Evaluation Question 2 (Updated)

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

For this question I will be comparing our main character (Liza) to three other similar characters in other films. This will help shed light on how we constructed our main character to represent a particular social group.

Cabin in the woods

 Dana (Kristen Connolly) 

Both characters are playing the same roles in their separate films. They both play as the virgin victims in an extreme horror movie and there where certain adjustments to the actors to made them look like a pure and innocent virgin. Firstly we focused on the clothing, as you can see they both resemble the same style of clothing. They both went for simple clothing that isn't too revealing and not very colourful. This shows that the characters do not care about attracting men's attention with their bodies or clothing, which ultimately makes them seem quite innocent. They both also look as though they have no make up on, which makes them seem pure and natural. This would relate to some women in today's society that do not feel like they have to act, dress or look like anyone else. A way that our character deviates from the stereotypical norm, is that she gets killed first. Usually in extreme horror movies (especially Cabin in the woods) the innocent individual lasts to the end and ultimately survives however in our case the innocent female is killed which is likely to give the audience a shock.

Scream

Drew Barrymore (Casey)

The similarities between are apparent just by comparing each of the images however there are some obvious differences too. Firstly I would like to address the clothing on both of the characters. They both seem to have gone for the comfortable plain look because they are both wearing warm plain jumpers. This could indicate that they both don't care about their appearance. However when we delve deeper into their characters we learn more about their personalities. For instance Casey has blonde hair which links her to the stereotype that blonde girls are stupid and very girly which is completely contradictory to our character which is a brunet. You can also clearly tell that Casey is wearing make up and it is revealed in the movie that she does have a boyfriend. Casey is also portrayed as rather flirtatious when speaking to the stranger on the phone which then ultimately makes her seem less innocent and more overtly flirtatious. Liza's dialogue was limited to calling out people's names which would indicate that she is shy and quite.

In those cases Liza is seen as more of an innocent character which makes her fit the social stereotype of innocent female victim in horror films. A similarity that stands out most out of both characters is that they were both killed in the opening sequence of the film which completely goes against the social stereotype.

A Nightmare On Elm Street

Katie Cassidy (Kris)

 The characters presented share a fair share of differences when it comes to physical appearance  For instance Kris shares the same colour hair as Casey which again, fits her in the stereotype of blonde women being unintelligent and very girly. The fact that she wears quite a bit of make up also adds to the assumption that she is a flirtatious girl. Kris also wears bright and revealing clothes which would imply that she is seeking male attention. Liza on the other hand, is a completely different story. She wears dark and comfortable clothes which isn't very revealing and she is also wearing no make up at all which suggests that she is not interested in attracting men.

Moving onto similarities. Both characters are being pursued by a person who wants to kill them. On one hand we have Liza, she is being tormented by a writer who is writing her death which that it coming to life, and on the other hand we have Kris, she is being stalked by a killer in her nightmares which she can not escape from.

Conclusion

Overall I believe that our character has,and has not conformed to the stereotype of a female teenager in a horror film because she is portrayed as shy and innocent which is generally not the case with most teenagers in horror films. They are usually loud, out going and flirtatious. To indicate this stereotype much more clearer the characters are usually blonde to show that they are very girly girls and overtly flirtatious. On the other hand female teenagers in horror films are usually considered weak and defenseless which is relateable to our opening because our character is victimized and eventually dies. The camera angles used in typical horror movies usually consists of close up camera shots of the face to show extreme emotions which is exactly what we ensured that we included in our film opening. Another camera angle that is commonly used in horror films to express weakness and vulnerability is the high angled shot. It is often used for the victim before his or hers death. We failed to incorporate this shot in our opening which is something that I wish we added.

Villain Comparison

Christian (Die-ary)

 Hannibal Lecture (Silence of the Lambs)

Hannibal Lecture quite of similarities and differences in the way they are presented in the films they star in. First of all i would like to point out that there is a large age difference so that will effect most of the visual aspects which i was going to discus, such as the hair and the clothing. Christian is actually wearing rather formal and smart clothing for his age which makes him seem older and more mature which is not a usual convention for teenagers in horror films. Whereas we usually see Hannibal with a plain white shirt which makes him seem plain and bland which is completely contradictory to his personality. 

Hannibal is a psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer which makes him a very good reader of the human emotions and he is also quite intelligent. Now Christian is a young author with a gift that allows him to write the deaths of anyone he desires, he is also rather intelligent in the way he speaks and writes. this makes them quite similar it that respect. Another important point worth mentioning is that the viewers never see Christians face in the opening. This is very common in horror movie, the villains face is usually shown later on in the movie in a dramatic fashion. 

Shots that are usually used to express Hannibal Lectures and any villain's dominance and power are low angle shots. We have also implemented a low angle shot to express Christian's power when he is writing. We also made the scenes which Christian is in darker by editing the shots. This helps make the character more mysterious and threatening. In Silence of the Lambs they take a similar approach by making his scenes be in a secure prison. This immediately makes the viewer think that he is dangerous and threatening. 

Evaluation Question 1

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

Still Photo Frame

Frame 1 (Top left): The Title of The film
The title is shown right at the end. The end of the opening sequence is accompanied with the closing of the diary to signify that the writer will return later to finish the book later. We gave the title a black outline to make it seem darker and more noticeable when the diary is in the background. The text instantly appears just before the fade to black transition to the diary then the fade to black occurs once more leaving just the Title and a black background. This is used to give emphasis to the titles power and significance. The contrast of red and black make the Title really look that much more appealing and menacing. The red from the text represents the blood shed with what is written in the author's diary.

Frame 2 (Top middle): Setting/Location

The first location shown to the viewers is Christian's office. This is where the murderer conducts his crimes so we thought we thought it would make a fitting establishing shot. We are establishing where and how the author kills people. The setting was decorated with props such as the diary itself and plants to make the scenery a homely feel. We also fitted black curtains to cover the sun light and make the shot look darker.

Frame 3 (Top Right): Costumes and Props

This shot shows one of the characters walking to a destination whilst looking smart and carrying a laptop bag. In this movie this character is considered the "smart guy" and we believe that we showed that to the audience with the use of costume and props. For instance, he is wearing glasses which would stereo typically infer that he is intelligent. He is also wearing smart clothing such as the suit jacket, cardigan and shirt, with a laptop bag which he is carrying like a suitcase. All these features come together to give the audience that the character is a smart and sophisticated individual. 

Frame 4 (Middle left): Camera work and editing

The camera work and editing in this shot are matched effectively to build up a tense and dramatic moment. The shot presented in this frame is a still close up of the victim's feet passing the camera. We used our editing skills to cut to the point where she actually appears on screen and keep the shot going till she goes off screen, and then we move onto a different shot. We also used a video effect that darkens the edges of the screen giving the shot a darker and eerie feel to it. The camera work also influenced with the tension and build up to the scene by giving the sense of panic with the feet and keeping a sense of mystery by not showing the victims face in the shot.

Frame 5 (Middle Middle): Title font and style

The title font is shown not only at the end for the title but it is also shown throughout the opening and is also shown in this shot at the bottom of the shot. It shows the font we downloaded from "Dafont" and the name of it is "Hitman" We chose it because we admired its sharp edges and menacing appearance whilst at the same time being quite sophisticated. We wanted the font to match the personality of the author (Christian) and I think we did a good job in finding one that did. We didn't give the subtitled text black outlines as we did with the title text because we didn't want the text to distract the viewers too much from what is going on.   

Frame 6 (Middle Right): Story and how the opening sets it up

The office scene does a good job in giving hints to what the story is about and setting it up. First of all throughout this scene there is narration which sucks the viewers in and grabs their attention. The narrator is the author and he briefly introduces himself and tells the audience what he is capable of which would then leave it up to the audience to ponder on what he is going to do with his powers. 

Frame 7 (Bottom Left): Genre and how the opening suggests it

The typical use of blood in extreme horrors is present in our opening and frame 7 presents a scene which shows a vulnerable female running whilst bleeding. We have also avoided from showing her face to add some mystery. This is a typical scene that you could find in many extreme horrors. The stereotype that women are weak is often shown in horrors in general which is why we chose a woman to play the victim in the chase scene.

Frame 8 (Bottom Middle): How are characters introduced

The characters are all introduced individually walking to a certain location to meet up as a group. Each character has their own camera time as they are walking towards the location. In this frame in particular, it shows Tjay walking by himself to the location and you can already analyse his personality by just looking at his facial expression and his clothes. This gives the audience a chance to determine each characters personalities and stereotypes individually before they all meet up as a group. The group also expresses their personality with their body language and their voice as they meet up.

Frame 9 (Bottom Right): Special effects
The special effects used were subtle and sometimes quite unnoticeable. for example for frame we used a video filter to make it look that dark, the room was actually rather lit up when we were filming but thanks to some clever editing the shot looked like it was taken at night. It ultimately creates a dark and mysterious atmosphere to start the film off which is very effective for setting the mood of the film early on. We also used fade to black transitions in the office scene to make the shots blend well with each other and make the scene seem less choppy.

Location Shots (Updated)

As a group we thought it would be much more practical to film next to our school (Cheney School)  because then we would be able to film quicker and easier. The group also lived rather close to Headington so it seemed logical to set our main task location in Headington.

Valencia Road (route to location)

Route Road (route to location)

Cheney School Class Room (Authors Room)

What we did with this room was cover up the windows with a curtain to make the shot much more scary and mysterious.The table was moved and we used certain props to decorate the room and make it look like a homely room.

Alley Way (In between Valencia and Greys Road)

South park (Chase scene)

We used southpark because it was very close to our school and it was not very polluted with people and distractions at the time. We used a certain location in south park for our chase scene. The section we used was more a section which looked more like the woods than the rest of the park. This was used to make the chase scene seem much more enclosed and intense.

Cabin in the woods (Location Shot)

Cabin in the woods's setting is in a rural location away from human contact which gives the sense of seclusion. We tried to replicate this in our location so that the viewers would feel the same sense of emptiness and seclusion and I think we achieved that with our location. There were no sign of other people walking around during our shots in South Park which added to the sense of loneliness and helplessness. 

Main Task Soundtracks

This is one of the soundtracks that I will be sampling to use in our final task. The rising tone of the track makes it perfect to use in the start of our final task, where Christian (the evil writer) is getting ready to end his novel by writing the last kill. The soundtrack is rather smooth and constant with its piano tune but then it can be also rather eerie and mysterious at times too.

We decided to go with Dizzee Rascal - Holiday as it linked in very well with our main task and as our main task is about teenage stereotypes, and as an artist we thought that Dizzee Racial is a very new pop, rap, artist and also we found out that his main target audience is male teenagers from 16 -25. which is also very similar to ours.

How to make fake blood

We shall be following this tutorial on how to make fake blood for one of our scenes in our main task. A member of our group will be tasked with creating this fake blood and putting it on one of our female actor for the chase scene.

Movie Title

  A movie title is very important, it is what viewers remember most of all which is why it was important that we not only made our title memorable but clever too. It will have to attrcat the audience and leave people intrigued. We came up with a few ideas that would leave the target audience asking for more such as In Print, Already Written and Diary. We thought Diary was the most effective because of the impact of having a single word as our title but it was not revealing enough about our movie so we changed it to Die-ary to make it much more obvious that it is a horror.

Production logo

We chose the name Colossus because we wanted to leave the impression that we were a big company with big ideas. This has also been done with companies such as Hammer Film Productions and Universal. This is to give the viewer a large and epic image in their head. The fact that we have a name which represents massive then we are going to have to have an image that everyone can recognize as being enormous but they also need to know what it is rather than just leaving a mysterious image in the audience's head. We came up with a few ideas such as an elephant or a rhino but thought they were a bit too exotic. A bear was the next best thing as it was large, recognizable and easy to remember.