Question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Conventional supernatural horror plots: A family or person moves into a house where the previous residence have been murdered by something else living there. E.g. Amityville Horrors (Andrew Douglas, 2005) Something has happened to a person and a spirit posses/haunts them. E.g. Drag Me to Hell (Sam Raimi, 2009) A character is one the audience is led into believing are safe but suddenly they actually become evil. E.g. Paranormal Activity (Oran Peli, 2007) The discovery of the spirits past: this involves the protagonist exploring their house and finding clues that further inform them of the life the spirit once had, why they are being haunted and what they can do to solve it.

Plot

The plot we followed in ours is the first one, the house that Hannah lives in is cursed and every time someone moves in their, they get possessed by the spirit after finding the music box. However, in the full movie the spirits past is discovered by the protagonist- Bridget, which is also conventional of supernatural horror.

The spirit is possessing the girl in both ‘drag me to hell’ and our piece

Mise-en-sceneCostumesIt is conventional in supernatural horror to have simplicity and everyday clothing. So therefore we dressed Hannah in jeans and a white top and nothing revealing. Her makeup was natural, and the colours she wore were neural blending into the background of the piece.

PropsSupernatural horror has less blood than other horror sub genres, for example Slasher horror. However we have opposed this convention, and instead used a lot of blood in the opening. Also, everyday objects, framed family photos, dolls, toys and rocking chairs are also very conventional props in supernatural horror however we didn’t use any of these. Instead, we created our own props, which were paper cranes. This was the unique aspect of our horror opening, the iconography is depicted by the paper cranes because they symbolise all the people that this spirit had possessed and killed.

LightingIn supernatural horror, candles re often used to create lighting because they give a flickering effect, however we didn’t use candles but we did have a few shots where the lights were flickering as Hannah entered the room. Also, we used a large lamp to create lots of sharp shadows and silhouettes which portrayed darkness. The low key lighting of our piece connotes darkness and the outside shots are unsettling because of the gloom.

LocationSupernatural horror are conventionally set in the home of the protagonist because it allows the audience to relate, and scare themselves even when the film has finished. Therefore, we did just this and set the opening in the home of Hannah which is later to be the home of Bridget. Other conventional supernatural horror locations are churches, relating to Christ and also woodland areas, where the spirit is seen lurking behind trees in the darkness.

Mise-en-scene DECONSTRUCT A FRAME

White top- her clothing is simple, but a effective

The blood challenges the conventions of

Supernatural horror

The lighting has created a dull effect which has created lots shadows Her collar bone and boney

hands imply she is not herself

SoundWe used non-diegetic sound, such as fast pace orchestral music to build up the tension, when the title appears we used the sound of violins as it writes across the screen. It is conventional to have recurring sounds that the audience associate with the antagonist and protagonist. We used a loud noise whenever the antagonist appeared, which repeated a few times to scare the audience and make them jump. We also had the sounds of a music box to bring back childhood memories and create a spooky atmosphere, this is called contrapuntal sound (sound that doesn’t match the scene). It is used to create a juxtaposition of sound and image, the sweet sound (of the music box doesn’t match the horror of the spirit but instead creates an enigma.

Conventional supernatural sounds we did not use were creaking of doors and floorboards. We also said in our plan that we were going to use asynchronous sounds of whispering, as if the spirits were whispering, like in Poltergeist (Tobe Hooper, 1982) however we didn’t end up using this idea, although it would have created another dimension to our sound.

Editing/ Colour/ TypographyEditingAt the start we used long takes and few cuts to create tension. When the action sped up the cutting rate also sped up, creating a fast rhythmic pace. This meant we had to keep continuity perfect.

ColourIn supernatural horror it is typical to have a colour wash over the clips, therefore we used an effect on all our work and took out some of the brighter colours to reinforce the dull atmosphere. To make it our own, we used after effects to blacken out Hannah’s eyes which portrayed her as being possessed.

TypographyThe text in supernatural horror is often red to connote blood and death, so we used a dark brown red which implies just this. Also our title is very bold and obvious, to allow the audience to see the name and understand what the opening and film is going to be about. The title is written by itself, reinforcing the idea of the supernatural.

Title order

1

2

4

3

8

7

6

5We ordered the titles, with the distributor first followed by the actors, then the producers, the film editor and finally the director because the director is seen as the most important. Finally we had the title of the film come up ‘Possessed’ across the screen and the opening continued. We put the tile in the middle of the opening so that it didn’t look like a trailer.

CameraBirds eye shots for the establishing shot are quite often used in supernatural horror, however we challenged this convention by having an establishing shot placing you with the character Hannah in her home, so she was more relatable. Also handheld camera shots are quite often used, which we used in the shots when Hannah saw the spirit twice in the room suddenly. Shaky camera work is sometimes used to show the fear of the characters, however we kept most of our shots quite still so that when the cutting rate sped up, it would build tension.

One of our shots was inspired by Donnie Darko. The shot when he gets out of the

bus and it turns from the side to straight. The shot creates a sense of unease and make the viewers feel on edge, that was our aim with our shot.

Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Social GroupsCharacters Hannah is a young, white, American, middle class girl, which could be seen as stereotypical as she is

vulnerable, and weak and ends up killing herself. The spirit is a women which isn’t stereotypical, because she is the killer and possessor – this was

inspired by The Women in Black (James Watkins, 2012), as the spirits past experiences have led her to become this evil creature.

The main protagonist, Bridget, is a young, white, British, middle-class girl who destroys the possessor by the end of the film.

All the characters are white middle class, teenagers, this is because it’s aimed at young adult marker, who are more attracted to own age group. There are no black, ethnic, minority groups and no males in our opening. If we made the rest of the film, males would appear but we have no males as main characters. This reflects the film as non-patriarchal because males aren’t dominant.

Representations Hannah is represented negatively because she is easily led to be possessed, she shows no bravery or ability to fight for herself, this therefore reinforces the residual ideology that women are weak. In The Blair Witch Project (Eduardo Sánchez and Daniel Myrick 1999) the lead character is a women who ends up being taken by the witch, and throughout the film becomes weaker and weaker.

The ghost is represented negatively because she is a killer, but at the same time she is a women and has the ability to be strong and powerful which isn’t stereotypical. This is a regressive ideology because there is a strong female in the lead. If all the women in our opening died then the film wouldn’t survive in this modern day.

However the main protagonist from the rest of the film beats the evil spirit. The binary opposition challenged the residual ideology that women are weak. A male doesn’t have to come and save the day, Bridget fights for herself portraying a strong woman. For example, in The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980) the lead women get’s away from her mad husband with her little boy, and she shows herself as independent.

ConstructionMise-en-scene The tear that falls from her cheek connotes her

vulnerability by non-verbal language

Sound When the music box is heard, it immediately brings

the audience back to a childhood noise, which could compare her to a child or compare her actions to those of a child because she is unable to control herself and easily led.

Throughout the opening the girl doesn’t say a single word which reinforces the residual ideology that women are ‘seen and not heard’ again like a child. The only time we hear her make noise is when she is chocking which implies she is vulnerable.

Camera The extreme close up shots we created show her

emotion and the fact she’s being so possessed by this monster

Editing The black eyes we edited on Aftereffects show that

she is possessed easily and therefore is a weak character.

Construction

The blackened out eyes portray Hannah is

possessed

The shot is a close-up showing that she is completely under the control of this spirit

Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Online toolsThe Internet (Google)- I used Google to search ideas, for example conventions of the genre and also other title sequences, overall it was there to help me do research. We live in the modern world with we media/ web 2.0, meaning that it gives audiences the ability to interact with media content. “We” implies that the Internet is a participatory media, so it allows us to personalise content, including media content. That’s why the internet would help us promote our film opening to audiences.

Prezi- I used Prezi to present ideas for our concept development, this meant I could visualize our finial project and develop our ideas.

Survey Monkey- this allowed us to create a survey and question people on our ideas, then we got feedback for our final piece.

YouTube- We exported our finished production onto YouTube so we could market it through various forms of media such as social networking. I personally used YouTube to research title sequences to analyze and also shots that inspired me from films to use in our opening piece.

Facebook- YouTube enabled me to post our horror opening on Facebook so that my friends could view it, and some of them shared it so their friends could view it.

Filming our workWhen filming our work we used Alex’s canon 60D camera for all the shots

because it creates clear shots that were perfect for our piece and we could easily adjust brightness and contrast

A tripod to keep the shots as safe and still as possible

The issues with the camera We had to use lots of lighting, like large

lights to brighten our set so that the shots weren’t grainy. It meant we could always edit the shots and make them darker afterwards., to create a spooky effect.

Also we had to board up one of the windows in the garage, so that the camera couldn’t be seen in the shots.

Issues with lighting The only problem we faced with lighting was keeping the continuity perfect, this meant we had to keep checking the shots so that the lighting didn’t differ too much.

Aspects of editingWhat I did? I put titles onto the opening with the title font ‘suicide draft’, and I used a red-brown colour on the

font to connote horror and blood I also added in the sound with Alex:

-non-diegetic background ambient sound constant all the way through -music box noise -high pitch noises for shocking / jumping effect -diegetic = cutting of the throat and chocking

-jump sound when the spirit appeared

The editing in our piece Aftereffects were used to blacken Hannah’s eyes so that she was ‘possessed’ We added a colour wash over the whole thing We had to make sure continuity was perfect, which was really hard because the set design was so complicated with so many cranes.