Tom's Evaluation

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

There is not much to say about the company logo, it is a plain 3D font in black and white, which could show a simple theme and maybe the psychological horror stereotype that there's normally something behind all the innocent and simple aspects.

This is the main title image for the film 'Shrooms', it is quite simple and plain but the black background and the gothic, old-style font of the title itself gives the title a quite sinister feel, and makes you think that despite the simple titles there's obviously a lot more to it.

This shot establishes the victim character in the film 'Strangers' as it shows the female character (stereotypical victim) looking quite frightened and defenseless, showing she would be quite vulnerable to any sort of threat or attack, which instantly gives the audience the idea she probably will.

This shot is from the same film and it uses Mise En Scene effectively as it shows the female victim lower down on the shot than the threat in the mask, making her look like she is the one under threat and she is doing anything she can to escape rather than fighting back (female stereotype).

This shot is the establishing shot for the threat in the film Shrooms, the extreme close up shot of it's mouth containing sharp teeth showing the inhumanity of it. This matches the psychological horror stereotype of an 'unknown' or 'unidentified' threat.

This is a scene from the film 'The Shining' which shows the threat Johnny smashing his way through a door with an axe to reach his victim. In this shot the close up of his face with his messy hair, wide-eyes and facial hair shows the true insanity of the character which would show him to be a 'bad' character. This matches the conventions of a psychological horror with the mental instability and insanity of the threat.

This is the scene in 'The Shining' in which the child sees some horrific images. The close up of the child with his hands covering his face and his mouth open shows the vulnerability and panic of a young child, following the psychological theme of vulnerable victims, such as small children or women.

This scene from 'Session 9' is quite a typical psychological horror strategy, like an 'anti-stinger' with the loud noise usually associated with a stinger (usually threat revealed or something along those lines) but no threat is seen and an innocent image is shown, leaving you and the character in the video thinking and in state of confusion.

This is our opening logo featuring our production company name as well as some sort of powder source present to represent the drugs aspect of the film. Also the writing in scrabble cubes gives it that sort of 'insane' and 'unknown' feel.

This shot establishes mise-en-scene as the threat shown in the flashback is a group of people coming right up to the camera, giving a quite eery and uncomfortable feel and the fact that most of the screen contains them shows they are the dominant force. This also shows the aspect of sub-genre as it shows the weird, creepy part of psychological horror.






This is the shot of our title, which like the logo is also in scrabble cubes and black and white again to give it an freaky, unknown feel.

This shot establishes character as it instantly shows the main character to be the victim as its a high angle shot and also with his hand over his face shows him to be distressed.

This shot establishes the villain in our film, which is only introduced in the final shot to keep the sense of the unknown apparent. The fact that the threat is also wearing the same masks as the people in the flashbacks also keeps the viewer thinking who the murderer could possibly be and whether he actually is real or just a side-effect of the drugs taken.


The images from my film represent conventions of psychological horror as it shows factors of the unknown and a state of mental instability, interpreting the idea of hallucinogenic drugs as messing with the brain. The only thing that seems to challenge the conventions of the sub genre is the fact that the main character is a teenage male whereas the victim is typically a weak, defenceless female character.
The titles and logo of our film are very typical in terms of conventions as they are quite strange and 'child-like' with the use of the scrabble cubes, and the dark look and lack of colour are also very typical in our sub genre.

QUESTION 2 - How does your media project represent particular social groups?
1) Research - Strangers Scene & Shrooms Scene - In these 2 films all the main characters (the victims and the threats) in the scenes are of white complexion, which could possibly mean that this sub-genre is a regularly white genre, possibly meaning it is enjoyed more by white people. Also in Shrooms the characters are experimental by taking dangerous drugs in the forest, a stereotypical act by white youths.
In terms of gender, the majority of the victims are female in most psychological films (including Strangers) which fits the stereotype of women being less able to defend themselves than men, but this stereotype is challenged in Shrooms as 2 of the victims are male, and as the story unravels you find out that the threat is actually a female, going against the stereotype.
2) Planning - The actor we've chosen for our victim is an adolescent male, which follows the convention shown in shrooms, both with the victimization and the use of drugs which is also shown in our film. In our story it matches some conventions of typical psychological horrors including a sense of the unknown and a fear of it also, as well as the threat playing with the victim's mind and conscience. We used our target audience research to find that this type of film generally follows the ideas of young people being the victim, some sort of unknown or hidden threat, and possible themes of party lifestyles and drug use. The character we've used isn't typical of the conventions of psychological horror though as the typical victim would definitely be female, but the fact the character is only young and quite slim in physique shows him to be quite vulnerable and susceptible to the effects of illegal drugs.
3) Construction + Feedback -

These are 2 scenes from both my film and the psychological-ghost horror 'The Ring', in which the shots used are almost identical, with the victim shown at the bottom of a staircase coming up in a high angle shot, supposedly towards the threat. The male character in our film is shown to be quite young, naive and is wearing teenager-like clothing (skinny jeans, long jewellery) which is similar to the Ring scene as despite the gender difference, the female victim character is wearing a sort of school uniform, which makes it quite obvious that she also is of a teenage age and therefore quite inexperienced and  vulnerable, making her the perfect victim. Our audience accepted the male victim in our film as the film is aimed at a teenage audience, and therefore teenagers can relate to a teenage main character.

QUESTION 3 - What kind of media institution would distribute your product?

Distribution is getting your film seen by promoting your film using different techniques such as posters, trailers and so on.

There are different ways to distribute your certain media product, such as in the film industry there is major distributors (e.g. Lionsgate) as well as independent production companies (e.g. Hammer Films), but if we were to promote our own media product it would be independent distribution as we are not signed to a major company.

Independent Distribution

One example of an independent distribution company would be Rogue Pictures which is formerly a subsidiary of Universal but is now one of Relativity Media.

This is the trailer for the film from this company "Strangers", which has the production companies logos at the start followed by a sequence of some of the main, horrific parts of the film without giving away too much of the story. This is done to entice the audience to want to find out what happens in the rest of the film, using slowly building up music to create tension and fast tempo changes of shot to give it a really exciting feel. This film was promoted by adding this trailer to another Rogue film "Doomsday" in theaters as well as the director attending 'Comic-Con' where he did a Q&A before showing the teaser trailer for the film.

Here is a poster from another psychological film distributed by Rogue Pictures called "White Noise 2: The Light", it uses a black background with some sort of diagram with faces (supposedly of the main characters) screaming giving the indication they are in danger or trouble, as well as showing the company logo and the names of the actors (which may attract customers if the actors are well known).

The poster we used to influence ours was Session 9, with the dark colours, the psychological aspect and the dirty coloured blurry text to show insanity or the drugs aspect. Here is our poster in comparison to the Project 9 poster:

 Major Distribution
Major distribution is the distribution and marketing of films on a much wider scale with a mass and probably global audience. One example of this is major company 'Lionsgate' with one successful horror film, the ghost film 'A Haunting In Connecticut' which made a massive profit and was advertised at the Amsterdam film festival in 2009 before being released in the UK, USA and Canada.

Our film would probably have a cinema release date of around June as this is the start of the summer so students will have university holidays and college holidays, so that would entice more customers to come and watch our film as this would probably be the audience best suited for this film. Before the DVD release to come a few months later at the end of October as this is around Halloween time so it's a bit of a money-maker so more profit would be made and advertisements would be suited for the time. We would release the poster and the official trailer around the same time, probably around the spring of the year of release before other horror films in theatres of age rating 18, as this is the audience we would be trying to entice.

QUESTION 4 - Who would be the audience for your product?
The audience for our product based on research both on line and primary research would most likely be young adults (18-25) of either gender and that are into other horrors or psychological thrillers. The certificate would have to be an 18 though as the film contains a lot of horror, tension and more importantly a theme of drugs and partying which may not be appropriate for a younger person.

QUESTION 5 - How did you attract/address your audience?

Shrooms - 18 - this film is probably an 18 because it contains drug use, violence and sexual features, which are all inappropriate for someone under the age of 18. Also the characters in the film are all over 18 which could possibly be a factor.

The Shining - 15 - this film is aimed at anyone over 15 as it contains horrific imagery and contexts which would not be suitable for someone younger.

Session 9 - 15 - this films target audience is anyone over the age of 15 as it contains horrific and violent imagery and scenes which would not be suitable for someone younger, as well as the storyline being more advanced than for someone of a younger age.

The Thing - 15 - this film is aimed at anyone over 15 due to the use of violence, horror and gore which would not be suitable for someone below this age.

Paranormal Activity - 15 - this film is a 15 because it contains a lot of horrific, supernatural imagery, as well as major use of profanity and the story is difficult to follow.







Using this research we decided that our film would probably be rated an 18 as it contains more than just the usual horror and horrific imagery but it also contains an element of drugs which could possibly be inappropriate for someone under the age of 18.

QUESTION 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
AS Media Horror Film on Prezi












































 QUESTION 7 - Video Evaluation

The video for the pitch part did not work properly in the evaluation so to see that it is further down in a seperate blog post named 'PITCH'.