In our media product we aimed to represent teenagers throughout the whole of it as we created a teen horror. As we are representing teens in our opening we decided to almost copy similar aspects from other horror films for example we had the blonde girl Laura die first in the opening just like Casey from Scream. We also kept the darker haired girl named Jessica alive at the end as the final girl, as brown haired girls are stereotypically seen as smarter than blondes, strong, less ditzy and able to survive alone. We also had the only boy dressed in smart office wear to connote that he is more geeky than a strong jock which are usually stereotyped in teen horrors.
We also represented the only adult in our teen horror as a villain, the reason we chose to do this is because he is a teacher, we wanted him to be represented as a bit of a crazy man who students thought was weird, creepy and abnormal. A teacher who was unpopular with most students which is evident within the first few scenes when you see Laura writing 'I hate Dr. Karloff' on the sheet of paper she is supposed to be writing lines on. We decided to represent the adult as the villain to portray a negative image of adults to appeal more to the younger audience.
Tuesday, 26 April 2011
Question 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Throughout the process of creating my product i have come across many different technologies the main one being blogger, at first i didn't know how to use the site until i realized it was simple and organized my work clearly so it was easy to find and edit, i also learnt how to add and embed items into essays to give examples too, this gave me a chance to explain the mise-en-scene better as well as make my work my interesting. As well as blogger i also learnt how to use the editing software as i did not do this on my preliminary task so i learnt what to do from scratch. I learnt how to add transitions to shots such as fade in and out which i added to the first scene of our opening. As my main role in the production was filming i learnt how to use the HD cameras along with the tripod and keeping my hand steady on handheld shots and sticking to the 180 degree rule which is where the characters in the scene should have the same relationship to each other when it comes to left and right, we also used the rule of thirds in shooting making sure the characters stayed in the correct places for the viewer t notice first.. During this project i also became more equipped with the internet learning how to use the blog, presentation websites such as prezi, youtube and google.
Question 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?
In our audience research we found that most teenagers watch horror films between the ages of 16-18 this is most likely because of the age restriction of the film. We also found that the majority of people who watched horror films were male with most of the participants preferring a female protagonist this is due to the history of the slasher film with its long running criticism of exploitation of women in danger so the obvious response to this was to show a female protagonist (creating the male gaze) who could overcome all the events of the film and vanquish the killer. This is why we decided to include this in our opening. We also found that slasher films were more popular than werewolves and vampires for the main reason that they are more realistic and believable because of this we decided that our film would be a slasher horror, to appeal to a wider audience.
As well as this i found that there is also a large amount of people who enjoy watching horror films for the scare factor and shock value this is why films such as hostel and the human centipede are successful, also this success and hype around the shocking images you can expect to see in this film gather and even larger audience who just want to see what people are talking about.
A stereotypical model of my audience would be a male viewer who is a teenager and who has a keen interest in horror/ slasher movies, the reason for this is because the protagonist in the movie is a female, attracting the male audience more than the female audience. We also have a few intertextual references such as the names Freddie from The Nightmare On Elm Street and Sydney from Scream, two popular mainstream movies which were highly successful.
As well as this i found that there is also a large amount of people who enjoy watching horror films for the scare factor and shock value this is why films such as hostel and the human centipede are successful, also this success and hype around the shocking images you can expect to see in this film gather and even larger audience who just want to see what people are talking about.
A stereotypical model of my audience would be a male viewer who is a teenager and who has a keen interest in horror/ slasher movies, the reason for this is because the protagonist in the movie is a female, attracting the male audience more than the female audience. We also have a few intertextual references such as the names Freddie from The Nightmare On Elm Street and Sydney from Scream, two popular mainstream movies which were highly successful.
Location scouting and shots.
We took the photos of our location before we decided to change our story line so only a few of the photos we have fit our story line.
The first scene the audience see's is the school's corridor deserted and dark this is to show that it isn't during school time and to give the audience the feeling that it is all creepy and something may be going on.
In this scene the teens are running away from Dr.Karloff who the had seen stab Laura, the scene then continues with Dr.Karloff chasing after them. We decided to choose this location as it is close to the classroom as well as the woods and would give a good long shot of them running.
This is the scene where Sydne is caught by Dr.Karloff and stabbed in the stomach, we chose this hole in the fence as it shows that the school is a bit dodgy to have students escaping through holes and not out of the gate.
This is the scene when Freddie is murdered by Dr.Karloff and Jessica is left alone (the final girl) to fend herself against him you then see his hand place over the camera and the rest of the story is unknown until the audience watch the rest of the film. The reason we chose to film our horror in the woods is because we wanted to conform to many other horror films such as Friday the 13th and The Blair Witch Project, we decided to do this so we woulkd attract a wider audience.
The first scene the audience see's is the school's corridor deserted and dark this is to show that it isn't during school time and to give the audience the feeling that it is all creepy and something may be going on.Shooting Schedule
Smart Price Productions, Group 1 | |||
Date 18/2/2011 | Weather Sunny with a few clouds. | Shots All of the shots. | Time 11:00 Duration 2 hours 30 minutes |
Equipment Camera Knife Bunsen burners Costumes Tripod Batteries | Contacts Jade Harrington 079******** Tom Mitchell 079******** Jade Crome 079******** Ben Wesley 079******** | Special Arrangements Transport- Car/walk Lunch- Not Needed Arrival Time- 10:45 Location- Costessey High School | |
Health and Safety
Due to our props being dangerous such as the large kitchen knife and bunsen burners we had to take extra precautions with our crew to make sure nobody was harmed during filming up and setting up the scenes. We did this by making sure that only two people handled the bunsen burners lighting and putting them out carefully with bunsen lighters not matches or lighters. With the knife we made sure that whenever we weren't using it during filming it was wrapped in a think towel so nobody was harmed carrying it from scene to scene. We also did the murder/stabbing shots in slow motion and a fair distance behind and away from the body so none of the actors were harmed in the production we then sped this up in editing to make the death more dramatic and realistic. None of the actors or crew were harmed in the making of our production.
Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
There are a number of ways in which our media product conforms to real media products. We decided to include certain conventions of horror which we found in our research from other films. We decided to conform to conventions found in our mainstream research because its clear that all these films are cheesy and repetitive while at the same time referencing other films. We wanted to include the conventions as they would make the product authentic and appeal to genre fans.
The first element we made sure we had in our opening is the “final girl” this convention is popular in many horror films. The main one which I decided to research was Prom Night in this film the final girl is the main character throughout the film, another film would be My Bloody Valentine where Sarah survives the entire film. We decided that not all of characters in our opening would get killed; all would apart from Jessica who will survive until the end of the film. We decided to keep the convention of the final girl in our product so that our product would conform to most media products. As we only had 2 minutes for our opening to a horror film we could not complete the final girl convention however it is clear in our synopsis that we would have a final girl but due to the time limit we wanted to push the convention so our product would fit into the genre better.
Another element we wanted to add in our product the “mad scientist” which is conventional in B-Movies made in the 1950’s however we didn’t want our movie to conform to these style of films as they look cheap, fake and are poorly made they are also made on a low budget and generally have over exaggerated story lines such as “Aliens from Mars” and the “Attack of the 50ft Woman” the reason for this is because they are outdated however they were terrifying in the 1950's whereas films today tend to play on real life fears which is why we decided to only use the mad scientist element. We added the man scientist element into our product to create a sense of realism between the teacher and stupid, the hate relationship between the student and teacher is extremely strong and probably over exaggerated just like the B-movies.
The third element we decided to include in our product is the weapon convention this is where the killer uses the same weapon throughout the film for every killing. We wanted to have Dr.Karloff as a creative killer who played with his victims so he would conform to slasher horror films such Halloween and Friday the 13th this would also create suspense. We chose his weapon to be a household item so that the student would believe that they were safe the whole time as it wasn't something abnormal such as a shotgun or chainsaw, this is the main reason we wanted to conform.
The final convention our media product conformed to was 'a safe place to die' this is where the victims all get killed in the environment's that they believe they are safe whether it be a high school in Prom Night or a mine in My Bloody Valentine it was clear they needed to be in that place to be killed this is also reminiscent of the 'home invasion movie' such as Maniac.
The third element we decided to include in our product is the weapon convention this is where the killer uses the same weapon throughout the film for every killing. We wanted to have Dr.Karloff as a creative killer who played with his victims so he would conform to slasher horror films such Halloween and Friday the 13th this would also create suspense. We chose his weapon to be a household item so that the student would believe that they were safe the whole time as it wasn't something abnormal such as a shotgun or chainsaw, this is the main reason we wanted to conform.
The final convention our media product conformed to was 'a safe place to die' this is where the victims all get killed in the environment's that they believe they are safe whether it be a high school in Prom Night or a mine in My Bloody Valentine it was clear they needed to be in that place to be killed this is also reminiscent of the 'home invasion movie' such as Maniac.
Monday, 25 April 2011
Question 7 - Looking back at your preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Since i produced my Preliminary task i have learnt a lot about the performing, shooting and editing. the preliminary task helped me realize what was needed to be done for the production of my media product. We didn't have a lot of time to plan and shoot our Preliminary task so our story boards were rushed and not precise enough, so when it came to the performance the actor wasn't quite sure what to do. It was also our first time with the cameras so we weren't 100% confident with filming. Our group in the preliminary task didn't work too constructively together so when it came it the film production i made sure that each person in the group had an equal amount of work and contribution to the product. In essence i took the role of the producer.
The preliminary task taught me that we needed to be more organized with our film, and to take more care with the filming. For our filming we decided to each take on different roles, we all took part in the planning however when it came to editing and filming we all did different things. Jade and I filmed the opening of the film which was then edited by Tom, we all took part in the decisions that were made about the film, which caused some conflict now and then but was soon resolved after more ideas were put forward. When it came to the planning of our film Tom had the main plot idea which we decided to take on however each group member added their own ideas into it for example my idea was to have the bunsen burners on flickering in the science room to give it a more eery and creepy feeling. As our Prelim didn't have any conventions to meet it was a lot easier to plan however for our opening we had to research many films so it would meet the generic conventions of a typical teen horror.
When it came to the editing of the product we all gave each other constructive criticism on what we thought would look better and more effect on the film for example fading out of the first scene of the corridor into the second scene in the classroom, because we added the fading effect the title of the film looks a lot more effective with the viewer seeing nothing but the title they are more likely to remember the name of the film (Psych 1). Our Prelim did not have any titles so it wasn't memorable or even identifiable by the audience.
The Preliminary task taught me many things such as continuity, the 180 degree rule and the fact that you need actors who can actually act and not mess around. It also taught me that whilst filming i also so need to lead in and lead out for a couple of seconds to get a decent shot as well as taking several shots of the same scene so that when it comes to editing i will have a couple of decent shots instead of having to go out and re-film certain shots. The difference between my prelim and film is that the prelim was filmed on the same day within a couple of hours so we didn't have to worry about continuity or cast/crew being able to make it whereas for the film we had to work around everyone else's lives which meant there weren't many times we could actually work and film. We also had the trouble of continuity when everyone was at school and we were able to film cast members were wearing different clothes so we were unable to film them and only take location shots. The film was also a lot more interesting to shoot as it was entertaining unlike the prelim which was a simple task of filming a character open a door and start a conversation. As there was no genre or criteria for the prelim we also found it harder and less interesting as we didn't have any objectives to hit.
After we filmed our prelim we realized that the script was highly unbelievable with the Norfolk accent not helping either, for this reason we decided not too add any dialogue to our horror opening. As we had no dialogue in our opening we decided to build up suspense within the plot by adding music with different beats and from different genres at the correct points for example the heavy rock music while the chase takes place.
The preliminary task taught me that we needed to be more organized with our film, and to take more care with the filming. For our filming we decided to each take on different roles, we all took part in the planning however when it came to editing and filming we all did different things. Jade and I filmed the opening of the film which was then edited by Tom, we all took part in the decisions that were made about the film, which caused some conflict now and then but was soon resolved after more ideas were put forward. When it came to the planning of our film Tom had the main plot idea which we decided to take on however each group member added their own ideas into it for example my idea was to have the bunsen burners on flickering in the science room to give it a more eery and creepy feeling. As our Prelim didn't have any conventions to meet it was a lot easier to plan however for our opening we had to research many films so it would meet the generic conventions of a typical teen horror.
When it came to the editing of the product we all gave each other constructive criticism on what we thought would look better and more effect on the film for example fading out of the first scene of the corridor into the second scene in the classroom, because we added the fading effect the title of the film looks a lot more effective with the viewer seeing nothing but the title they are more likely to remember the name of the film (Psych 1). Our Prelim did not have any titles so it wasn't memorable or even identifiable by the audience.
The Preliminary task taught me many things such as continuity, the 180 degree rule and the fact that you need actors who can actually act and not mess around. It also taught me that whilst filming i also so need to lead in and lead out for a couple of seconds to get a decent shot as well as taking several shots of the same scene so that when it comes to editing i will have a couple of decent shots instead of having to go out and re-film certain shots. The difference between my prelim and film is that the prelim was filmed on the same day within a couple of hours so we didn't have to worry about continuity or cast/crew being able to make it whereas for the film we had to work around everyone else's lives which meant there weren't many times we could actually work and film. We also had the trouble of continuity when everyone was at school and we were able to film cast members were wearing different clothes so we were unable to film them and only take location shots. The film was also a lot more interesting to shoot as it was entertaining unlike the prelim which was a simple task of filming a character open a door and start a conversation. As there was no genre or criteria for the prelim we also found it harder and less interesting as we didn't have any objectives to hit.
After we filmed our prelim we realized that the script was highly unbelievable with the Norfolk accent not helping either, for this reason we decided not too add any dialogue to our horror opening. As we had no dialogue in our opening we decided to build up suspense within the plot by adding music with different beats and from different genres at the correct points for example the heavy rock music while the chase takes place.
Monday, 4 April 2011
The Rules Of Horror Films
This clip is a perfect example of "The Rules Of Horror Films" many horror films do follow these rules as well as scream the film Friday the 13th is a good example of this when Trent cheats on his girlfriend and sleeps with Bree later on these two characters are murdered by Jason.
The general link in horror films are if you do something bad you are more than likely going to be killed or you do a 'deed' or wrong doing which then triggers a chain of unfortunate events. An example of this would be in Scream when you find out that Billy is the killer and then Sidney kills him.
Conventions of Teen Horror's
Villain - Every Teen Horror film has a Villain wether their identity is hidden or not you always know there is one. A lot of the time the Villain can be show to be on the protagonist's side for example in house of wax the hillbilly helps the teenagers out by taking them to town to get their car fixed when he is actually involved with the two twins who turn the towns inhabiters and visitors into wax figure, the main twin Bo (who plays both Bo and Vincent) acts friendly towards the teens so they don't know what's going on however once the viewer and the characters realize that he is being over-friendly you know that something is going on, which is another point to villains. Some villains hide their identities such as Jason from friday the 13th who wears a mask this builds the viewers fear as you don't know who the killer is.
Other villains can be disfigured such as Freddy cruger from The Nightmare On Elm Street. Freddy's facial disfigurement (which was caused by the parents burning him after her sexually abused their kids, due to the fact he was a known pedophile) makes him look a lot scarier than just a man who kills teenagers in their dreams.
Other conventions of Teen Horror are:
- Fear
- Suspense
- Atmospheric music and sound effects - in many horror films you can tell when a character is going to die as the music will slowly build up and speed up getting louder and louder and eventually stopping as the character is killed. You can see in this clip of sorority row the music builds as it leads up to the death of clare and stops as soon as the flare is shot at her killing her.
B Movies - Attack of the 50ft woman
The film was a take on other films in which humans changed size such as The Amazing Colossal Man and The Incredible Shrinking Man however with a female protagonist rather than a male.
B Movies are famous for their low budget commercial films and generally so bad there good.
This film is different as it is more common to have a male protagonist rather than a female however it follows the revenge plot as she seeks revenge on her husband and his mistress, which is probably where the writer and director bernard rose got his idea from with Helen lyle also seeking revenge on her husband and his mistress.
The ending to Psych 1 continued
This then paralyzes her so she is then stuck with her hands holding onto the bars of the gate with her face between then connoting that she is trapped. she then slowly dies with the Dr walking off in the background.
The film ends 2 weeks later when the police find a diary in her bedroom explaining what happened and find the knife in the back of Dr.Karloffs car. However he has completely disappeared...
The film ends 2 weeks later when the police find a diary in her bedroom explaining what happened and find the knife in the back of Dr.Karloffs car. However he has completely disappeared...
The ending to Psych 1
Here is my idea on what i think would happen in the rest of Psych 1.
- Jessica is the only survivor from the opening of Psych 1 - I decided to use her in the rest of the film unlike scream where they start with different characters who knew the opening characters, i did this as i want her to be the final girl in my film to conform to the typical horror films.
-Dr Karloff knows that she has seen the death of Laura and now the rest of her friends. The film will follow a scream style story line with the closest friends and family around her being brutally murdered in similar ways to her friends for example having their throat slit and chest stabbed. These deaths are Dr.Karloff's signs that its going to be her soon. As the doctor is trusted at the school nobody believes her when she tries to tell the police that it is him.
As the story builds the loss of her friends and family and the feeling of being alone (as nobody believes her) turns her slightly insane. She knows Dr.Karloff is coming for her but now when or where which adds to her insanity.
The film ends with her staying behind after school for a detention, she is left to walk home alone as she has been outcasted by the rest of her year, what she doesn't know is that Dr.Karloff is following her out of the building, as chase scene begins until she realizes that the main gates are locked. Tension builds as she tries to open it or climb over it when Dr.Karloff comes up behind her and stabs her with the kitchen knife in the back.
....
- Jessica is the only survivor from the opening of Psych 1 - I decided to use her in the rest of the film unlike scream where they start with different characters who knew the opening characters, i did this as i want her to be the final girl in my film to conform to the typical horror films.
-Dr Karloff knows that she has seen the death of Laura and now the rest of her friends. The film will follow a scream style story line with the closest friends and family around her being brutally murdered in similar ways to her friends for example having their throat slit and chest stabbed. These deaths are Dr.Karloff's signs that its going to be her soon. As the doctor is trusted at the school nobody believes her when she tries to tell the police that it is him.
As the story builds the loss of her friends and family and the feeling of being alone (as nobody believes her) turns her slightly insane. She knows Dr.Karloff is coming for her but now when or where which adds to her insanity.
The film ends with her staying behind after school for a detention, she is left to walk home alone as she has been outcasted by the rest of her year, what she doesn't know is that Dr.Karloff is following her out of the building, as chase scene begins until she realizes that the main gates are locked. Tension builds as she tries to open it or climb over it when Dr.Karloff comes up behind her and stabs her with the kitchen knife in the back.
....
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)