Monday, 7 February 2011

Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?


As a group we were able to develop, challenge and most of all use conventions of real media texts. The ideas that we had developed based on our research of different horror movies and bring these ideas together. This enabled us to come up with media products that our audience were able to recognise but also see where conventions have been challenged and developed.



Continuity of the text shown above suggests that we stuck to the conventions of a teaser trailer by what we reveal to a minimal so to create a picture in the audience's mind. This creates a buzz around the film. For example The Dark Knight trailer uses less images and more sound to create a picture. In between the shots of the props we used quick fade in and fade outs building suspense. This is similar to the The Crazies teaser trailer shown below:










The similarities in the shots show that our trailer has stuck to the conventions with the synchronised music heightened at the most gruesome parts of the trailer.
As the music heightens the shots become faster because we wanted to build tension and give a scary effect so the audience will be scared by what they see.

We decided to use white noise in our teaser trailer as it gives realism showing similarities to a real video tape not working to create anxiety amongst the audience. For example The Ring trailer below uses the white noise frequently which correlates with their use of the TV in the trailer making the audience feel like they are part of it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHa7dcCntyI The simplicity of The Ring teaser trailer can simplicity which is what we wanted to achieve in our trailer which doesn't give much away to the audience. Even though our trailer may look predictable the way in which the killer commits the act remains unknown to our audience. We have achieved creating suspense within the teaser trailer by leaving the audience wanting to see more of the killer as we did extreme close ups of her mouth and chest and a brief shot of her screaming. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsDlknTOyPs

We challenged conventions of horror films by using mainly black actors and a female lead actress as most real horror films usually consist of Caucasian actors. We decided to do this as we felt it would appeal to our target audience. Black actors have been used in films such as one missed but they haven’t had big roles. So we decided for our main victim and killer to be black which is challenging existing conventions. Below is the victim and killer:







We used Black actors using a developing convention which consist of mainly Caucasians actors. We decided to do this as we felt it would appeal to our target audience. Particularly our killer, a lot of her looks keep to popular conventions of the horror genre, as seen in a few real life horror films. For example, the derangment of Dr Hannibal Lecter in 'The Silence of the Lambs.'

In many horror teaser trailers they show the killer and victims before the bloody scenes and after. This involves a change in costume and special effects make-up. We used Ben Nye fresh scab and prof bruise and abrasion wheel to make the cuts and scars look effective.


The medium close up composition of this shot allows the special effects make-up to show clearly so the audience gets the picture. In this sense we have followed conventions as many horror teaser trailers show characters in scenes where special effects make-up has been used or the costume reflecting the location of where everything maybe taking place. This helps in setting the scene helping the audience to understand what could be going on. From shot to shot there is low key lighting this reflects the dark atmosphere and also suggests the killings are happening during the night time which is a common convention of teaser trailers. Some trailers just have the voice of the killer as they may not want to reveal the face. We used parts of her body for example her chest, her mouth and at the end you briefly see her as most of hair is covering her face. We followed the conventions by revealing the kille. However, this may not keep the buzz around the film and also normally when a well known actor/actress is starring in a movie as the killer, then it is often better not to reveal them because seeing them in character may give some of the story away.

In most horror teaser trailers there may be props to give the audience a brief idea which is what we have done. Using the main props in the teaser trailer helps the so the audience create a picture in their mind and remind them that this is likely to occur often in the film. Comparing this to modern day films today such as Saw 3D it has a similar effect where you have to look closely in order to get a glimpse of what weapons or a brief idea of how the victims will be trapped. Saw 3D below:



We get the view of the trap from different angles. First a low angle then a high angle. This suggests that they are reminding the audience this is key to the killers. Looking at the shots of the fingers. We had it in the sink, in the killers mouth and on her neck. This shown below:



The setting tend to be undisclosed until you've seen the film itself, so the audience can only guess where everything is taking place this adds to tension building up and suspense.
Her provocative outfit shows the sexy side to her character which is a way of her seducing her male victims.

Magazine cover



Overall you can see that our magazine applies many of the normal conventions of a normal magazine. We challenged a few conventions such as using a deteriorated masthead and a focussed'horror special' to really emphasize the fact that this month's special was all about Cannibal and any related horror films.


Poster
This is a video blog explaining how we chose to stick, develop or go against conventions of real movie posters.

Tuesday, 18 January 2011

Film Certificate

Due to the gory detail and amount of blood in our teaser trailer, we reccommend that 'Cannibal' should be given an '18' certificate.








According to the BBFC guidelines on http://www.bbfc.co.uk/classification/guidelines/18-2 because of the frequent bloody violence that is quite prominent in our teaser trailer, our teaser trailer would be classified at '18'.



Seeing as those over the age of 18 are our main target audience, this would be an acceptable classifiaction if we were to submit our teaser trailer to the BBFC.





Friday, 14 January 2011

Skills development: Post-Production

Editing


Our main sources for Editing are final cut pro and photoshop. Final cut pro was used for editing film and footage and creating the horror trailer. We used adobe photoshop to make our magazine and poster.


Sound


For our horror trailer we had to create a sound track to play for our trailer. This had to be original and not copied music, so we teamed with the music department in our college to create a sound that creates high tension for our trailer.

Skills development: Production

Health and safety

Health and safety is key when production. This could be done in different areas of production.

During applying make up it is key to always test the make up on a part skin and leave for about 10 minutes to see if there is a allergic reaction.

On set it is important to make up all wires are out of the way so there is no trying or falling over on set which could break expensive equipment.
Having a teacher near by is always important just incase of any emergencies.


Lighting

Make sure lighting is key to create the prefect shot. Where we are creating high key lighting or low key lighting it is important that each scene is well and equally lite.

Skills development: Planning

In planning our teaser trailer we gained skills in make up and costume by making our main props- the fingers. We did research on YouTube on how to make fake severed fingers that we could use for our finger necklace. Together, we used latex, stage blood, mouldign wax and make up to make our fingers.

We also had to learn how to do make up for our victim to create injury and bruise effects.



Skills development: Research

Google - Horror posters

We looked at existing Horror posters for ideas and conventions in Horror, in particular posters from films that are popular with audiences. Many of the images are very minimal but tell a story to its audience.
Examples:


















Youtube
We used Youtube to look at how to make fingers, research on a newsrooom setting, exisitng horror trailers and make up techniques for horror films. This gave us ideas on how to make a good storyline that would attract audiences.

Websites

New horror movies that had recently been released to see what people's views were on the films. This was done looking at horror movie forums. This gave us an insight into what people liked most about the horror movies. We looked at Ben Nye who specialises in make up for horror movies as we wanted our characters to look as real as possible.