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.
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.
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