We followed many conventions used in the genre of psychological horror, such as non-descript film titles which do not distract from the main action on screen. We also chose not to reveal the identity of the murderer by only including his voice as he threatens Emily whilst offstage; his feet as he moved into position to strangle her; and the hands as he strangles her. This way, only by Emily repeatedly shouting William, does the audience know that the murderer is male. Many films in this genre often reveal the 'villain' at the end with a climatic twist in the storyline. This keeps the audience in suspense, which is heightened by use of visual effects such as black and white flashbacks and night vision sequences.
To keep strictly in the genre of psychological horror and not create a hybrid genre film, we scripted the piece carefully; to include shocking moments to scare the audience, and for the dialogue between characters to lack humour, so the overall tension of the film cannot be deflected by humour. To further establish tension we used dramatic music at key points of the film, indicating to the audience that something is happening. We were influenced by leading films of this genre; Psycho and The Shining. The major selling point of these films is the opportunity for a themed franchise through memorable quotes, such as 'Here's Johnny!' from the Shining, and eye-catching cinematography such as the shower scene from Psycho.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Most films in this genre use women and children such as the thriller film The Sixth Sense, as the targets, and are often represented as weaker social groups. To stick with this convention we used a predominantly female cast, with the first victim also being female. Men are often the villains of these films, and so to give the impression that the protaganist of our film was male, the victim Emily repeats 'William' many times before being strangled. This accurately reflects the demographic of our target audience, because the majority is female, as males tend to view action or more violent films. Again we were influenced by The Shining which has a male villain and female and child victims, which is why we chose to use teenage actors, to adopt the view that youth is a weakness.
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
We discussed using a large institution to produce/ distribute our film such as Warner Brothers as they are reputable, and very successful due to recent films, such as the Harry Potter franchise and Slumdog Millionaire. They also distributed two of our main influences The Shining and Ghost Ship. The Harry Potter franchise has been estimated to be worth around $15 billion.
However we decided that a small and preferably British institution such as Film Four Productions would be better to distribute our film, as it is owned by Channel 4 and associated with low budget films. The company holds a film festival each year for small-time directors and film makers to sell their film to a specific audience. This is a distribution technique we would consider. As the company is British we would be able to retain the cultural aspects involved in our film such as the regional accents the actors use. Other successful films by this institution involving our region include, ‘Brassed Off’, ‘Dead Man’s Shoes’ and ‘East is East’, which vary in genre and content. All of which have been successful. This will also affect the opportunities to merchandise, with only possibilities of T-Shirts with either character faces or dialogue written upon them, such as ‘William!’, however this opportunity to merchandise would depend on the popularity of the film.
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
Our target audience is predominantly female and age 15+ as this is the appropriate certification rating for our film. To classify our film with a suitable certificate we had to script our film with mild forms of taboo language, and to reduce the violence aspect, we used the lights cutting out to disguise the majority of the gore. Whilst conducting our audience research we found that the people, who were interested in seeing our film, had also watched the films that had influenced us the most. This shows that we were targeting the right market providing the production of the piece went well.
We decided to make a film which was the same certificate as the films that influenced us, such as The Shining. Which is certificate 15 due to the psychological content, meaning that anyone aged 15 or over is able to watch the film, however it is mainly directed towards a more adult audience because of the violence and language used. Our own film will be directed towards the late teens demographic because the actors are a similar age and the language is milder than in The Shining.
5. How did you attract/ address your audience?
To attract our audience we used actors of a similar age and put them in a situation many could relate to, by being drama students rehearsing. By this we include 3 main personas generally included in this genre of films; the non-believer (Jack), the sarcastic (Abbie), and the insistent whiner (Carla). In order for these characters to work together it has to be established that they know each other well and that winding each other up is a common thing to do, hence the argument scenes at the beginning. We counteract these scenes with murder flashbacks to give our film a creepy edge right from the beginning. We use close up shots of Emily’s face when she is being strangled to deliberately obscure the murderers identity and to draw our audience in right from the start of the film. I feel this works really well because of the dramatic background music which builds the tension, and the black and white visual effect hides the murderer more effectively than colour from the audience. Through the mystery of the murderer’s identity, it makes the audience intrigued to find out more, and keen to continue watching.
To make sure every character was relatable to the audience, we scripted pivotal lines for each character, so they had an equal amount of screen time. This allows the audience to connect and empathise with each individual character. For people, especially women, to relate to Emily, we made sure she was the only character onscreen and edited out the POV shot we had planned for William watching her offstage. In The Shining we noticed that the female victim’s expressions were recorded which is another reason we filmed a close up reaction of Emily being strangled.
6. What have you learnt about technology from the process of constructing the product?
The cameras their selves were easier to use than expected, however filming action supposedly in the dark proved tricky, because the characters still had to be visible, but the situation couldn’t look fake. To solve this problem we decided to film in night vision mode which meant the acting could be seen along with the dialogue, and individual shots, as well as the audience understanding that the lights have gone out. With most of my group acting within the video, I filmed a lot of the project, although I let them put as much work in as possible if they weren’t on camera or involved with the scene. We got to use HD cameras which filmed higher quality footage and enabled us to get the shots we needed, whatever the lighting was.
Final cut express was extremely useful because it allowed us to put visual filters such as black and white, to make our flashbacks clearly discernable from the ‘modern day’ time period footage. It also allowed us to reverse music in the beginning scene, so that the ringing sound played well with the video. We used sound bridging and roll shots to create fluid scenes, whereas without dialogue was difficult to cut between because of the speed the actors performed it. It also allowed me to reframe shots that weren’t perfect when filmed, and create a split screen scene. I was also able to include a simple match on action between the characters faces in the split screen. The simplistic titles we created were also easy to sequence along with the video and sound.
7. Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
After conducting the planning stage in a chronological order, I feel that by being involved in the entire process helped us to achieve a higher quality film. This is because we knew how the genre had to look, the way and order in which to do it, the shots we needed, and how to edit it all together. Without having done the preliminary task, our project would have been weakened by lack of knowledge of the programmes or equipment used. I feel I am more able to capture a specific shot such as a match on action or a pan, and therefore much more confident in my own filming abilities. Our end product is successful in the way it demonstrates the genre, with a compelling storyline and well edited footage.
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