Dom Habgood Evaluation :§)

Question 1:

The titles are simplistic but effective the red and black background hints it is a dark film, with red being the color of blood. The font is bold and clear, it represents the psychological horror genre well as its simple but effective. It alludes to what is going to happen and makes the audience think.

 This is a key shot from session 9 as it shows clearly who the victims are (The cleaners) and it show how alone they are. Torches are used as the only light source to show little light overall and make the cleaners look isolated. This follows psychological horror conventions as the victims are isolated and the threat is not directly shown.

 This is another key image as it again clearly shows the victim - but not the threat, this is common in psychological horror films for the threat to be hidden until the very end of the film or even not at all. The cleaner running away down the corridor is clearly the victim. He is also running into darkness which eludes to him being in further danger. This follows psychological horror conventions as the victims are isolated and the threat is not directly shown.

 This is an establishing shot in the film as it shows 'Danvers Asylum' the setting of the film, it is shown to be a huge daunting place, shown by the low angle shot of the asylum. This shows the asylum will be a key part of the film and the threat is from within it.

 This shot is one again a key shot as the threat has still not been identified but this high angle shot from within the trees shows the cleaners going about there business unaware of who/what is watching them. They are shown as the victims clearly by the use of the high angle shot to show who is weaker. This follows psychological horror conventions as the victims are isolated and the threat is not directly shown.

This is a key shot from session 9 as it shows how daunting the asylum is the writing on the wall gives the feeling it is a real asylum and that horrific events/ people were there. The darkness and the length of the corridor shows how big the asylum is and how small the cleaners are in comparison.  This follows psychological horror conventions as the threat is not directly shown.

This is the image of the company logo who for 'session 9' it isn't particularly scary but the black background and fairly simple font are usual conventions of a psychological horror logo.









                              This is our production logo the letters spelling out the name make it seem disturbing and the powder adds to the theme of hallucinations. We also added a black and white effect due to none of the production company logos we studied being very colorful.








Question 2:

1. The social group in the film session 9 is all male, who are a mix of young and older people. The threat is from within the characters themselves as its a psycological horror film so the social group for the threat is the same as the victims.

The male social group is presented from the start as happy and funny but as the story develops the characters become less and less comfortable with each other as they all become mentally unstable. These follow stereotypes at the beginning that men can deal with difficult issues and not crack under pressure also the end of the film sees the older men go crazy which is often a convention of psychological horror films.

This film (The Ring) challenges conventional psychological horror film as the victims are middle aged/ older men when usually women are the victims. However is follows the conventions of the genre as the threat is from inside the characters.

The victim is a young adult female which follows typical psychological horror conventions as they are portrayed as weak and unable to defend themselves. The threat is a supernatural power which is often the case and also the threat is not seen much which also follows psychological horror conventions. This clip follows stereotypes as the woman is seen as weak and scared.

Our main actor was a young male as we thought this would fit with the conventions of hallucination films e.g. Shrooms and Session 9. Those films use young males and are effective in creating tension. We used lots of close ups of our actor in our film, we got very close to his face so it was uncomfortable to watch. Because he is young and quite skinny he was made to seem vulnerable throughout our film.

 These two still's from our film are parts of the sequence that best establish the social group of teenagers, as there is only one character throughout most of our film the feeling of isolation which is key to a psychological horror. The fact that the character is young links to him being vulnerable when he wakes up in the house alone.

The scene where our character walks up the stairs and he is viewed from a high angle shot also adds to feeling of isolation as he is moving from the light room to the unknown darkness upstairs.







When that scene is compared to the scene in 'The Ring' where the main character is walking up the stairs, that shot is framed in the same way and has the same desired effect. She looks isolated and vulnerable, building up to the eventual stinger, just like in our film.

Question 3:

 - I understand distribution to be the way a film is marketed/spread around so that people get to know about your film. Our film could be distributed through an independent distributor as we are not signed to a film company. We could circulate posters of our film (put them up in cinema's) and a trailer which could run before 15 rated psychological horror films (e.g. Paranormal activity) in the cinema. Trailers that are similar to what we want ours to look like are the Session 9 trailer above and the Paranormal activity trailer.
- The Paranormal activity trailer is effective as there is an actual audience being shown jumping and frightened whilst watching the film - making viewers of the trailer think its actually scary and making them want to watch it. The trailer also shows brief jumpy moments of the film to give the audience a preview of the film. Session 9 was distributed by 'USA films'(Now known as Focus Features)  - a subsidiary of Universal Studios. Universal is a major media institution. Paranormal activity was distributed independently to start with at the Screamfest film festival in 2007 where Paramount producers saw the film and brought the rights, they then distributed the film internationally.

- To distribute our film we could perhaps show it at a film festival e.g. Mayhem and Bang! short film festivals in Nottingham. As paranormal activity screened their film locally and eventually struck a multimillion dollar deal with Paramount. The video below shows the range of films screened at the festivals and possible success that follows a good screening.

Our film poster will be influenced by other posters in the psychological genre e.g. Session 9's promotional poster:
The poster is effective as it uses conventional horror colours - Dark Green, Brown and Black. There is also a silhouetted man opening a door with light behind him showing he is walking into the darkness. Also 'Session 9' is in slightly distorted font and in white text against a black background.









This is our film poster:

-There is a dark background as very little colour is used in horror posters generally, we used a screen grab of one of our weirdest scenes (when the character is hallucinating). After inspiration from the Session 9 poster we changed the font on the poster to a slightly distorted style. We kept the colour scheme simple and the text simple and plain, all our text is against a black background so it can be clearly seen and seems intimidating.

-The poster would appear in cinemas on the walls as its not too explicit and would be allowed to go wherever, the poster would also be on advertising boards in towns and cities possibly even buses to spread the word.

-The Release date for the film would be around summer e.g. June 5th and the DVD release would be around 4 months after e.g. October 31st (To coincide with Halloween).


Question 4 & 5:
The audience for our media product would be adults and young adults as anyone younger wouldn't understand what is happening and also wouldn't be allowed to see it as our film rating is 15. I would justify this decision by saying that all the films we have based our film on are also 15 and aimed at the same audience - Session 9, Shrooms and The Shining.
 - Session 9 - Rating: 15, the possible target audience for this film is older males, as predominantly the entire cast are male and they are all over 18. They are all seen in a working environment so perhaps younger males could not relate to this thats why i think it is aimed at adult males.

- Paranormal Activity - Rating: 15, the target audience for this film is anyone over 15 as people younger wouldn't understand the story also there are more male characters although the film is not aimed specifically at a gender. I would say that the film is aimed at teenagers/ young adults due to its quick thrills and thin storyline, people see the film knowing it will be jumpy, not necessarily that scary.

- The Shining - Rating: 15, the target audience for this film is older males as the main character that the film is all about is an older male. This means older males can relate when watching the film as the character slowly turns insane.




-Funny Games - Rating: 18, the target audience for this film is clearly adults as the plot is about serial killers,  a much more serious subject than the last 3 films i've described. Serial killings are real events where as Session 9 and Paranormal activity are not real events. Also films like Session 9 and Paranormal activity show very little blood where as this film is rated 18 for terror and violence so its clear blood will be shown a lot.

- Psycho - Rating: 15, the target audience for this film is adults/ young adults as they usually have the patience to sit through a slow burning psychological horror that builds in tension.

After consulting bbfc.co.uk it has become clear our film should be rated 15, this is because our film has themes of terror and violence but not much blood, if any is actually show- therefore it would be granted a 15 certificate.


We attracted the target audience to our film by using a character the audience can relate to.





Question 6

AS Media Horror Film on Prezi

http://prezi.com/bwwbbwomml6a/edit/?auth_key=ymse91h&follow=jv4wege538br

Question 7