Quick group meeting 2

We held this meeting to clarify a few things for our narrative.
Things we clarified:
How are we going to portray her manic depression? We decided to have a shot of pills each time when she wakes up from her sleep to show that what she has seen (or what she thinks she has seen in her dream) is just nightmares and doesn't help her sleep. The pills should calm her down.
Our narrative is both restricted and omniscient as the audience know some things that the character does not, and also they think they know other things that the character does not but then in the end, both the characters and target audience find out the same thing at the end, which is that our main character is teh killer of her two bullies.

Our production name

My group couldn't decide on a production group name so we took the two that we couldn't decide on and conducted a survey on our target audience, and saw what they preferred. Our target audience helped us to decide as the results were 'Dark Arts Productions', and so this is our new production group name.

Group meeting 1

Setting out and sharing group tasks for planning.

This allowed everyone to have an equal share of tasks to do.

Treatment plan

Name of Film: Senseless

Tagline of Film: Everybody has a good and a bad side. Unfortunately, Mila's bullies discover both

Production Name: To be confirmed                                                                      

Medium: Short Film

Format: Audio/visual

Certification: 15+

Target Audience:  We aim to target people over the age 15 this is because the film involves the character being mentally unstable with manic depression and identity disorder, it also involves blood and gore which may distress some younger viewers. The demographics is of category D and E, this is an audience that have the appropriate income and have enough money to go cinema to watch films and are of the appropriate age to watch horror films. As a production team, we decided to on category D and E as we did research on survey monkey and found that mostly teenagers like to watch horror films. We also aim to all genders to include everyone. Our short film is mainly targeted to people who enjoy the psychological horror genre and the crime genre, as the short film includes murders and discovery of murders and a double identity. The psychographic of the audience would fit the ‘explorer’ (people who seek adventure, thrills and like to try something different), and ‘reformer’ (people who believe in seek personal growth, are socially aware and curious). We also aim to reach an audience who enjoys reading horror novels such as ‘The American Psycho’, ‘Coraline’ and ‘Carrion Comfort’.

Synopsis the film:

Sam is a timid girl who keeps to herself. Sam’s pent up frustration from keeping quiet from her bullies’ results her in having Dissociative Identity Disorder where she develops a pseudo identity that desires to avenge Sam’s broken-self and torture the bullies to death. Although, Sam doesn’t remember any of these murders taking place.

Character list/profiles:

Sam (Main character): A shy college student who ruthlessly gets bullied by students in her fellow college peers. She suffers from manic depression and has a rare mental disorder known as Dissociative Identity Disorder.

Bully 1: One of Mila’s college peer who emotionally abuses Mila and drives her to madness, Mila murders in an abandoned place.

Bully 2: Mila’s bully who torments Mila, and Mila eventually kills the bully in discreteness.

Key Scenes:

1.       (Day 1) Flashback of a dark figure stabbing an already dead body ruthlessly. The camera is at canted low angle to make it seem as if the murder is being watched secretly.

2.      Mila the main character wakes up from a ‘nightmare’ (flashback) and is out of breath from the vivid imagery. The camera: mid shot of her in bed distraught.

3.      Mila walks into her Kitchen and makes breakfast, cleans and continues doing her normal daily routine.

4.      Sits down to eat. The camera shifts from mid-shot to close-up of her.

5.      Flashback: Mila getting teased and getting emotionally torn and physically beat up from her ruthless bullies.

6.      Mila picks up her bag to go to work. The camera is positioned as a long shot where the door can be seen

7.      Later that day Mila comes back, the camera is still at the same position

8.      (Day 2) Mila walk into her room to sleep, camera from behind Mila following Mila’s movements

9.      Mila struggling, groaning in her sleep (camera is canted to show her reaction when she is struggling)

10.  Flashback/nightmare of Mila in a operation theatre, watching an almost-dead cadaver covered in blood, the camera pans to Mila’s face of her distraught reaction to the dead body. (Diegetic sound of Mila’s phone dinging continuously)

11.  The dinging sting continues into next scene of Mila waking up from her nightmare due to the sound of her phone, Mila sees an article of the person being operated on ‘Dead’ on her social media.

12.  Mila walks into her sitting room in utter confusion to clear her head thinking she might go psycho, when the sound of news is playing in the background, camera pans to TV, Mila hears her name and slowly and uncertainly turns around she feigns shock at what she sees.

13.  CCTV footage of Mila caught dragging a body and stabbing the body repeatedly and ruthlessly. She looks up into the camera and smiles of finally avenging her past self.

14.  The camera zooms out and pans to Mila’s face: she’s smiling back. Close up shot of her face.

Unique Selling Point:

Our unique selling point is that our main character develops this unique character that we don’t get to see in real everyday life. Our character has DID, DID is a rare identity disorder and it forms form having a very abusive childhood. Our production group presents the audience the consequences of emotional and psychical bullying. Also, our main character is unaware of being the murderer of her bullies which isn’t conventional for horror films as there is always one protagonist and antagonist, whereas our main character is both the protagonist and antagonist. This would be shocking to the audience because in most horror films there are conventions that the audience expect from these horror films, however because the audience settle into expectations when watching horror films, this is a shocking revelation to the audience.

Competitive market:

Our competition are movies with the psychological horror genre. An example would be of M. Night Shyamalan’s Split, Split is a psychological horror film and its main narrative is about the DID, however our film largely differentiates from Split as Split involves a number of personalities, and our character tries to discover what’s wrong with her. Moreover, Split is made by BlumHouse productions, who have made well-known films such as Paranormal Activity, Anabelle, Insidious, this means they are able to provide Split enough budget money to add CGI effects and to have a good location for filming whereas we did not have a budget and tried to improvise with what we have access to such as a green screen. 

Proposal: Poster

Proposal for Poster (final)

Name of Film: Senseless

Tagline of Film: Everybody has a good and bad side. Mila's bullies unfortunately discover both...

Production Name: TBC
Medium: Print Advert 

Format: Landscape

Target Audience: The audience we aim to target are that of the age of 15+ with the demographics of both category D (semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers), and E (unemployed, students, pensioners and casual workers). The reason for this is because of the fact that most of these types of people, students and teenagers in particular, are fans of the horror genre. To add, young adults may be interested in said genre due to rebellious reasons, for example, when a horror movie contains themes which society is against or refrains from mentioning, they will be more likely to watch the movie. In addition, another reason why is because the people around them are giving positive reviews so they feel obliged to watch the film. Therefore, our film will appeal to this niche audience. Our target audience will also be aimed at all genders as we think horror movies appeal to everyone. This is evident in our surveys answered by the public which convey that males and females of all ages are interested in the horror genre. Furthermore, the appropriate psychographic of our audience would be ‘Explorers’ as they will be likely to want to figure things out, which our sub-genre requires. Having said that, we will therefore also have an active audience as they not only need to obtain information passively but also  be actively involved- often unconsciously, in making sense of the ideologies within their personal and social contexts, and thus our film too.  

Content of the advert: Taking inspiration from 'Identity', a movie of the same sub-genre, I believe we are to create a poster of roughly the same colour palette: black, white and red. However, unlike Identity, our poster will be landscape as we, living in London, have noticed through research that poster from here do not tend to be portrait. 

Concept 1:-

In addition, there will be a red background with two identical head silhouettes- one of which will be black and the other white. The white silhouette represents the protagonist's innocent, oblivious side, whereas the black silhouette will represent the pseudo identity that our main character has. This silhouette will be superimposed over the white one to symbolise this identity's sovereignty in the denouement of our film. 

Concept 2:- 

Our main character's head will be centre, half of which will be normal/tinted white, and the other will have a black tint. The normal/white represents her oblivious side, whereas the black tinge represents her dark and evil side. 

Also, the blood red background was chosen so that the audience could recognise our film's genre: horror. To add, regarding typography, due to the short attention span of today's youth, we had decided that the film's title, rating, tagline and hashtag will be present at the bottom of the poster- these are the most necessary things we need on the poster, that our audience will remember and can share with others; the hashtag will enable web 2.0 to be used and ensure our product is known. Speaking of which, the font of our typography will be simple so that most people can understand what it reads if they were, for example, in a hurry, walking past it in the train station. The font I have chosen for the title is ‘KaiTi’. The reason for this is because, not only is it clear, but the slight spaces between the letters represent the close proximity Mila’s paradoxical identities have, in regards to their past as well as the fact that they are one person; our protagonist has compartmentalized her psyche in two as a defensive measure. As a result, this led to creating a malicious identity that’s sole aim is to avenge the antagonist by murdering her past bullies. Hence, our antagonist can switch identities unconsciously, therefore the title will be somewhat distorted too, to symbolise the on edge mindset the antagonist has, and distressed feelings of uneasiness Mila has after flashbacks. Having said that, the title will be black and the distorted text will be multi-coloured with a colour palette including bright red, blue and pink. In other words, our title will repeat transparently in said colours just like how this picture has done but with text instead:

Publishing of the advert: The advert will be published for the audience to access in public and commune places, (which our target audience use every day), such as the train station or on lampposts. Additionally, we have also decided to use web 2.0 for publishing as well because it will be an easy and inexpensive/free way of making our film known fast; viral marketing will be achieved through the following popular sites: Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr (maybe Facebook). The aforementioned websites are densely populated with our target audience that also have easy access to sharing our product's poster. Most of which, especially Tumblr, are also known for their 'edits' and versions of posters which, if successful, our film may have too. Thus, increasing the awareness of our film through web 2.0 and fan edits.

Unique Selling Point: One of our unique selling points is us. The fact that we, too, are young adults like our target audience gives us have the better hand; we as millennials know what people our age are interested in and how they like to be thrilled. To add, the graphics we will use on our poster are not like most horror movies. In other words, most horror films use an extreme close up of an eye, a haunted house or a dark figure with their back turned to show ambiguity. Therefore, we are breaking the conventions as our poster consists of a close-up of a head split in two/two close-ups of the same head yet different identities. This may be considered unconventional and could make the audience question why there is a difference in the close-ups of the same character. Additionally, another part of our poster which is unconventional is our colour palette due to the fact that psychological horrors tend to only use the colours black, red and white, whereas we are using a more diverse range. Furthermore, with inspiration from The Dark Knight Rises (2012) we will also attempt to create a viral marketing scheme. This will be done by including our tagline on the poster shortened as the hashtag: #GoodOrBad. This will be a way for our audience to communicate with each other and share information on popular sites such as Twitter. Moreover, we will also include a secret hyperlink hidden on our posters which will be revealed on Twitter once the hashtag has been used a particular number of times. This will lead to a web page with various article clippings of mysterious random murders that occur in the film. Each article will also have three random letters in bold, making an anagram, which when solved will spell: BAD. This will hopefully enthuse and excite our audience as well as make others interested too.

Competitive market: Our competition is probably Jordan Peele's movie 'Get Out' (2017) as it contains almost everything, such as numerous plot twists which manipulate us to think we know what will occur, that our generation is interested in and very much reflects both current and traditional events and views. Moreover, the fact that the protagonist and most of the main characters starring in this psychological horror are African-American may also be of relevance too. Furthermore, their unique and unconventional concepts such as having their lead not be a ‘final girl’ who begins fairly carefree and fights back just at the right moment, but instead is on edge from the start; from being told he was going to finally meet his girlfriend’s parents then finding out she has refrained from mentioning he is black, to being stopped by a police officer for no reason shows he always has to keep his guard up because of who he is. Hence, the portrayal of how minorities tackle racism on a daily basis through the police scene. To add, Peele also manages to make awkward comedy become sinister, and uses sound and music to his advantage- the chanting voices which open the film are a literal Swahili warning screaming for Chris, the lead, to get out. These alongside other topics mentioned in the film like slavery will also make it hard for our short film to be of the same status and standard. In addition, compared to our poster, their one consists of a cracked piece of glass which seems to have been broken due to a gunshot- as seen in the bottom left of the poster. Also, we can see the main character in each shard but one. This acts as a narrative through stills due to the different emotions each shard connotes and ideologies they convey. 

Proposal: Radio

Proposal: Radio

 Name of Film: Senseless
 
Tagline of Film:  Everybody has a good and a bad side. Mila’s bullies unfortunately discover both…
Production Name: TBC
Medium: Radio advert
Format: Audio
Target Audience: certification is age 15+; all genders, ethnicity, class (and everything else) – basically anyone over the age of 15 because our main character is mentally unstable. She suffers from depression and identity disorder. The trailer would also hint to these for example, the sound of tablets falling onto a counter, and screaming for the conventional horror movie trailer. This may distress some younger audiences hence why it is certificated 15+. The demographics of our target audience is category D and E, which means they have the appropriate income and have enough money to go cinema to watch films and are of the suitable age to watch horror films. We confirmed these categories and age of our target audience through our survey on SurveyMonkey, as we found that mostly teenagers like to watch horror films. Our short film is mainly targeted to people who enjoy the psychological horror genre and the crime genre, as the short film includes murders and discovery of murders and a double identity. This will be represented in our radio trailer through vaious gestures, sounds and dialogues such as a news reporter talking about an incident. The psychographic of the audience would fit the ‘explorer’ (people who seek adventure, thrills and like to try something different), and ‘reformer’ (people who believe in seek personal growth, are socially aware and curious). We also aim to reach an audience who enjoys reading horror novels such as ‘The American Psycho’, ‘Coraline’ and ‘Carrion Comfort’.

Content of the advert: It will start off with the voice of a newsreader announcing something very important, along the phrases of “Emergency news just in”. This will grab the target audience’s attention as if they are listening to a real life broadcast and something is about to happen in real life. Through this they will keep on listening until they realise it is our radio movie trailer. The actual content of what the news reader is saying will keep them listening until the end of the trailer. While the news reader is talking there will be gaps between the beginning and finishing of the newscast. During those gaps, they will be filled with short clips of sounds taken from our final short horror film product such as the conventional screaming and panting in horror movies, or sighing, chewing and more. In our movie, our main character doesn’t really speak, so this will interest the target audience. There may be little sound FX such as police sirens or thudding and footsteps. We will take some ideas from the ‘Paranormal Activity’ trailer (such as gasping and heavy breathing) in order to warn people that our product is aimed at age 15+. In a way, the newsreader will act like a narrator / voiceover.

Publishing of the advert: We will use web 2.0 to advertise our product, such as on our company website, social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, Snapchat too because most of our target would use this app (along with Instagram). We will use this method mainly because people of our target audience use these apps. We may advertise it on the radio, perhaps in a break in music and news stations such as Capital FM, because our target audience would mainly listen to Capital FM and other relaxed radio stations. They are very popular and allows news to travel fast from one another, allowing more people to hear about our product and watch our movie. Also, using web 2.0 is free therefore we don’t have to spend much to publish and market our product.

What is your Unique Selling Point? Our unique selling point is that it is produced and directed by the people the same age of our target audience (and over). It’s unique because we know what people our age will like to watch and watch is appropriate for them. Furthermore, the characters in the production are of similar age too, which creates verisimilitude as they may do the same thing other people do in their daily lives. However, she also does things that we don’t get to see in real everyday life, thus intriguing the audience and being unique. Our character has DID, DID is a rare identity disorder and it forms form having a very abusive childhood. Our production group presents the audience the consequences of emotional and psychical bullying. Also, our main character is unaware of being the murderer of her bullies which isn’t conventional for horror films as there is always one protagonist and antagonist, whereas our main character is both the protagonist and antagonist.  

Competitive market: Our competition may be The Ring / Two trailers as they follow the conventions of typical psychological horror movies. Their trailers show some narrative but not all, allowing the target audience to have a hint of what their film is about, yet leaving an enigma code to let them find out for themselves by watching the movie. This attracts viewers to the movie. We could use unconventional sounds in our radio advert. For example in The Ring trailer they use a unique selling point of having a narrator who narrates (kind of) throughout the trailer whilst there are scary sounds like gasping and whispering, shrieking and screaming. Instead of this, our radio trailer would have the voice of a newsreader as this is related to our story.

Radio Proposal ~ Draft 1

 

Proposal: Radio

Name of Film: TBC

Tagline of Film: TBC

Production Name: TBC

Medium: Radio advert

Format: audio

Target Audience: aimed at everyone who is over the aged of 15 as it is 15 certificated. They have to be an active audience, with the demographic of D/E

Content of the advert: It will start off with the voice of a newsreader announcing something very important, along the phrases of “Emergency news just in”. This will grab the target audience’s attention as if they are listening to a real life broadcast and something is about to happen in real life. Through this they will keep on listening until they realise it is our radio movie trailer. While the news reader is talking there will be gaps between the beginning and finishing of the newscast. During those gaps, they will be filled will little sounds taken from our final short horror film product such as screaming and panting, or sighing, chewing, eating and more. In our movie, our main character doesn’t really speak, so this will interest the target audience. There may be little sound FX such as police sirens or thudding and footsteps. In a way, the newsreader will act like a narrator / voiceover.

Publishing of the advert: We will use web 2.0 to publish on our company website, social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, Snapchat too because most of our target would use this app (along with Instagram). On the radio, perhaps in a break in music and news stations. Also, using web 2.0 is free therefore we don’t have to spend much to publish and market our product.

What is your Unique Selling Point? Our unique selling point is that it is produced and directed by the people the same age of our target audience (and over). It’s unique because we know what people our age will like to watch and watch is appropriate for them. Furthermore, the characters in the production are of similar age too, which creates verisimilitude as they may do the same thing other people do in their daily lives.

Competitive market: Our competition may be The Ring / Two trailers as they follow the conventions of typical psychological horror movies. Their trailers show some narrative but not all, allowing the target audience to have a hint of what their film is about, yet leaving an enigma code to let them find out for themselves by watching the movie. This attracts viewers to the movie. We could use unconventional sounds in our radio advert. For example in The Ring trailer they use a unique selling point of having a narrator who narrates (kind of) throughout the trailer whilst there are scary sounds like gasping and whispering, shrieking and screaming. Instead of this, our radio trailer would have the voice of a newsreader as this is related to our story.

Mindmap of ideas for Radio trailer

Mindmap of ideas for poster

The use of make-up in horror films (idividual research)

I made this timeline to show the development of make-up in horror films and how the impact of the effects of the makeup affected people. From my research, I found that the major change in make-up in horror films was from improvising using material such as wires, to, paint and now the most recent development of technology, where film editors can now use special FX. I think make-up is a key factor in horror movies, and it contributes to what makes a horror film scary. Nowadays many makeup artists are very advanced and artistic people, they can create a disgusting and bloody scar with just lipstick and eyeliner for effect.
In my product, I could use makeup to show that the bullies in the film are scared. since both the bullies are female, the common stereotype is that females like to wear makeup. If I add black eye-shadow and mix it with simply water, it would create the effect of black tears / tears mixed with mascara from the person's eyes. Lipstick could be smudged to show that the actor has been through some sort of trouble.
Special FX can be used to improvise a bloody scene. For example using a red hue or filter.

Preliminary task: Horror

I discovered a wide range of camera angles and tested a handheld tracking shot when our actress ran into the bathroom. Our preliminary task was inspired from the clip in the horror movie 'Identity' 2003 when the main actress was trying to hide from her partner. In our clip, we changed the way we filmed the actress entering, and we used little dialogue. Filming this preliminary task as it gave us a sense of what filming our actual final product will feel like. We each acted as a director many times as we had to tell our actress how we wanted her to behave, and showed her the scene we wanted to recreate beforehand so that she had an idea of what to do. When it comes to our actual production, she will need to go over an actual script instead of re-enacting a scene from a movie. We're fortunate that my actress is a drama student and has experience of reading scripts from the film industry before.

From the experience as whole, I learnt that planning is the most important factor in creating a media product, especially a horror film. Knowledge of editing, filming and narrative is needed, as well as sticking to a production schedule.

Preliminary Task Production

 My roles in the preliminary task:

• Make-up artist.
• Camerawoman, equal takes with the rest of the production team and discussing which camera shot, angles and composition used (seen in video below).
• Editing as well.

Restricted and Omniscient Narrative

Restricted narrative: The audience know only as much as the characters in the film know.
Omniscient narrative: The audience know more than what the characters in the film know.

We decided that intended film’s narrative is linear, restricted and omniscient.
It is linear as it is shown in the order of when things happen. For example, the killing of bully1 happens first, and then she wakes up to continue her normal day, and then on day 2 she kills bully 2, and then on day 3 she finds out she is the killer because she doesn’t remember doing any of it.
It can be seen in different ways as well. For example, the first stabbing scene where Mila kills bully1 might be seen as a flashback or nightmare. It’s until the end that the audience find out that it wasn’t a nightmare, but it was real all along (this is how it’s restricted).
It's also restricted because both the audience and the main character don’t know that she is the killer. However, it’s also omniscient as the audience know there have been several murders but the main character doesn’t. The way that this relates to the horror genre is because all horror films conventionally have murders and deaths of people in it. As John Corner says, familiarity with the genre can lead the audience to predict events in the genre. In this film, they can predict that the main character is the killer

Initial ideas

Generating ideas

We used WhatsApp to communicate because it was easier and time saving. It was very efficient as we all agreed on a time where we could chat about our narrative and plan it together.

Evaluation of research

How has our research benefited all of our ideas & how do we intend to implement it?

All the research and analysis we have done has allowed us to firmly know the codes and conventions of horror movies, products and trailers. This will help in our planning and producing our actual products. For example, The Silence of the Lambs poster allowed me to understand that having black shadows and light on one side of the poster can help to create part of the narrative. If we use this idea and input it into our final products then we will gain an active audience as they will try and figure out the narrative of the movie through the poster before they watch it.

The sound analyses have enabled me to think of a wide range of sounds and effects that I can use in my radio trailer. For example, the sounds of chimes and wheels whilst adding an echoing effect on top. This creates a chilling and tense effect.

How To Portray Our Character (individual research)

How to show a character has personality disorder, making it seem like a psychological horror movie:

Our narrative of the story raised concerns for our group on how to portray our movie as psychological. I've decided to do some research in order to find out how we can use some techniques that they use in the movies to make our character seem like she is
psychologically damaged.

In 'A Beautiful Mind', a patient with schizophrenia sees delusional visions and is shown being harassed by several other characters with who look the same but have weird personalities. We could use this in our product to show that our character too has a problem, just not schizophrenia. We could use the idea that they see delusional visions, but maybe as a nightmare instead of while they are awake. This will allow our target audience to recognise that there s something wrong with our character.

Another example is in the movie 'Split' (trailer below).
The main character (or shall I say 'characters') has several different personalities, thinking that they are someone else after some time. One even pretends to be a 7 year old child. We could use the idea of pseudo identity in our movie because our character will not realise that she has killed her bullies until she sees something that makes her realise it was her, perhaps some news on the television with CCTV footage of her running away from the crime scene, but she will hae no memory of this.

How 'The Blair Witch Project' creates a campaign (Part 3)

The Blair Witch Project (TBWP) has one of the best viral marketing campaigns.
The main theme was to create uncertainty among the public and target audience. They started to hand out leaflets with pictures of people saying that they are missing. They also started rumours that a groups of students went missing here and there, creating the campaign through word of mouth, and spreading it so that more people can be interested and watch the movie. Additionally, they started to post things on online chat rooms to keep the word-of-mouth going, but online. This created more rumours.


Haxan Films, the production company built a website as part of their campaign for TBWP. the website was www.blairwitch.com which went online in 1998, just before the movie was released in 1999. The website shows the history of the Blair Witch from 1785 to when the movie was created in 1999. When they 'discovered footage' in October 1997, they released them to the families of the missing filmmakers. They then asked Haxan Films to piece together the story for them.
There is a section on the website with autobiographies from these students and photos and other materials of evidence which the police found when they were searching for the students.
There are also snippets of the film from the recovered tapes and Heather’s (one of the filmmaker students) journal. All of these increases the belief that it’s based on true events.

In addition to their website for their viral marketing, they shot a few trailers on low budget costs. This way they saved money. In one of the trailers (part 2 of this post) you hear Heather begging for forgiveness while she cries, and this gives a chilling and scary sense of feeling to the audience. The ads were mainly shown in college campuses. The team also tried to avoid cinema advertisements which saved their money and also made audiences believe that they had discovered this project by themselves. Also, in the opening weekend in July 1999, Artisan took out a full-page advert in 'Variety Magazine' which also featured TBWP website.

The publicity campaign for The Blair Witch Project was a successful campaign which was also scaring their target audience. It was one of the most creative campaigns in film history. One of the reasons for it's success was that it was the first film to be marketed online. This brings in web 2.0 where people can interact and engage in the production and teasers of the movie.
The pictures and interviews that they posted online created the fear that the movie was based on a true story.
The time this film was created was when fake documentaries didn't really exist, so it was new for people who didn't have a clue of what type of movie this would  be. This is another reason for its success; it created a feeling of uncertainty in their target audience. People did not know if this story was true, and if the project was real and if the people in the film actually existed. Also, back then it was difficult for people to check if the movie was real as they didn't have a developed web 2.0 whereas now they do, and people can find out easily if it was based on a real story or not.

How can I create a campaign for my product?
I could take the idea of a website and create one where fans / the target audience could try and solve murder mysteries and guess who the killer is. Games like this can also be introduced as part of a campaign, this way, people who play the game will want to watch the movie, increasing our viewers. Now that there is web 2.0, people can engage activities and interact online.

How 'The Blair Witch Project' creates a campaign (Part 2)

The trailer starts off with the logo of the production team 'Artisan entertainment'. Suddenly a woman is talking to us as if she is about to die. From this the audience can tell that the trailer is for a horror movie.  She is crying and breathing really heavily which usually happens in a psychological horror movie; this makes it a sort of convention. The screen is still black which connotes darkness and death, so people are definitely being killed in this movie. The woman is whispering which connotes that if she speaks loudly, then the thing she is hiding from will find her and kill her. The fact that she is apologising to her mother connotes that she's on her deathbed as she knows she will be killed eventually and there's no hope for survival. She says that this was her project in and that it's all her fault, which connotes that there were other people with her when she decided to carry out this project. The woman's voice stops and white text appears, giving information to the target audience to understand what the project and movie is about.


Footage in black and white appears of a high angle, handheld shot of someone holding the camera. It looks like the autumn season as all the leaves are on the ground. There is a voiceover of a man from the news trying tell people about what they have discovered. It dissolved into a low angle shot of the trees with a woman's voice from the news. This connotes that they were on earth before (their souls, as they show the ground full of leaves) and now that they have died and may have gone to Heaven, which is a common belief for many religions.
The voice is back to the male in the news report but there a clips dissolving and fading in, one after the other of the evidence that they found in the woods / forest. They found cameras, books and more and it looks like they are displaying it for people to see the history of this great project. This allows the audience to feel anticipation to watch the film and think that if there really was a museum for this, then they would go and see the evidence.
The trailer ends with a woman saying that she is 'so scared' and she is crying, as if she is about to die. There is screaming and then the camera follows someone running through the woods / forest through a handheld shot. This creates realism and a sense of fear.

How 'The Blair Witch Project' creates a campaign (Part 1)

TBW poster mainly black which is a convention. Black connotes darkness and death so it will foreshadow that there will be some deaths. We could use this in our products as well. Also since there are binary opposites in the poster. For example the lighting comes from the top and also the bottom, however the lighting at the top is natural lighting which hits the trees to show us that the movie is set in a forest or wherever they are. The lighting at the bottom is artificial lighting because it is obvious it is from a torch that he is holding from the bottom. Since he is holding it from the bottom it could connote that he is scared to move to even shift it at a better angle. As only the top half of this person’s head is showing we can guess that perhaps he is trying to hide. We don’t know if this person is a man or a woman, but maybe it is a woman. One more thing on the lighting, the light brings out the colour of the person’s eyes which is like a green or grey colour. It’s the only thing that is bright in the poster, other than the red and white text, which connotes that since this is a quote “project” then this must be a bright student who is going on this investigation. The light is only really hitting mainly the right side of his eye which connotes that they have managed to collect their evidence sufficient for their project, or as the poster proposes that someone has found their evidence, because in the middle in white text it says “a year later their footage was found”.

Not sure what the red star represents near the top middle for the poster but I guess this creates an enigma code for the audience to watch it and find out. Instead of looking at it as a star maybe it could be like a little childish drawing of a red person? But I don’t know… also the only other red thing on the poster is the websites listed right at the bottom, which could connote that if this is real, the people can go on the websites to look at it for more information.

The poster has like a little short blurb on it / plotline in this case which gives the audience some idea of what the movie is going to be abou.t ultimately they would have to watch the movie in order to find out exactly what went on, because from the poster, all they know is that some students went in the woods to shoot a documentary.

Credits and logos in white at the bottom. Everything has the same font on it which looks like Times New Roman font but then again it could be something similar, as if the producers wanted this to make it come out like a news story.

Timeline development of my sub-genre

Instructions:
Timeglider is an online timeline software. I used this to show the development of my sub-genre. To move between the years, hover your mouse over the timeline, click, and drag left or right depending on which year you want to look at (Starts in the 1930's). Alternatively, you can use the arrow buttons on the right side of the screen.

 To View more information, click on the name of the movie. For example, if you clicked on 'Cat People', there would be a little pop up box of description. There will be a tiny box at the bottom right corner with the work "link" written in blue. If there is, click on the word "link". To exit the movie, press the 'x' button on the top right corner.

For the exact year the movie was released, hover over the name of the movie and a little pop down will appear.






To zoom in or zoom out, use the '+' and '-' buttons on the right.





The Black Cat 1934 - 'The Black Cat' was one of the first films to be recognised as a psychological horror film. It is about American people who are on a honeymoon in Hungary and get trapped with a satan-worshipping priest.
In my opinion, the narrative and plotline in this film is enough to suit the horror genre. This would have to follow the BBFC regulations in order to be shown in the cinema.
A lot has developed from the creation of this movie to the ones we have now, such as Paranormal Activity 2. For example, the CGI and editing, camera work and also the colours in the film. There are now also better quality in the sounds.

Cap People 1942 - This horror film is about an American man who marries an immigrant who is scared she will turn into the cat people.
The quality of this film is similar t that of The Black Cat as it was made after but it is better as technology and camera work is slowly developing.

Repulsion 1965 - This film contains violence so is suitable for older audiences.
Carol, begins to become deranged and dangerous and begins to hallucinate. This film is psychological because she starts to act crazy as well.

Rosemary's Baby 1968 -A couple move into a new apartment and the woman becomes pregnant somehow. Chaos happens when she has paranoia over the safety of her unborn child and this begins controlling her life.  The house the couple move to has it's history, just like any other psychological horror. This is one of the conventions of psychological horror.

The Shining 1980 - This is a famous psychological horror film. It was produced by Warner Bros. Pictures. It is about a family  who go to an isolated hotel for the winter where an evil and spiritual presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific things from the past and of the future.
The trailer for this horror movie was what caught the audience's attention the most. It allowed the audience to feel a range of different feelings and moods and also created excitement within them, which is what lead them to watch the film, allowing a Domestic Total Gross of $44,017,374 with only a budget of $19 million.

Angel Heart 1987 - This film follows man conventions of the psychological horror genre, For example, murder and spirits. The twist in this movie is that as the detective gets closer to realising who the murderer is, he finally realises it is himself, a shocking and disturbing end that makes this most definitely a psychological horror. I didn't know about this movie but I just found out that it is very similar to our intended product.

'Session 9' 2001 - This film was produced by USA Films, Scout Productions.
The narrative / plot line of this film is of a cleaning crew who work in an abandoned mental hospital with a horrific past that seems to be coming back.
The editing compared to the 'Black Cat' is much more improved as technology has improved over the years. This movie also has a better trailer and poster as it's ancillary products to support the creation of the film.

Insidious 2010 - Insidious is a series of American horror films created by Leigh Whannell. It is part of four series: Insidious, Insidious Chapter 2, 3 and 'The Last Key'. This is a psychological horror it improved editing, camera work, quality and sound. As editing and digital technologies have improved over the years, it appeals to audience satisfaction more.
They can also recognise it as the horror genre easily, which links to John Corner who says that, familiarity with the genre can lead the audience to predict events in the genre.

Textual analysis: 'Stalked'

The short film starts off with the thumbnail of the video. The title is placed on the top right corner of the screen. The font is in a straightforward and easy to read font and is also white, which connotes that a person who is 'good' and 'pure' is the one being stalked. This is because the colour white connotes goodness and pureness. The picture of a couple is slightly off the middle, breaking the rule of thirds, so perhaps these two people are the main victims of the film. Since, the photo is in the rubbish bin, in the dark, next to a toilet roll an cotton bud, it could connote that the villain is trying to get rid of them like they are  piece of trash.

The first sound we hear is a non diegetic sound of a telephone ringing and then it goes to voicemail. This connotes that maybe someone has been attacked and so couldn't answer the phone, and that there was no one there to help the victim. The camera does a 90 degree shot of the house, which shows a girl washing her face in the bathroom. There is the non diegetic sound of the voice message continuing of this shot. It is of a girl leaving a voice message to someone, which connotes that the girl is either the girl who is in the currently scene, or maybe one of her friends / relatives.
The fact that the film started off with a voicemail can link to Barthes symbolic code as the phone in this film may be significant in making the narrative fit to the horror genre.

The person on the voicemail says "Jake cannot come anywhere near you, he has a restraining order" which connotes that she was in trouble before and harmed. This also created enigma as the audience will wonder who Jake is and why he has a restraining order, and how he harmed her. Because of this, they will carry on watching the film. This also starts to build up the narrative and allow the audience have a hint of what may happen in the film. For example, Jake may be released and ends up stalking her in real life or gets someone else to finish the job.

The next shot is of a mid close up of the girl of an Asian ethnicity. She is putting on make up, implying that she us ready to go out / to go to a party. As soon as the voice message ends with "I'll see you soon, bye" there is the non diegetic sound of a door slamming. It sounds as if someone has entered the house. She stops doing her eye makeup and jumps and breathes heavily as she is frightened.  Her hand is still in a position where she was going to apply her makeup, which connotes that she knows someone is there but is scared to move. She then shakes it off, thinking that it was all in her head. From this, the audience can tell that maybe she thought the sound of the door slamming was in her head but in fact it was in reality. This created an omniscient narrative as the audience know some parts of the narrative that the main character does not.


There is a jump cut to the next scene which is a wide shot of her choosing what to wear from her wardrobe, which is outside of her room. This is a stereotype of women as they have lots of clothes but still don't know what to wear. The fact that she is choosing her clothes could foreshadow that it is the clothes she might be attacked in.

She finally chooses what to wear, and she chooses to wear all black with red lipstick. Black connotes darkness and death,  and red connotes blood, which could foreshadow that she might be killed on this night. She sighs and still feels insecure about what she is wearing. There's a close up of when she takes her jacket off the table and  there is  letter there that says 'restraining order', and is circled. It looks like she is due for a court hearing soon. Perhaps this could connote that it might be her last day of freedom and so she is going to go out and party. However someone might be planning to attack her because of this.

There is a pull focus as she locks her house and starts to leave the building but doesn't notice that there is someone there in  grey hoodie staring at her in the back of the corridor. It focuses from the girl to the person in the hoodie really fast. This shows the audience that the person in the grey hoodie is the one who is stalking her. There are ambient sounds of the dog barking and her heels /footsteps as she walks outside and looks around to see if anyone is there. This creates verisimilitude as hearing a dog bark outside is normal, but since it is barking, it could connote that there is danger.

Throughout the film, there is a whirring/buzzing sound that only stops once she gets out of her flat. This could connote that the whirring is something that was persuading her to come out, and now tat she s outside, the real danger is about to happen. Usually in psychological horror movies there is a convention of having a whirring / buzzing sound to connote that someone is not in the right mind set, and this film has followed this convention. After the scene where she gets out of the house, daunting non diegetic music enters the scene. This carries on until she hears a phone ringing somewhere nearby.

She arrives at her destination but no-one is there, connoting that it is a trap. The phone rings somewhere but we cannot see it, nor can the character. She looks around and sees a telephone but there is also a sheet that says it is out of order. Binary opposites that occur. She then walks towards the telephone and the camera is placed at a low angled shot to look like it is what she is staring at. She comes from one side of the camera and then in to the middle, the centre. This connotes that since she is in the middle now, she has fallen right into the stalker's trap and he will do something bad to her.
There is a low angled close up shot of her face to show her emotions. She is looking down at the phone like this may be the last time she takes a call. She looks around to see if anyone is there before she picks up the phone. She picks it up and listens carefully but there are only metallic and eerie sounds that we can hear that sound like chimes. These sounds fit in with the horror genre as they are used in other movies and also make the movie scary. When she starts to gasp and run away, we as the audience know that we didn't hear at was being said at the other end of the line, which creates an enigma code. She was probably being threatened and scared away.

The phone is left dangling in the middle as she was too much in shock to put it back. This non diegetic metallic sound continues. There is tracking shot of the girl running back in the streets, running as fast as she can and half looking back to make sure there is no one thereto get her. She runs all the way down until a little corner where she coughs and catches her breath. She takes her phone out and makes a call whilst she carries on walking into the darkness whilst looking back. Suddenly someone grabs her and she screams.

The credits then appear on screen, leaving an enigma code and the audience wondering at happened to her.

Sound analysis: 'Mother'

The trailer starts off with the light sound of music coming from church organs. It slowly fades when the woman says "I wanna make a paradise". This connotes that she won't be able to make it as this subtle sounded music stopped. There would be something preventing her from doing so/ or something that destroys her dreams.
So far we hear two characters which indicates that there are two main characters; a man and a woman which creates binary opposites as they both have different views. After the man says I love you to the woman, all sounds stop and everything goes silent. This creates suspense and connotes that something will happen to them both, and that someone or something will tear their relationship apart. Without the man's support, it seems like the woman cannot fulfil her ambitions. This creates dominance among men, a common stereotype and patriarchy in society.

There is a sudden pluck of a guitar / violin which acts as a sting; a symbol which carries on playing throughout the trailer which foreshadows upcoming events. Perhaps every time this sting occurs, it connotes a new scene or a new occurrence in their lives. It could also mimic a very slow heart beat, allowing a disequilibrium to form into an equilibrium. The tension builds up after her husband / the other male lets random strangers live in his house. The speed of the plucking of the guitar grows faster and faster creating suspense and allowing the audience to feel a rush of adrenaline as they may be put into a jump scare. The sting also acts like the monitor of a heartbeat, as when someone is in danger the monitor beats faster This connotes that the people that her husband is letting into their home are dangerous and will destroy everything.

The symbolic sting falls in speed and then stops. It then uses the same sound to create a different beat, which represents the difference that has happened in the couple's lives. The gasp of the main actress is caught in between which connotes that there will be a lot of jump scares before the main equilibrium. The gasp creates an enigma code as the audience would want to find out what she gasped and caught her breath at.

The guitar plucking replaces the normal conventional sound of a squeaky violin in horror movies, thus they have challenged a convention. This still seems interesting to their target audience. The man asks "What were you doing in their luggage?" which connotes that there is something wrong with the people that have come to stay in their house. The sounds of a small maraca play which sounds like sand / rice dropping onto plastic. This creates a rattle effect which connotes that danger is amongst them. All the sound stops into silence and another character says "God help you" to break this silence. This connotes that she knows they are in danger, or that she is one of the dangers itself.

There are smashing and gasping sounds to create verisimilitude and then a beat which sounds like a machine is broken. There are hushing sounds which sound like edited wind to make it sound scary. The main actress panics and cries. Her voice repeats when she says "you're insane" like it is recorded, which connotes these strangers have been keeping an eye on her, and that they are trying to make her go insane instead.
The man says all he was trying to do was create new ideas and "open the door to these people" whilst there is a faint sound of ambulances and police sirens in the background. The plucking noise plays rapidly connoting how fast things changed for the couple. The main actress screams "get out of my house!" in fear which then follows by an equilibrium of all the sounds put together to create a sense of fear and panic and 'get out of my head' sensation. The trailer ends with the conventional scream but she is screaming "no" which makes her sound possessed. The last thing we hear is the rapid sound of the plucking coming to and end, which creates an enigma code because we don't know if the strangers left their house or if the lives of the couple has ended.

I chose to analyse this trailer as it is different unique, and recent, because the movie is coming out very soon.

Textual analysis: 'I Heard It Too'

I Heard It Too - Award Winning Short Horror from Matt Sears

The short film starts with the sound of chimes to create the sense of fear among the audience. This is a convention in horror movies as usually chimes and pianos are used to create effect. The titles come on screen, with the production company being the first context. The use of font is unique as it looks like a child's handwriting, written with chalk, connoting that there is a child involved this short film. The text says it is created by Matt, allowing the audience to identify with the producers and creators of the film.

The sound plays into the first scene of the mother carrying her child to bed. The mother comforts her child and sings to her to make her fall asleep. Usually this is a convention in horror films. A mother singing to her child connotes her nurturing characteristics to make her child  feel comfortable. There is an over shoulder shot of the little girl while the mother finishes singing "mommy's going to buy you a mocking bird". The child smiles which connotes that she is going to be in danger and that smile is going to be wiped off soon.
Whilst she sings, there are handheld shots of photo frames and a toy, connoting that the toy belongs to the little girl. Since the shot of the toy breaks the rule of thirds, it connotes that this toy is significant to the little girl in this short film.
The mother switches the lights off and the child tries to sleep. The switching off of lights connotes that something is about to get her. Children are stereotypically afraid of the dark, and think that a monster will get them so this is creating verisimilitude.

The screen goes black and the sound goes silent. This creates suspense,  and allows the audience to think that something will attack the little girl. there is a muffled voice of a lady called the little girl "Bethany? Bethany?" as if she is looking for her. This sound is kind of familiar with the audience as they do not recognise the voice of the lady but think it is her mother. However, it is not her mother, as her mother just put her to sleep. This sounds as if someone is trying to lure the little girl into danger.
Bethany hears the woman calling her and wakes up to the sound. She think its is her mother and calls after her. There is a conversation shot of her looking at the door, expecting her mother to come inside.  As she doesn't hear anything else, she goes outside to check what it is. It is dark, which connotes something is leaking in the dark to get her.

There is a close up of Bethany's face as she hugs her teddy, which connotes that she is scared and believes her teddy will keep her safe. Since she is holding it so tightly, it could connote that the teddy is symbolic in the short film. She slowly checking outside to see if someone is there but the voice is still calling her. There is long shot of her walking down the corridor to see who is there, followed by a low angled shot of the staircase, to connote that the muffled voice might be coming from downstairs. Suddenly something comes out of the room and grabs her by her mouth, pulling her in. At this moment the audience get very tensed. Something might happen to this little girl.

We see that the girl is safe, she is with her mother telling her that she "heard it too". A very light piano type of non diegetic music plays. This connotes that there will be an equilibrium where the suspense will build up and something will happen. The mother reassures her child and tells her to hide as they can hear the voice coming closer to them.
The monster / zombie says "ready or not, here I come" whilst there is a close up of the mother's ear. This connotes that since she heard her saying she's coming, she will act quickly to try and save her child and herself.
She hides her in the wardrobe and goes to look for the monster with scissors in her hand. The close up of the scissors in her hand, and the fact that her hands are shaking vigorously connotes that she us scared but is only being brave for her daughter. It also connotes that her weapon will not be strong enough to defeat the demon. Since there is no one there, it connotes and foreshadows that the demon somehow invisibly got into their room. This is a typical convention of the horror genre. when she comes back, Bethany is not there. She looks under the bed and finds her, whilst Bethany tells her that she "saw her". Once her mother says "saw who?" we as the audience automatically can see that she is about to be attacked / killed off by the monster.

We see the close up of the zombie's feet with the guess that she is wearing something white which looks like hospital patients clothes. She attacks Bethany's mother first, which builds up the suspense, telling us that the little girl Bethany is the next victim. Before this, Bethany drops her teddy, which is significant as it connotes that she is no longer safe and nothing can protect her. In a way, the teddy symbolised her mother as soft, loving and warm and welcome but now that she is gone (and the teddy is dropped), she has no one to comfort or save her.
They used CGI (computer generated imagery) to create the effect of the zombie / monster at the end.