My Roles

My roles were to focus on the filming along with one other member of my group as well as being in charge of the make-up and costume.

Final Products

Evaluation: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

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

Whilst making our media product we compared our trailer to other horror trailers in the recent industry, a main example of this is “paranormal activity”. We chose the “paranormal activity” trailer, as it has the conventions of a demon which we were hoping to have in ours. The trailer also has activities, where the character becomes possessed. This is a major feature we have chosen to focus our trailer around.  

We have taken features from the “paranormal activity” trailer, as they inspired use to use them in our trailer. These features are things such as text cards, fast paced cuts and an eerie non-diegetic soundtrack. These are typical conventions of real media product; however we have developed on them by using a minimum amount of actress in the trailer as well as focusing the storyline around only one character being possessed.    

Studying the two Theorists, Vadlimir Propp and Tzvetan Todorov, we linked our trailer in with their ideas. Todorov’s theory is based around “Narrative”. It consists of five stages; these five stages are [Equilibrium, Disruption, Disequilibrium, Solution, and New Equilibrium]. As we are creating a horror trailer not all of our storyline will link in with this. We will not have a “Solution” or a “New Equilibrium”, as this means the film would give away the ending and not attract the audience to come watch it.

Equilibrium: A young girl having a dream, which turns into a nightmare.         

Disruption: The demon from the dream becomes reality.

Disequilibrium: The young girl tries to escape.

Solution: No Solution is seen.

New Equilibrium: No Equilibrium is seen.

Propp’s theory focuses more around characters within the storyline. It consists of the “Hero”, the “Helper”, the “Donor”, the “Villian”, and the “Princess”.

The Hero: No Hero is seen.

The Helper: A passer-by, when victim is breaking down.

The Donor: This could link in with the helper as they have similar goals.

The Villain: The Demon.

The Princess: The young female victim.

We discovered that our trailer links in with Todorov’s theory more than Propp’s. We believe this is because our trailer uses the typical conventions of a horror trailer rather than challenging them. Our piece doesn’t particularly involve characters; however this is because if there were many characters seen in the trailer, the audience may become confused. We are hoping for our trailer to be seen as a stereotypical horror trailer, as it consists of all the conventions such as “unknown death”, “demon”, and “a vulnerable victim”. 

Evaluation: Audience Responses to Horror Trailer

This links with the theory of Uses and Gratification by McQuail, Blumler and Katz. We have used actresses, which are at a similar age to our audience as this will appeal to the more and may want them to inspire to be like them. We also hope that our audience is into the genre of our film, as they will actively seek out to buy this because it features a world they are interested in. Therefore they want to find out more about this film and discuss it with their friends.  We have also used an attractive female actress to play the main role in our trailer, as this links in with the theory of the American feminist Naomi Wolf. She says that using a sexually attractive female model may appeal more to a wider male audience and entice them to go and view the film more. The theorist Steve Neale has said that the pleasure of popular cinema lies in the process of “difference in repetition”. This links with our trailer and audience responses, as they recognise the familiar feature is the demon being the ‘evil’ character and the unfamiliar element being the soundtrack of the creepy lullaby.

Evaluation: What have you learnt for your audience feedback?

Audience responses

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Final Product - Subliminal

Paranormal Activity 3

This previous released trailer is going to help us create our horror trailer, as it contains typical horror conventions, which appeal to us. These conventions were things such as card texts, and fast paced cuts. This trailer begins with the disruption of the narrative, as the camera flickers showing change to the filming of the two young girls. We also like the camera angles used in this trailer, as they are unusual and show disequilibrium very easily by placing them on an angle. There is also many high angled shots used in this trailer because it represents vulnerability of the character. We want to use daylight to represent the Equilibrium of our story and this trailer has also inspired us to use daylight shots to represents this and then have disorientated transitions to show the disruption in between. The soundtrack used in the Paranormal Activity Trailer is loud and it uses diegetic sounds. We aim to have this in our trailer to make it seem more realistic and scary for the audience.

Email to Paramount Studios

We emailed the company Paramount to get permission to use some of their soundtrack in Paranormal Activity to put in our Horror Trailer Project.

Weather Conditions

We researched the weather forecast for Sunday 26th Febuary, as if the weather was not suitable conditions for filming our outdoor scenes, we would have to reschedule later on in the next week. This shows that we have took all vairables into consideration when filming.

Possible Location Shots

We have used  the search engine "Google Maps" to calculate the distances between locations for filming our horror trailer. If any other locations appear whilst filming, they will be noted.   

Timeline Plan

We made a timeline to plan out our media project more accurately as many of our group had other commitments such as jobs and coursework.

Horror Magazine and Poster Audience Responses

Horror Magazine Front Cover

Horror Poster

Magazine Progress

Magazine progress

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Poster Progress

Poster progress

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Good & Bad Photography

Photo choices

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Ancillary Task - Titles

I have chose to make my main headline in the colour red rather than the colour black, because this represents blood and death. I am wanting blood and death to indicated as this is what is included in our horror trailer. This colour also stands out from the magazine front cover image as it is already dull and a black headline added would not be eye catching, therefore leading to no buyers.

Possible Horror Titles

Our group tried to think of ideas for the title of our film. we wanted a title which had a variety of different meanings. We wanted be interpreted in a number of ways, therefore adding a bit of mystery to our film trailer. We finally came up with three ideas, which we thought would be suitable as a title.

• Abstract - Existing in thought or as an idea but not having concrete evidence of this existence.

• Subconscious - Concerning the part of the mind of which one is not fully aware but which influences one's actions and feelings

• Subliminal - Below the threshold of sensation or consciousness; perceived by or affecting someone's mind without their being aware of it.

We were mainly attracted to the title 'Sublminal' therefore we choose this, as we wanted the storyline of our film to be focused around a character in a dreamstate of mind. 

Horror Trailer Animatic

Flat Plan of Ancillary Tasks

Character Profiles

Name: Lilly May

Lilly is 22 and currently studying her Masters in Media Studies and Photography at University as she is hoping to become a professional photographer. She has a part-time job at ODEON Cinemas, so doesn’t have much spare time however when she does she enjoys reading fictional novels. She shops at stores such as Urban Outfitters, Topshop, Mango, and Miss Selfidge, as she likes to present herself in fashion.

Name: Lucas Affleck

Lucas is 21, and is currently in a band called “The Rejects” and he is new tattooist in Newcastle. He enjoys eating food such as, pizza, chips, Chinese, and kebabs. He has a girlfriend, who he has been in a relationship for 3 years; they love to go to the pictures regularly to horror movies such as paranormal activity and saw.

Roles and Responsibilities

To assure that everyone in the group has an equal role within the group, we decided to allocate different jobs and roles between our groups as this would give everyone a chance to focus on their role and have an equal input into what ideas they've come up.

Although we split roles to everyone in the group we decided to work together in the editing process as we think it would be more effective if everyone in the group shared their opinion on what they think looks best and as it’s a vital part of the project.

• Hazel has taken the role of creating the storyboard and is an actress.
• My roles are to focus on the filming and are also in charge of the make-up and costume.
• Olivia is one of the actresses within the horror trailer and is overseeing the editing aspect of our project.
• Natalie is taking charge of filming and props and is making sure the trailer contains continuity throughout.

Ancillary Task - Production Companies

Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production/distribution company. Paramount it is well known for films such as:

Paranormal Activity
The God FatherFriday the 13th
The Devil Inside




Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation is one of the six major American film studios as of 2011. Some films Fox has produced are:

The Darkest Hour

X-Men
Alien
Predator

Spyglass Entertainment is an American film production company, they have produced films such as:

The Tourist
Wanted
The Ruins
The Invinsible

Colmbia Pictures Industries is an American film production and distribution company. They are well known for the production and distribution of such films:
The Grudge 2                                     
Spiderman                                              
Angels and Demons                                                    

Sony Pictures Entertainment is the television and film production/distribution unit of Japanese multinational technology and media conglomerate Sony. Song Pictures have produced film such as:

Underworld Awakening
Men in Black 3
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Ghost Rider

Ancillary Task - Style Model

For my horror magazine front cover, I have chosen to use ‘Empire’ as my style model as this is a very successful company in this industry. I have specifically chosen these editions of the magazine because of the colour scheme of red, blue, black and white. These colours are commonly used to represent horror films as they could indicate blood, death, or darkness. The colours used are bright and contrast against the dark background so I have decided to use this feature in my magazine also. This is because the dull background makes the setting seem more tense, gloomy, and suspicious just like in a horror movie.

Location Shots for Horror Trailer

These are all typical location shots used in horror movies, therefore they would most likely be featured in our horror trailer. Our group chose to make our locations shots local as they are easily accessible.