown monster invades
NewYork
 Resolution – Rob rescues Beth and then they
attempt to make their way out of the city.The army
bomb NewYork.
 New equilibrium – it is not known whether Rob and
Beth make it out of the city alive or if the monster is
defeated. It seems NewYork no longer exists.

9.  Hero = Rob – he is portrayed as rational and is driven by emotional need
 Villain =The Monster
 Donor = there is no definite donor.The police provide helicopters to get
everyone out of NY however other than that there isn’t a specific person
who provides Rob an object to help him.
 Helper = stays with Rob to help save Beth, and is thought to be the only
survivor. Rob and Marlena help until their deaths.
 Princess = Beth – is portrayed as the damsel in distress trapped at the top
of the tower. She is rescued by the hero.
 Father = there isn’t a father figure towards the hero, Rob’s reward is
Beth.
 Dispatcher – Rob is essentially the dispatcher as he sends himself to save
Beth
 False Hero = Hud – he presents his documentation of the event as heroic
however he is really more of a hindrance to others.

10.  Camera –The camera work used in 'Cloverfield' is again shot from the point of view perspective, so
therefore it would be handheld and very shaky.The camera is very fast moving at certain points of the
film like when the earthquake, explosion happens they are in fear and they show it because you can hear
the actors heavy breathing. Camera is dropped, rolled, thrown around to give it a sense of realism. Low
angles are used like when the army come and the camera is pointing up towards them showing that their
in control and have the power, but clearly the low angle is on the monster all the time because it is huge
and in control, demolishing NewYork. High angles are used when standing on top of the building looking
down at all the destruction.Tilted shots are used like when the camera is dropped and you can see the
actors running around.The reason why the handheld camera is used, because to show realism and as if,
if someone has just picked up a camera unexpectedly and documenting his life of him and his friends
whilst the monster destroys everything.
 Sound -A lot of diegetic sound was used in Cloverfield such as people running around shouting and
screaming, glass smashing, buildings collapsing, heavy breathing because they are scared and out of
breath from running, explosions.
 Editing -The type of editing used, is a nice pacing and well flowing series of clips together, because it is
suppose to be very realistic (this is not considered POMO as it is following a modernist approach of
creating an idea of truth) with camera, the scenes can jump like when they are first in the apartment
and running down the stairs the camera blinks on and off, and showing different goings on at the time.
The editing has been done to make it look realistic, there is use of flashbacks which is meant to be on the
camera from what Rob had recorded earlier of him and his girlfriend.This shows some emotion because
how the tape goes back and shows how it use to be, nice and peaceful back then, cuts straight to the
monster destroying Manhattan, the flashbacks create confusion of time and space and also draws
attention to the constructed nature therefore in this case Cloverfield could be considered POMO.

11.  Mise – en – scene -The Mise-en-scene used in 'Cloverfield' is the guns, tanks, mobile phones, clothes,
TV's, setting on the streets of Manhattan, in a modern apartment, dark, natural lighting.The reason why
these are used within 'Cloverfield' is because it is mainly the code and conventions, if an alien/monster
came to attack earth then straight away the army would be called in, equip and tanks everywhere. The
reality of the 'Cloverfield' with people on the mobile phones trying to contact loved ones and in the film
you notice that when they are in the apartment partying smart clothing, through the film you see them
get dirty, teared, blood stained, this shows the realism within the film and because its POV, it makes you
believe that it is real or this is what would happen if something like this in the real world happened. Dark
natural lighting is used to give the effect as if it was at night and is scary because their view is limited
because of the dark itself.
 Special Effects - Cloverfield'is full of special effects, when watching the behind the scenes it shows a
green screen in pretty much every scene to come.The Special effects used within this film are stuff like
CGI, the monster itself, and when the head of the statue of liberty comes flying towards the group.
Buildings collapsing, explosions everywhere. Muzzle flashes off the guns, tank rocket shots, bridge
getting demolished by the monster.The special effects draws the audiences attention again to how it is a
constructed text.

12.  In many aspects Cloverfield can be considered POMO; they use
intertexuality to reference other media texts and historical events
throughout therefore the producers assume that they have an active
audience that have further knowledge of media texts and not a passive
‘simple’ audience that modernists typically cater towards.The way in
which Cloverfield was marketed was very POMO, by creating an
‘anonymous’ trailer the audience has to actively find out what it was
about. As well as this the use of special effects draw the audiences
attention to how it is a constructed text.
 However, in many other ways Cloverfield could be seen as very ordinary
and modernist with its conventional characters (the damsel in distress),
its camera angels (low angel shots to make the monster seem more
powerful) and editing used to make the events seem ‘realistic’.