Welcome to my blog, on this page you will find all of my research and planning leading up to my final film - The Asylum
Sunday, 5 May 2013
Saturday, 4 May 2013
Evaluation Question 1
Evaluation Question 1: Use of conventions
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
'Conventions' means commonly occurring; frequently seen - elements which when combined help an audience to identify the genre or type of media text. When looking at the slasher genre as a whole there is a wide range of slasher conventions.
Here is a vodcast we did as a group covering the conventions of eight film openings
Films Mentioned:
Violent Enemy
The Outlaw of Josie Wales
Hot Fuzz
Nacho Libre
Bullet Boy
Casablanca
About A Boy
Wild At Heart
Common Conventions:
Too summarise when comparing between the two, i think we cover the main conventions in film openings quite well. There may be a few things we could make more clear, however i think its sufficiently clear that the doctor is the protagonist and the patient is the antagonist. So it does challenge forms and conventions of real media products
Key slasher genre conventions:
As our film categorises into the slasher genre below is a vodcast on the overview of the slasher genre. It will cover some of the key conventions.
Our slasher conventions:
When looking at our own film we took into account a number of different conventions we had seen in previous slasher films and put them into our opening.
Our first convention was the sound of the crows as heard in the opening of The last house on the left we felt this would link in well as the patient escaped the mental asylum as the sound of crows screeching is recognised with horror which is why it links well with our opening. As we wanted the audience to have some anticipation to what was going to happen.
Another convention linked in with sound was the rock music that we used. The music comes from Red Hot Chili Peppers - Cant Stop. Rock music was used in The Return of The Living Dead which is why we used to use this convention. It also links in with the death as the music stops as the 'scream queen' is killed.
The POV camere shot was another convention we used however this convention has not been used many times in films we have seen apart fromHalloween which is where we got our shot form as our killer hides behind the bushes to give the audience a sense of view from the killer
The convention of a false scare is not just apparent in most slasher films but in almost any horror film as well. The false scare brings up the audiences sense of anticipation to then relieve them to make the real scare of a much more significance to the audience
The final girl was a new addition to our film opening, the convention of a scream queen is in a lot of slasher movies. We took our convention fromNightmare On Elm Street the scream queen was Heather Langenkamp who played Nancy. To anchor our final girl we used revealing clothes and made it apparent to our audience that she was sexually active.
With our final girl we also played up to Laura Mulvey's male gaze theory. She believes that audiences have to view characters form the view of a hetrosexual male. Our camera lingers on parts of the female body in context of a males reaction. We used this to appeal to a wider male audience.
We took our convention of the weapon from Halloween the iconic kitchen knife, because its nothing out of the un-ordinary it is just a standard kitchen knife, but it becomes a lot more scarier when it is put in to context of killing someone which is the effect we tried to achieve.
Other conventions we used:
Idents
First of all we included idents which are common in every single film whether it falls into the slasher genre or not. Most idents are the company logo name and brand image however we decided to theme one of idents for the slasher genre itself. To do this we used a serif font to show that the film would be a horror of some sort and in this case a slasher film.
Expostion
Like psycho provides an exposition for the audience so did we. The time and date and the setting for our film which isn't included in all slasher genre films.
Narrative enigma
Narrative enigma is very commonly used in alot of slasher films, Halloween is a key example as a POV shot i used to hide the killers identity. Which is what we did to a certain extent as it was just the opening we hid our killer identity for a short while in the first few shots to create a sense of anticipation for the audience however we did break this slasher convention because we showed our killer.
Location
We felt that the location would be a key part of our opening which is why we chose our first few shots to be filmed at a mental asylum. This is because we wanted our audience to follow our preferred reading, that a patient has escaped from this asylum and is seeking his revenge. For example Hell Night which is filmed in some woods.
Audience feedback in comparison to our preferred reading:
Ben gave us some really positive feed back on the start of our opening and credited our build up of the tension through our use of digetic and non digetic music and sound effects. the editing also is well done which is what we were trying to achieve a continuity for our opening. However for improvements our opening is very long and Ben suggested that we could shorten some of the takes, this is what we had considered previously in our other rough cuts but it is clear that some takes still need shortening and we can see that too. Also a bit more sound was suggested which we had also taken into consideration previously but what i think Ben means is sound linking scenes together for example the scene form the mental asylum to the scene of the doctor getting out of his car. Additionally Ben said that we could include a basic soundtrack which could work well with the opening to the film and the opening to the opening of the credits.
In comparison to our preferred reading i think the feed back we received was what we wanted as a group. There was no-one from our feedback who couldn't follow our preferred reading.
In summary due to my research and planning previously i was very familiar with the slasher conventions we could include however there would be a few things i would change with our film. Firstly i would include a completely new character acting as the final girl to provide a binary opposition between her and the scream queen. I would also make the killer as many slasher films mask their killer (Scream, Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre) This all could have been taken into account if we had more time because at the time we were planning our production we really rushed into it with out thinking much through.
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
'Conventions' means commonly occurring; frequently seen - elements which when combined help an audience to identify the genre or type of media text. When looking at the slasher genre as a whole there is a wide range of slasher conventions.
Here is a vodcast we did as a group covering the conventions of eight film openings
Films Mentioned:
Violent Enemy
The Outlaw of Josie Wales
Hot Fuzz
Nacho Libre
Bullet Boy
Casablanca
About A Boy
Wild At Heart
Common Conventions:
- Company Idnets
- Opening shot ELS
- Lots of shot variation
- Fast paced editing
- Digetic Sound
- Focus on the main character
- Non-digetic sound
- Mise en scene
- LS is used
Below is a table comparing our text to general conventions in film openings
Key slasher genre conventions:
As our film categorises into the slasher genre below is a vodcast on the overview of the slasher genre. It will cover some of the key conventions.
Our slasher conventions:
When looking at our own film we took into account a number of different conventions we had seen in previous slasher films and put them into our opening.
 |
| Crow sounds |
 |
| Rock Music |
 |
| POV shot |
The POV camere shot was another convention we used however this convention has not been used many times in films we have seen apart fromHalloween which is where we got our shot form as our killer hides behind the bushes to give the audience a sense of view from the killer
 |
| False Scare |
The convention of a false scare is not just apparent in most slasher films but in almost any horror film as well. The false scare brings up the audiences sense of anticipation to then relieve them to make the real scare of a much more significance to the audience
 |
| Scream Queen |
 |
| Male Gaze Theory |
The final girl was a new addition to our film opening, the convention of a scream queen is in a lot of slasher movies. We took our convention fromNightmare On Elm Street the scream queen was Heather Langenkamp who played Nancy. To anchor our final girl we used revealing clothes and made it apparent to our audience that she was sexually active.
With our final girl we also played up to Laura Mulvey's male gaze theory. She believes that audiences have to view characters form the view of a hetrosexual male. Our camera lingers on parts of the female body in context of a males reaction. We used this to appeal to a wider male audience.
 |
| Weapon |
We took our convention of the weapon from Halloween the iconic kitchen knife, because its nothing out of the un-ordinary it is just a standard kitchen knife, but it becomes a lot more scarier when it is put in to context of killing someone which is the effect we tried to achieve.
Other conventions we used:
Idents
First of all we included idents which are common in every single film whether it falls into the slasher genre or not. Most idents are the company logo name and brand image however we decided to theme one of idents for the slasher genre itself. To do this we used a serif font to show that the film would be a horror of some sort and in this case a slasher film.
Expostion
Like psycho provides an exposition for the audience so did we. The time and date and the setting for our film which isn't included in all slasher genre films.
Narrative enigma
Narrative enigma is very commonly used in alot of slasher films, Halloween is a key example as a POV shot i used to hide the killers identity. Which is what we did to a certain extent as it was just the opening we hid our killer identity for a short while in the first few shots to create a sense of anticipation for the audience however we did break this slasher convention because we showed our killer.
Location
We felt that the location would be a key part of our opening which is why we chose our first few shots to be filmed at a mental asylum. This is because we wanted our audience to follow our preferred reading, that a patient has escaped from this asylum and is seeking his revenge. For example Hell Night which is filmed in some woods.
Audience feedback in comparison to our preferred reading:
Ben gave us some really positive feed back on the start of our opening and credited our build up of the tension through our use of digetic and non digetic music and sound effects. the editing also is well done which is what we were trying to achieve a continuity for our opening. However for improvements our opening is very long and Ben suggested that we could shorten some of the takes, this is what we had considered previously in our other rough cuts but it is clear that some takes still need shortening and we can see that too. Also a bit more sound was suggested which we had also taken into consideration previously but what i think Ben means is sound linking scenes together for example the scene form the mental asylum to the scene of the doctor getting out of his car. Additionally Ben said that we could include a basic soundtrack which could work well with the opening to the film and the opening to the opening of the credits.
 |
| Facebook comments for our 5th Rough Cut |
In comparison to our preferred reading i think the feed back we received was what we wanted as a group. There was no-one from our feedback who couldn't follow our preferred reading.
In summary due to my research and planning previously i was very familiar with the slasher conventions we could include however there would be a few things i would change with our film. Firstly i would include a completely new character acting as the final girl to provide a binary opposition between her and the scream queen. I would also make the killer as many slasher films mask their killer (Scream, Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre) This all could have been taken into account if we had more time because at the time we were planning our production we really rushed into it with out thinking much through.
Friday, 3 May 2013
Evaluation Question 2
Evaluation Question 2: Representations
Source: http://www.tc.umn.edu/~rbeach/teachingmedia/module5/2.htm
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Characters in our opening:
Curtis - The Killer. This character kills the scream queen and the main character, we used narrative enigma to keep his identity hidden until he kills his first victim. He is an escaped patient form a mental asylum seeking revenge on his 'corrupt' doctor.
Jake - The Doctor. This is the main character and is killed last by the killer. He is in a relationship with our scream queen his job role is that he works at the hospital where the killer escaped from
Heather - The scream queen. This character is the doctors girlfriend, she plays the scream queen so she is killed first
Factors which influenced our representations:
Characters:
Jake (STEREOTYPE)
Jake represented Dr Loomis from Halloween. We tried to use a costume similar to Dr Loomis' character. To do this we chose his costume as smart wear which included a buttoned up shirt and smart chino trousers.
Curtis: (STEREOTYPE)
I represented Michael Myers from Halloween not because of his mask as i didn't wear a mask, but because of his weapon. However, my costume didn't follow the convention of Michael Myers as i wore a white lab coat.
This is the killer running from the Asylum. The killers costume, is inspired by the patients escape to anchor that the character is a patient. He is wearing the Dr's lab coat and was the reason he was able to escape by disguise. He wears this lab coat throughout the opening.
Heather: (STEREOTYPE)
Here we have the bottom half of what our scream queen was wearing, we asked her to wear shorts as this shows a lot of skin especially with the top she was wearing as well. This was used as it is very stereotypical of the scream queen archetype to be blonde and wear revealing clothes.
Media representations are the ways in which the media portrays particular groups, communities, experiences, ideas, or topics from a particular ideological or value perspective.
Source: http://www.tc.umn.edu/~rbeach/teachingmedia/module5/2.htm
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Characters in our opening:
Curtis - The Killer. This character kills the scream queen and the main character, we used narrative enigma to keep his identity hidden until he kills his first victim. He is an escaped patient form a mental asylum seeking revenge on his 'corrupt' doctor.
Jake - The Doctor. This is the main character and is killed last by the killer. He is in a relationship with our scream queen his job role is that he works at the hospital where the killer escaped from
Heather - The scream queen. This character is the doctors girlfriend, she plays the scream queen so she is killed first
Factors which influenced our representations:
- Our primary target audience
As 15 - 24 is our target audience, this influenced our representations, we used an all teen cast and used slasher conventions such as the scream queen
- Our secondary target audience
We have many intertextual links in our film which link to much older films that our primary target audience will be unaware of.
- Our BBFC rating
This influenced our representations because we obviously weren't going to include any representations which would exceed our rating, if so our rating would have to be raised
- Typical slasher films
Some of our representations come from slasher films as we used similar conventions to the ones we had seen in previous slasher films.
Characters:
Jake (STEREOTYPE)
Jake represented Dr Loomis from Halloween. We tried to use a costume similar to Dr Loomis' character. To do this we chose his costume as smart wear which included a buttoned up shirt and smart chino trousers.
Curtis: (STEREOTYPE)
I represented Michael Myers from Halloween not because of his mask as i didn't wear a mask, but because of his weapon. However, my costume didn't follow the convention of Michael Myers as i wore a white lab coat.
This is the killer running from the Asylum. The killers costume, is inspired by the patients escape to anchor that the character is a patient. He is wearing the Dr's lab coat and was the reason he was able to escape by disguise. He wears this lab coat throughout the opening.Heather: (STEREOTYPE)
Heather represented Marion Crane from Psycho because she was the scream queen for our film.
Here we have the bottom half of what our scream queen was wearing, we asked her to wear shorts as this shows a lot of skin especially with the top she was wearing as well. This was used as it is very stereotypical of the scream queen archetype to be blonde and wear revealing clothes.Evaluation Question 3
Evaluation Question 3: Distributors
The genre for our film is Slasher, Title Name (Unknown). Our film is a very low budget indie film and there are no headline actors involved. However, the film does mirror some of the main slasher conventions which we have researched previously. To mention an example we plan to use a san seriff font for our title which is common in many slasher films such as Scream and Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). Our film will be similar to the film MadHouse.
Top Ten film distributors in the UK (2012)
Source:http://www.cinemauk.org.uk/facts-and-figures/admissions/top-10-uk-films-2004-2012/
Skyfall
Budget - $200m
Gross (Worldwide) - $981m
The Dark Night Rises
Budget - $250m
Gross (Worldwide) - £1.1b
Marvels Avengers Assemble
Budget - $220m
Gross (Worldwide) - $1.5b
The Hobbit
Budget - $180m
Gross (Worldwide) - $600m
All distributors use marketing tools which is what we may plan to do for our film. These techniques are used to promote a film. These can consist of posters, websites, social networking and trailers to name a few.
Examples:
There seems to be repetition with all of the slasher genre posters, they mainly consist of dark colours and titles using a san serif font, this provides an exposition to the audience that the film they are looking at is going to be a horror of some sort for example if you compared the Skyfall cover with the Scream cover, the exposition from both would provide the genre signifier.
The distributers above would not realistically distribute our film, therefore i am going to look at more low budget distributers.
Eden Lake (James Watkins, 2008)
The estimated budget for our film:
Our film is a low budget indie film so it is impossible to have a well known distributer to fund our project. However, our budget would be extremely low anyway. We have no such thing as providing an actors salary, funding large equipment ect.
The things we are planning to include that will need funding consist of:
Distributors are the second area of the film business - 1. Production 2. Distribution 3. Exhibition
My definition for distribution itself is the process in which the film is made available for public watching after the production process. This consist of making the film available for an audience to view, in the form of either the cinema - the top stage of distribution as some distributors struggle to get a cinematic release. A DVD release - which can be a more realistic approach for a release for some distributors. And Through television.
There are four different kinds of releases: These fit into the forms above.
- Standard Release
- Simultaneous Release
- Internet Release
- Straight-to-video Release
Here are some useful links:
http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/definition/distribution
http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-definition/media%20distribution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Media_Distribution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_(business)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_distribution
http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/definition/distribution
http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-definition/media%20distribution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Media_Distribution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_(business)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_distribution
Tailor-made, audience-focused distribution is, and will remain, vital to the prospects of individual films, and to the industry as a whole,whatever the medium or format in question. Every element of the communications and entertainment industry has been – and is – undergoing rapid change.The advent of‘digital’ in the cinema sector has not merely resulted in a change of format,with d-cinema succeeding the long-standing 35mm presentation, but it has had a transformative impact.Digital has remodelled the ways in which films are released,promoted and consumed,and it is reshaping the kind of entertainment centre that a modern cinema can be.Source: http://www.launchingfilms.tv/pdf/fda_guide_2012.pdf
The genre for our film is Slasher, Title Name (Unknown). Our film is a very low budget indie film and there are no headline actors involved. However, the film does mirror some of the main slasher conventions which we have researched previously. To mention an example we plan to use a san seriff font for our title which is common in many slasher films such as Scream and Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). Our film will be similar to the film MadHouse.
Top Ten film distributors in the UK (2012)
| 1 | Skyfall | Sony | 101.0 |
| 2 | The Dark Knight Rises | Warner Bros | 56.3 |
| 3 | Marvel's Avengers Assemble | Walt Disney | 51.9 |
| 4 | The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey | Warner Bros | 40.8 |
| 5 | The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 | EOne Films | 35.5 |
| 6 | Ted | Universal | 30.3 |
| 7 | Ice Age: Continental Drift | 20th Century Fox | 30.1 |
| 8 | The Amazing Spider-Man | Sony | 25.9 |
| 9 | Prometheus | 20th Century Fox | 24.7 |
| 10 | The Hunger Games | Lionsgate | 23.8 |
Source:http://www.cinemauk.org.uk/facts-and-figures/admissions/top-10-uk-films-2004-2012/
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| Skyfall Cover |
Budget - $200m
Gross (Worldwide) - $981m
Distributors
- Columbia Pictures (2012) (Philippines) (theatrical)
- Columbia Pictures (2012) (USA) (theatrical)
- Feelgood Entertainment (2012) (Greece) (theatrical)
- Forum Hungary (2012) (Hungary) (theatrical)
- Sony Pictures Entertainment (2012) (Japan) (theatrical)
- Sony Pictures Filmverleih (2012) (Austria) (theatrical)
- Sony Pictures International (2012) (UK) (theatrical)
- Sony Pictures Releasing Canada (2012) (Canada) (theatrical)
- Sony Pictures Releasing (2012) (France) (theatrical)
- Sony Pictures Releasing (2012) (Netherlands) (theatrical)
- Sony Pictures Releasing (2012) (Singapore) (theatrical)
- United International Pictures (UIP) (2012) (Argentina) (theatrical)
- Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment (2013) (USA) (all media)
- Zon Audiovisuais (2012) (Portugal) (all media)
 |
| The Dark Night Rises Cover |
Budget - $250m
Gross (Worldwide) - £1.1b
Distributors
- Columbia TriStar Warner Filmes de Portugal (2012) (Portugal) (theatrical)
- Roadshow Film Distributors (2012) (Australia) (theatrical)
- Village Films (2012) (Greece) (theatrical)
- Warner Bros. Entertainment (2012) (Canada) (theatrical)
- Warner Bros. Pictures (2012) (USA) (theatrical)
- Warner Bros. (2012) (Argentina) (theatrical)
- Warner Bros. (2012) (France) (theatrical)
- Warner Bros. (2012) (UK) (theatrical)
- Warner Bros. (2012) (Japan) (theatrical)
- Warner Bros. (2012) (Netherlands) (theatrical)
- Warner Bros. (2012) (Singapore) (theatrical)
- Argentina Video Home (2012) (Argentina) (DVD)
- Argentina Video Home (2012) (Argentina) (video) (Blu-ray)
- Warner Bros. (2012) (Germany) (all media)
 |
| The Avengers Cover |
Budget - $220m
Gross (Worldwide) - $1.5b
Distributors
- Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures (2012) (worldwide) (theatrical)
- Feelgood Entertainment (2012) (Greece) (theatrical)
- Forum Cinemas (2012) (Lithuania) (theatrical)
- Forum Film Poland (2012) (Poland) (theatrical)
- Forum Hungary (2012) (Hungary) (theatrical)
- Walt Disney Studios Japan (2012) (Japan) (theatrical)
- Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures (2012) (Argentina) (theatrical)
- Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures (2012) (Belgium) (theatrical)
- Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures (2012) (Brazil) (theatrical)
- Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures (2012) (Canada) (theatrical)
- Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures (2012) (Germany) (theatrical)
- Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures (2012) (France) (theatrical)
- Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures (2012) (Netherlands) (theatrical)
- Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures (2012) (Singapore) (theatrical)
- Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures (2012) (USA) (theatrical)
- Epix (I) (2013) (USA) (TV)
- FX Network (2014) (USA) (TV) (cable)
- Intercontinental Video (2012) (Hong Kong) (DVD)
- Intercontinental Video (2012) (Hong Kong) (DVD) (Blu-ray)
- Walt Disney Company (2012) (Argentina) (DVD)
- Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment (2012) (Argentina) (DVD)
- Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment (2012) (Argentina) (video) (Blu-ray)
- Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment (2012) (Netherlands) (DVD)
- Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment (2012) (Netherlands) (DVD) (Blu-ray)
- Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment (2012) (USA) (DVD)
- Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment (2012) (USA) (DVD) (Blu-ray)
- Zon Lusomundo Audiovisuais (2012) (Portugal) (all media)
 |
| The Hobbit Cover |
Budget - $180m
Gross (Worldwide) - $600m
Distributors
- Forum Hungary (2012) (Hungary) (theatrical)
- Warner Bros. Entertainment (2012) (Canada) (theatrical)
- Warner Bros. Pictures (2012) (USA) (theatrical)
- Warner Bros. (2012) (Argentina) (theatrical)
- Warner Bros. (2012) (Germany) (theatrical)
- Warner Bros. (2012) (Japan) (theatrical)
- Warner Bros. (2012) (Netherlands) (theatrical)
- Warner Bros. (2012) (Singapore) (theatrical)
All distributors use marketing tools which is what we may plan to do for our film. These techniques are used to promote a film. These can consist of posters, websites, social networking and trailers to name a few.
Examples:
 |
| Scream Cover |
 |
| Last House On The Left Facebook Group |
 |
| Skyfall Website |
 |
| Texas Chainsaw Massacre Cover |
There seems to be repetition with all of the slasher genre posters, they mainly consist of dark colours and titles using a san serif font, this provides an exposition to the audience that the film they are looking at is going to be a horror of some sort for example if you compared the Skyfall cover with the Scream cover, the exposition from both would provide the genre signifier.
The distributers above would not realistically distribute our film, therefore i am going to look at more low budget distributers.
Eden Lake (James Watkins, 2008)
 |
| Eden Lake Poster |
Gross:
$5,824 (USA) (2 November 2008)
Distributers:
- Atlantic Film (2009) (Sweden) (theatrical)
- Benelux Film Distributors (2009) (Netherlands) (theatrical)
- CDI Films (2009) (Argentina) (theatrical)
- Cathay-Keris Films (2009) (Singapore) (theatrical)
- Festive Films (2009) (Singapore) (theatrical)
- La Fabrique de Films (2008) (France) (theatrical)
- Optimum Releasing (2008) (UK) (theatrical)
- Weinstein Company, The (2008) (USA) (theatrical)
Donkey Punch (Oliver Blackburn, 2008)
 |
| Eden Lake Poster |
Budget:
$700k (estimated)Production Co:
EM Media, Film4, Madman Entertainment
Distributers:
- Optimum Releasing (2008) (UK) (theatrical)
- NonStop Entertainment (2008) (Sweden) (theatrical)
- European Film Partners (EFP) (2009) (Netherlands) (theatrical)
- Kanibal Films Distribution (2010) (France) (theatrical)
- Madman Entertainment (2008) (Australia) (theatrical)
- Magnet Releasing (2009) (USA) (theatrical)
Realistically i feel that optimum releasing (Studio Canal) would be the right distributors for our film because our budget is very narrow and they have distributed relatively low budget films before.
The estimated budget for our film:
Our film is a low budget indie film so it is impossible to have a well known distributer to fund our project. However, our budget would be extremely low anyway. We have no such thing as providing an actors salary, funding large equipment ect.
The things we are planning to include that will need funding consist of:
- Laboratory Coat (1)
- Fake blood
- An ID
So in total our film will cost under £10 to be realistic therefore our film is a really low budget film
Marketing tools we could use:
 |
| Our film poster |
Almost every film has a film poster which is why we chose to create our own. We anchored the slasher genre through our colour scheme with the red, white and black we also used a san serif font which is specific to our slasher genre.
Evaluation Question 4
Evaluation Question 4: Target Audience
Who would be the audience for your media product?
Our core target audience would be 15-24, and our secondary target audience would be 24-34. Our film is aimed towards the younger target audience but not primarily. I would say that our cast is reflective of our target audience.
I am going to split this in to sections between age, gender, sexuality, social class, nationality and region, ethnicity and Physical ability/disability
Age:
The BBFC guidelines for a 15 classification allows the following to appear in films:
Scream 4 (Wes Craven, 2011)
Prom Night (Nelson McCormick, 2008)
Gender is a key theme in our production. The gender of our cast is highly signified through the way our characters dressed and acted, this is what we took into consideration whilst planning our film, for the costumes our characters would wear to signify their gender. All of our characters fit stereotypes, the doctor is a male which would fit the stereotype of the men being the workers and women being of the domestic role. Also the fact that males are more intelligent than women and earn more money than them without trying to play up to this stereotype it was signified heavily without us realising as the doctor is the one with the house and the car.
Binary opposites were also used the example is between the killer and the scream queen we included. The scream queen played up to her stereotype perfectly because this is what we wanted her to be like, the typical scream queen to signify this she wore short shorts, she was blonde and she was portrayed to be sexually active as well playing up to the male gaze theory, These clear qualities may also provide intertextuality with the audience as they are clearly recognisable with the archetype examples from previous slasher examples, this is a method we are hoping will help us reach our secondary target audience as a primary target audience may be unfamiliar with any past slasher films apart form any recent films. The killer is a male like in many slasher films the killer is male (Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees, Freddy Krueger) Our killer portrays strength and masculinity when compared to the scream queen he overpowers her and the doctor.
In our film all of the characters we used are heterosexual. This is what is considered a normative representation. There was only one scene where we could anchor to the audience our characters sexuality which was where the scream queen leads the doctor to the bedroom.
Social Class:
All our characters used in the opening are all shown to be of an equal class which fits into the C1 class however due to the fact that our film doesn't contain much dialogue at all it could be portrayed to be lower as it may be assumed that we aren't capable of using a complex challenging text. On the other hand our film is targeted towards teenagers so it is a presumably less wealthy audience.
Our film contains upper middle class characters which is signified again by the costumes we have chosen and how we directed our actors to act
Nationality and region:
Who would be the audience for your media product?
Our core target audience would be 15-24, and our secondary target audience would be 24-34. Our film is aimed towards the younger target audience but not primarily. I would say that our cast is reflective of our target audience.
I am going to split this in to sections between age, gender, sexuality, social class, nationality and region, ethnicity and Physical ability/disability
Age:
Below are the Certificate pictures for age ratings in Britain.
 | Universal | Suitable for all |
 | Parental Guidance | General viewing, but some scenes may be unsuitable for young children |
 | 12 Accompanied/Advisory | Suitable for those aged 12 and older (cinema only); under 12s admitted, but only if accompanied by an adult |
 | 12 | Suitable for those aged 12 and older (VHS and DVD only) |
 | 15 | Suitable for those aged 15 and older |
 | 18 | Suitable for those aged 18 and older |
 | Restricted 18 | Restricted to those aged 18 and older and only available at licensed cinemas and sex shops. The latter will not require a licence to sell R18 films |
- strong violence
- frequent strong language
- portrayals of sexual activity
- strong verbal references to sex
- sexual nudity
- brief scenees of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence
- discriminatory language or behaviour
- drug taking
Here are a few examples of recent slasher films with the 15 rating:
Detention (Joseph Khan, 2011)
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| Detention DVD cover |
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| Scream 4 DVD cover |
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| Prom Night DVD cover |
We have rated our film as a 15 due to the fact that our film doesn't contain any explicit nudity, however it does contain sexual references and violence form the outset and throughout. There were a few things we just didn't include, such as the 'sex' scene and the killing of the victims.
Gender:
Binary opposites were also used the example is between the killer and the scream queen we included. The scream queen played up to her stereotype perfectly because this is what we wanted her to be like, the typical scream queen to signify this she wore short shorts, she was blonde and she was portrayed to be sexually active as well playing up to the male gaze theory, These clear qualities may also provide intertextuality with the audience as they are clearly recognisable with the archetype examples from previous slasher examples, this is a method we are hoping will help us reach our secondary target audience as a primary target audience may be unfamiliar with any past slasher films apart form any recent films. The killer is a male like in many slasher films the killer is male (Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees, Freddy Krueger) Our killer portrays strength and masculinity when compared to the scream queen he overpowers her and the doctor.
Sexuality:
Social Class:
All our characters used in the opening are all shown to be of an equal class which fits into the C1 class however due to the fact that our film doesn't contain much dialogue at all it could be portrayed to be lower as it may be assumed that we aren't capable of using a complex challenging text. On the other hand our film is targeted towards teenagers so it is a presumably less wealthy audience.
Our film contains upper middle class characters which is signified again by the costumes we have chosen and how we directed our actors to act
Nationality and region:
Our film is set in Yorkshire so we have initially targeted a regional audience. All of the characters in our production are from Yorkshire which is reflective on our target audience as they probably will be too. We hoped that our setting would anchor the region but if it doesn't the characters should due to the accents used.
Like Warp another low budget indie film company they target a regional and national audience rather than an international audience. Which is just like us as we don't have the funds or the time to create a film up to the standards of Working Title as they employ many different methods to attract their audiences whether its through their genre or use of A listers.
Physical Ability/Disabilty:
Our opening only contains physical able characters, not because of choice but because there is no one disabled in our class. However, i think that we would have been able to fit a role in nicely.
Audience for this Genre:
The slasher genre has been around since 1932 and it is still a popular genre up to this day, so there is clearly an audience for this genre.
Here are some relevant Box Office figures:
Scream 4 (USA)
Budget: $40m
BO: $38m
Eden Lake (UK)
BO: £481K
Audience for this Genre:
The slasher genre has been around since 1932 and it is still a popular genre up to this day, so there is clearly an audience for this genre.
Here are some relevant Box Office figures:
Scream 4 (USA)
Budget: $40m
BO: $38m
Eden Lake (UK)
BO: £481K
- Psycho (1960) made $32m at the US Box Office.
- Halloween (1978) made $47m at the US Box Office.
- A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) made $10.8m at the US Box Office.
- Scream (1996) made $103m at the US Box Office.
- Saw (2004) made $55.2m at the US Box Office.
- Paranormal Activity (2007) made $108m at the US Box Office.
My film would not be like any of these big budget box office films. We don't have the funds to produce an extremely high budget movie like those above. Were more like Warp as we have sculptured our film towards a UK and regional audience unlike a big UK producer such as Working Title who sculpt their films towards a mass audience (UK and USA).
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