This clip uses many of the techniques we want to use in our own film to make it visually interesting.
Shot Reverse Shot -
We want to include different points of view of the location and action, for example when a noise makes her jump she turns quickly to face something in the opposite direction - we see a shot of her face looking off camera, before seeing a shot of what she's looking at - the source of the noise. We then go back to see her face and her reaction. this makes it more interesting to watch as well as allowing us to be in her position, having the same knowledge as the character. In our film, we could use this perhaps when she walks into the bedroom and peers inside, showing a shot of her entering from her p.o.v. followed by a shot from inside the room watching her actions.
Position of the Tripod/Camera angles -
The Ring clip uses a range of angles and camera positions, for example they use the camera at eyeline level to allow us to see the action naturally and clearly. But they also use a low angle when she walks slowly across the landing which is very unnatural so creates fear. In our own film we could use a mix of angles, perhaps using canted angles to create confusion or make the audience uncomfortable. lots of CU'c are used allowing us to really clearly see facial expression and reactions as well as clear detail. We want to use a lot of CU's but also a range of shots so that we can establish setting and keep it interesting. We could also begin our clip with a shot empty of any characters just to establish the setting and feel of the film.
Shot Length -
There's a really big mix of lengths in this clip, some shots are very long (e.g. 7 seconds) which makes us feel really apprehensive and we get chance to look around the entire frame for a threat that we expect to appear. The very end shots are very quick, lasting only a second. This makes the audience jump and is more shocking as we only get a very quick view of it, so we don't have time to relax and get used to it.
Colour and lighting -
The Ring sequence uses mainly blacks/greys and very plain colours - its not bold or eye catching and the main character is dressed in white, perhaps showing innocence and contrast against the black of the shadows and threat. The lighting creates very sharp shadows and as it is set at night time it immediately feels more unnerving. We want to set our own film late afternoon early evening and so it will be almost dark. Although we are shooting inside we can use very subtle lighting to make it quite eery and make some shadows, possibly hiding a threat.
Question 3 : What kind of media institution might distribute our media product and why?
Distribution involves all the promotion and marketing of the film and getting your film out and seen by the public and critics. I first researched an independant film production company, as well as a major production company to give me some further information about the distribution of current media and how we could distribute our own film, taking into account that we are student filmmakers and not established producers with an open budget for our film.
It's a part of the Exclusive Media Group producing british horror films over the last 70 years. Althougth they are based in the UK they have been one of the most successful independant production companies to promote and release their films worldwide, with the films being produced being from horror, sci-fi, thriller, film noir genres. Recently they have procuded the remake of Let Me In and are currently promoting and releasing the film adaptation of the play The Woman In Black. Many of their productions are collaborations with other production companies and so are more successfully distributed and seen which seems to be paying off in financial return as the company are doing well after their 2007 revamp. They aim to produce 2-3 horror films a year so they are very specialised and i think that shows in their work.
I watched the trailer for The Woman In Black and looked into the promotion of the film. I noticed on the trailer that Hammer Films was not mentioned in the opening titles, instead CBS Films and Crosscreek Pictures so its quite a collaborative project for each department of the production allowing the budget to be higher and the breath of distribution to be wider and promotion to be more successful.
Stills from the trailer -
I also looked at another independant production company - Vertigo Films, another UK based production company that aims to "create and distribute commercially driven independent cinema". they were only founded in 2002, but have recently collaborated with Hammer films on a joint production on horror film Wakewood, recieved very well by critics. Vertigo however is not as exclusive in the genre of films they produce, although they have produced thrillers and horrors like The Children, London to Brighton, and the low budget, award winning film Monsters.
Vertigo seem more globalised than Hammer, but are less direct and specific over what they produce - producing a wider range of films makes it easier to become established however, Hammer is well established becasue of what it makes and it being purely that genre.So the collaboration of Hammers knowledge of horror films and Vertigo's distribution skills work very well for films like Wake Wood.
Mirimax however is universally known, global company that is much broader again in the films they produce. The fact they are known so well and collaborate with other well known, hugely successful companies worldwide make they both financially and commercially very successful. They have the money and facilities/links to distribute films. They are a media institution that helps produce both films that are very critically aclaimed and others that are purely very popular with audiences worldwide. They have partnerships with Lionsgate and Studiocanal and also Netflix and Facebook so are able to reach a very broad range of people to advertise and promote films worldwide. Again unlike Hammer, the films they produce are not from a single genre but are extremely broad.
After looking at media institutions i think our film would most likely be distributed by a company like Hammer as althought they are not a huge, global company, they are very experienced with this particular genre of film and so i think they would be able to work well with our film and distribute our film successfully. They often work with low budget films and i think this would work well in our case also. They use partnerships to their advantage and their distribution and promotion is very effective in bringing in audiences and getting the film seen as they target the most influencial audiences and countries - i.e UK and USA being very powerful in the worldwide film industry.
Whilst thinking about distribution and media institutions, we thought about our poster and what we wanted it to look like. We looked at other horror posters that had really grabbed our attention and analysed them to see how they had done so and influences they had on our expectations for the film and how much information they gave about plot, characters, is there a clear genre? etc.
I looked at some of the posters from films produced by some of the companies id researched. For example, the poster for Hammer's Let Me In really caught my attention...
Let Me In -
I found this poster really stiking - the positioning and body language of the girl is instantly eyecatching. I think the fact theyve chosen to position her adjacent to the title and credits is really interesting, its quite unexpected. There are a lot of typical horror elements in this poster so the genre is clearly well established - i.e. the blood round her mouth, the hood up, dark eyes, hand curled on the window - it makes a really creepy image and sets that as the tone for the film really well.I think the use of a white background works well as white is often symbolic for innoncent as are children, but here we are seeing the opposite - the white is juxtapositioned against the girl and the blood. The red lettering of the title makes it bold and contrasts against the white and also again has that connotation of blood/anger and danger. I think perhaps a more interesting font could make the poster stand out even more.
The Woman In Black -
This is the latest poster from Hammer, advertising The Woman In Black, a ghost/psychological horror currently being advertised adn shown in cinemas. I think the smudges font of the title lettering works really well with staying inkeeping to the subgenre, aswell as the split of the image between the characters face and the shadow of the ghost. The very strong lighting creating shadows all over his face and background make it very unnerving and add to the expectations it makes for the film being very jumpy and scary. I think having a very character based poster works well and would be appropriate for our own films poster.
Our sample poster -
Ater researching a lot of horror film posters, we decided that we didnt want ours to be character based despite psychological horrors being very character driven. Instead we decided on a very simple but memorable image - we found and downloaded a typewriter font and using photoshop put together a poster using stained paper as the background (possibly symbolising a long standing threat and a history behond it) with splashes of both ink and blood which links in well with both our plot (the character being a novelist) and the tagline of the film, as well as immediately showing potential audiences that it is a horror film (i.e. by the blood). We added a release date, our production company name and the certificate of the film. We're we a large multinational production company, this poster would be shown worldwide on bilboards, buses, newspapers, magazines, etc. but as we are much lower budget and its a short student film, more likely ways of marketing would be facebook, or handouts/flyers, or via our blog etc.
Other Ways of Distribution-
The above distributors and companies are already very established, and considering that we are making such a low budget student film, these would not be realistic distribution and production backing options for us. Instead i looked into other ways of getting films seen that were more appropriate for us. Many were options used by new/upcoming filmmakers and student projects/ low budget shoots. For example, film festivals are really successful in helping smaller films get seen. British Student Film Festival is a very popular national festival, specifically for student films. A more local film festival that is purely for horror films is Mayhem Festival, at the Broadway Cinema in Nottingham. Although film festivals are very useful in getting films seen, youtube and social networking sites are also really popular in sharing, for example, uploading trailers and short films onto myspace or own blogs. These options are much more accessible for us and so would be good choices for our own distribution.
Bang Film Festival is another local festival that would be a good choice for us to distribute our film and get it seen as well as putting it online for a more global audience. Its a good festival for smaller films and especially student films which would otherwise not be seen by as broad an audience.
Release Diary -
The release date of a film is really important in securing financial return on the film and a good audience - for example, halloween is a good time for horrors to be released, as people are in teh mood to be scared, but i didnt want to chose a date where a very popular franchise film is beig released from a similar genre as it limits audiences. Therefore i think early November would be a good release date -just after halloween but not the busy summer blockbuster period or start of oscar season. DVD release date is usually around 4 months after the cinema release, so dvd release would be in March.
Cinema Release Date - Friday 9th November 2012 DVD Release Date - Monday 11th March 2013
Advertisement Campaign - I think our trailer would appear before films from similar genres, other horror films or perhaps action or thrillers. However, it would have to appear before films with the same certificate so that the trailer is appropriate for the audience.
Logo -
Above is our designed logo for our production company; JEC. We used a very similar look to that of our poster (created in the same way using Photoshop) but as it was a company that could potentially create multiple films we didnt use the ink or blood as that was only relevant to that particular film. When looking at other production companies logos, theyre very simple....
So we therefore kept ours very simple - with a relatively plain background and simple text which i think worked really well. We put it as the opening image for our film to inform the audience of the company behind the production.
4.) Who would be the audience for our media product? + 5.) How did we attract/address our audience?
After looking at the target audiences and main viewers of a selection of successful horror films, we got a clearer idea bout who we wanted ours to be aimed at and who the most likely viewers would be (in terms of gender, race, age, etc.) Knowing this helped us to use shape our film around aiming to attract and appeal to that particular demographic.
For example, I looked at these results for who is the main viewer of The Shining and, a more recent horror film, Insidious.
The Shining - Insidious -
The main audience for The Shining was males aged 18-29, however it was also very popular with slightly older man (aged 30-44). Many horror films are around this age group but bacause of the certificate given to this film it explains why younger viewers were not a large percentage of the overall audience - i.e. the BBFC classified this film as an 18 due to the violence and heavy threat and horror involved. Whilst limiting the potential audience, it is still an incredibly successful film of its sub-genre. This film i think is a lot more physical than ours would be - i.e. it is aimed at a more mature audience, havign a very complicated and frightening plot, as well as middle aged main characters. Therefore, i dont think ours would have quite such a mature audience, possibly slightly younger teenagers as ours would not be classified with such a high certificate. Insidious however was classed with a 15 certificate, so understandably the audiences had a lower average age. Whilst being within the same sub-genre of horror as The Shining, it has a very different plot that conveys a slightly less intense type of fear - its more jumpy and haunting than mentally violent, which is the reason for the lower rating i think. A very recent psychological horror Black Swan was rated the highest by under 18s, and with its 15 certificate this is quite suprising. It was very popular with critics as well as the public and again the main target audience i think is adults due to the quite complicated plot.
I also looked at 2 horror films from different subgenres to see if there was a noticable difference in the audience and ratings. For example I looked at popular vampire film, Twilight, and this, along with many other vampire films, was given a much lower certificate of a 12A . This is likely to be because of its much lower violence, and gore compared to many other horror subgenres, as well as the fear level being greatly reduced. This lower certiifcate allows for a much broader age of viewers, which in this case has really been successful with teenagers, especially females, worldwide, making the film series itself much more successful. The graph underneath shows it had the most reviews from males, however females from all age groups rated the film more highly and were therefore more likely to watch the sequels.
Twilight - Night of the Living Dead -
I looked at the viewer ratings and certificates for Night of The Living Dead (see graph above), a much older, zombie horror film. It was certified as a 15, but due to it being made over 40 years ago, if it was to be re-classified now it may have a different certificate - i.e. the BBFC update their ideas behind what classes a 15/18 etc. regularly so could well be different now. However, i still looked into the user ratings and audiences and found that males rated the film slightly higher, but it still appealed and was enjoyed by both genders. Obviously the 15 certificate allows a slightly younger audience to view it but again was mainly watched and targeted at young adults e.g. 20-30 year olds.
When anlaysing taget audience and how to attract them i looked at The Ring, a film from our chosen subgenre, earlier in my analysis. Their target audience is teenagers and young adults (the same as ours) and they have used a modern setting and appropriate props recognisable by public today (e.g. modern technologies like televisions and mobiles etc.) as well as a young character a similar age to their targeted audience, allowing viewers of that age to very easily connect with the character and therefore the storyline becomes scarier and more relevant to them. As we have a very similar plot the that of The Ring and after looking at the target audiences for our subgenre as a whole we decided that our own film's target audience would be a similar age - roughly ages 15-30, but can be enjoyed by older, and is suitable for either gender.
The Ring -
I looked at the BBFC website and how they classify films. I looked at the description for both a 15 and an 18 certificate as they were the most likely for our film and are the most common for released films from our subgenre.
Under a 15 certificate strong threat is allowed, but is is not permitted to be sadistic. Language is allowed but strong language only if it is justified. Violence can be strong but not too gory or graphic. Under an 18 certificate the film can include actions that are strong criminal offenses and very strong, graphic violence and gore as well as very frequent strong language.
I carried out a small online survey to look further into target audiences. I asked a small group of people, between 15-40 years old, a series of simple questions regarding their views on films, specifically horrors. I found that from all genres of film, horror was more popular than i was expecting, particularly with the older people asked, with 33% choosing horror as their first choice of film. I then asked which sub genre they were each most likely to watch and found that psychological horrors were the most popular both within the entire group asked and interestingly were the chosen sub genre of all the teenagers questioned. Psychological horrors were more popular with females than males in this survey which, whilst going against some of my earlier findings. went well with our ideas for our target audience and decision to have a female character.
After looking at a range of examples of audiences from both our chosen subgenre and from an opposing subgenre of horror films, and how this is affected by certificate, we decided our target audience is most likely to be older teenagers and young adults e.g. 15-29. Although our main character is female, i think the film will be easily relatable and watchable for both genders. I think it will appeal to any race/ethnicity as it is very easy to relate to the story and the main character is mixed race, which gives it a subtle level of equality. I dont think there is any particular group of people unable to watch our film but knowing our target audience is young adults has made us able to shape the film for their expectations adn make it a film they would want to watch adn enjoy watching. I think our film will be classified a 15 due to the disturbing mental impact and fear involved in the plot. However it will have a very low level of violence and gore and is not using strong enough themes to be classed as an 18.
Attracting our audience -
Teenage girls have the stereotype of being scared quite easily so we want the film to very quickly create and establish a creepy feeling and setting and clearly explain the plot, without giving a lot of information away. We chose ouir main character (and therefore actor) to be a late teenage girl, to conform with the idea previously mentioned about stereotypes which makes it more relatable for our target audience as they are a similar age to the victim so therefore feel for her more and feel more scared as its more realistic and relevant to them - they will be more likely to worry over it happenning to them to as its someone the same age. I think because we chose a female character, the story and her fear is more believable thatn if they were male, but it also attracts both female and male viewers. We chose to use the typewriter as a prop that links all the elements of our plot and backstory together - e.g. her job as a writer, the threat becomes apparent through it, it also shows her personality e.g. shes very traditional and perhaps lives quite a quiet, simple life - the house isnt full of technology. Shes very down to earth, the everyday setting and costume make her very relatable for audiences. Getting our initial feedback form a sample audience after our first shoot helped us to include more shots that explained the relevance of the typewriter in her life and explains how it fitted in, which tied up any lose ends that seemed to have caused confusion.
From our feedback we found that people really did connect with our character because of her age, appearance and natural personality etc. Looking at our final film, the music we created is quite simple but uses the simplcity to draw in the audience and almost makes you on edge and expectant of a suprise or reveal. The music builds to a reveal which helps it sound frightening and influences the audiences response towards both the plot and character - i.e. we feel scared for her as well as worrying about the reveal of the threat. The title sequence links directly to our opening sequence and overall plot, involving the typewriter especially. Its visually interesting so works well in attracting the audience and helping them to want to see more and continue watching.
Key themes / associations from our film and feedback -
You can see from the below clip from our film that we aimed to target quite a wide audience as it appeals to all ages/genders/ethnicities etc. The house and actress looks to be lower middle class which helps her appeal to most audience embers - shes very easy to relate to as its in a very normal setting - she seems very natural (shes working, living in a comfortable house etc.) Many of the points i have previously mentioned are evident in the film below e..g the casting of the actress etc as well as the location and style of filming. when comparing to the clips form existing films above, it uses similar techniques to attract and engage an audience - the modern setting and character and singlular character - in many cases a young woman - you instantly worry for her because she is alone.
Above is an image of Film genre trends. As you can see drama has been the most popular right from the very beginning of the graph (1888). This was until 1896 when short films became more popular reaching up to 4500. This trend carried on until it rapidly increased between 1908-1912. Since then short films went downhill tremendously where comedy and drama became more popular. This trend has carried on right up until 2004 where the graph ends. During that time, documentry, adult and action has risen between 1950-2004. Over this time period, other genres have been introduced from 1970-2004, but they are still not as popular as the very first film genre's which were introduced.
I have chosen the following images to demonstrate conventions of my sub-genre. These images will be used as inspiration, and should influence my decisions in making my own opening sequence
This is a part of the opening sequence of Insidious. I personally feel it represents both the film and the sub-genre. It's very much stereotypical for red and black to be used to represent a horror movie, but my focus was and is on the font design. The shadow behind the writing adds a sinister twist to the titles, working alongside the rigid typeset. For our opening titles, I would want to use the same factors used in this one - sinister shadowing and rigid font
This is our company logo, that we created for our production company. It is not as brazen as its counterpart (above), in terms of conventions, mainly because it challenges the conventions set by Insidious, because of the serif font used, which is also cohesive with our plot, and also the colour scheme. The red full stop almost indicates blood, which also follows general conventions of horror films, but the rest of the work is brighter than it would be expected to be.
This image is another example of the same, however, this one also demonstrates mise-en-scene. This image draws up the audiences innate expectations of a psychological horror, by playing on your imagination. There are a number of dark corners and shadows that disable the audience from seeing what is actually there, leaving much of it to their own imagination. Furthermore, the image isolates the house from the neighborhood that surrounds it, singling it out as an abnormality
This image demonstrates mise-en-scene, but again, challenges most of the contentions set by the image prior. It is quite bright in comparison, and does not immediately draw on the audiences imagination. However, the shot puts the character in the background, and shows an empty room, in which she is alone. We also caught the kitchen door in the rule of thirds, which may or may not play on the audiences imagination.
This is the logo for our film, "The Wait". The logo is quite simple, and in all honesty does not reflect that of "The Ring". It challenges "The Rings" conventions, as it uses a serif font as opposed to a san-serif font, the lighting is totally different to it's counterpart. What made the logo effective in the film was the sound in the background, which introduced the title with a bass drum supporting it. Whilst the imagery did not draw the audiences attention to it, the sound did the job for it.
This image is the logo for "The Ring". I think this logo is great, the distinct typeset demonstrating the eeriness and abstract nature of the movie. It is very representative of what to expect in the film itself. Again, the shadow around the image adds to a very sinister atmosphere delivered by the imagery. If I was to design a logo for our piece, I would consider this design as inspiration. I believe it suits the purpose it which it is set without cramming the screen with horrifying images. It does exactly what psychological horrors are supposed to do; play on the audiences imagination
This is a still image from the movie "Black Swan". The image follows the traditional conventions of a psychological horror; the typical clutching of the head, terrified scream and a female protagonist. Itis an effective image because even without the sound, it creates an atmosphere of terror and anxiety, but focusses on the intensity of the characters instability. I believe it would be a given to use an image similar to the above in our piece, particularly because of its effect. This shot could well be the most inspiring image of the bunch
I think this shot is brilliant in showing our sub-genre. The shot focuses very much on the characters eyes, which are quite sharp, and made more distinct by the dark eye shadow around them. In this shot the lights flicker, before going totally out, putting the audience in a blind spot. I think this shot is strong, because it is not obviously a part of a horror, and is very subtle in its strengths. The canted angle supports the expectation of the sub genre, as it shows the psychological uneasiness of the subject in the shot
Still Images from "The Ring"
Image 1, 2 and 3 each portray women as the victims, and centre around the victimization of the female characters. All 4 of the images develop existing conventions of psychological horror, typically playing on the fears and curiosity of both the characters and the audience to further the plot. Image 1 (to the left) uses the setting and lighting (mise-en-scene) to set the character in isolation along with bright lighting to focus the audiences attention on the characters facial expression.
The 3 bottom images have been extracted from the video posted above
As I stated before, the opening scene to "The Ring' played a key role in inspiring our piece, and effectively devising it. The still images extracted from the piece are the key focal points of the clip in terms of imagery. The image (to the left) is about 4 frames long; not much. However. due to the intensity of the non-diegetic screech (watch the video and you'll see what I mean), this image is very powerful in setting the atmosphere for the remainder of the piece and is greatly effective in impacting the audience. The image, using the rule of thirds, focusses on the sheer terror of the characters face, as opposed to the image they see, creating the mystery of what caused her distress.
The following image (again to the left) focusses particular on the innocence of the character. Again, using the rule of thirds, the image focusses on her passive and anxious facial expression, particular the gaping mouth. The image makes it clear who the victim is, and projects her anxiety onto the audience to create and eerie atmosphere. In our piece, this is the kind of image we intend to use to create an atmosphere that almost reflects pathos and anxiety on the characters behalf
The last image in clever as it sets the audience at a bad vantage point. Psychological horrors thrive on mystery and are similar to the thriller genre, hence why I believe this image is a useful one to replicate. The scene has already created an anxious atmosphere that only heightens in the presence of suspense. Where the passive soundtrack (again, refer to the video) is also applied, in accompanies the image well in creating an eerie suspense
This image, similar to the one from "The Ring", puts the audience at a terrible vantage point, and almost a blind spot. These kind of shots are great for developing suspense, and if needs be, having something jump out at the audience
This image, and the image below, are both key in demonstrating our sub-genre. They both used canted angles (or the Dutch shot as some call it) to show the psychological unease of the character, and make it clear who the victim in our piece is. They put the character as the centre of attention, and creates a degree of anxiety on the characters behalf, potentially because of the abstract lighting
This image, I feel, is very key in our piece. Of all the shots we have used, this one is the most abnormal. The lighting behind the hand (behind the door), created a silhouetted reflection, which looks quite ghostly. The rest of our shots are abstract, and do not make a threat clear. However, this shot makes the threat unmissable, and makes it a direct trouble to the audience.
Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups? I looked at some clips from films of our sub genre in terms of representation, and looked at how they influenced our own choices in our film. For example, the use of age and gender in creating a realistic character. I looked at films that used young characters as the focus as i think the stereotypes of young teenagers make a vulnerable character which works well in our sub genre. 1.)
Above is the trailer for Insidious and the opening scenes of The Ring, both recent psychological horror films. Both are based around a family being affected by the supernatural and mental instability. The Ring has a girl as both the victim and also one partially as the threat; in this case a much younger girl is the threat and source of fear for the teenage girls who are affected by the story of a video which acts as a death sentence. The idea of having a child as a threat works very well and is very commonly used as the source of the fear very successfully within a range of horror sub-genres. You expect children to be innocent and naive and so having them as the threat creates a real fear and an interesting plot point. In Insidious however, a child is the victim of the mental insecurities which leads to his parents lives being wrought with fear and mental instabilities.Having a child as the initial victim and almost haunting his parents gives the film a more intense feel I think, it makes us really feel uncomfortable as the child causes the instability and breakdown of his parents.The Ring follows a young female journalist and the decision to have a female in the lead role I think works well with the stereotypes of girls being easily scared and usually the victim - the one needing saving, which is a storyline that works very well in this genre of film.Insidious has a very family feel and the story breaks up the stability of the family and is very focused on the mother and her reactions to the circumstances surrounding her son. Both films follow very initially stable families and characters, for example, they are both very typically middle class and that’s very stereotypical of the genre – the threat always seems to target successful people. Both films convey almost ‘perfect’ families – typical nuclear families so the decision to have the threat target them involves many of the crucial themes found in horror films for example jealousy, hate and revenge that drives the story as it gives the threat a reason for their actions. I think this relationship works well as it creates a very different feel to the film and perhaps attracts a new, slightly older audience. Whereas The Ring manages to draw in the most stereotypical audience; 15-25 year olds, partially through the teenage/ young characters and a successfully scary storyline. Both films are based around white American characters and this is very typical for horror films, but is an ethnicity that is easy to relate to and recognise. Perhaps a range of characters of different ethnicities and backgrounds would attract a larger audience.
2.)
This is the before/after make up test shots of the actress playing the role of our main character. We wanted someone who looked smart and intelligent - i.e. neat hair and make up, rather than someone that fits into a negative stereotype of teenagers, for example not caring about their appearance, drinking, etc. We wanted them to look sensible, but also quiet and slightly lonely as this gives them more insecurities and makes them more suceptible to the threat. When we planned our opening scenes we thought about the type of job she could have, and after deciding on creating an intelligent, successful character we wanted her to be a student journalist/writer which tied in well with the idea of having a typewriter as part of our title sequence. After looking at the target audiences of successful horror films from our subgenre, we wanted to aim the film at young adults as we found that 18-25 year olds were the largest consumers of horror films, especially males. This lead us to write a story that follows someone of a similar age, to make it more appealing and relatable to our chosen demographic. We wanted to appeal to a wide range of ethnicities and to both genders so we cast a mixed race teenage girl in the hopes of helping to achieve this.
When writing our story and script, we thought about the conventions of our sub-genre and the expectations viewers would have for the plot and character and how to create certain stereotypes and expectations through our character and representation of social groups.We didn't want our threat revealed immediately - when we watched a range of psychological horrors as research we found that the scarier stories that worked most successfully were ones where the threat is hidden, only the effects of it seen. We therefore didn't want to reveal the threat in the first few minutes, instead choosing to focus the opening scenes on our main character. As said above, many horror films use middle class successful people as the victims, and we wanted to use this in our own film. I think when viewers see the character then will then expect the threat to chose her as the victim as is so commonly used. To represent our chosen decisions for the character in terms of social groups and convey them clearly to the audience, we chose to set the scenes in a comfortable, spacious house - using mise-en-scene to show her class and status - although she's young, she's successful. We also wanted to use costume (smart but relatively casual) to establish that she hardworking but sensible, showing a positive look at young adults rather than the lazy, more negative representations.
3.) Our finished film -
This is our finished film and compared with the clip above from the opening of The Ring, both establish social group representations in a very similar way with The Ring being a very influencial film behind our own plot ideas. Both use a girl in her teens/early twenties as the victim which immediately makes the viewer think of the stereotypes that come with that - ditsy, easily scared etc. which as said earlier work very well for this genre of film. In The Ring she appears to live in a large, modern house indicating that she is perhaps upper middle class, in the case of our film, the decor and smaller house and rooms indicate maybe more lower middle class - still both class of character that are often found in horrors as it shows that even the well-off and comfortable arent 'safe'. The Ring's main character is white american where as we chose an actress who was mixed race - possibly helping the film appeal to a wider audience in terms of ethnicity. We chose a character that is almost expected in this genre of film and from a social group that would appeal to many of our audience. We used a range of camera angles (e.g. CU's of her face and LS's of her surroundings and costume) in order to allow the audience to make those stereotype connections and link to the character themselves and understand her personality through her actions and things like facial expression and posture.
When looking at the feedback we got from our audience after showing our film, we found that we'd managed to create a film that was appealing to both males and females and was most appealing to teenagers and young adults - indicating that we were successful in connecting with our chosen target audience. By entering some of the responses into wordle, I managed to see which words were the most popular responses e.g. gender-neutral, teens, and females.
