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

products?
What research did you carry out? Questionnaire to general public, to find out what they like about horror films and what they like to see. Watching various horror films which used different conventions to see what worked well to scare. Case studies, how successful different horrors were What conventions did you discover were usually in teen horror? This is already detailed on your blog so only briefly refer to it. Good vs. evil Setting graveyard/school/woods/old house Monster Victim Atmosphere night/dark/rain? Sounds - creaky stairs and doors/ unusual sounding

Did you plan to challenge or conform to conventions of horrors? Why did you make this overall decision? We mainly conformed with conventions of horror final girl/ lighting / non-diegetic sounds However we did challenge the convention little girl no obvious villain. We made the decision to use conventions of horror as they have been successful in previous horror films, yet we decided to challenge some to make our film different. Pick a few of the below to write about whether theyre conventional or subversive of the genre: The soundtrack: Explain how the soundtrack intensifies the mood or action evoked in the Mise-en-scene whilst also linking to the title: Non- diegetic sound to build suspension - conventional Diegetic sounding to make the film have realism - conventional we all fall down linked to title subversive Bye, Bye Love subversive using older song in a modern film. The wording suggests tragedy. Locations: explain the significance of these: Park natural, everyday setting subversive Home natural everyday (safe) setting - subversive Film title: how does it link to the story, or action, or themes, or characters if appropriate what film or event has inspired the title? Links with soundtrack/rhyme the little girl sings to haunt the victim Links to storyline, little girl is main character Fairytale rhyme inspired the title

Costume: explain how it is generic yet places the film in a contemporary context. Little girl costume - relates to film such as the ring/the omen. The white long dress explains pure which challenges the convention of evil. White dress is unusual and innocent for time period/setting. Boy modern clothes showing norm eyes showing possessing reference the ring/ Insidious Final Girl lazy, modern day clothes showing convention from films such as scream, showing norm. Do you think your product is successful in setting out what you intended to do with the conventions of teen horrors? Yes, Good audience feedback Teenage characters, relates to target audience Use of a mix of conventional and subversion techniques showing a unique horror film

Question 2 Representations 1) What is being represented? Good vs evil, age, gender, possession, possibly a final girl 2) How is it represented? Using what codes? Within what genre? Camera Angles? What does she say? How is she dressed? What diagetic and non diagetic sounds are used? Good vs evil character movements/actions Age little girl, teenage boy Gender represented through characters. Female in control, male weaker Possession eyes Final girl? appearance, normal (Film Archetype the outstanding features of a character which other film makers imitate e.g. The girl in The Ring) Camera angles on victim (teenage boy), normal, some close up. Camera angles on villain (little girl), distant, almost as if she cannot be seen, hardly very direct to her, long shots Camera angles on final girl normal, represents her role, close ups, over the shoulder, mid shots Boy dressed normally, to suggest he is the stereotypical teenage boy, audience can relate to this Villain dressed in old fashioned, childlike, white (suggests innocence, and therefore contrasts), which suggests not only age, but makes us think she cannot be the villain Final girl in normal costume, audience again can relate, but also she fits the stereotype, again this can be seen as a film archetype relating to the girl in the ring (white dress, long dark hair) Intertextual reference The Ring, mimicking the idea of possession, evil little girl (appearing innocent) Lots of diagetic sounds, mainly to suggest and emphasis realism. Use of non diagetic mainly to emphasis certain noises/make them louder, or introduce the piece 3) How is the representation made to seem true, commonsense or natural? This is through the use of costume, and the few non diagetic sounds which are used. The setting and the ages of the characters are also very relatable to the audience. Characters actions, everyday things, people in the backgrounds. 4) What is foregrounded and what is backgrounded? Are there any notable absences? Foregrounding: the idea that the villain does not always have to be male or older that an innocent looking girl can be equally as frightening. However, there are films such as the ring, the omen, which uses children as villains. We use mise en scene to portray the young girl as a villain. We maintained an innocent look for the girl to mislead the audiences ideas towards her as an innocent girl over a villain, mostly through hair and costume. The idea that the victims are often normal people is also foregrounded. Backgrounded- we backgrounded the idea that the little girl was the villain, by having her shots from quite a distance, and quite short, so we did not show her much. We fronted her mainly through her innocent look, but underneath first impression, she is evil.

5) Whose representation is it? Whose interests does it reflect? How do you know? E.g Is it for men gazing at women or is it a feminist representation of a powerful woman? We go against stereotype by presenting the female in a more powerful position than the male. By doing this, and making our teenage boy the victim, we play with typical conventions, and lead the audience to believe that gender does not affect whether you are the victim or the villain. It reflects this idea through character choice. And the representation created through mise en scene. 6) What does the representation mean to you? What does the representation mean to others? How do you account for the differences? We were trying to find new ways to play with the audiences expectations of characters in horror films. By choosing our villain to be a little, innocent looking girl, we can therefore alter their ideas about stereotypical villains, this is subversion. We feel that films such as Scream, Freddy Kuger, and other films which are centre to stereotypical horror are out dated, and are less likely to frighten the audience. Therefore, by changing the villain to an innocent little girl, we can play with their expectations greater. Although we can acknowledge that more recently, films such as the others, sixth sense and the ring also play with this convention and use children as their villains, many of them are more obvious as the villain to our film. By leaving our villain quite innocent throughout our opening, we can leave the audience guessing longer, and hopefully frighten them more. How would people react to our little innocent girl? They feel like she is a normal vulnerable girl, convinces the mind that everything is normal, and in a way makes our audience feel safe to begin with, but then vulnerable from all angles when it becomes obvious that there is something creepy about her. It also means that they are more suspecting because we do not make it incredibly clear who is the villain, or therefore what is going to happen, adding suspense, again the use of subversion is presented. We are worried that possibly the audience may be able to guess that the little girl is the villain, due to recent films like sixth sense and the ring, where the audience will therefore already be suspicious that their expectations and conventions are being played with, giving us a difficulty in making the film different to those, and still challenging stereotypes. 7) With what alternative representations could be compared? Are their examples of films or photography that deal with the images or ideas in similar ways? For example, are you borrowing an idea from another film and paying homage to classic horror? Films such as The Ring all represent children as the villain. However, those films do not comply with the usual horror conventions, and therefore we represent ideas which are not usual. In the ring, the girl is actually quite innocent, she mainly wants to be loved; however we do not give reason for our girls innocence. We use quite a conventional opening, in that we first present a victim, and his downfall to bring in the audience, and we use an establishing shot to open, which is quite common in most films, even that are not part of the horror convention. However, our opening is very difference to films such as scream, where the man is the villain and the girls are victims.

Question 3 What kind of media institution might describe your product and why? 1) What kind of media product have you created? What qualities make it mainstream or independent? An opening to a horror film, named We All Fall Down. It meets the mainstream film qualities due to the fact that it tries to challenge original film ideas and conventions in order to find new ways of scaring people. Our film targets a variety of cultures and the general age group audience of around 16-34, another reason as to why our opening fits the mainstream category. It would be shown in cinemas such as Vue and Odeon, as it does not really contain controversy, as independent films like Paranormal Activity do. However, we do not have a budget or named actors because we wanted to make this film more realistic similar to Cloverfield. However we are an independent film company due to our small budget and experience. The fact that we have unknown actors and use of basic equipment, wouldnt match a mainstream company like Universal. This all means that it would be a general release, throughout the whole country. 2) How would you expect to gain interest from production companies to distribute your product? If you think its applicable, research some independent filmmaking competitions and suggest how you could go about entering. What would be the benefit of entering these? For our film we would use advertisements such as; leaflets, trailer/preview, posters etc. Therefore allow them to be intrigued and want to support our film. Using things like festivals and open areas to show our film making skills and advertisement. We could also use the technique of a film wrap to help entice our audience; we could use interviews and extra information to the various film companies. Our film is also quite post modern due to the fact that we are using aspects like subversion to attract our audiences in different ways. One independent production company is the Working Title which creates British films therefore would be ideal for us to use. Films which they have released include; Jonny English, Paul, Nanny McPhee, Big Miracle which have steamed from low budgets to huge profits. Working Title is partly owned by Universal giving them some funding, it allows them to diversify and make wider range of films. You could go about entering competitions through various websites, one of these is shootingpeople.org, it is a large network of independent film makers and offers various help and guidelines. This is a communal website for any film maker to apply and enter. Entering these competitions would allow peoples independent films to be recognised and supported by major companies who are able to fund, therefore giving you more of a chance in success. 3) How would you go about generating a buzz from fans for you film before releasing it? (viral marketing, online distribution etc) There are various ways you could go about generating a buzz before the release of the film. We want to use the viral approach therefore using marketing such as: -Youtube -Facebook -Posters -Leaflets -Teaser trailers

-TV advertisement -Radio These marketing techniques would help to find and intrigue our audience to therefore enable more hype equalling to a larger profit. An example of similar techniques used by a successful independent film production company was Cloverfield. The film Cloverfield went to the extreme in viral marketing of creating my space accounts of the characters and many teaser trailers. This therefore will give the audience the sense of realism and suspense creating a high buzz from the audience meaning more sales.

Question 4 1) Who would be the audience for your media product? (You need to reference your audience research and justify in detail why a particular demographic would find the production appealing. What real teen horror films or TV horror dramas would this audience watch?).
Our target audience for our media production would be aged 16-34 due to the fact that this age range would be best suited to the story line, further entertained than others and theyd be able to relate to the age of the characters. We feel that there are two main social groupings which our production would appeal to Innovators (self-confident risk-takers, seeking new and different things, setting their own targets to achieve) and contented conformers (wanting to be 'normal', so follow the herd, accepting of their circumstances, they are contented and comfortable in the security of their own making). We feel they would find our production appealing because there is a sense of risk, therefore appealing to innovators and contented conformers as there is the sense from the girl she just wants to play and the boy training thus being normal.

We think that the types of films and TV dramas in the genre of horror that this age range would watch would be things like; Paranormal Activity, Insidious, the ring, Vampire Diaries, this is because they are very psychological. Looking at our survey that we created for the public we also found out that this age group prefers psychological horrors to demonic and Armageddon. 2) Have a look on IMBD and see what the audience user ratings are for a couple of other teen horror films that you have studied. What audiences tend to like them? Search for the main page of the horror film Scroll down to the bottom Under Opinion click User Ratings Analyse the average age and rating and comment on who they target. IMBD allows us to see user ratings of films and which age category commented and liked the film the most. We looked at the horror film the ring and concluded that those who commented mostly on the film and had the best ratings was male 18-29 year olds of scoring the film 7.1/10. This explains that the ring appealed to this age and gender category mostly. Another film we looked at was paranormal activity and noticed that those who commented mostly on the film positively were again males aged 18-29 meaning that this film also appealed mostly to this category. In conclusion looking at these IMDB we notice that these types of horror films appeal to male 18-29 year olds, therefore this particular age category will also be the best categorised for our film opening. We also feel that this age category will link well to our production as we are fairly post modern allowing them to view original media ideas and exploring them on different ways. 3) Did this have any influence over who you planned to target? Yes it had an influence of who we planned to target our film to, this is because we wanted to make our film a psychological horror. For example like the ring it uses realistic sound effects like the static sound of the TV and we used a phone dial tone which is both everyday uses. Both our film and the ring uses the characters of a final girl and the portrayal of an innocent child. The influence mainly came from the fact it is a psychological horror in which we wanted our audience to be the same category as the ring and paranormal activity which

was males aged 18-29. 4) What type of audience do you think your production would appeal to? Give evidence from your questionnaire data and analysed responses to support your decisions. We want our film to appeal both males and females aged 16-34 however looking at statistics from other films similar to ours it would more likely appeal to males. Our questionnaire was sent out to a range of ages from sixth form age starting from 16 ranging up to teacher age for example 27. From our questionnaire we learnt that the most appealing horror was psychological therefore fitting in with our film, meaning a higher appeal from most people. However our results cannot be generalised to the rest of the population. Another thing we learnt from our questionnaire of whom our horror film would appeal to is by asking questions such as what other horror films you like to watch? This then enabled us to compare our opening film towards these other films and using ideas from each such as the lighting and the use of characters such as a final girl used in the ring, scream and saw. Therefore by our film using similar techniques we would hopefully attract the same audience as other psychological horrors which were concluded before that it was generally males aged 18-29. So in conclusion we want our production to appeal to those of similar category to the ring and paranormal, this is due to the representations presented through characters, the plots and various media techniques 5) Remember back to the cosmetics unit. There are different ways of classifying audiences (age, wealth, social status aspirers, mainstreamers) Do you think you could classify your target audience in another way, other than age and gender? We think our horror opening would range from C1, C2 and D on the social grading. These people are generally mainstream therefore people who tend follow the norm. We feel that these types of people are more likely to relate to the characters therefore making it more realistic meaning it would enhance the scariness. C1 C2 D Supervisory or clerical junior, lower middle Junior manager, student, class clerical/office workers, supervisors Skilled manual workers, skilled working class Foreman, agricultural worker, plumber, brick layer Semi and unskilled manual workers, Manual worker, shop worker, working class fisherman, apprentices

On the Maslows hierarchy of needs we would place our film under the categories: Need to know and understand Explains the thoughts that humans have to understand the world around them we think this because throughout our film we use the innocent little girl who is in fact evil therefore this can b related to real life by not judging a book on someones appearance and assuming all little girls are sweet and innocent. Transcendence
Surpassing others, lying beyond the ordinary range of perception we chose this category because we use the image of an innocent little girl which would be considered ordinary we then change this perception by giving her an unordinary perception of having power and being evil.

Question 5 1) How did you attract/address your audience?

What particular elements of your production will attract your target audience? Our film is a psychological horror, which can attract audiences through its genre style. However, more detailed elements which can help to attract our audience are things such as our character choice. We have chosen to use a young girl as our villain, which plays on some stereotypes. This leads the audience to question ideas, and also our film challenges the ideas as to whether a child as the villain is an overdone theme or not. Our boy is a young adult, and thats similar to our target audience, therefore by watching someone else of a similar age, our audience can escape from reality. The whole mise en scene appeals to audiences, such as the lack of diagetic sound in our film, which allows our audience to build tension, and therefore our movie can scare them. The idea of incorporating a well known childrens rhyme within our film We All Fall Down, we can therefore reference this, and this may interest and engage with audiences, for it is different to films like The Ring and The Omen, which do not have a childrens rhyme associated with it, and therefore audiences may be attracted to see our ideas.
2) How is your production referencing other horrors? We use a film archetype due to the use of a little girl as our main villain; it represents and almost mimics the little girl from the Ring, however we use a slight subversion because we make her appear innocent, whereas when we see the little girl in the Ring, the audience are aware that she is the villain. Using a young child as the villain has been very successful and popular psychological horror films, and may therefore draw attention to audiences through the similar villain. We use quite unnatural bleached lighting techniques during our film, which therefore represents ideas brought about during The Ring.

3) Are there any contemporary issues or themes that you feel are shown through your production? We tackle ideas such as the well known saying dont judge a book by its cover, which represents the girl. Due to her childlike appearance and innocent costume, she is made to seem like a nice little girl. We therefore play off the audiences imagination. Another theme in our horror film is that anyone could be the victim, through our opening with Olly, the stock character, who begins the story, and leads the audience into the film. We therefore can aim to make the audience believe that just because Olly is male it doesnt mean he is less likely to be the victim.
4) What audience feedback have you received from others watching your production? Strengths and Weaknesses (VIDEOS)

5) Explain the importance of engaging an audience through an opening sequence hooking your target audience. It is essential in any film, whatever genre, to have an engaging opening. Often this is created by using Torodovs Theory of Equilibrium, with the principle being a dramatic opening, followed by decreasing and increasing tension. In order to gain the audiences attention, films use various ways such as a news bulletin, focusing the attention to the films topic, a murder or action sequence, using a range of stock and oppositional characters in order to shock the audience, and therefore help them to engage, or by luring them into a false sense of security - therefore using Torodovs theory.

This essentially should be quite soon, so the audience can immediately be involved within the film. In our opening, we engage with the audience with Torodovs Theory. Firstly, the audience become aware that we are in a park, a very normal setting, playing football, with a stereotypical male character, which seems very mundane. We then add to the atmosphere using a happy seeming tune, Bye Bye Love, by the Everly Brothers, as diagetic sound, to set our film up for the appearance of the little girl. Our opening dramatically becomes less happy, with our villains appearance, followed by her disappearance, laughter, and the taunting games with the swings and park moving without children. By doing this, the audience are interested in what happens next, as they are unaware of what is happening; we also engage with the audience in that they are unsure of the villain, as she appears like an innocent child.

Question 6 1) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? Throughout the task we have learnt various new techniques towards Media. We have learnt the story beneath the use of camera angles and camera movement and why directors use the particular shots. We have learnt how new ways to present work such as blogger, prezi and scribd. We also learnt how to use a video camera effectively and setting up a tripod. Another thing in which we learnt to use was I movie which is the software we used for editing our film. We used other technologies including YouTube to help us when editing on tips on using the software as well as looking through other horror opening scenes to help boost our ideas. We also used websites such as IMBD which allowed us to look at what kind of horror films was a success and what audience would best suit our film. By learning all these technologies has helped us to build our film to the best ability of reaching the target audience. 2) How have specific technologies helped you to research and plan, shoot and edit your film? Camera Recorders and Tripods In order for us to film we learnt how to use the camera recorder and how to set up the tripod. The camera recorder we used was the Toshiba H30. Before we started to film we had a practice run with the cameras to try out different effects and get used to how to use the camera. For example we investigated how to zoom the lens in and out, how to change colour of the recordings and the usage of slow motion. We also practiced using and setting the tripod to find out ways to enable the best footage possible. We found the cameras easy to use due to them being light and portable; however the charge did not last very well meaning we needed to turn the camera off after each shot we made. Although the camera did allow us to immediately preview the footage this then enabled us to see a try new ways of shooting the particular shot.

Blogger- This is a website to present our work electronically therefore allows us to keep our work organised and together. It allows us to present our work in different forms of Media such as story boards, photos, videos and power point within one place. This technology therefore reduces the amount of paper used making it a more eco-friendly way to present work. Blogger also allows teachers to immediately view and mark our work as well for other students to view profiles for assistance. Blogger also allows everyone to personalise their viewings of their profile such as changing the background and the layout. (Pictures) Camera Angles We have learnt various camera angles and the meaning of are used such as a low shot would betray that character has power as it would make them appear bigger and taller than they were. Another example could be of a close-up shot which would be

used to show the characters strong emotions such as being scared or confused. The main shots we included were: Close up We chose to use this to add tension of the characters emotions to allow the audience to know what they were feeling Long shot We chose to use this shot to show the setting ie the park to explain that the characters are in en everyday normal place. Over the shoulder We chose this to show the relationship between the two characters and the affect of the little girl upon the boy. This is also shown by the mise-en-scene of the characters expressions. Medium shot We chose to use this shot to get the effect of the close up and long shot so we still see part of the setting in addition to the characters emotions and behaviour being the main focus of the scene. Extreme close up we chose to use this shot to increase the tension of the characters emotions and panic. Establish Shot We chose to use this shot to set the scene and to explain to the audience it is in a normal setting. Perspective shot We chose to use this shot to add the tension of the characters feelings by using quick movement of a handhold increasing the effect of betraying the characters emotions. Camera Movement We have learnt camera movements and the meaning of are used such as a low shot would betray that character has power as it would make them appear bigger and taller than they were. Another example could be of a close-up shot which would be used to show the characters strong emotions such as being scared or confused. We have learnt different types of camera movements such as tilting and panning. We have learnt why particular camera movements are used and what kind of effect they have upon a shot. For example tilting the camera can explain and emphasise the height of something. Or panning which helps to set the scene. The main movements we included were: Panning we chose to use this shot to set the scene to the audience of it being a normal setting. By panning it shows the whole scene until it then focuses on the main thing, in which for our film is the male character. We used different types of panning which was following pan in which helped us to follow the character of the boy as well survey pan which shows the scene to then build a climax. Zoom We used this to add emphasis of the subject of the little girl to show that she is there and so that the audience take note of her. Handheld We chose to use this to add the effect of panic of the male character. It helps to show the audience what the character is feeling by the quick and swift uneaten movement.

YouTube We used YouTube to gain knowledge on how to use the software and how to add extra effects within our clip. We also used it to gather ideas from previous blockbuster

films to see what effects they used to add tension and scariness towards the audiences feelings. For example the costume used for the little girl in the ring was a big inspiration towards our film in addition to the green lighting which adds the effect of the scene being abnormal. Another thing YouTube helped us to do was to find examples of music tracks which would be suitable to add effect on the opening of our film. IMBD We used this website to help us to research what horror films released in which were blockbusters. By looking at this websites it gives ratings of the public and details of the box office. IMBD also includes user comments which would allow us to see their views on the film. This therefore would explain to us which films were successful and captured the audience best. For those films which were successful we could then watch them and take note of the effects in which they used which created the hype. For example we researched Paranormal Activity which had a rating of 6.5 and a gross earnings of $193,355,800 worldwide. The budget of the film was $15,000 explaining this film was of big success financially showing they were a well viewed film. We also noted the comments from the public were positive indicating the film capture the audience well. (Picture) Adobe Premiere Elements I movie - We needed to learn how to use the software I movie in order to edit our film. Within this software we learnt how to cut each clip to then make it follow onto the next by using the techniques such as fade in and out. We also learnt how to change the colour and tone of the footage in addition of adding special effects. We also learnt how to import sound files and placing them in the correct places. We also enabled to import a font for our title making it individual to our film. The purpose of learning techniques helps us to give a scary effect towards the audience such as the lightening being abnormal, the high tension of the unusual sound and music. By using all these techniques not only makes our film appear more of high tension and scariness involving the audience it also means the film is unique and individual to our opening horror.

Prezi We learnt how to produce our work in prezi. This entitles us to use new formats of technology to produce our work such as our evaluations as well as our research. We can then import these prezi files onto our blogger so we are betraying different formats of media within our work

Scribd We learnt how to use scribd which entitles us to transfer word and powerpoint documents into easily accessible files on blogger. This therefore allows our work to not take up as much space on our blogger making it look neater and easier to read.