1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our film idea

Title: Hurting

Genre: Horror

Primary Audience: Ages 16-24 M/F

Secondary Audience: Fans of the horror/psychological horror genre

Our film idea and opening sequence use and challenge conventions of the horror genre such as typical characters, titles, setting and narrative. 

Narrative

Our narrative borrows several features from existing horror films. The theme of someone being possessed has been used in many existing films which we took some of our ideas from – for example, The Exorcism of Emily Rose and The Rite.

The narrative is conventional as we followed Todorov’s Narrative Theory, making sure that it had an equilibrium, disruption and resolution. At first Violet is safe and sound at home, but soon she hears some strange noises. As she goes to investigate, things get worse and she tries to contact her family for help. Later she would fight and finally overcome her disturbed mentality. 

Some of our influences:

• Insidious

We thought Insidious had a similar theme to our film, also sharing the Psychological Horror subgenre. Another element we looked at in Insidious was the house setting which is quite similar to ours.

• Paranormal Activity

We took a lot of inspiration from Paranormal Activity for our setting. The dark, low-key lighting style and low budget filming was also quite relevant to our film.

• Silent Hill: Revelation 3D

Silent Hill: Revelation 3D is a different style to our film as it relies a lot on special effects and is quite gory, however we took inspiration from its title sequence as we thought the titles had a nice look and were presented in a visual way.

Psycho title sequence

Silent Hill: Revelation title sequence

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

We tried to positively represent several social groups such as:

• Women
• Teenagers
• Families (particularly relationship between daughter and father)
• Racial minorities

 and develop some common stereotypes in our opening sequence.

Gender


Our opening sequence shows a positive representation of women. In most horror films women are portrayed as weak and vulnerable, often playing the role of a victim or support character. Although our female protagonist is also a victim to some extent, she shows courage and is independent as the tries to fight the demon inside her. When she gets into the closet and calls her dad, it shows that she still needs support from her family however.

The Final Girl Theory is a convention of thriller and horror films where there is a last woman or girl that survives to the end of the film to confront the killer. In our film, Violet could be seen as the final girl, as she survives her mental condition and in the end confronts the demon possessing her. This again shows her brave side and that she is more of a female 'hero' archetype than a victim.

Likewise men are represented as powerful and in control as Violet seeks her dad for help when she realises something is wrong. We don't get to see him and only hear him on the answering machine, but this still shows that Violet depends on him, and that he is capable of protecting her. Our film follows the convention of having a male who is in charge and has an important role, however the female is also represented as strong in her own way.

An example of a conventional female character with a vulnerable representation is Janet in Final Destination 4. When a car wash malfunctions she is left helpless and desperately tries to call her friends for help as she nearly drowns. 

Ethnicity

Our media product also has a positive representation of racial minorities, as our protagonist, Violet, is a young Asian female. This goes against traditional horror and film conventions where such characters are often given supporting roles. She also opposes the audience's expectations as traditionally a white protagonist has been used in horror films. For example Rachel, the lead character in The Ring can be seen as a conventional white female protagonist. However, even Rachel steps outside the stereotype - she has to be brave and save her daughter alone as ultimately nobody can help her. The Ring also shows that female protagonists rarely rely on physical strength like men - instead she has to be resourceful and use her wit.

As our film mainly focuses on Violet and her personal experience there is not much being shown of other characters, so to solve this problem the film would later introduce characters of a Caucasian background or a few male characters to represent a wider range of social groups.

Rachel - The Ring

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

We looked at a few potential distributors for the film including Lionsgate, Paramount and Momentum Pictures. In the end we decided that Lionsgate was best suited to our film because they have distributed horror films similar to ours in the past and are able to distribute in the UK and North America - the main areas we want to target with our film.

Marketing Campaign

Silent Hill: Revelation's campaign (also distributed by Lionsgate)

• Main Poster
• Theatrical Trailer
• Social Media - Facebook and Twitter

Our marketing campaign would consist of:

• Teaser poster
• Main poster
• Trailer on official Youtube channel
• Social media e.g. Facebook page and Twitter
• Viral Marketing via the web - emails, social networking, word of mouth
• Official website to create synergy in the campaign

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for our media product consists of a primary and secondary group. We primarily wanted to attract a younger audience of both genders because it would be a large market and we thought our film would be effective at keeping them entertained. Since it is an independent UK production, the film would have a large audience in the UK, however we also wanted to widen the reach of our film to have a global appeal.

Universal Themes

Our film has a few elements that would appeal to a global audience outside the UK:

• British values - Setting in London, British accents, characters who were brought up/live in London.
• Narrative - Conventional structure which all horror fans around the world can relate to.
• Characters - A strong unconventional female lead.
• Themes - Possession, good vs evil, persistence and bravery.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

The opening sequence attracts/addresses the audience in several ways, aiming to entertain them by building suspense and making them sympathize with the character Violet.

• To attract our primary audience (ages 16-24) we tried to create a lot of suspense in our opening sequence. In order to achieve this, we focused on music and sound effects rather than visual/special effects to suit the style of our film. The music in the clip slowly builds up to a climax and the use of sound effects creates an eerie and creepy atmosphere. For example, when Violet looks through the spyhole of her front door, there is a high pitched note being played and static noise which gradually increases in pitch. After a moment of silence there is the climactic knocking sound which at this point the audience has become familiar with - the demon is after Violet. 

• Another thing that builds suspense is the use of low key, enigmatic lighting which leaves questions unanswered for the audience. The darkness in some shots makes them wonder if there's anything hiding around the corner that will pop out and shock them. We also added a vignette that slowly fades in around the edges of the screen to represent Violet's fear and loss of sanity. This also adds to the low key look of the opening sequence.

A low-key shot from our opening sequence.

• Our opening sequence attracts our secondary target audience (horror enthusiasts) by following horror conventions - this way the audience knows what to expect from our film and can often guess what will happen next, but also won't be bored due to our unique setting, characters and narrative. Some examples of the conventions we followed are the build up to a climax, low key lighting and a female protagonist/victim. 

Target Audience Feedback

I conducted a short questionnaire to investigate what the audience liked, what themes they associated the film with and what we could improve about the opening sequence. Here is an example of the responses I received:

What genre is the film? What gave you this impression?

Horror- the sense of the unknown, the music, the tone of the film and the general action on screen.

Do you think it’s a mainstream or independent type of film?

Independent

Who do you think the film is targeted at? (age, gender, interests)

Fans of the horror genre. The 16-24 year olds.

What do you think the film is about?

A girl getting attacked in her home when she’s on her own.

What works about the opening sequence? 

The editing, the use of sound to create fear and type of shots.

How could it be improved?

Have more scary things.

Would you want to watch the rest of the film? 

Yes

Can you rate the opening sequence out of 10?

8.5

The responses from the questionnaire showed that the audience generally liked the opening sequence, and that the genre and narrative were quite clear. It also gave the impression that it was going to be an independent film. However we could have included a few more elements to shock the audience.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I have created a Prezi presentation below which discusses some of the technologies we used while constructing the opening sequence, and what we learnt from using them.

We used technologies such as the Video Camera, Adobe software and Livetype on Mac when constructing our opening sequence. Some of these were new tools which we learned how to use during the project and some we had previous experience with, making it a slightly faster process.

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Our preliminary task was to film and edit a short sequence of two people having a conversation, keeping in mind the continuity principles and 180 Degree Rule. In the progression from it to the full product, we learnt how to improve our continuity and create seamless movement of characters and objects, while also considering framing and shot types.



The preliminary task helped us to develop our understanding of continuity and put it into practice before starting to work on our opening sequence. We also improved on our understanding of framing and different shot types. Overall the clip was successful and we managed to make use of several techniques.

The 'Match On Action' was particularly important in our opening sequence, and in the preliminary task we tried using it to create a smooth continuous motion. For example when Olivia opens the door at 0:11 there is a cut-away to her hand, the door opens slightly and it is followed by a Long Shot from inside the room as the door continues to open. We managed to successfully apply the Match On Action in our opening sequence several times, such as when Violet is walking down the stairs and the voyeuristic window shot from outside shows her walking from the same position. If it wasn't for our preliminary task it may not have been done as effectively.

Match on Action in our preliminary exercise

Match on Action in the opening sequence

Another continuity technique we looked at was the 180 degree rule. When the two characters sat down to have a conversation, the camera kept cutting between them (Shot, Reverse Shot) but never switched to the other side of the table. This makes the conversation less confusing for the audience as they could get disorientated if the 180 degree rule isn't followed.

The 30 degree rule is another film editing guideline that states "the camera should move at least 30 degrees between shots of the same subject occurring in succession". In our preliminary exercise we achieved this by using Over The Shoulder shots, cutting to each character while they were speaking their line. This ensures that there is always a change in the camera angle between each shot. In the opening sequence we tried to apply the rule after Violet hears the knock on her front door. When she gets scared and begins to run back upstairs there are a few fast cuts of her from different angles, building suspense but still making it easy for the audience to interpret.

30 Degree Rule - preliminary exercise

30 Degree Rule - opening sequence

With regards to framing, we had to be careful about the cut off points for some of the shots in the preliminary task. In the OTS shot above we tried to keep as little space between Olivia's head and the top of the frame as possible. We also tried to have a variety of shot types, for example when entering the room we used a Long Shot to show the setting and then cut to a Medium Close Up of the two characters together. We tried to apply the same concepts to our opening sequence and overall it was successful.

We didn't run into any significant problems when shooting or editing the preliminary task, but we learnt a lot from the process and managed to apply the principles of continuity and framing in our opening sequence successfully.