When we started to construct our magazine and poster, we mainly used the internet to look and compare existing products to our own to see what we had to do and what we could of challenged.
We made sure that we used the time we had effectively to make sure that our magazine and poster looked like real life products. We took pictures at the studio whilst filming and planned to use some of the pictures as our main images, but unfortunately, we was not able to recover the images so we decided to take other pictures to replace the ones we had lost.
What we did was, we set up the lights and made sure that we had used the make-up needed on our character. We also made sure that our character had the correct costume to make our magazine/poster effective. We knew that most magazine/poster images were usually medium close-ups or close-ups, and through this, we knew what shots we needed, which made it easier for us to take the pictures that were needed. We took several pictures to make sure we had a range to choose from when deciding on our final images. We also took a range of pictures to make sure that we did not have many pictures that were out of focus.
We used the Photoshop software to create both our magazine and poster. This software is familiar, because it was used during our AS coursework. We also used the website ‘dafont.com’ to download font that we thought that could be effective for our masthead. We downloaded several fonts and examined which font would suite our theme. We eventually decided on one font, which would be the same through both media texts.
From our audience feedback we have learnt a lot about how our teaser trailer has affected our audience. We posted our trailer on Youtube as we wanted the general public to speak their mind so that we get an unbiased view on our trailer due to the anonymous nature of the Internet. I am going to do further analysis of our youtube channel, I will look at the success of our trailer by looking at the views and audience feedback (youtube comments)
From the comments above I have found that understanding the trailer was a problem with our teaser trailer, however as mentioned in our project we are doing a psychological horror where we specifically made our trailer very subtle which will hopefully make the audience want to watch our film. I believe that as a group following the convention of being subtle, was not the best decision as can be seen through the comments above.
Also through Youtube we are also able to see how many views we have made as a channel and we can use this information to judge how successful we are as a group by seeing how many views we can achieve.
I also got some feedback from one of my audiences, where i asked him a couple questions about our finished products by using the Photo booth software on an Apple Mac.
Cross media Convergence which is the way media organisations cross-promote the films during the marketing phase of their film release. Depending on the size and the amount funds available to film companies they are able to cross promote there films on different levels. Synergy is a term used to describe a situation where different entities cooperate together for a final outcome. Media companies create synergy by exploiting various platforms to sell various products related to one film, helping to advertise and increase the film’s sales. These two principles to some extent was used in the marketing and promoting our film but as we are small film company ourselves we was restricted in what we could do.
The combination of our main product and ancillary texts I believe worked very well we kept a consistent typography in the title of our movie ‘Inhumana’ which is clear in the movie poster and also the movie magazine. We also used the same colour and applied the same effect of the grey drop shadow using Photoshop to both media products as this will give our film brand identity, this is used so that our audience can recognise our products and we will assess how useful our brand identity was from our audience feedback.
The protagonist is a female character, she is 16years old. She is a quiet school girl with a soft spoken voice. Her homework reflects her vulnerability and her lack of confidence. This draws the antagonists attention, just like what an ordinary teacher would do, confrontation takes place and she finds her next victim.
Antagonist- Acted by Titlope
The antagonist is also a female charachter and she is 27 years old. She suffers from bipolar disorder, yet no one knows about it. The protagonists consistant poor homework stresses the antagonist and pushes her to attack the victim thinking that the torture will change the quality of the protagonists homework.
Our target audience is both male and female individuals, mainly teenagers. This is because most horror movie viewers are of the younger generation. This could be because, the characters in horror films of nowadays are usually teenagers. A typical example of a film that has used teen characters is 'Scream' and other movies, such as, 'The Hole','Valentine'. These films have targeted teenagers; they have done this by using teenage characters to attract them.
We have tried to target a niche market; young black teenagers, and we have tried to do this by using a Black Female as the main character in our teaser trailer, and made sure we featured her in both the magazine front cover and the movie poster. We expect horror fanatics to be included in our target audience and hope our trailer and movie poster attracts different individuals that are intreseted in different horror sub genres, especially phsycological horror.
Our expected age range for our target audience starts from the age 16-25, however, we would also like to be able to attract people of an older age who has an interest in the horror genre.
Q4. How did you use media technologies in the construction, Research, Planning and Evaluation stages? - WENDY ABIRI
(RESEARCH)
In a multitude of way in which media technologies, has helped in the research stages especially in terms of our blogs, the software we use is Blogger ,
its especially beneficial as it’s a well known and established brand/software and we able to easily access the software plus easily broadcast our work including software and products we have designed, so it was easy for use to embed our teaser trailer, magazine covers plus our teaser trailers front cover. Also its beneficial as we can compare videos and illustrate types of videos that gave us inspiration ect If we were to use an alternative software it would be to use Webbly however there are more technicalities attached to webbly as sometimes links don’t work properly, thus more harder to operate . Furthermore blogger is overall adaptable, adjustable to use, and best for how we would like to present our work.
Technologies we also used was the software YouTube ( the picture is our screenshop on our Youtube video)
in order to broadcast our work plus we an embed our video onto other social network very easily onto sited such as Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter or My-space not only to gain feedback from our target audience which is very useful and we can receive a quick &fast response. The social network we intend to highly take advantage of is Facebook as its good way to present our work plus we have a variation of friends from different countries that can input a variations of perspectives as different countries have different levels of scariness they can handle
Technologies I mainly used to research example film posters or magazine covers, were most from Google and plus there are posters around the media departments which really helped as we can see past A2 students attempts to design a film poster and we could view the designs we want to emulate and designs that we didn’t really want to see within our magazine design. II also would make sure to feedback to the designer or the front cover and magazine cover to use techniques within other magazines and we would make sure the specific techniques where included collectively and we felt like the techniques seen within the magazines would work well with what we envisioned.
Youtube.com is relatively easy website to use as we all use the website on a daily bases to listen to music ect , how it was a little bit hard to upload our teaser trailer onto YouTube as it took a couple of attempts before I could actually upload due to it not being the right type of film and a member of the group upload the teaser trailer but not properly as it was 4mins long which obviously exceeded the below 50 sec that the teaser should be this was due to not checking the work before posting it plus it was due to rushing where we weren’t properly time keeping. The internet is the source of all the software we used as I helped us in the planning stage in the use of researching, when we decided to research about films that helped us go into depth of the physiological horror and most importantly it had the various software we needed in order to create are teaser trailer which I created on Final Cut Pro plus other software such as Garage Band and Microsoft word which I have used to write up the evaluation and various other word Documents.
Question 4) How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? - Martin
To look at this question we must also look at the influence that technology has had on wider society, historically technology could handle one medium or can only be used for specific tasks. An example is that telephones were only designed as a point to point communication system and to transmit and receive sound. However today through the convergence of technology devices are now able to present and interact with many types of media. The perfect example of this is the Apple iPod which was once just a music player but now is seen as a more than adequate portable photo album, video player and radio tuner.
Another example of technology coming together as hubs is the mobile phone, which is no longer used solely for communicating via sound but now includes personal music players, digital cameras, text messenger/email systems and internet access. During our project we were able to take advantage of this as we were able to take still images of our work and moving images of our practice shots.
In our group we also used the internet for most of our work and it wouldn’t have been possible for us to go through the planning stage without it. The internet is the most widespread of technological convergence. The emergence WEB 2.0 has played apart in creating an effective piece of coursework. Web 2.0 websites allow users to interact with other users or change website content whereas the former Web 1.0 are non-interactive websites where users are limited to the passive viewing of information.
In the Planning stage we were able to take advantage of technology by using web 2.0 websites such as blogger which is a free blog publishing website where your able to share text, videos and pictures, we was able to publish posts of our coursework such as our concepts and ideas of our teaser trailer. http://slasherteaser.blogspot.com/view/snapshot
Also with the society we live in today, technology is improving all the time and this makes it a lot easier to access information quickly and effectively. An example of this that we used is also by blogger incorporating its services onto the iphone, this also allowed us as a group to post some of our information of our coursework ‘on the go’.
Also through technology we were able to present our work in a number of ways such as YouTube which is another Web 2.0 website where we could upload videos of some of our practice shots and see what kind of feedback we can get from it as they are unleashed onto the public and we also made our own channel. http://www.youtube.com/user/ChainProductionsA2
Also we used technology such as phones to communicate with each other such as through BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) which is an instant messaging app on Blackberry smart phones, we were able to use this piece of technology effectively to communicate quickly with each other about our coursework project
We also created utilised the features of BlackBerry Messenger by creating a group just for members of our coursework project, this where we had conversations about our coursework and held meetings of the tasks we need to complete
Evaluation:Titilope
An Image Of 'Final Cut Pro.'
We used ‘Final Cut Pro’ for the editing of our trailer. As nobody in our group knew how to use this software, we all had to take time out of lessons or whenever we were free to watch tutorials on YouTube. We also aimed for the shots in our trailer to flow so our audience can easily recognise the genre of the trailer. We aimed to meet the conventions of a ‘psychological’ horror movie. These conventions are as follows:
·Reality
·Perception – Other characters should be observing or have observed the behaviours of the ‘antagonist’
·Mind
·Existence – The true purpose of the character.
·Identity - Usually, the ‘antagonist’ will find the true identity/the devil side of his or herself. The loss of ‘innocence’.
·Death - How / when the victims die.
We used ‘Photoshop’ to create the captions in our trailer. From ‘Photoshop’, we then imported the captions into the timeline on ‘Final Cut Pro’. We also downloaded fonts from ‘DaFont’ this was to create the effect we wanted our audience to get from the captions in the trailer. In our group, we created our music collectively.
An Image Of Photoshop.
An Image Of 'DaFont.'
We all added in things that we had created separately. However, we didn’t realise using the nursery rhyme tune “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” was an infringement; but we corrected it by cutting that bit of the sound by 10 seconds.
We didn’t record any other sound effects because we didn’t think the use of Foley sounds would be needed create the feelings we want from our target audience. We also used video technologies such as ‘Slow mode’ and ‘The Black White Effect’. We didn’t put so many effects in our teaser because, part of our research of psychological horror included watching psychological teasers and they didn’t contain so many effects, although they still carried the message along.
Our trailer also includes cuts, pacings and transitions because we wanted the trailer to be simplistic however, it will still carry the message along to our audience. We used social media sites such as ‘YouTube’ and ‘Facebook’ for the distribution of our trailer and many other videos that were filmed during the process of the production of our trailer. From these sites, we received comments from outside viewers.
Image Of Facebook's Logo.
These comments were to enable us to know if our trailer was effective or if it wasn’t and why. This was also the most efficient way of distributing our audience’s thoughts and comments instead of printing questionnaires and having to search for the age range we are targeting and also taking them to watch the trailer first.
Image Of Youtube's Logo.
We also feel that using this method enabled us to get valid information from our viewers (ages 15-20) as it isn’t a questionnaire so they wouldn’t feel so impatient whilst saying their thoughts or comments (a questionnaire doesn’t allow them to do that).
An Example Of A Psychological Horror Movie
:"The Uninvited."
Q3. What Have You Learnt From Your Audience Research? - Wendy Abiri
As a group, we highly value feedback as it’s the main source of how we can improve our work and our work essential needs to be viewed by other to determine how creative our work is and if our work is understandable plus whether our work has fulfilled our objective of inspiring that we would like to pass onto our viewers. The audience research essentially, would be useless if we didn’t learn from it and took research into account and learned from it! So I will now justify what I have learnt form the research, which brought back useful critics. (In terms of the Teaser Trailer)
The data above indicates where we, have embedded our video to receive feedback from our audience, in included (which was compulsory) was within the Media 2012 playlist, where other students who are doing Media, or students within our school who have interest with the teaser trailer have the possibility where they can see our work and compare it to different coursework! Plus the majority of our coursework has derived from Facebook.com, which accounts from most of our views; both the Facebook views combined show that Social Networking is very important as communicating with our friend to watch our video! Plus the statistics show that the views spiked from about the 18th that the viewership started to increase. And we have a total of 69 views which is small but enough as it more then the threshold of 20 as more then 20 is enough.
The data shows , where in the geographical area our teaser trailer has been shown plus the age range even thought our target audience is of 17 to 18 years old the data showed that our gender was more a less Female which to an extent isn’t beneficial and we would preferable like a mixture such as a half /half ration or a least a more inclusion of male viewers , and additionally females stereotypically are less likely to watch horror films but this researched has showed that more , women have watch this on a whole . Plus the age rage has exceed our target audience where there were female who where 25 – 34 year old. And finally the geographical map show. That most of our views are from the UK however we would preferable like to get a global response as was said in our research we would like a variation of responses from different country’s, but at least UK citizen can relate to our work.
FEEDBACK ON YOUTUBVE (COMMENTS)
What I learnt from this feedback given is that on a whole that this particular viewer didn’t understand our teaser trailer and found I confusion then only way we can work on this constructive criticism is that we can make the shots flow more through more transitions! Plus we could have improved by reshooting the shoots, which was suggest but lack of time hindered this process thus we had to just leave it
This viewer found that the shots that we created were really good we could have improved this by reshooting our using shots that we had! Our genre of physiological thriller means that not everyone will initially get the concept of our trailer thus you will have to watch it a multitude of times from the audience to understand the concept.
This viewer said that they also enjoyed the shots but it would have been better if they understood the concept to which many viewers didn’t really get.
Evaluation Question 2) How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? - Titilope
The use of the ‘antagonist’ on the front cover of the poster and the magazine establishes the use of synergy and it’s element of continuity. The actress (Titi) would have changed the style of her costume to make the products seem more effective especially for the magazine and the poster by:
·Messy Hair
·Not allowing the t-shirt or top under the teacher shirt to be visible
·Adding more blood onto the costume
·Heavier make up and props. ·Dress ·Stockings ·Clunky Shoes
She would also like to change the non-verbal communication she maintained through the trailer. This is by making her role less obvious, a little more quiet and facial expressions more subtle. This is because, as it is a psychological horror movie trailer, it is supposed to create guesses, the feel of fear and danger, in the minds of our audience not giving answers to their questions immediately.
Our unique selling point is that our products are simplistic. It is scary but also funny so it may only appeal to a small number of people in society. Movies that are produced like this, are’ old time’ movies ('B-Movies') where there was evidence that there wasn’t enough money for the production or distribution. The acting was also not of good standard so therefore, the production team made do with the equipment they had. However, movies like this are still always mentioned as famous movies that encourage entertainment; mostly because of the comedy that runs through horror movies of such nature.
This suggests that not everybody in society will find our product appealing but it’ll still be seen as effective to a niche audience. This what makes or product stand out from others of the same ‘horror’ genre.
B-Movies:
Image 1 Of B-Movie
These movies are low-budget commercial motion pictures that are less publicized. They were very popular around the ‘Golden age of Hollywood’ (1930’s). B-Movies could also be low budget Science-fiction and horror movies; these became more popular in the 1950’s. They provide opportunities for those who are coming up in the industry and those whose careers are declining.
Image 2 Of B-Movie.
Image 4 Of B-Movie.
Image 3 Of B-Movie.
Q2. How effective is Your Combination of Your Main Product & Ancillary Texts? - WENDY ABIRI
Our 3 main products are our Teaser Trailer, Magazine Cover and our Trailer Front Cover. I will be mainly discussing how effective is your combination of our main product, which in this case is the Horror Teaser Trailer! (Psychological Horror). In many ways we have differently promoted the use of digital technology and how the development of it ahs helped use to promote our work on a global scale , in that we can seen our work to our YouTube friends who can be from foreign countries such as the USSA . The use o f digital technology is that we can exploit the boundaries that we are sometimes limited to, as we are able to exceed media outlets whereby social networks means we can communicate to a wider range of audience it essentially is about networking the Social Network include:
- Facebook
- Myspace
- Tumblr
- Youtube
- Post on our Personal Blog
- Twitter
These notable come from Web 2.0, which is the new more updated of web 1.0, its more interactive better communication throught personal blogs, video sharing sites such as Youtube, and Dailmotion and finally social Networking where by media is more developed in comparison to Web 1.0 which in effect promets combination and synergy whereby its easy to acees and cross promote our work as the internet/ web 2.0 has made it easier . Further more ther is high importance in brand loyalty we wanted our work to stand out as individyual pieces but when put together the rwill be an obvious countionuty but the only way to discover whether our work has achieved brand ident and countinuity s throught our post / media audience research. The we have tryed to establish countiuit is throught oue magazine image.
In our group, we felt that audience research is something that is vital because this is the only way we are able to get feedback from our target audience. We decided to do some research using different social networking sites e.g. some of us used YouTube, Some used Facebook and others took research through questionnaires. We did this because, we felt like this is the only way to receive more feedback from the different angles of our target audience. I chose to use a questionnaire because I felt it was easier to gather results from, however, it was also time consuming. I learnt different things from these results.
This shows that most of our target audience would go to the cinema to watch the movie if 'Inhumana' was actually produced. Most of them chose 'Yes' because, they wanted to know more behind the story that was told by the teaser as it was to short so they didnt get a full idea. However, 1 out of 3 people said 'No' because they dont like movies of a 'Horror' genre. This therefore teaches me that not all teenagers are fans of horror movies.
I asked this question purposely to see if our trailer was successful in passing the right message of what the genre of the film was to our target audience. It was therefore successful because most of the people i asked thought it was 'Psychological Horror'. However, 1 person thought it was a 'Thriller'. Another person thought it was 'Comedy'.
This shows that the questionnaire was answered by more females than males. I did this because, i wanted more information on what females would think whenever they viewed this teaser. This is because of their unusual representation in our teaser as the 'antagonist'.
This shows the age group that people I took the research on feel is appropriate to watch the trailer or the movie itself. Most of them thought it was more appropriate for people aged 15 and over. However, 1 person felt it would be more appropriate if whoever watched it is guarded by their parents because they found the trailer to be quite disturbing. Therefore we now have an idea of the age range for our teaser.
From the results above, I’ve learnt many things about our target audience. The fact that not many teenagers enjoy watching a horror movie. I would still expect this to be a small group of teenagers because, most of the people I asked to watched the trailer enjoy watching movies of a horror genre. Through my questionnaire, I’ve also learnt that the audience liked our editing, shots and camera angles. On the other hand, because we didn’t include much blood, there wasn’t enough fear created as there would be in a horror movie. The fact that the trailer was short, made the story difficult to understand as the audience felt that it wasn’t clear enough. Therefore whenever we make another trailer, we would put all these thoughts into great consideration. Overall, majority of the people asked felt that they enjoyed it.
Q1. In what ways does your media product use,develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? - Gradice
There are specific forms and conventions when completing specific tasks. When it comes to real media products, there are precise forms and conventions that need to be followed which allows the products to be identified easily. The outline of this course requires us to make different media products, such as a movie poster, a magazine front cover and movie trailer.
Before we had a final idea of what the poster would look like, we had to research on how typical horror movie posters looked like and what was the iconic feature that each poster had. Based on our research, we took it on board, and came up with a few ideas of what we wanted it to look like. Here is an example of what one of our posters could of look like:
A movie poster is used to advertise a film, there are several sizes printed to suite the different markets. They would normally have an image- the image would usually be the main actor of the film, with this image, it can set the mood/tone of the film and gives the audience a taste of what the film could be about. A movie poster would usually have texts, which would usually be the film title in a large font; the texts would include the main actor’s name. It could also include a tagline, release date and the name of the director.
When it comes to Horror film posters, the image would generally be a close up or medium shot. The character used in the image would be either the protagonist or antagonist. The antagonist would create suspence, disgust and cause fear for the audience, on the other hand, the protagonist would be portrayed as vulnerable, and their non-verbal communication would connote a sense of fear.
Horror Conventions: Martin
Our Teaser Trailer is a psychological horror which relies on character's fears, guilt, beliefs errie sound effects, relevant music and emotional instability to build up tension and further the plot, psychological horror differs from other types of horror sub genres such as slashers as they relie on gore and violence to get their horror effect, also another difference is that where other horror sub genres there may be some sort of monster which is the antagonist whereas in psychological horror it may just be a normal human being, whose horrific identity is often not revealed until well into the work, or even at the very end of the film. Other characteristics that psychological horror has is that they tend to be subtle compared to traditional horror and typically less physical harm , as it works it usually has something to do with sexual health and relationships with women and men mainly on the factors of mentally affecting the audience rather than the display of graphic imagery seen in the slasher sub genre.
Our trailer followed the common convention of the antagonist having some sort of connection to the protagonist. In our trailer the protagonist is a student and our antagonist is the teacher so there is a clear teacher-pupil relationship between them, relationships between the antagonist and protagonist is a common convention in psychological horror which we followed. This convention was used in our trailer as challenging it, could make the trailer a bit confusing however if we did challenge it, this can add to the mystery of the trailer and make the audience think a bit more. Also with our protagonist we particularly chose as she appears to be pretty, small and innocent and following the rules and norms of school and wider society by not being involved in criminal activity like taking illegal drugs which is common with teenagers or involved in sexual activity.
Ripley (protagonist)
Titi (Antagonist)
Another convention that we used is our final girls name, which is Ripley although it isn’t clear what her name is in our teaser trailer. Her name is a unisex name, which also follows the final girl theory by Carol Clover. A convention that we challenged is having a male antagonist, which makes it interesting in the way our victim reacts to a female antagonist, and I believe that will add to the audiences experience and make the trailer a little less predictable. Also there is a confrontation between the antagonist and protagonist where the protagonist cowers away which challenges the convention of the final girl theory, where the protagonist is meant to gain masculine traits and rise against the antagonist, this then makes the story less predictable and doesn’t show how it ends making the audience want to see more.
A convention we challenged is the 'Male gaze' which we did not use in our trailer as we didn't include any males in the trailer, as a group we did not feel that it was an important convention that we needed to include in our teaser trailer.
Another convention we developed is by using a shot of the protagonist running away from the antagonist, instead of the victim (protagonist) falling down which is a common convention in most horror films, she escaped the grasps of our antagonist.
In our trailer we also developed a convention we saw in a film in the same sub genre, we used a black and white effect similar to try and achieve a camera effect, this is very similar to what Paranormal activity did in there films, and as they are also of the psychological horror sub genre. As a group we felt that added another dimension to the film so we also wanted to try and achieve this.
Paranormal Activity Camera effect
Inhumana black and white effect
Another convention we challenged is by using a signature weapon, which is really common in horror films in the Slasher genre, we did not have a weapon featured in our trailer which also adds to the suspense and mystery of our trailer. Most Slasher films have a signature weapon that is symbolic of the film such as Freddy Krueger’s glove in Nightmare on Elm Street.
Magazine Conventions: Titilope
Whilst analysing the horror magazine conventions, we found out that most magazine front covers are filled with grim colours such as Grey, Red and Dark Blue. These are examples of real media magazine products.
The first thing we realised that challenged the forms and conventions of real media productions was representing a Black female on the front cover of the magazine. An example of this is, Halle Berry in “Gothika”. She stood out on the front cover as she was the leading star in the movie. This isn’t common in a horror movie to have a female on the cover of a magazine; having a leading role as antagonist in the movie.
Image Of Magazine featuring 'Gothika' .
This is because in the days of the movie ‘Gothika’, men were seen as powerful and dominant in society. They had the role of being the leader in their families; they were also seen as being more violent than women so therefore, they were more likely to be given the role of an antagonist in a movie. Women were thought of to be more tender, loving, gentle and caring.
However, we represented a female as an antagonist instead because, our trailer is recent in current society. Nowadays, most women are in powerful positions and some are in positions that are above men. In addition, women aren’t so subjective anymore because there has been a ‘march of progress’ of women against patriarchy in society; so they don’t feel the need to perform their role of being a house-wife.
Image Of Powerful Woman.
Image Of Dominant Woman.
The font of the Mast-head is big and bold because whilst we were researching horror magazines, we saw that this is a very common element in magazines of that genre. This is done to attract the attention of the company’s target audience so they purchase the magazine. We also chose this type of font because it carried along the message we wanted the audience to get about the trailer. The “I” is shaped like a knife because; it supports the codes and conventions of a horror magazine.
Image Of Lady In Shower From Movie: 'Psycho'.
Image Of Knife/Sword under skull, could symbolise evil, death or war.
The ‘puff’ was included on the front cover of the magazine because, it supported parts of the codes and conventions of a horror movie magazine. Upper case letters also follow codes and conventions of magazines of this genre. We used the colour Grey because it is often seen as quiet, calm, boring and conservative. It is also a colour that is intermediate as it includes both Black and White, therefore, Grey can be used to describe a process that changes thought into action. The lead character in the trailer (antagonist) is first perceived to be boring, lifeless and quiet. However things change and the character becomes violent and full of action and energy.
1. In what Ways Does Your Media Production Use, Develop or Challenge Forms & Conventions of Real Media Products? - WENDY ABIRI
(Horror Movie Sub Genre)
In this question I will discuss, both how we challenged, used and developed the stereotypical conations that are highly associated with the horror movie sub genre. I will be discussing those of the psychological horror, which is the sub genre of our teaser trailer “Inhumania”. Our movie sub genre belongs to psychological horror this include films like The Grudge, Black Swan, The Sixth Sense & Rosemary’s Baby. As part of the planning and research stages it was compulsory of us to have some background knowledge of the sub genre of a whole , which entailed us of watching videos of our chosen genre and applying key aspects that we enjoyed, and emulating the scenes , shot and lightings that we enjoyed !
We as a group were determined to analyze, the main conations associated with psychological horror and here are them as followed:
- Quick Cuts – To create suspense, and to create a “don’t know what going to happen atmosphere”!
- Slow Pace – Slow pace can also, help used loud sound such as “BANGS” or “THUMPS” to scare the audience and “keep them on there toes”!
- Tension – Tension to anticipate that something’s about to happen this is essentially used in all types of teaser trailers no matter what genre they are
- Foreboding Scenes – Scenes where something is anticipated to happen such as slowly walling behind someone in the dark.
- Dark Lighting – Dark lighting to establish that it’s a horror film, plus its used to not show everything to the reader but just enough.
Dark lighting within our teaser tailer so we are in essence sticking to the conventions
And a shot of a typical dark shot which sets the scene for a horror theme and a forboding atmosphere!
- Sinister Character – A character / antagonist sometimes covered in blood or disfigured to show it’s the “bad” character
- Shot which establishes the scene
- Weapon – An Iconic weapon that the antagonist uses to kill its victims
- Iconic Mask - An iconic weapon is used within horror films such as Scream – the Mask and Freddie Kruger with the long knifes as hand.
- Little Blood – Physiological horror are known for the use of little blood only scene of torture
- 30 to 50 sec Length -
- Less Physical Harm
- Discomfort in Viewer
- Frighten the Audience Mentally
- Suffering
On a collective, we not only tried to challenge stick to and develop the associations of the horror movie sub genre as we decided that the main connotations where best to stick to as it helped establish the specific genre, but wanted our teaser trailer to convey a sense of originality to set us apart from other teaser trailers who have t he same genre as us! Ways we did this is in terms of the music that I created as I really grew inspiration from the music that was used in Halloween,althought within our music piece it features a variation of msuic pieces that I personally created, I drew inspiration within the scene when the antiogonist is circuling the protagonist, I wanted to create music which drew a forboding atmosphere.
so within a scene where the antagonist is seen to be circling the protagonist a created a piece of music within Garage Band which created a sense of forbidding atmosphere to keep the audience at the edge of there sets plus from past research I have discovered that many teaser trailers have used this techniques within the psychological horror teaser trailers. In our genre I discovered that the characters are not usually the focus of the teaser trailer and they usually cut out there face to create a sense of unknowing we both used this technique but we also challenged this as we decided it was best to show who the main characters were so it could establish the pro and antagonist with the teaser trailer
Evaluation Question 1) In what ways does your media product use,develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? - Gradice
Here is an example of a film poster featuring the Antagonist :
Here is an example of a film poster featuring the Protagonist :
When it came to our poster, we chose to have the antagonist as the main image, because we felt that it would reflect a frightening mood dramatically to the audience compared to the protagonist. This one convention was followed. Whilst researching into horror movie posters, we discovered that most characters used on horror film posters were usually Caucasian characters. At this point, we decided to challenge that convention by using a black female character. When we watch horror films, there are not usually black people in horror, so what we tried to do was to reclaim horror by making it multicultural, and to try to attract a black audience.
When it came to the conventions, we felt as though we followed the conventions of horror movie posters. It was quite challenging coming with something different, this was because most movie posters are basic and distinctive. The conventions have helped us to create our poster and it has allowed our poster to look like a professional.
