BA3: Contextual Studies

The Beginning of Something Terrifying!

Lots has happened since I last posted about the contextual studies project. We now have a clearer understanding of what is expected from us. The aim of this project is to produce a presentation focusing on the relation between western and eastern cultures. The brief was left pretty open for us to interpret how we felt best suited it.

I am in a group of 4 with good friends Olive, Sophie and Stacey. So far it’s been great because we are all interested in similar things so it made coming up with the title of our project really simple (details to follow). 

Today we had a mini group presentation where we were given the task of presenting our idea for the project to a handful of the students in our year. Our idea went down really well, I would say the only problem we actually face is being given the choice to do pretty much anything we want within our title space. 

Okay, so here are the details of the project. So far we have a working title which is pretty accurate of what we are doing. It is: "An Exploration into the Horror & Terror genres in Eastern & Western Culture/Media“. Our project pretty much does what it says on the tin. And by tin I clearly mean title. We are looking into Japanese and American culture and rummaging through anything horror/terror related. Today we came to the conclusion that Olive would focus her studies around horror films, Stacey will focus on books and literature and Sophie and myself will be doing studies into horror games.

Stacey pointed out to us that horror and terror are actually 2 different elements. After a quick look up on the ol’ internet  I discovered that horror is psychological, the subject gets into your head and does nasty things. Terror on the other hand, is physical. Such as an earthquake or realism. The 2 closely cross over but are classed under the main genre of “Gothic”. Our project will take a look at how these 2 different elements of “scary” (horror & terror) are portrayed in Japan and America and how they have influenced SO much of our culture.  

So, where are we at right now I hear you ask? Well, here is a list of our main areas of study so far and who is researching them: 

Stacey: Is going to stick to American/Japanese/Horror/Terror related literature/books for her part. She will also conduct the introduction by looking into where the sub genres come from i.e. Gothic genre. She will be using books and literature to bring in the whole influence side of the presentation. She has found out that most of the writers/books etc she is reading about influenced films and games. Her main areas of focus right now are:

- Stephen King
- HP Lovecraft
- Japanese ghost stories (brilliant link to Sweet home)
- Japanamerica (the book)
- Japanese Culture books generally

Olive: Is going to focus on Japanese and American horror/terror films and study how and why (etc) they are horror/terror. She will see if there are any cross over's between the Japanese versions and American versions of films (such as the 2 versions of the Grudge). Her research will include the following:

- American & Japanese Grudge & The Ring films
- Resident Evil FILMS
- She will look into what the differences are between typically Japanese horrors are, likewise with American horror films by looking at SAW & The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
- Silent Hill FILM
- Sweet Home (the film version, also a fantastic link into the resident evil games)

I am currently waiting to hear from Sophie in our group to find out what her main elements of study will be for our project. I am fairly sure she is going to study the horror and terror in the video game Alan Wake. We thought it would be good to do 2 games, one older and one newer.

I am sticking to video games, I decided to pick 2 of the most memorable horror games I could think of that I have played through and experienced, that way I can also angle my research and study of the horror within them from a personal perspective too. The 2 games I have chosen are Resident Evil (I am undecided which one I will chose yet, I don’t really want to do the whole franchise because it has changed too much, id rather focus on 1 of the original 3, ill keep you posted), and Dead Space 1. My areas of focus will be studying gameplay of these games, picking out WHERE and WHY they are scary, HOW/WHY they are horror films and seeing where they link into Olive & Stacey's research. I will be strategically picking out parts that are American horror/terror influenced and likewise with Japanese horror influences. 

Key areas I am going to consider while studying the games are music, atmosphere, character design, story, cinematic and environments. My next move is to do some historical research into the games to give a brief overview and idea on what they are and are about, then I will work on finding root influences by working with the rest of my group to find interesting links of how my games are influenced by Japanese and American horror and terror. Let the scares begin!