Welcome

Welcome to my blog, here you will find all my research and planning that i have built up towards my final coursework.

Black Nightmare Final Cut

Here is our final cut, in this final cut you will notice that we have considerably changed a large amount in comparison with the two previous rough cuts, such as using different editing styles by which we cut down many of the takes and sped them up to help build suspense and tension, we also used more mise-en scene and used a bucket of guts and leftover meat from the butchers to give a sense of verisimilitude  We have also taken extra time to take into consideration the types of shots used and the editing done to make this final cut as best as possible.

Eval Q 1. Develop/Challenge Conventions

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

With our film we tried to use some of the common conventions for example the scream queen, final girl, the scream queen's boyfriend and the knife as the killer's weapon. But also we wanted to challenge it in a way and instead of starting as Toldorov's 5 part narrative theory states, with the first part being the state of equilibrium, we wanted to jump to his second part which was the disruption to this equilibrium.


And a good example that we looked at for influence was The Texas Chain Saw Massacre ( Tobe hooper, 1974 ) because in this film they start with this disruption in equilibrium, where there's deformed body parts , so with out film we tried to create the same by using chopped up pieces of meat that is supposed to be human meat,and this gruesome scene that we've made for the opening represents this disruption to the equilibrium. Which  also challenges Todorov's 5 part narrative theory 


As for the killer in our film we've chosen to stick to the common convention with our killer being old and a male with a masked hidden identity. Also we used Mike Myers from John Carpenter's Halloween as an influence because of his masked identity, and so that we keep with providing narrative enigma instead of giving exposition for the killer's identity, but also his story behind the mask as he was scarred from his early childhood , and with our killer it's the same from his childhood he had a deranged obsession with butchering meat which leads to his psychological killings. Our killer also uses the common knife as his weapon to kill which is common in most slasher films.

Casey

And with our scream queen we also stuck with the common conventions with her being blonde, not academic and sexually active, because we thought going for the counter type would lead to some oppositional reading and not appeal to our audience because they would be used to the stereotypical scream queen. Then we showed her sexual activity by having her go to the bedroom with her boyfriend and included an ellipsis after representing the sexual activity that took place. Also to show her not being intellectual our final girl walked off carrying books whereas she just walked in the house with her boyfriend. And a good influence we looked at was Casey in Scream ( Wes Craven, 1996 ) as she was blonde and had a boyfriend, but also she was vulnerable and useless in fighting the killer.

Laurie Strode

Then for the final girl character we also stayed with the common conventions to use a dark haired actor. Then to make her look intellectual in comparison to the scream queen we used the prop of books for the final girl to carry, and to stay with the stereotypical final girl concept we've made it so she doesn't have a boyfriend and isn't sexually active and we showed this by having her walk away while the scream queen and her boyfriend went inside the house. We looked to Halloween for influence here as there's a scene where Laurie Strode , The final girl, was walking with her friends whiles she was carrying book and they were talking about their boyfriends, whereas Laurie didn't have a boyfriend and was more interested in studying which is how we've shown out final girl in our opening. We were originally going to go for a counter type final girl by choosing to have her as a blonde and sexually active, but we thought that this might confuse our audiences and that they might not be able to recognise that she's the final girl. 

Whiles for the scream queen's boyfriend we wanted to show the stereotypical 'Jock' of a boyfriend , and we signified this by show his dominance and control over the scream queen, and showing his part in also being sexually active.

My Ident.

We also included idents that we made as this is a common convention in most film openings and they often last up to 8 seconds right at the start of the opening titles and before anything else is on screen, these idents are often of the production company so with our idents we made them as if they were our production company idents, mine being Paper Plane Productions.



Also for our titles sequence we intended to make it so that it has the same effect as John Carpenter's Halloween ( 1978 ) with the non-diegetic soundtrack building up tension and the serif font on the black background to provide the sense of 

seriousness. We also choose this serif font as it's commonly used for slasher film.

And with our titles we choose to show the actors names as they're usual revealed at the start but because our actors haven't been in any films before we used the title 'Introducing...' because this is what's commonly used when an actor is being revealed for the first time. And to show that we understand the common conventions for the titles at the start of the film we made out that we had a star acting and revealed his name before the other actors which are of a less importance, and is showed as 'Starring...'.

Shower scene

Then with the editing we also showed some common conventions of editing that would be used at the start of other slasher films, for example when we finish with seeing the idents there's a transition and we used the 'fade to color' which is commonly used in the start of films at this point. Also for our violent scene we used the common convention of 'fast paced editing' where we chopped up long clips into much shorter takes and used takes from different angles, so that it gives a more realistic feel to it but you don't actually see any violence it just makes to feel like you have because it happens so fast, however in our violent scene we did chop up clips but we also slowed down the clips by modifying them in final cut pro which gives them a slow motion effect, and it did work but we did challenge the idea of 'fast paced editing' in away, a good example that we looked at was the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960 ) where they chopped up their takes in the scene and used lots of short takes, and they also used non-diegetic sound to good effect with the sound of high pitch violin, and we also used a non-diegetic soundtrack with our violent scene so we've also shown a common convention in this way.

Furthermore, with the non-diegetic soundtrack we've also shown how we understand the common conventions this way because we made our soundtrack so that it builds up the tension with long drawn out notes which pick up the tempo slowly until it gets to the climax, and this is how films normally do it. But also we've included diegetic sounds which are commonly used in films , for example in our film we have a loud bang and the scream of the scream queen, but we also had to edit some of the diegetic sounds out because it was windy on the day of filming it picked up the sound from the wind.

Jason Voorhees

And for the mise-en-scene aspect of our film we've also demonstrated commonly used conventions, for example with the fake blood that we used on the white apron when the killer is cutting up the meat so that it emphasises the gruesomeness. Then obviously with the killer's mask because a mask is used in most slasher films , and a good example that we looked at for influence is in Friday The 13th   ( Sean S. Cunningham, 1980 ) with the killer Jason Voorhees's mask.

Heart beat sountrack

And with the victims in our film we kept to the common convention of slasher films as it's normally a group of teenagers so we used teenagers in our film, and this will also relate to the audience so we're keeping our primary audience appeal. Then from here we also use this to appeal to our audience as they're of the teen age , and we've also chosen the commonly used target audience for the slasher genre , 15-24 years. And when we got feedback from a group of teenagers we realised that our soundtrack needed some alterations so that he had more effect to build up the tension, so we went back and editing some heartbeat sound effects and used these to build up the tension in the violent scene.

We chose to stick mainly to these common conventions to that our primary audience would be secured , because using counter types and going against the common conventions has the risk of not attracting our primary audience with them struggling to recognise it. 

Eval Q2. Representations.

How does your media product represent 

particular social groups?

Scream's Scream Queen

Scream Queen (Stereotype):

BN Scream Queen

We chose to use the common conventions and have a stereotype with our scream queen by having her being blonde, an attractive figure and sexually active, and we were also influenced by the scream queen, Casey, in Scream (1996, Wes Craven ) as they're both blonde, sexually active and were vulnerable to the killer. Also they're of the teen age which relates to our target audience as the social group we're trying to address is the teenage social groups.



Final Girl (Stereotype):

Laurie Strode

BN's Final Girl

Also we stayed with the stereotype convention for the final girl character in our film, by having her brunette, academic, and virginal, and we took influence from the final girl character, Laurie Strode, in John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) because she is brunette and showed how they were academic with the books she carried whiles having no boyfriend, whereas her friends and boyfriends.

Killer (Stereotype):

BN's Killer

Jason Voorhees

The killers in slasher genre films commonly have a masked identity and have a psychological problem which leads to their motives of killing. So with our killer we've made it so that his mask covers his identity throughout the opening, and with the pictures on his wall we've used the mise-en-scene here to cannote his obsession and his psychological problems. We looked at the killer in Friday The 13th (1980,Sean S. Cunningham)  for influence, because the killer, Jason Voorhees, has a masked identity and has a psychological problem because as a kid he drowned at the lake where he kills his victims.

Jock (Stereotype):

Steve from Scream

 Then for our Jock character we also kept we the stereotype by having him being sporty, masculine, and dominate over his girlfriend, and we see these by him wearing a sporty hoody, and when he's leading the girl into the house. We looked at the Jock in Scream (1996, Wes Craven )  because Steve was a football player and had a girlfriend which was the scream queen , Casey.

Gender:

In the opening we have binary opposites within the gender representation as we have the male jock and the two female characters , final girl and scream queen, and we've used both genders here so that our audience isn't just limited with the male gaze that Laura Mulvey argues most media content has, where it's based round the Male's perspective for example having female characters wearing revealing clothing for it to be more appealing to the male audience. Instead we show focus on both the male and female character so we provide the female and male gaze theory.

Regional Identity:

BN's Location

In our film all the characters have a Yorkshire accent rather than the Southern accent which is recognisable more worldwide to be the stereotypical British accent, so here we're risking it by not appealing to a wider audience instead it more of a Yorkshire regional audience as they'd understand it more , as well as with the setting , however with the setting it's not necessarily recognisable to be Northern as we've used a location which could be seen as normal else where such as the south therefore here we're appealing to a wider audience. But also we looked at films such as Donkey Punch  (2008, Oliver Blackburn) , because this was a relatively low budget film at $700k that didn't have 'A list stars' that would be recognisable to audiences, instead they had actors from Leeds with a Yorkshire accent, so here it would be seen as a risk but they did considerably well at the box office making $700k.

Sexuality:

We didn't want to assume that our audiences were all heterosexual but instead we realised that it's the normative in our culture today for the common sexuality to be heterosexual, so by having our scream queen and jock in a relationship we're recognising this heterosexual appeal for our audience to relate to. But also it's common in slasher films that the killer is homosexual, however we didn't reveal any signifiers towards our killer's sexuality so we could of possibly gone back and altered this if we were to do this again.

Age:

The final girl, scream queen and jock are all aged from 17-18 and this is anchored by the clothes that they're wearing, for example with the jock he was wearing jeans and a sporty hoody, and with the scream queen she was wearing skinny jeans. Also the sexual activity that is taken part with the scream queen and the jock is recognisable from a wider audience as what the teen aged social groups do, with them stereotypical being seen as 'careless' and 'free'. But also we've chosen to use actors of this age so that our target audience can relate to the characters more, rather than having the actors of an older age where our target audience won't be able to relate. Then with our killer we wanted to have him recognised to be older than the teenagers and for our audiences to see that he was actually middle aged man, and we tried to signify this by having his costume with old black boots instead of what the teen boy is wearing (trainers).

The final girl, scream queen and jock are all aged from 17-18 we've chosen to use actors of this age so that our target audience can relate to the characters more, rather than having the actors of an older age where our target audience won't be able to relate. Then with our killer we wanted to have him recognised to be older than the teenagers and for our audiences to see that he was actually middle aged man so then this would contribute to appealing to our secondary audiences which is from 24-34.

Eval Q 3. Distribution.

What kind of media institution might 

distribute your media product and why?



The film distribution industry is where the distribution companies compete with one another to make the movies available to watch for the audience. Unfortunately it's highly unlikely that my film will be distributed by any of the well known distribution companies such as 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc, as they're for mostly highly budgeted films and films with famous stars, or films which are recognised by their directors, where as my film will be a low budget or virtually no budget, and there won't be any big movie stars or recognised directors, so because of this I'll direct my film at indie distribution companies such as Optimum Releasing  who distributed Donkey Punch  into the cinema. Also Optimum Releasing have distributed many other slasher and horror films which have done well in this film industry competing with the other companies. But also most indie film companies don't even manage to make a cinema release and instead their films just go straight to dvd releasing, therefore we'll have to consider this with our film as it's a micro budget film so won't make a cinema release like a high budget film such as Avatar ( James Cameron, 2009 ) which made it straight to cinema release as distribution companies would take the risk in this film.

However we'll also have to consider how digitisation has changed the way the distribution industry operates now, because of how hardrives and computers can hold films instead of paying thousands it simply can be done for free where no prints are need, and this way indie companies or even new film makers like us can stand a chance against the big time distribution companies, this is because most films now are distributed digitally by either social networking or other sites on the Internet.w

 

Donkey Punch  (2008, Oliver Blackburn)

Box office: 
Budget= £700k
Worldwide = $694,422
Is a low budget film which we can look to as an example for the distributing company Optimum Releasing, and even though it didn't make as much of a profit as most slasher films we can still use it as an example to compare with as our film will be a low budget slasher and aimed at indie distribution companies.
Optimum Releasing

But even this budget would be to high for our film company as we're a micro budget film company and have virtually no budget, so the best method of distribution for our film would be using the web and the site Youtube, because here you can upload footage for free and share it worldwide, meaning that our audiences will be able to access our film for free, as well as being in their own comfort of their homes which is also a benefit of using this as our distribution method.

We released a teaser trailer using HD cameras to film it, and Final Cut Pro to edit it which is exactly how the Coen Brothers film and edit their films which are high budget films such as True Grit (2010) that had a budget of $38m and made $171m at the box office, so this shows that the equipment we were using is capable of being at the same quality as these high end budget films and they managed to get distributors such as Paramount Pictures, but there's always the cost in actors and with this film they had the 'A list star' Matt Damon which shows that the cost in production is always there and more significant because this contributes to whether or not the distributor will decide to choose the film.

Eval Q4. Audience.

Who would be the audience of your media 

product?

Black Nightmare is targeted at the teen audience, 15- 24 years, with a BBFC rating of 15 because this is mainly what the slasher genre is aimed at. A good example of this is Friday The 13th ( Sean S. Cunningham, 1980) where the teen audience would find it easier to relate to the characters as they're also mainly of the teen age in this film, and with our film Black Nightmare the casting are also of the teen age so our audience can relate to it as with Friday The 13th.

A good example for our film to relate to is Scream 4 ( Wes Craven, 2011 ) as it also has a BBFC rating of 15 and has characters of the teen age just like our film Black Nightmare. Also the protagonists in this film are the teenagers which is like in our film where the teenagers are the protagonists also , and the antagonist being the killer just like in our Black Nightmare film. This film also contains high levels of violence involving a lot of blood which is what the slasher genre audience expecting with this genre and with Black Nightmare we've tried to include these with violent scenes and lots of blood.

Also we've used both genders here so that our audience isn't just limited with the male gaze that Laura Mulvey argues most media content has, where it's based round the Male's perspective for example having female characters wearing revealing clothing for it to be more appealing to the male audience. Instead we show focus on both the male and female character so we provide the female and male gaze theory which would hopefully appeal to both our female and male audiences.

The final girl, scream queen and jock are all aged from 17-18 we've chosen to use actors of this age so that our target audience can relate to the characters more, rather than having the actors of an older age where our target audience won't be able to relate. Then with our killer we wanted to have him recognised to be older than the teenagers and for our audiences to see that he was actually middle aged man so then this would contribute to appealing to our secondary audiences which is from 24-34.

We also got instant feedback from our target audiences from Youtube and from in person when we invited groups of our target audience in to watch our rough cuts and then our final cut, and from this we learnt what improvements had to me made to make the film more appealing to our audiences, things such as they wanted more gore scenes so we needed to add more things such as blood in our meat chopping scene.

Eval Q 5, How attract Aud.

How did you attract/address your audience?


We had to use techniques to attract and address our audience in order for them to want to or be able to watch our film opening, techniques such as using social media to interact with our audiences, or in our production practices making decisions with the casting, mise-en-scene, editing etc.

Youtube:

Youtube Feedback

We used youtube in away as our distributor and our exhibitor at no cost which is convenient for use as we're a micro-budget film company, and also Indie companies use Youtube in this way as it does the job of a distributor and exhibitor but at no cost. It's also convenient because our audience can access our film much easier than having to go to the cinema or to the shop to buy the film, instead they can easily access it through the web and on Youtube, so here we've addressed our audience in how they can access our film. We were also capable of interacting with our audience through this site as they were able to post comments on our film and give us instant feedback. 

Facebook:

Also we had access to the social networking site Facebook where we could address our target audience easily because our target audience was ages from 15-24, and we have hundreds of friends on Facebook so when we post our film on this site it has the ability to be watched by our target audience, also we can access instant feedback from our audience.


Teaser Trailer:

And in relation to our marketing techniques to our audience we release a teaser trailer which was made to attract our audience into wanting to watch the real film for when it was released, also we made a treatment and a poster which both advertised our film and were attempting to appeal to our target audience.

This is the teaser trailer we made and released...

Audience Interaction:

We also invited groups of teenagers from our school in to watch our rough cuts every time we completed one so that we'd get face to face instant feedback, then from this we could make alterations that suit our target audience more so that they'll be interested in our film more. Also form this we'd expect that our film opening would then be spread from word of mouth round social groups once some of them have watched our film opening online.

Narrative Structure:

Then from the start of our actual film opening we've introduced Barthes' theory of narrative enigma by not revealing our killer straight away, instead we revealed the killer at the end of the opening, and by doing this we are pulling our audience in to be attracted to watch the rest from the start as they'd want to uncover who the killer is.

Cinematography:

Also in relation to the cinematography we used to attract our audience we used camera shots such as point of view shot, and these help our audience to understand how the character might be feeling because in a way this camera shot put the audience into the character's position. Then with our establishing shot we've tried to let the audience understand the setting and time which would hopefully allow them to relate to character as well because it's in a normative neighbourhood, and our characters are all of the teen age, around 17-18, so this will also allow our audience to relate more than if our characters were of an older age.




Casting, Mise-en-scene:

Jock's Trainers

Killer's Boots

Furthermore with the characters, we've chosen to use actors who age from 17 to 18 as our target audience is 15-24 so this allows us to be able to appeal to our target audience more as they're of the similar age, which helps them also to relate to the characters more which is both addressing and attracting our target audience, but also our killer is of an older age which lets us address our secondary which is ages from 24-34, and we've used mise-en-scene here for example with the old black boots that our killer is wearing instead of the trainers that our jock character is wearing , this is also demonstrating Levi-Strauss' binary opposites theory in a way because the young boy is wearing trainers where as the old man is wearing boots. We also included a lot of gore in our meat chopping scene with all the fake blood and the meat so this would appeal to the audience as they're be expecting blood and gore when they're watching a slasher film .

Theories:

Also we've incorporated Laura Mulvey's theory on how the audience is generally male when the camera is focussed on the female body, because our scream queen was wearing skinny jeans which brought out her figure and our camera lingered round the scream queen as well as focussing on her face with close-up shots. 

Soundtrack:

And with the soundtracks that we included in our film we've chosen to stick with the commonly used instruments such as stringed instruments , and long drawn out notes which slowly build up tension for the audience and then reaches a climax , which in our case was the violent scene which then leaded on to the chopping up of the meat scene. And we chose to stay with these commonly used soundtrack themes because they've worked at attracting an audience for other slasher films, for example the opening of John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) where it builds up the tension in the titles sequence in the opening we looked at this for influence and tried to do something similar where we had a non-diegetic soundtrack slowly building up the tension throughout the titles.