Emma Bradshaw- Media Evaluation Question 1

1.) In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The TitleThe title of our film was excellently thought off by my group member Zak Rodgers, which you could kind of say was a eureka moment. In the picture below you can see our title for are horror film opening. I found there are many ways in which our title links in to the psychological genre and by us making it look psychological horror genre was helping us draw in more viewers by representing our film as professional. The first way of linking in to our psychological horror genre was by using the correct font. The font we used was called ‘Times New Roman’. We thought this presented our horror title in a bold, serious and very dramatic way, which helps remind the audience into remembering the film genre they are about to see is horror. The font we have chosen is nice and

readable for our audience by its simplicity, however by us placing it on a white background gives us a very disorientating feel which is key for our viewers as it reflects on the psychological side. We chose using the colours black and white as we thought using black against the white would background would help it stand out more clearly than any other colour and helps us represent our victim.

We thought the black could represent the tragedy and history within our film, as we thought we needed to look at it from a serious side. We also thought we could link the colour white to the vulnerability of our characters, or the ghostly side from other films like paranormal activity, the ring and more. We decided we didn’t want to use the colour red in any of our credits or font within the film. But before deciding this as a group we looked and researched the openings to other psychological films and decided we didn’t want to use red as this looked less professional and more horror based. We also found out form researching other films openings that most of the titles appear on a separate blank screen, we found this very common with a lot of films which made it very predictable which we didn’t want. So we decided to come up with the idea of putting it on our establishing shot, making it very unpredictable and disorientating for the viewers to watch.

Choosing our name like I said was kind of a eureka moment. My group member Zak Rodgers started to do some good research into looking at other films names that have become very big and successful, then by doing this found out we needed to link our title name to the theme of a psychological horror. This is when he came upon the name of our psychological horror film ‘Aura’. We found out that Aura was usually linked to paranormal activities and spiritual links, this was therefore appropriate to our film as the child is who seems to be missing is dead, but comes back to see if the girl could help him to finally be at peace. We also found that the official definition of aura

Emma Bradshaw- Media Evaluation Question 1

which was very useful, here is the example; the distinctive atmosphere or quality that seems to surround and be generated by a person, thing, or place: the ceremony retains an aura of mystery.

In spiritualism and some forms of alternative medicine, a supposed emanation surrounding the body of a living creature and regarded as an essential part of the individual: emotional, mental, and spiritual levels form an energy field around the body known as the aura muddy colours in the aura indicate negative emotions

Any invisible emanation, especially and odour: there was a faint aura disinfectant Medicine a warning or sensation experienced before an attack of epilepsy or migraines some

The name ‘Aura’ helped us give an understanding and meaning to the audience, that one of the characters has come to back to life to finish some unfinished business. The editing software we used to edit our title and credits was called Final Cut Pro, which was on the school Mac computer. As you can see from watching our film we made the title appear as if in the form of a typewriter and the credits to appear fading in and out whilst being blurring for a disorientating feel. We did this to help us with our psychological horror film genre and to help evoke the audience’s emotions excitement, tension and confusion. Overall I am very pleased with how we created these emotions in our audience.

ResearchFor some extra research I decided to watch many horror film openings to look for the different types of conventions that occur within a horror film and what conventions my group want to use in our horror film to help combine our whole group’s ideas. I very much liked the idea of a psychological horror and to try to include various psychological horror conventions. When I was watching the clips the weapons you tended to see were not physical weapons that man have made, but they would tend to be more psychological and supernatural.

Some of the main settings we found I would see time, time and time again this meaning it challenging the convention which are newly moved into big empty houses,

woodland/forests, schools etc. This is helping the target audience to create realism by relating to film on some level, helping increase the fear factor for the audience and they begin to picture themselves as the victim not villain. We really liked this idea of making a sense of realism for the audience,

therefore we decided to use the conventions of a newly moved in empty house and forests. We showed this in our real film by having white cloths round the house with no mise-en-scene to represent it has been newly moved into. I found out that regularly in a psychological horror film

Emma Bradshaw- Media Evaluation Question 1

there are numerous amounts of flashbacks or dreams to help the audience to view why the victim/killer is disturbed and to explain to then what happened, we also really liked this idea therefore decided to incorporate the idea of using the dream convention to help tell the story. The common sounds we found in a psychological film was a contrapuntal sound which means a sound that doesn’t match the action on the screen to help create a disorientating feel (example orphan trailer). I also found out the characters are mostly tormented or disturbed individuals that usually

come back to revenge their victims. Sometimes the victims may differ but a high percentage of victims where children and females (example orphan and the omen.) When psychological horror films use children as the killer again, the victims tend to be female. This could maybe have something to do with the fact that mothers are maternal and the female audiences watching would be able to relate to the character in some way. However we wanted to us a boy character for the villain instead of a girl to

subvert the conventions, making this un-expecting for the audience. As a group we decided that this type of horror would be more suitable for our final film, as we would have less bloody gore and physical harm that would be visible to the viewers. This type of horror also helps create discomfort and tension for the viewer from exposing fears and common psychological vulnerabilities. It has splashes of paranormal that the audience which they cannot relate to but helping exposing the evil that hides behind normality.

Settings and LocationIn our psychological film opening Aura there was a total of two locations we decided to use. Our dream shots were very much mostly important to us as it gives us an inside clue or information about the boy, these shots were shot in Baulk Woods, Langford, Bedfordshire. We decided to have our dream sequence set there as we like the objects that were in Baulk woods and the different Landscape you got i.e. from a forest to a lake and even to a meadow. We thought this could help us add to the disorientated feel as we wanted to receive when people watched the dream section. My favourite shot however of the dream section was of the boy playing in the meadow with his dog, I liked the way this emphasised his age to the audience, but to make it even more clearly we decided to add our own scripted nursery rhyme. The reason why we decided to shot our dream section in the woods over all was because we thought it was the correct conventions of being dark, isolated, scary, derelict and disorientated. It also has a sense of realism as most people have been to the woods

before, which we liked.

In this picture you can see a medium shot of the playground the boy was playing in with the camera movement panning. This type of shot is very typical within a psychological horror film opening as they have put the audience not in the persons view point but as if they are watching

them which makes the audience feel quite tense and apprehensive of what has happened to the boy

Emma Bradshaw- Media Evaluation Question 1

at his location. It also gives a clear understanding for the audience of the mise-en-scene in the shot, what is happening in the shot and the environment the character is in.

To help with our horror film location I made an audience survey questionnaire asking the public what their favourite horror location would be. As you can see from the graph the most popular

location was a house and the least popular location was used places i.e. hotels and hospitals. I knew the house from the beginning would be one of the most popular ones as it is a classic convention for horror film openings. Having it set in an ordinary house helps set the realism for the audience, letting them know that this could happen to anyone and how it is

not ordinary consequence. We also set our other location in the woods which was proved from other questionnaires very popular. The purpose of the forest was to show the death location of the missing boy, we showed this by the audience’s knowledge of how hard it is to escape from a forest. Making the audience feel worried, anxious and scared, showing the emotions that my group wanted the location to create so I think using the locations we used has turned out very successful.

Whilst finding out this information I and my group tried to find popular horror/psychological films that used these types of locations within their horror films, by researching this we found lots of successful horror films which helped inspired us to pick this location for our film opening. The films we found where;

The Women in Black The Shinning The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Blaire Witch Project The Ring The Omen Orphan

When me and my group watched and researched these particular films we all released that each one had used either both or one of our particular locations with our psychological film opening that

Emma Bradshaw- Media Evaluation Question 1

made our idea for our location set in stone.

Costumes and Make-upThe pictures which are shown help show and represent the costumes and make-up we prepared and added on to our actors. For both of our characters we decided to have them wearing natural no make-up, we decided this because we thought it would make it easier to help make the character resemble more to the audience, we also thought it makes them seem younger therefore adding to the convention of them seeming vulnerable and innocent. However the only bit of make-up we used was on our boy character, we added mud to his face and clothes to help show he has no home and maybe has been living in the wilderness for quite some time.

For the girl we created a costume to help make the sense of realism more real to reality, thereby dressing her up in casual clothing which were slippers, leggings, a cardigan and a black vest top making her look like a normal person, helping again the audience relate to the character of what she is wearing, making her look and seem more realistic making the sense of realism much more clearer thereby making her seem like a threat to the audience. From research we found out that lots of horror films give the victim a very casual costume for the same reasons I have said. For example ‘Scream’, ‘The Shining’, ‘The Ring’ and ‘Paranormal Activity’. The costume and makeup we picked for this character also helps show that she is a teenage who is a well educated middle class girl.

The next character we have is a young boy; we dressed this character in a plain, dull costume. He wore black school trousers to help show the audience his age group and a white top and walking boots. We chose the white top to help show the innocence side of this character and the walking boots to help represent his last moments. The reason why we chose this character to wear such dull clothing was so that he wouldn’t have any similarity to the children, as stereotypically children would be dressed in colourful clothing. We thought this characters costume and makeup helps show his age and as an un-educated lower class boy. Helping make the audience unclear whether his is a threat or not.

Here is a screen shot of an image from the main climax of our psychological film opening, to help show the characters face in a disorientating way. As it is set in a dream we decided to have this image quite unclear to the audience so they know what the boy looks like in some way, but it being very unclear. We done this to make the character seem secretive and powerful which is quite contrasting further on and to also help build tension in the audience.

Emma Bradshaw- Media Evaluation Question 1

Camera WorkThroughout the whole media task of us creating a film opening, I realised that the skill camerawork was one of the processes that I found I enjoyed the most and improved on dramatically. I also must have learnt a variety of skills as well for example; learning to pan, tilt and do a tracking shot smoothly. In our horror film we used lots of Tracking shots, Low angle shots, High angle shots Extreme close ups and Long shots. By using these shots we wanted to portray certain emotions and feelings to give the audience a clear understanding of the story we are trying to portray.

In this photograph you can see a medium shot of the playground the boy was playing in with the camera movement panning, which I took myself. We found this type of shot very typical within a psychological horror film opening as we believed it puts the audience not in the persons view but as if they are watching them so in the villains view, therefore making them

feel uneasy and tense on what may happen next. We also found it gives a clear understanding for the audience of the mise-en-scene in the shot, what is happening in the shot and the environment the characters are placed in. We found this shot very hard to produce as we did not have the correct equipment to make produce it; therefore we had to work with what we got. So to produce this shot I had to strap the video camcorder to a bike and slowly wheel the bike in the direction and movement I wanted to create. Overall I think that this shot worked really well and successfully portrayed the victim as vulnerable.

EditingI and my group edited out horror film opening with an Apple Mac computer on the program Final Cut Pro. We used the specific editing program instead of other programs that came with it like ‘Adobe Premiere Pro’ and ‘Sony Vegas Pro’ for lots of reasons. Whilst using Final Cut Pro I found out it is very fast. As when we uploaded all of our photos it stacked up a lot of clips and effects but however many we put on them it seemed to play them all seamlessly. It also allows you to edit the footage you have taken directly from your memory card and the replace it with the media on the hard disk once the transfer has been completed. Which unfortunately we only just found out after we had finished editing out film, I also like the little finishing touches which I have spotted whilst editing the film, for example the way the edit point turns red when you select it if the out and in points are at the outer limits of the clips.

The only bad and un-faulty things I found with using this programme is that it takes a very long time for the multiple maker colours to be added and that you need an open CL-compatible graphics card.

I and my group got quite stuck and confused through the editing process of making our horror film; we found out that the best way to find out or solve a problem we couldn’t solve was form the internet. We used the internet to fix lots of problems and questions we came across using Final Cut Pro, the main question we couldn’t solve and was stuck on for a long time was in the dream section, of when the clip moves in a fast forwarding motion but then goes back to normal.