1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
We always from the start planned to film all of our shots at night as we felt this would be the best time of day due to the connotations of dark and the fact that all successful horror films most important moments take place at night. This put together with the empty house on a quiet street made for quite an eary and scary atmosphere building up the suspense to the eventual climax. Lots of horror films nowadays take place in houses as it invades peoples feelings of safety in their own home and causes them to feel disturbed and worried as if this could actually happen to them.
We also decided that we were going to build the pace up slowly as this would build up anticipation and tension so, we had lots of anti-climatic moments to put the audience on edge so that when the final big moment came it would make them jump. This also lead to a cliff-hanger as at the end of the clip the male is standing behind the female and the camera is put on him but then it cuts to black and the opening credits so the audience never get to find out what happened and only get to use their imagination which is a very common convention of horror films.
We used a lot of diegetic sound, which is a common convention which we felt we needed to follow, as this makes it all very natural and more realistic for the audience and makes it an actual real-life story rather than a fictional could never happen silly film. It also added good effect for example the floor boards creaking makes for quite a scary sound and builds tension also sounding right rather than obviously added on which could take away the effect of the scene. This also allows for moments of silence and no noise is sometimes better as it works well for a moment of loud noise and also builds up lots of tension as you are worried for what is coming next. Lots of horror films use silence as a tool for showing pure emotion and showing how scared a character is or to show how isolated the character is as their is no one else making noise so the must be alone making it even scarier. We also used a soundtrack in the back that was quite eary and from the start let the audience know that something wasn't right and setting the tone of he scene. We added in little loud burst of noises at anti climaxes to try and make the audience jump and add to their already high levels of angst.
Our titling worked well as it interjected with a black screen in between scenes which gave a sense of discontinuity and fragmentation, a common feature of horror films, making the scene feel wrong and also helping to keep the pace at slow so that the climax would work to its best. We also had titling to draw someone in to a certain place so for example at the point when the girl picks up the torch the titling is the first thing that catches your eye and the torch is right next to it so it is putting the audience one step ahead hopefully lulling them into a false sense of security so that when the scary moments come they feel even more frightened.
We also decided that we were going to build the pace up slowly as this would build up anticipation and tension so, we had lots of anti-climatic moments to put the audience on edge so that when the final big moment came it would make them jump. This also lead to a cliff-hanger as at the end of the clip the male is standing behind the female and the camera is put on him but then it cuts to black and the opening credits so the audience never get to find out what happened and only get to use their imagination which is a very common convention of horror films.
We used a lot of diegetic sound, which is a common convention which we felt we needed to follow, as this makes it all very natural and more realistic for the audience and makes it an actual real-life story rather than a fictional could never happen silly film. It also added good effect for example the floor boards creaking makes for quite a scary sound and builds tension also sounding right rather than obviously added on which could take away the effect of the scene. This also allows for moments of silence and no noise is sometimes better as it works well for a moment of loud noise and also builds up lots of tension as you are worried for what is coming next. Lots of horror films use silence as a tool for showing pure emotion and showing how scared a character is or to show how isolated the character is as their is no one else making noise so the must be alone making it even scarier. We also used a soundtrack in the back that was quite eary and from the start let the audience know that something wasn't right and setting the tone of he scene. We added in little loud burst of noises at anti climaxes to try and make the audience jump and add to their already high levels of angst.
Our titling worked well as it interjected with a black screen in between scenes which gave a sense of discontinuity and fragmentation, a common feature of horror films, making the scene feel wrong and also helping to keep the pace at slow so that the climax would work to its best. We also had titling to draw someone in to a certain place so for example at the point when the girl picks up the torch the titling is the first thing that catches your eye and the torch is right next to it so it is putting the audience one step ahead hopefully lulling them into a false sense of security so that when the scary moments come they feel even more frightened.
The male characters costume is a pretty straightforward shirt, jeans and hoodie as he is just having a night in with his girlfriend so he has to seem relaxed and comfortable. However, we decided that the male character would wear a black t-shirt as this would signify darkness and when it came down to the bits where he is possessed and scary if he was wearing another colour it would look weird. This is different to most horror film as they would have the character wearing a white shirt to show purity that has then been tarnished where as we thought we would subvert this and go straight for a dark look to convey a dark and evil person.
We wanted to conform to conventions with the girls costume and have her wear a bright coloured shirt to show that she is a lively person and also very pure and the pattern on her shirt is very white and flowery which is associated with purity and cleanliness making her seem like a normal girl. This is quite a common feature of horror films where the girl is the protagonist as the director will want the audience to sympathise with the girls situation and feel for her as a victim so she wears something which makes her look saint-like.
We only used a few props as we didn't want to overload the scene with unneeded things and make the audience distracted by lots of things. We used a torch which helped us to have the girl go and explore the house when it is dark- something we thought a lot of horror films had so we felt like we should conform to. The torch also caused anticipation to build up as it only covers a certain amount of the place it is pointing at and around corners can light up and uncover something strange and scary which would help us with our intentions to scare people. The sofa was also a very useful prop as it helped to signify the emptiness around the girl when she was alone and the boy had disappeared ( the feeling of isolation is a massive convention of horror films and one we thought would be good to follow as it helps with making the audience feel scared with and for the female character). Our stand out prop was the red contact lenses we used to show the possession of the male character. Red is the colour of evil and this is a colour often used in horror films to represent evil and we followed this convention by using the colour red for our contact lens.
Horror films tend to use a lot of fast paced cuts to create a sense of chaos however we decided to subvert this as it helped to put our audience into a false sense of security so we used a lot of slow camera movements and smooth cuts and transitions to help keep the pace of our scene. We did however start to up the pace of our scene towards the end when the POV shot pans across the room and there is someone on the bed but the shot goes past but then comes swiftly back to the bed with no one there. This shot is a real clue to the audience that there was something supernatural going on and is starting to come to a head building up the anticipation and leaving the audience in even more suspense. At first we had filmed lots of wide shots and mid shots and not a lot of close-ups but then we got feedback from our teacher and peers that there wasn't enough emotion and a common convention of horror films is to use close-ups to show raw emotion so in our next filming session we filmed a lot of close-up shots of the protagonist to help the audience feel scared for her.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
In most films the boy/man always ends up being either the main protagonist or the antagonist. In ours we decided that for a full effect we should have the male charcter as he is seen as more powerful and we want the character to seem overbearing the girl as this creates an actual possibility in the audiences mind that this siutation could take place, which makes our film more disturbing which is the factor we wanted our film to reach. Our male lead is quite a young man possibly 18 which is quite a common convention of horror films to use younger characters as they are portrayed as immature and more vulnerable because of this. this also worked against us as possibly an older male lead would have seemed more threatening to the girl as being the same age makes them both seem as vulnerable as each other making his possesion less of a threat to the girl where as an older man would both seem creepy and more dangerous which also adds to the tension to the scene. We used a lot of mid shots and wide shots of the male character to try and portray how he is stronger than her and making it seem like he has so much around him leaving him with a slight aura.
As in most horror films we decided to have a female protagonist as we felt it would make the audience feel more worried for her as women are seen as weaker than men and because of this they are more vulnerable leaving her in more danger than if it were a male protagonist. She is seen as very dependant on the male character in the opening when she is leaning on him with his arm around her-possibly porttaying a controlling man- making it more worrying for the audience when they see her in trouble and danger. She is the same age as the man which could possibly be seen as a problem because it makes them both just as immature as each other possibly taking away some of the suspense to the scene. We used a lot of close-ups on the girl to show emotion as girls are often seen as more emotional than men making the audience feel more of an emotional attachment to the character.
We decided to use a hetrosexual couple as we felt that it would have the most effect as we wanted a male antagonist as this was the most threatening, and a female protagonist as this is the character we felt we could portray as the most vulnerable and weak making the audience feel worried for her. This all worked well as we felt this all came across in the video and from feedback we got in our Survey Video (below) lots of the people we asked gave us the same feedback;that they would have felt scared in the same position as the female character.
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your product and why?
Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation (or Lionsgate) is a North American entertainment company. The company was formed in Vancouver, British Columbia, on July 3, 1997, and is headquartered in Santa Monica, California. As of November 2013, it is the most commercially successful independent film and television distribution company in North America and the seventh most profitable movie studio. (source:Wikipedia)
Universal Studios Inc. (also known as Universal Pictures), is an American motion picture studio, owned by Comcast through its wholly owned subsidiary NBCUniversal, and is one of the sixmajor movie studios. Its production studios are at 100 Universal City Plaza Drive in Universal City, California. Distribution and other corporate offices are in New York City. Universal Studios is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).(source:Wikipedia)
Lionsgate and Universal Studios are two of the most prestigious media institution companies in the world. They both distribute films of all genres constantly throughout the year. "Lionsgate" in particular distributes a lot of horror films which is the same genre as our opening sequence, such films as; Sinister and Sorority Row. Sinister like our film takes place in a house with strange going-ons happening. "Lionsgate" distributes a lot of its films through subsidiarys such as "Summit Entertainment". If "Lionsgate" were to be interested in our film they would probably distribute our film through a subsidiary like "Summit Entertainment". Our film being dark and having an eery atmosphere draws lots of comparisons with Sinister suggesting that someone like "Summit Entertainment" and "Lionsgate" would be extremely interested in a film such as ours.
Paramount Pictures Corporation is a film and television production/distribution studio, consistently ranked as one of the top grossing film studios. It is a subsidiary of U.S. media conglomerate Viacom, Paramount is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America. Our film would suit the kind of film that is distributed by a company such as Paramount due to the kind of films that they have themselves distributed before such as Paranormal Activity which like our film is situated in a dark house with a paranormal demon the evil character which no one can see; this is a very similar plot to ours meaning that perhaps Paramount would be a good choice of distributor but also one that would have a genuine interest in our film due to the success of its previous films that are alike ours.
However, most of these institutions would not be interested in our movie as it is an amateur, low-budget film with amateur actors and made with pretty basic software. So, a way for us to distribute this film would be to release it ourself be it through; youtube, a film festival, a cinema that plays homemade films or even through a low-budget movie channel on TV. This would however be pretty expensive and could prove to be impossible so we could go to a distribution company that specialises in independent horror films such as BrainDamage Films. This company look for independent low-budget horror films to distribute and this could be the perfect company for us.
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
We thought our audience would be between the ages of 16-40. We believed that for anyone below the age of 16 it wouldn't be suitable and possibly scary for them to watch and that it could be a traumatic experience for them which it isn't supposed to be. We believed that anyone over the age of 40 would find this kind of film to be silly rather than frightening and that people of that generation wouldn't like this genre of film.
This film would be aimed at couples as it exploits the safety they would feel whilst watching most horror films but as the characters in this film are a couple they would feel like this would be something that could actually happen to them leaving them feeling worried and no longer safe in the comfort of their own home which was the effect we wanted; we wanted them to feel unnerved by the whole thing. Anyone over the age of 40 would be to much older than than our main characters that they wouldn't feel an emotional tie meaning that they wouldn't actually feel scared for the two main characters meaning we wouldn't have achieved our intentions to scare our audience.
This film would be aimed at couples as it exploits the safety they would feel whilst watching most horror films but as the characters in this film are a couple they would feel like this would be something that could actually happen to them leaving them feeling worried and no longer safe in the comfort of their own home which was the effect we wanted; we wanted them to feel unnerved by the whole thing. Anyone over the age of 40 would be to much older than than our main characters that they wouldn't feel an emotional tie meaning that they wouldn't actually feel scared for the two main characters meaning we wouldn't have achieved our intentions to scare our audience.
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
Creative Response:
Written Response:
We thought by using a normal house with characters close to our demographics age we would reach out to our target audience and this is shown with the reply to the 'Were you scared at any point in particular? And why?' where the gentleman in the blue shirt and glasses says that if he were home alone in the dark he would have been scared by the whole thing shows that when something is quite close to someone and could actually happen to them they find it scary. Also when we asked the Blonde lady with the glasses 'which character do you feel you could relate to and why?' she said the female character as she was of similar age to her and can imagine being in the same situation as her which further highlights the point that people are scared of things that could happen to them in real life rather than stuff that its impossible.
We also looked at why people said they liked horror films and it matched up with the research we had previously done as they said 'it was all down to the build up of tension and suspense' with the gentleman sitting down in the white shirt also claiming that a good horror film builds up suspense by starting off slow and then getting faster and then having a climax in the end. This is a good comment for us as this is exactly what we did and what we had planned the whole way through and the first thing we brought up when we discussed picking the horror genre.
We also used two young middle class suburban actors as we felt this would be the most relatable set of characters for our audience and this seemed to work as all the people we asked said they felt like they could relate with the characters either because they can imagine themselves in that situation or they have experienced something similar to it in them past where they have been home alone and heard weird noises.
We also looked at why people said they liked horror films and it matched up with the research we had previously done as they said 'it was all down to the build up of tension and suspense' with the gentleman sitting down in the white shirt also claiming that a good horror film builds up suspense by starting off slow and then getting faster and then having a climax in the end. This is a good comment for us as this is exactly what we did and what we had planned the whole way through and the first thing we brought up when we discussed picking the horror genre.
We also used two young middle class suburban actors as we felt this would be the most relatable set of characters for our audience and this seemed to work as all the people we asked said they felt like they could relate with the characters either because they can imagine themselves in that situation or they have experienced something similar to it in them past where they have been home alone and heard weird noises.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
We used a Sony Handycam CX320E HD camera. This camera was a very good choice theoretically as it came out with a great quality of picture and was adapted to fit on the tripods that we were using. However, there were a few problems that we had to overcome whilst we were using these cameras. Our biggest problem was the fact that when we uploaded our recorded clips onto iMovie they were sped up and the audio was out of sync with the visual. This meant we had to go to the technician and ask her to change the file size of the clips and put them on to a USB for us to then upload onto iMovie. This slightly decreased the quality of our clips but the quality was still better than on a normal SD camera. We also realised, once we had uploaded the clips onto iMovie, that the camera doesn't work brilliantly in the darkness and one of the fundamental parts of our major clips was the lack of light so this posed a slight problem but the camera picked it up well enough and some of the clips, as we had recorded each clip 3 times just in case of problems, so this didn't end up being too much of a problem. Another problem is that the memory cards that they use don't store a huge amount of space so, we kept having interjections in our recording where we would have to delete old stuff on the camera.
At the start of this course most of us had never used the iMovie software. We had to learn as we went along. In our preliminary task we used an overlay effect on the character who had been abducted and was tied to a chair and this was used to create a sense of disorientation. This was all by putting the same clip over another and putting it slightly later starting so that its out of time. We also spent a lot of time putting audio from one clip onto another, as we felt the acting was a poor part so our dialogue at some points wasn't working as it was too forced, so we muted the clip we wanted to use then put the audio from another clip over the top but we had to split the clip so that we didn't mute the start of the visual clip as we still wanted the audio from the start of that. We also had problems with importing some clips at some points as the camera wouldn't sync properly with iMovie so we had to go into Finder on the Apple Macs and go into the camera and import the clips from the camera folder. speed
At the point in our video where the girl looks out the door and then someone breathes behind her causing her to turn around we tried a number of different things to make that breath sound real and effective; we tried doing it at the time with the camera picking up the sound but it wasn't loud enough, we tried recording it on the camera separately then putting it over the clip but it didn't sound very good, so then we plugged in our headphones and did it through the microphone on our headphones as a voice over and we felt that this actually worked well and sounded the most realistic.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in progression from this to the full product?
Creative Response:
Written Response:
Our Preliminary task was a lot worse than our final task for many reasons the biggest possibly being planning. Our planning for our preliminary task was pretty poor meaning that the story and overall video was quite poor. We took a lot longer to develop a strong story that could be a basis for a good storyboard in order to give us the best opportunity to make a video to the best of our ability. We took a long time in the development of our story often looking for feedback on it so we did things such as ask our class, our teachers and also asking peers what they thought about it. We also created a shooting schedule so and would outline what we wanted to take place in these sessions which kept us on task and getting a lot done which we didn't do in our prelimenary which made a mad rush towards the end making it a worse piece of work with poor quality of shots. We also took time to find out what our weaknesses were so that we could make sure that we didn't have this problem in our coursework piece; our biggest problem was close-ups . We also did a lot more research into the genre so that we understood the common conventions and what we needed to include to make it a scary film.