EVALUATION Q1: conventions and representations

EVALUATION Q1: How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

I saw / I did:

Interviews are an important part of promoting your film to a wider audience. To present this question in a creative way looked at a promotional WIRED Autocomplete interview with Penn Badgley for the new season of the psychological thriller YOU:

My Interview:

Transcript: 

I looked at many idents like saw Friday the 13^th and Saw and they were all altered to connote the slasher genre, so I wanted to replicate that by having new heights releasing ident turn red to connoted horror. The last ident typically has an audio-bridge to transition to the opening . There are typically three idents and I found that they are on average 6 seconds long.

We also looked at sound. So conventionally it's a combination of diegetic and non-diegetic sounds. 

Horror films use instrumental strings, with a mixture of long or short drawn-out notes. This makes the audience hold their breath as it mimics the heartbeat, and increases the tension. The diegetic music heard within the film is typically related to the killings. Classical examples of this is the use of theme songs  in Psycho and Halloween and Friday the 13^th, so we used the notes from the iconic Friday the 13^th music for our film. 

 

There are usually sounds of slashing, stabbing, and the allusions through sound allow for less graphic deaths, as the audience's imagination is often more gruesome and effective than a films visuals. That is why we have the sound of  the slashing carry over to our title as well as sounds of water drips and splatters of blood. 

The first shot, the establishing shot is very important so we looked at many film examples and we found that it was most commonly a an els for exposition but we went against this convention. It was inspired by the opening of Cherry falls, we wanted to create a sense of a small town. We started by creating a shot for shot copy of the sequence. We used the hand of technique from the 1960 film psycho by Alfred Hitchhock to highlight that this story can happen to anyone and create verisimiltude of a small town through the mise-en-scene. The two most common shot types are

Dutch angles are commonly used in horror to create discomfort and connote that something is wrong with the audience, so we use that or the shot of the school.

Often, a blue tint is added to shots, denoting coldness and discomfort, and are often seen in horror, like in Bride Of Chucky. We used a combination oft he Day to Night effect as well adding a blue tint. 

Another use of lighting is the lack of it, as many killings or events typically take place at night. The darkness and little lighting allows for more cryptic shots and adds to the mystery of The Killer. 

So we started by looking at different fonts in horror films. For the names and titles we wanted to use relevant industry examples from recently made horror films. So we chose to collaborate with the British film institute and Film 4 since it’s a common convention for an indie company to receive funding from them. It is unconventional to see a double directing credit in the same line so we opted for one. But I looked at a few hybrid horror and rom-coms films to really get the font right and I saw that they opted for a white or sometimes even pink font like in Jennifers body rather than a bright red bloody ones.  

 

We used a varity of shot types: over the shoulder shots, extreme long shots, long shots, medium long shots, medium shots, medium close-ups, close ups, extreme close-ups, two shots, and master shots. 

We also used a variety of shot angles: worm's eye, low angles, high angles, dutch angles, and pov shots. Dutch angles and POV shots are conventional in horror. Dutch angles as they signify that something is distorted. POV shots are usually from the point of view of the killer, like in Halloween (1978).  

We looked at character archetypes in horror films and we modelled them after characters in horror films we looked at. So Marion, named after Marion Crane from Psycho is the stereotypical scream queen archetype, and follows all the conventions of being an attractive, blond and promiscuous, popular girl.

Norman, named after Norman bated from Psycho, is the jock archetype. Wearing the letterman jacket and being conventionally athletically built. In the film scream that we looked at he gets killed in the opening of the film but also he creates narrative enigma surrounding who is the killer. 

Mandy, named after the film All the boys love Mandy lane. is also a scream queen in the three girls are part of this high school clique that we modelled after films like Heathers and 

Laurie’s character, modelled after Laurie Strode from Halloween, stereotypical final girl, studious shy and modest. She stands out a lot from the clique, and she wear a lot more edgy clothing.  The moment of disruption in our plot is when it is revealed that Laurie is the killer, challenging the conventions of final girl and killer. The Killer is seen as superhuman, and impossible to defeat. They are usually serial killers with a revenge plan and choose their victims carefully, The use of a backstory creates further fear with The Killer's motives, making the killings more believable rather than a two dimensional character. 

The target audience (teenagers male and female) can identify with the characters in this film such as the final girl and the scream queens/jock. They are relatable as a teenager by wearing make up, doing teenage activities, being a school student etc...This would also be relatable to an older audience, as they once were school students. 

Uses and gratifications theory. Cambell’s Hero’s Journey so the archetypical heroic journey: departure, initiation and return. However our plot doesn’t quite follow this since Laurie is the false hero or the betrayer if we follow the Proppian character archetypes.

Uses and gratifications theory, so we wanted our audience to have personal identity with the characters so we made them all relatable teenagers. We also wanted the film to have a feel good aspect and have a sense of escapism. An audience world escape into our film because it's fictional (non-realistic) so people can watch this for pleasure. Horror is also a cathartic entertainment form as people view it in order to alleviate fears they have and feel control over them.

We looked at the enigma code  narrative enigma, so what we were going to withhold from the viewer, so it was ambiguous if Norman was actually the killer.

Todorov’s five part narrative structure.  So the equilibrium, disruption , recognition, Repair the damage and equilibrium again. 

Equilibrium- Setting the scene through the hand of god and street scene. Disruption- Snapping twigs, a disruptive element. Recognition- Marion realising there is a noise and someone could be watching them. Attempt to resolve- Marion sends Norman to check, Marion calling Norman to find him. New equilibrium- The girls in school realising Marion is missing. So everything after the main title of the film would be the equilibrium again. 

The forest is a stereotypical location for a horror film, as many of the examples I looked at used a forest. This denotes isolation, and a forest is badly lit in the dark and easy to get lost in, allowing for the killer to prey on its victims. For the Locker scene we were mostly inspired by Jennifer's Body (2009) when shooting the locker scene, and we decorated the locker to look like a stereotypical teenage girl's. We also made sure to include extra bags and coats for verisimilitude, as we shot after school and the corridors were empty. 

We also found that the transition between the opening and the main body of the film so we often found that it was marked by an animated main title of the film. 

 

My Conventions Vodcast from earlier in year:

The creation process of my ident 1 and ident 2. 

My post on sound creation is here. 

My post on slasher character archetypes is here.

Narrative theories:

The following theories I analysed can be applied: Barthes' narrative enigma and Todorov's 5-Part Narrative

Narrative Enigma: 

Narrative Enigma is defined as the intentional withholding of exposition in order to create mystery and suspense. This is seen in my opening as there are establishing shots revealing the town but exposition is still withheld. As we meet Marion and Norman, they reveal exposition through dialogue, and narrative enigma on who the killer is remains through the opening. In the locker scene, exposition is also revealed through dialogue. The costumes reveal the archetype and personalities of the characters

Todorov's 5-Part Narrative:

In my opening:

Equilibrium- Setting the scene through the hand of god and street scene

Disruption- Snapping twigs, a disruptive element

Recognition- Marion realising there is a noise and someone could be watching them

Attempt to resolve- Marion sends Norman to check, Marion calling Norman to find him

New equilibrium- The girls in school realising Marion is missing

 I saw / I did:

My rankings of how well the different social groups are presented in our film: 

Theories applied:

Laura Mulvey's Male gaze and gender performativity

male gaze is the act of depicting women and the world in the visual arts and in literature from a masculine, heterosexual perspective that presents and represents women as sexual objects for the pleasure of the heterosexual male viewer.

Gender performativity posits that gender is made up of the acts that mark a person as “man” or “woman” (dress, mannerisms, ect) and it is through the repetition of those gendered acts that the illusion of a stable gender identity is created.

Gramsci Hegemony

Marion and Norman are a hegemonic couple. Meaning stereotypical and often portrayed on screen. 

Levi Straus Binary opposition

When there is total opposition between two characters or forces used in order to further

the plot.

In my film:

-Binary opposition of male and female characters.

-Opposition of studious and shy Laurie with promiscuous and confident Mandy 

Katz and Blumers Uses and Gratifications 

when the audience personally identifies with the characters on-screen they feel gratified and fulfilled from the product

John Berger’s "Ways of Seeing" 

stated that "men act and women appear", with women being aware of their obligation of performance towards the male viewer.

The Bechdel test

Created by Allison Bechdel, a measure of female representation in films. The rules are that there are 

1) two women 

2) that are named 

3) and talk about something other than a man. 

In my film: 

-Three named female characters, Marion, Laurie and Mandy 

-Mandy and Laurie talk to each other about Marion missing and what Laurie is doing at the locker