First shoot

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The shots are steady, we used the rule of thirds so that the shots are well framed, we also used a variety of well  framed shots. We have used interesting angles at some points and we have used lots of close ups to make the audience feel somewhat uncomfortable.

We have achieved continuity editing quite well, there were a few in the original filming but I have got rid of those through editing. The editing builds pace and tension as I have cut down the shots to be short.

Skills re-cap

During this clip we see many different techniques used which we should use in our horror film. One of these techniques is called Shot Reverse Shot. This is where we see someone look at something, then we see what they are looking at and then we go back to see the character still looking at whatever it is they're looking at.

Another technique to use is the position of the tripod. An example of this in this clip is where she gets to the top of the stairs and we see her in the background and in the foreground we see what she is looking at.

One technique which we should always use is shot length, we need to vary different shot lengths throughout our film to make our film seem more scary. An example of this in the clip is where we see her quite close to the camera and we see her stay there for 7 seconds and this makes us think that something is going to happen in the background or behind her. Then we see 1 second shots of when she's being possessed by the TV. One main shot length that we think needs to be used are close ups.

Another technique we should use is different shot angles. We need to use high angles, low angles, POV angles, eye-line angles and canted angles to make our film look much more scary.

In this clip, the colours are very dark like black, white and the lighting is quite dim which also gives that effect to make the film more scary. If we have a victim they should wear colours like white and our killer should wear colours like black. What we don't want to use are bright colours like pink because that wouldn't make our film scary at all so we want to use dark colours like the ones used in the clip and rather dark lighting.

Question 3

Distribution is where something is presented to an audience to try and sell the object. For example the new film 'Woman in Black' has been distributed by Hammer by creating a trailer of the film and it's now being presented on TV and over the internet on certain websites like Hammer's official website, youtube and other social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter etc. Because we are just students without any money, we would have to use something that we can use to distribute our film like youtube, social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter and possibly film festivals.

This is the logo for the Mayhem film festival in Nottingham.

This is a short video from the 2008 Bang Short Film Festival. This is another great place for students and other beginner directors to show their own creations of a film.



Hammer is a London based production subsidiary of Exclusive Media and a legendary British film brand. In addition to Hammer, Exclusive Media is the parent company of Los Angeles based documentary film specialist Spitfire Pictures, US distributor Newmarket Films and Exclusive Films International, the international sales & distribution arm based in Los Angeles with an office in London. Since its resurrection in 2007, Hammer has released Let Me In, The Resident, Wake Wood and The Woman In Black.

Lionsgate is a North American entertainment company. The company was formed in Vancouver, British Colombia 1997 and is headquartered in Santa Monica, California. As of 2011, it is the most commercially successful major film and television distribution company in North America. Lionsgate is probably most famous for the SAW films.

This is the poster for Friday the 13th (2009) and this is an inspiration for our horror film poster because it looks like what a slasher horror film poster should be. The killer wearing his mask with a huge blade in hand with a scary background.

This is the poster for Nightmare on Elm street (2010). What I think is good about this poster is how you can't see the killer's face and on his finger you can see a rather large blade. From how he's looking down suggests that he doesn't want to be seen which suggests that he's stalking his victims before he kills them.

Question 5

1. Halloween (1978)

Halloween (1978) has been rated as the best slasher horror film so far on imdb.com. About 35,000 people aged between 18-29 watched this film and nearly 30,500 of those people are male. For this film, males in this age group rates this film 8.0/10 whereas the females in this age group rated it 7.7/10. This shows that this film was most preferred by males. For this film, bbfc.org.uk shows that this film's certificate is an 18 which means that nobody under the age of 18 should watch this film in a cinema or rent/buy it. An 18 certificate would mainly consist of much stronger violence with a few explicit images of sexual activity.

2. Friday 13th (2009)

According to imdb.com user ratings, Friday 13th (2009) wasn't rated as highly as Halloween (1978) but it still had a lot of user ratings. Again people aged between 18-29 have watched this film the most and it was preferred more by males in this age group rating it 5.7/10. This film is also an 18 certificate which means the guidelines for this film are exactly the same as Halloween (1978).

3. Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

Once again this film was watched more by males between 18-29 but females under 18 seemed to prefer this film the most. Just like Friday 13th (2009), this film had a lot of views but was rated very low. Females under 18 rated it 6.5/10 whereas the males 18-29 rated it 5.2/10. Once again this film is also an 18 certificate.

4. Scream (1996)

This slasher film is just like Halloween (1978). It's been rated about the same as Halloween (1978). It was preferred more by males under 18 rating it 8.1/10 even though it was watched more by males aged 18-29. This film is also an 18 certificate.

5. Dead in 3 Days (2006)

This film was watched more by males aged 30-44 which is a much older target audience compared to these other films. However, males aged under 18 preferred this film the most rating it 7.5/10. Unfortunately I am unable to find out whether this film is has a certificate but looking back at the other 4 films I'm guessing that it might well be an 18 certificate.

We attracted our target audience by watching other horror films with our chosen sub-genre and looked for ideas for us to go on with since most if, not all these films above are all aimed at male/female teenagers aged between 16-18.

The plan to attract this target audience was to include characters who are about the same age as the audience which would allow the audience to relate to the characters.

And to target both male and females, we used 2 characters; 1 male and 1 female.

Our location was a friends run down caravan just next to their house and the main props we used was; a clown toy, a clown mask and a knife. These props that we used would attract the targeted audience even more because an audience at this age love watching scary films and they would instantly know from seeing these props that this film might well be scary.When it came to deciding what props to use, we knew that they would have to fit the conventions of our sub-genre. So we made sure that our killer wore a great disguise (the clown mask) and a stabbing implement (the knife).

Our victim is traditionally a female character and our killer is traditionally a male character so both of these characters will be able to engage both male and female audiences because the male audience will connect with the male killer and the female audience will connect with the female victim.

Just like the props make the film scary which attracts the targeted audience, the music adds even more to that effect of making our film even more scary.

Looking at the feedback from our class from watching our film, everyone really seemed to enjoy it. They all said that they would like to watch on to see what happens next and I think that they really enjoyed thanks to us using a male and a female character.

question 4

The audience for our media product would be teenagers (male or female) who like to watch horror films.

Question 3

Distribution is getting something to places that you want it. Distribution of films is spreading your film to as many places as you want it to be so that it will get noticed.

Film festivals are a good way to show your film and get it noticed, to get feedback on it and to possibly progress in the film making industry. Bang film festival is a small film festival in my city, Nottingham, I could show my film here if I wanted to get my film seen and to get feedback on it from a different audience.

Lionsgate is a North American entertainment company. Lionsgate will be recognized mostly for distributing the SAW films. Lionsgate is the most commercially successful independent film and television distribution company in North America. 

These are some inspirations for our slasher film poster.

Question 4

For our horror film, our target audience would most likely be young teenagers both male and female aged between 16-18 for we believe that the content shown within our film is suited more to that age criteria.

Question 2

Representation is where we try to show the original conventions and stereotypes of any given subject included in our film. For us our killer (Matt) wears a mask to hide his face so that we don't know who the killer is and he has long hair as well. Because our film is a slasher, having a killer who wears a mask, carries a knife and has long hair are conventions of a slasher film that must be included. Having long hair may not be a convention of a slasher film but it helps for the image of the killer.

Our victim who we see as a young teenage girl (Izzy) with her baby crying is a normal convention but also a stereotype for horror films by having a woman as a victim. Including these in our film we are representing troubled teenage mother's and woman victims in our film. Stereotypically we show a teenage mother with her baby crying which is what we mostly think is typical of a young teenage mother but in some cases it's not like that. And our killer wearing a mask in a slasher film is just a convention which always must be included for a slasher film which is what we've done for ours.

We analyze videos for representation because we can then talk about how well representations of conventions of the sub-genre and stereotypes are presented in the film/video. For example with our film as said before, our victim is a young teenage mother with her baby crying. This is a strong stereotype of what we think a young teenage mother would be like. We would think that they would be in disarray and alone not knowing what to do. And our killer wears a mask and carries a knife around is a typical convention of a slasher film.

This clip is from Halloween (1978). In this clip we see the killer Michael Myers (the killer) murder Bob (the victim). The difference between this clip and the clip from Nightmare on Elm Street is the victims. In the Nightmare on Elm Street clip, the victim is a female whereas in this clip, the victim is male. However both victims are teenagers which is stereotypically the age of the victims in most slasher films if not all slasher films.

Question 2

This is a video from Nightmare on Elm Street showing the death of the character Kris. Kris (the victim) is a female character and Freddy (the killer) is a male character which is a traditional set up for a slasher film. Stereotypically Kris is presented as being powerless and terrified of Freddy whereas Freddy is presented as the more dominant character by teasing Kris slightly before killing her.

Film Outline

This is our film outline for our film.

Storyboard

This is our storyboard for our film.

question 2

Representation means how something is portrayed, this is important in films as the representation of characters helps us to understand the plot and one of the common things that we look for is stereotyping. Characters in films are often represented by using conventions. For example, the victim in a horror film will stereotypically be a young blonde female, this is a convention of a horror film.

1.In this clip from A nightmare on Elm street, the threat hear is a middle aged man and the victim is a teenage female. The young girl is being represented as the victim and the man is the threat, this is typical of a slasher film. The young female victim carries out well know stereotypes of teenage girls throughout her part in the film.

2.Me and Jake have decided that these actors would be good to use as the female looks like a typical teenage girl, and the will be portrayed as a teenage mother. In most of the slasher films that I have seen, only obvious stereotypes are used, we plan to use the least obvious stereotype of teenage pregnancy and being unable to cope on their own. Also following the conventions of slasher films, the female here is the victim and the threat is male. The male actor is quite tall which also is a convention of slasher films as it will make the threat seem more intimidating.

Reflective Evaluation-Richard -question 1

This is the logo from 'new line cinema'

This is the logo from our opening scene.

This is an image that establishes mise en scene of the cahracter, we chose to use the clown mask as in the story, the mother that deserts him plays with a clown toy to entertain the baby, when she leaves the baby in the caravan, she leaves him with the toy, so when he grows up miraculously, he is inspired by this toy to create a clown mask as a disguise and get revenge on his mother for leaving him to die.

We decided to use a knife as the weapon for our killer. This is because it is probably the most accessible weapon for someone with no/little money. Also the same reasoning for the costume of our killer and the mother, the mother is poor so she has scruffy homemade clothes, and the killer has cheap and scruffy clothes.

We chose to shoot the film in a caravan as the mother cannot afford to live in a house.

this is an image from the title sequence of the film Halloween. I chose this image as the darkness really emphasises the mysteriousness of the film, I think that our film opening should have something similar to this, although it is quite simple. The colours black and orange clearly represent halloween.

This is a screen grab from my title sequence.

This is a screen grab from my final film that establishes the sub-genre.

This is an image from the ghost film, 'The sixth sense'. This is a great image, it shows clearly how the rule of thirds can benefit the mise en scene, the young boy in the film is powerless, but the way this shot is composed gives him most of the power.

This is an image from the film halloween, it evokes fear as the viewer is positioned as the victim. Also the mise en scene here makes the threat seam very tall and overwhelming.

This is an image of mise en scene from the film 'V for vendetta'