Ross Cameron-Castle A2 Media Coursework: 2012

Evaluation

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

Before creating my product I researched into existing horror products to find out the common conventions and codes used. This would help benefit my product as researching all the main conventions and adding to them will provide me with the information to create a stronger product and have a greater appeal to the target audience.

I researched into horror posters, trailers and websites and analyzed the main codes and conventions they have used to portray “horror” to their target audience. To keep it conventional I used a typical font and layout on both my poster and website. My trailer also followed similar conventions as the common time frame was used without giving too much of the plot away, the total length was 1:24

The poster I created used and challenged real media products in many ways. Firstly, when creating my poster I took the existing horror conventions into context and the general code was that the male is the villain. I wanted to challenge these conventions and reversed the roles to use an innocent character as the villain, instead of a conventional monster. This is where I got the idea of young girl. If you would stereotype a young girl, it would be positive and innocent. However using the girl as a villain goes against this stereotype puts the viewer out of their comfort zone. “The Ring 2” poster inspired me when creating this product as their whole story is based around the horror caused by this little girl and in society she would be judged as harmless. Secondly my poster featured dark, distorted lighting to emphasize the sinister feel and use the conventional dark, paranormal atmosphere. The name of the film is “Anonymous”, This entices the viewer to go see the film as the name ’Anonymous’ creates a sense of mystery and makes the viewer want to find out more.

Another feature that uses this is the image of the girl with her face covered by her hair hiding her identity therefore creating fear on the unknown in the viewer. The girl is positioned directly in the middle of the frame, with a direct mode of address suggesting power and dominance, and almost intimidating the viewer. Also a close up shot is used, this suggest the horror in this film Is up close and personal and not the convectional distant attack. The image is dominated by the tagline of ‘nameless, faceless’ again a very open ended title as to not give to much information away. I decided to use these features so the narrative was not instantly given away, provoking the viewer to think about the film. Black and White was used to match the stereotypical conventions of a horror film by creating an unknown sinister effect. This therefore links to the trailer title “Anonymous”.

To keep a similar house theme throughout my products I used the same colour scheme, fonts and images in my website as my poster. This also helps make the website more user friendly and easier to navigated around, along with the navigation bar being in the same place on every page which is a common theme of many professional websites. I used screen shots from the trailer and took extra photographs for the background of my website to add extra visual impact to the pages, also to relate it to the trailer. I wanted each page to have its own look, however still relate to the rest therefore chose separate images. Most of the images were subtle suggestions of what was going to happen in the plot, without giving too much away and creating suspense in the viewer. For example my “Story” page was the victim sitting in his room. This is where a lot of the shots were set in the trailer and therefore set off the story. I have done a similar idea to each of the pages on my website to relate back to the trailer itself. This is convention used in a lot of Horror websites, such as “Insidious”, the “Story” page has the boys bedroom as the background. This is where a lot of the horror brewed in the film and created a story.

To make the website more interactive and get the audience involved I used a variety of different flash elements and sound to really create a sinister atmosphere. After analyzing them “Insidious” website, I learned that using sound with images really brings the viewer in and creates a sinister zone. Another feature I decided to use similar to the last exorcism website was the trailer playing automatically when opening the website, to get the audience involved with the website, and make the audience familiar with the plot before entering the site.

I used wider marketing techniques, such as creating “Anonymous” merchandise. These consisted of T-Shirts, Posters and Mugs. Even if this is a conventional marketing technique it makes the viewer a lot more interactive with the website and also the trailer itself.

I challenged media conventions and developed many aspects in my trailer. Firstly the reversed roles were used again. The villain is in fact a young girl instead of the usual middle-aged man. This was chosen as to create a sense of shock, as usually children are seen as being innocent. We filmed the trailer in a conventional “Sub Urban” household, to create that false sense of security. A lot of the shots in the trailer were featured in the bedroom. However bedrooms acts as a place of safeness, whereas in our trailer the first attack happens in his bedroom. Similar to the poster and website, the colours and lighting used was quite different from the norm. Throughout the trailer no blood or scenes of violence/murder are shown, as we thought that this would create suspense in the viewer, as they would not know what is going to happen. We went for the more psychological approach, of using mind tricks and disturbing the victim without actually showing any brutal murder scenes and graphic violence. This seemed more effective, and a successful development forms the common gore/violent scenes of many horror trailers. To make this type of horror effective, we used sharp fast cuts to create delusion and confuse the viewer. We stuck to the conventional 1-2 minute long trailer, as we would not want to give too much away. The slower cuts and shots at the start of the trailer introduce the characters, setting and build tension. Later on in the trailer is when the fast cuts kick in, emphasizing the chaos and increasing the horror. The quicker cuts allow for the villains identity to not be exposed, as we only show flashes of her, for example right at the end of the trailer.

Q.2 How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

My 3 products created a similar combination throughout production. Firstly, the same theme was used in all of my products. This helped the audience recognize that all the products are linked together for an iconic use, and also for marketing. I kept the colour scheme and fonts the same throughout as it is a typical font seen on many horror themed products, therefore the viewer would instantly recognize the genre, and I also made each product relatable to the plot of the film by including images of the villain. I placed the image of the villain in the center of the image in all of the products to show dominance throughout all 3. As my product consisted of an unknown horror I used a grainy/static style to each if them to keep that “Anonymous” feel.

Q.3 What have you learned from your target audience feedback?

Long Shot

Close Up

Using questionnaires and target audience feedback we learnt that our trailer didn’t convoy the narrative enough and our shots went on for a longer time than conventional horror trailers. As we wanted to keep the trailer fast paced to keep the audience excited the narrative got lost as the straight cuts were too short to show any story, also that the villains motives weren't explained enough or the relationship between the villain and the victim was unclear. To help this we re-done some of the shots in our trailer to create more of a relationship and motive. We filmed an establishing shot of the “Sub Urban” household, introducing characters for longer and getting an accurate perspective on the environment. As some of the shots were too long we used the video editing software “Final Cut Pro X” and “Sony Vegas” to cut down the shots and create a smoother flow to the trailer.

One of the ways in which I gathered information from the audience to receive feedback was a questionnaire. This was to gather information about the audience’s favorite horror sub genre, what type of horror films appealed to them and what they would like to see and not to see in a horror film. The magoratory said they preferred a paranormal/psychological horror rather than a slasher/gore horror. This provided us with the information that viewers prefer to be mentally challenged when watching a film and have something to think about/discuss to create that psychological feel. Viewers also said they preferred fast action and quick cuts. This is therefore why we used jump cuts, to speed up the chaos and add to the horror factor. We also found out using a blue colour correction would create that sinister atmosphere. Ita cold feeling that emphasizes horror upon the viewer.

Q4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluating stages?

Over Processed Shot

Accurately Rendered Shot

During the development of my products I used a wide range of media technologies. Firstly when researching media conventions and carrying out other forms of research I found the Internet is a very useful source, to gather images and information. Because of the sites like “Youtube” I was able to accurately analyze old and new horror films and get detailed information of the codes and conventions used. We used a sketched storyboard as a animatic for our trailer. This followed the cuts and sounds that our real trailer would have. We made this by hand drawing the sketches and then scanning them into “JPEG” files, which then lead on to piecing them together on “Song Vegas”. When filming the trailer we used a “Nikon D300i” as well as a “Canon 5D” to achieve a high definition picture. With certain shots we used the 5d where we wanted there to be more detail, for example the close up of the victims eye. However at our first attempt of editing we experienced a problem with over processing. The product was simply rendered to many times and this lead to pixilation, which therefore distorted the quality. Going back to the original files and being more careful when rendering soon fixed this.

Throughout the filming of the trailer we frequently used a tri pod. This therefore allows us to get a steady, still shot without shaking and also allows us to get a smooth panning shot across a room. We edited the film shots on “Sony Vegas” and “Final Cut Pro X”, these are used by many professional filmmakers and editors. We added sound into the trailer as well by cutting up audio files and timing them perfectly with the actions. When we finally finished the trailer, it was then uploaded onto the popular video sharing site “Youtube” and got embedded into their hard drive. I have a personal YouTube channel that I work on in my own time with over 2000 subscribers, this therefore allowed the trailer to be advertised to all these people and got some really positive feed back. When creating and constructing my poster I used media technologies such as “Adobe Photoshop CS5” this is a professional editing program that allowed me to go into in depth detail and precision when editing my poster. The actual image in the poster itself was taken in a studio, with a white background and soft artificial lighting. Having control of the light increased my limitations and allowed me to be a lot more creative with my poster. I used a “Canon 450D” to capture my image. This provided me with a detailed shot of the girls face which I could then do further editing in Photoshop. The program I used to create my website was a site called www.wix.coms. With this I was able to add animations, flash and sounds to my website and lastly import pictures. Doing this made the website more interactive.

Shot 1:

· Background music plays, it’s a song Charlie is listening to on his headphones but that is not apparent at the beginning.

· Establishing shot sets the scene by showing the house, long wide shot.

· It’s night – natural darkness.

· The rain can be heard as well as the music.

Shot 2:

· Fade out to dark brick wall moving to dark wall inside with hanging pictures on it – as if the camera is tracking along the walls. Music continues.

Shot 3:

· The tracking shot comes to a stop and we see Charlie through a doorway on his computer. Music continues but we begin to hear the sound of tapping on the keyboard and clicking mouse.

Shot 4:

· Sound of typing is heard below the rain, the sound of the rain then fades and the tapping becomes louder.

· Over-shoulder-shot shows ‘Charlie’ watching a video he’s posted.

Shot 5:

· Close-up of his hand on the mouse – scrolling down, no sound.

Shot 6:

· Straight cut to medium shot of the comments under the video, they read: ‘What’s behind you?’, ‘WTF is that?’, ‘There’s something behind you!’ ‘What effects did you use?’ Charlie removes his headphones and the background music becomes tinny because the music becomes diegetic, then he turns the music off.

Shot 7:

· Quick straight cut showing the girl at night, green colour correction is used, static can be heard. 1 second.

Shot 8:

· Quick straight cut back to the computer mouse, close up.

Shot 9:

· Straight cut to Charlie in the kitchen opening a cupboard in the day.

Shot 10:

· Quick straight cut to the girl standing in the corner of the room, green colour correction, interference and static can be heard.

Shot 11:

· Straight cut to Charlie filming for his vlog, he says ‘it feels weird, like someone’s here with me’, interference halfway through and his eyes change colour and his voice becomes distorted halfway through the sentence. Medium shot.

Shot 12:

· ‘Ring-a-Ring-a-Roses’ song begins to play in the background, child voice is singing it. Black screen which fades to the long shot of the girl walking past the window of the house, you can see Charlie in another room, background horror sound.

Shot 13:

· Straight cut to a scene where Charlie’s in the car and the car light shines onto a dead end road as a shadow flashes in the narrow light beam you see the girl. He swerves.

Shot 14:

· A shot of Charlie in the attic finding a picture of a girl who used to live in the house and a doll and an old newspaper clipping explaining how she died in the house, medium close up.

Shot 15:

· Quick cut to close up of Charlie’s face as he realises she used to live there.

Shot 16:

· Charlie vlogging saying ‘She used to live here’, he’s shaking. ‘Ring-a-Ring-a-Roses’ stops.

Shot 17:

· Crying in the corner of the room, medium shot. Rocking backwards and forwards. High pitched noise in the background.

Shot 18:

· Then a close up of him asking for help, dark circles under his eyes, hand held camera used. Static noise.

Shot 19:

· Black screen, hand held camera pointing down, Charlie’s feet running he shouts ‘leave me alone!’ Heavy breathing. Medium close up.

Shot 20:

· Medium close up. Bloody footprints on the floor stop Charlie from running. He pulls the camera up to show all the footprints at the end of the hallway the silhouette of the girl is there. Screaming noise in the background.

Shot 21:

· Quick straight cut to where a loud bang is heard and all the cupboards open at once.

Shot 22:

· Quick straight cut, Charlie is shown being dragged through the air by nothing, no sound.

Shot 23:

· Here a loud exaggerated bang of Charlie hitting the ground, the camera falls over and you see an arm fall to the floor.

Shot 24:

· Screen cuts to black and the title of the film and information appears, soft sound of a girl laughing in the background, static across the screen.

Shot 25:

· Once again the screen cuts to black. But the distortion of the screen continues and breathing can be heard in the background.