Clayton George Wickham - final thesis

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shifts between characters within death sequences, cases where a death is witnessed
by a third party within the film’s diegesis, and rare examples of the omniscient third
person rendering of death sequences. I am using this to demonstrate the significance
of the relationship between specific elements of formal design, in order to explain
that the overall filmic effect is dependent on a complex aesthetic interaction and
cannot be attributed to a single element. The chapter concludes with a discussion of
the development of unverified diegetic sound and editing use over the course of the
series, highlighting the specific case of A New Beginning, which stands out as a
unique and complex text within the Friday the 13 th franchise, because of its
particular use of narrative and aesthetic innovation.
In Chapter 5, I turn this concept of perspective away from the characters
within the film, and place it upon the viewer, through an analysis of the way each
entry in the series attempts to orientate the viewer within the overarching narrative. I
begin this by addressing ideas of expectation and genre, which create a basic
narrative understanding from the outset. This is achieved by addressing critical
analysis of the genre, and examining the work of Dika, Rick Altman and Andrew
Tudor among others. After this, I move to a discussion of the background and
influences on Friday the 13 th , and how this can affect a viewer’s reading and
understanding of the franchise. I then outline and differentiate between the
“franchise viewer”, the person who has more than a passing familiarity with the
series, and the “new viewer”, a person who has come to the film without a detailed
knowledge of the overarching narrative of the series. This is an important distinction
that I have created in order to understand and consider different receptions of a
franchise film. The chapter then moves to a discussion of how previous narrative
threads can be established; first through the use of film clips from earlier films, and