Question 1 - "In what ways does your media
product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media
products?"
Real slasher films have conventions of lots
of gore, a deranged, troubled killer and a weak victim/s, to name a few. Our
film opening conforms to most of the typical slasher conventions; however one
way in which we (to some extent) challenge conventions is through the use of
dolls which have been vandalised. [practical
post] I came across some pictures of Rihanna lying in a heap of undressed
dolls and had the idea of decorating the killer's den with undressed dolls to
emphasize his obsession with women. I decided to write all over the dolls; I
wrote words associated with death, sex and evil as those are the key themes of
our media product and most slasher films. I wrote words such as 'sin',
'torture', and 'whore' to really reiterate his insanity and his overwhelming
obsession with women. On the day of filming, I found a box of nails in the shed
and decided to put some in the X on the doll's stomach to highlight to the
audience that 'X marks the spot' - that THAT is where the killer's 'treasure'
is. [decon of dolls post] Only a few
horror/slasher films (which I have deconstructed) have dolls in them such as
The Conjuring and the Chucky films. Dolls in horror films are usually added to
bring in a supernatural storyline/theme, like the examples I've just mentioned,
to make the film more entertaining. Therefore, you could say featuring dolls in
our opening challenges common slasher conventions because our use of the dolls
was just for mise en scene and to add depth to the killer's character.
Link to: Deconstruction of dolls, Practical
Question 2 - "How does your media product
represent particular social groups?"
Age is a significant aspect of how our film
opening represents certain social groups. The killer is around 28 years old
because he is a doctor which requires years of training. The victim is around
19 years old – we did not want her to be too young because she is pregnant but
we wanted her to be a teenager to evidently juxtapose the difference in age and
their strength. [rep of age post] A
stereotypical convention in horror and slasher films is for the killer to be
older than the victim to connote intelligence and power versus the victim’s
inferiority and lack of tactfulness because they are younger. This is present
in many slasher films such as the Saw films, The Human Centipede and the TV
series Hannibal. In both Hannibal and The Human Centipede, both the killers are
surgeons like our killer. For example, in The Human Centipede, the villain is a
retired doctor who is fascinated in joining human beings together - this is
similar to our film opening because our doctor is fascinated by foetuses and
manipulates his talent to get them.
Link to:
Representation of Age
Question 3 - "What kind of media institution might
distribute your media product and why?"
I deconstructed existing production
companies. I considered the appearance, the films they have released and the
conventions of their films. [decon of
existing prod companies] We wanted our production company to be one that is
known for making horror/slasher films and to have an eerie appearance to denote
our film opening’s slasher genre. I looked at the production companies of
horror films such as Evil Dead and American Mary and most of the films I
deconstructed had production companies which weren’t particularly
scary-looking. [ghost house prod com] However,
there was one called Ghost House which has a skull on it and its conventions for their
horror/slasher films is to have lots of gore (eg Evil Dead) and scary-looking
deranged characters (The Grudge & Drag Me To Hell). I thought this would be
suitable as our production company because we have a scary-looking character
because he wears a menacing mask and has something etched into his forehead,
and we have lots of gore. Other prod companies I looked at such as Universal
produced horror films with a supernatural element (Mama and The Thing) so I
felt Universal would not be appropriate as our production company.
Link to:
Ghost House Production Company, Deconstructions of Existing Professional Production Companies
Question 4 -"Who would be the audience for your
media product?"
Our audience would specifically be anyone who
enjoys slasher films, who likes gore and killer versus victim storylines. It
also appeals to people who enjoy twisted storylines; in this case a surgeon who
used to save people as his job is now killing people as a hobby. [decon age ratings] The age rating for
our film opening is 15 because it contains a lot of gore and some violence
which can upset younger audiences. I deconstructed the age ratings of slasher
films to see decide what our product’s age rating should be and I concluded
that it should be rated 15 from investigating slasher films such as Evil Dead,
the Saw films, Final Destination films and The Crazies. The Crazies and Final
Destination were rated 15 because they contain strong gore but Evil Dead &
Saw were rated 18 because they contained bloody violence as well as strong
gore. Our film opening contains strong gore but not strong bloody violence and
that is why I decided to rate A+E 15. Also, if it were a real film, making it
an 18 would mean our ‘company’ would lose a lot of potential income because we
would be excluding younger, more interested audiences. Therefore, by rating the
film a 15 we would appeal to a younger audience, thus making more of an income
as well. If we were to make the rating any younger, we would have to restrict
the amount of gore used and that would reduce the gory slasher effect my group
were aiming for.
Link to: Deconstructionof Age Ratings
Question 5 - "How did you attract/address your
audience?"
I investigated age and how that may attract
and address our audience. The killer is 9 years older than the victim; the
killer is an adult and the victim is a teenager. It is common for films,
especially TV series to be set in school to attract teenagers as they are the
age group who stereotypically watch the most TV and will be able to understand
and relate to the characters and storylines better. This results in the
films/series getting more of an audience, so more commercial success. [Attracting & addressing post] The
Vampire Diaries – a horror and supernatural TV series – it focused around
teenagers, as are horror films like Jennifer’s Body and Carrie. In
Jennifer's Body, Jennifer is presented as a stereotypical teenage girl
primarily through her clothes, she often wears pink or her cheerleading outfit.
Therefore in our opening, we dressed the character as a stereotypical teenage
girl as well because she is wearing a red tight top and a tight skirt (red =
love & danger) (tight = sexualised because she is a prostitute). Another
way in which teenagers are represented as teenagers is in Carrie, the main
destruction scene is set at prom which is at school. Carrie is centred around her prom which is relatable however she causes the place to burn down which is not relatable and that is what makes it
entertaining. In our film opening we have realistic and relatable themes such
as a prostitute and a surgeon however the surgeon's foetus obsession is what is
different and therefore entertaining.
Link to: Attracting & Addressing Audience
Question 6 - "What have you learnt about
technologies from the process of constructing this product?"
I learnt how
to utilise Photoshop to make the typography for the opening. I tested out many
fonts until I found one that resembled neat, formal handwriting, as if it were
the killer writing it as he does in his diary. I then tested different colours
and decided for the main title to be white and the background text to be red. I had inserted backing text on all
the titles (words such as soulless and prostitute) however when I put this over
the sequence in Final Cut Pro it looked unprofessional so I removed most of
them. There were some I kept such as ‘foetus’ so the audience can read it and
realise the killer is taking out her foetus. I also distorted most of the text
to reflect the killer’s way of thinking and his sick thoughts.
I attempted
making an A+E sign to put during the fading between the chase and death scenes
and I wanted the plus sign to be thick and red like hospital plus signs. However,
this ended up looking quite shabby and unprofessional so I tried out a normal
plus sign, but this did not work either. In the end, we decided not to put an
A+E sign there because it would only appear to one second because the fade out
was too quick.
Link to: A+E, Typography on Photoshop
Question 7 - "Looking back at your preliminary task,
what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full
product?"
[improving sound post] One thing we have
learnt is improving the sound. In the preliminary task, Annie and I chose most
of the sounds and music and looking back, it did not properly work and the
preliminary task was not consistent or fluid. We have greatly improved the use
of non-diegetic sounds because before they did not fit in well with the
sequence. For example, the ‘jolly’ music when the students are leaving school
was not professional. However, the diagetic sounds such as the school bell was
quite believable but it was too loud – something which we have all learnt from
and applied to our film opening. [practical
graphic sounds post] I produced some graphic sounds including squelching
noises which could have been used for when the killer is cutting open the
victim. To make this noise I simply used a spoon and moved some food around and
it produced an effective squelching noise. I made a knife slashing noise if we
were to show the killer opening the victim (which we did not directly show). I
did this by taking the knife out of the knife holder quicker to make a loud
slashing sound, [decon of graphic sounds
post] similar to the sound from the V for Vendetta film which I
deconstructed. I also made a sound resembling bones breaking and did this by
using a silver bracelet and dropping it onto a pile of other jewellery. I
created a blood dripping sound because I thought it was be effective to include
a sound like that because it was used in Haunting In Connecticut's opening and
made it more eerie and gory. I did this recording water dripping from the tap
because it sounded similar to blood dripping.
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