Institutionalised - Final Film

G321 - Evaluation - Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?


Technical Skills

To begin with my editing skills weren't too bad when it came to the preliminary task as I thought my edit was quite well for our piece. The match on actions were fairly good. However I could make major improvements when it came to using Coral at a more advanced editing. I improved on the skills I learnt, for exmaple; Effects, Cutting, Cropping, Overlapping, cutting, mute, contrast, playback speed and titles. I made my film much more effective by using the things I learnt during the time I had with Coral and my technical skills have improved vastly.

Time management and Organisation
My time management has improved significantly as before we would decide to go out and film when we all felt like it which was bad because that wasn't organised at all, and none of us were truly prepared with props and where to film, we also had no idea what to say.  When it came to our actual two minute opening we were much more prepared organising going to each others houses after school and on weekend to film a couple of days beforehand. This made deciding what and when we were going to film much easier and therefore brought along only the props and costumes we needed for that specific day.


Team Skills
When doing my preliminary task my group didn't agree with each other, and it was split up into two halfs. The first half (The actors) Wanted to get a good film done which was simple yet effective. However the people who filmed weren't as responsive and were very lazy and didn't do much work at all. I wasn't happy with the group I was with and asked if for the movie I could choose someone who I agreed with.


 When it came to doing our short film opening with the choice of partner I succeeded much more. We organised and agreed on a solid yet simple movie idea which wasn't too complicated and that we could both achieve with a little hard work. We worked well, organised roles which we could each do and gave each others ideas a go, which improved our movie greatly.

Effectiveness of the Finished Product

I am really proud of my final work as the effort and time put into this entire blog and film really stands out. The film is extremely effective and our target audience feedback informed us on how we could improve and what they loved and enjoyed about the film. Everything that we have added to the media project is clear and simple. The genre stands out as a psychological horror due to the codes and conventions we used and made clear, however added our own twist so it could stand out  attract an audience.

G321 - Evaluation - Question 6

What I have learnt about technologies from the process of making my product

Tripod

In the making of my media project I first learnt the importance of a tripod, and of course how to use it properly. After getting used to it from doing my preliminary task I got introduced to a tripod and learnt fairly fast from there. The tripod was good for keeping the camera still which gave me professional and clear film footage. There is a basic crank which can be used to get a super high shot which can be good for making something look small and insignificant. There's the handle which you can use to make a successful pan, you can also tighten a bol which makes can make the pan shot you do slower or faster. Each leg of the tripod can extend to just over 3 times the length of how it is originally, which can be useful when doing very high angle shots such as a high angle shot looking up over a wall or a fence. 

Camera
The second piece of technology that I learnt greatly from was the camera, the device that captured all of our footage. All we needed to learn is how the pause, play, stop and zoom buttons worked which was pretty straight forward. Learning all the basics was very important because we used all of them whilst making our project. The second thing I learnt is that you must maintain a loud and clear voice, otherwise the camera just won't pick it up very well, and you'll end up with low quality sound.

 The final thing I learnt about using the camera is the playback option which you can use to check the footage you've just filmed and see if it looks alright. This is very useful and can be used to avoid trips back to your set and re-film something which had an error when to use it. We made the mistake of ignoring the playback option and going straight to edit which meant when we did spot out errors we had wasted time.



Using Coral
Once I collected my footage using the camera and tripod, I was then able to upload it the the computer hard drive and open it with the software editing programme Corel VideoStudio Pro X3. This programme enabled me to edit, cut and stick pieces of film together. This came pretty natural to me and I soon found myself to enjoy using the programme to put all of our footage together and create something much more amazing. The programme itself helped me learn how to cut and stick together shots which helped created good flowing match on actions and reverse shots.

Whilst filming the hanging scene to our film opening we found it difficult and came across a few problems. The was the we weren't sure how we were going to get the flickering lightbulb effect as there wasn't anything useful and effective on Corel. We solves this problem by borrowing a photographers light and switched it on an off causing the flickering effect we wanted. The second problem was that I needed to hold the rope up that was hanging my partner whilst doing the light flickering which was extremely difficult. We thought quickly on the spot and decided to do the hanging scene without the flickering and then to a seperate shot with the flickering. We would then go forward to merge the footage together on corel, combining the two turned out to be a great success and we were very pleased with ourselves.

I learnt from Corel how to cut and stick footage together smoothly to create perfect match on actions and reverse shots which created a good effect and seemed professional. Match on actions and reverse shots were learnt during our preliminary task which made this easier for me.

After throwing all our clips together and making sure timings were to some standard, it was time to add in some extra effects. Firstly we had to add in some sound effects, specifically a lighbulb humming throughout the entire two minutes, up intil the very end where it would die out during the hanging scene. We got this sound and a few others which were a lightbulb turning on and some electric sounds from www.freesound.org , so there was no copyright issues involved. We changed the playback speeds and volume to fit in comfortably with our footage and to not disrupt the dialogue taking place in our film.



During some of the Inspectors dialogue scenes, the window behind the inspector stops letting light through because of the clouds and dulls the light levels therefore causing some of his facial details to dissapear. I used a colour corrector and increated the brightness levels on Corel to fix this problem and the Inspector's facial features can now be seen much more clear.




Adding text to my film was one of the final things I needed to do to add that extra touch for my film opening. I opened the 'Text' tab on Corel and chose some creepy gothic font which would be used in my title and credits. I changed the size depending on the shot and dragged it to the place it looked best in during the certain clip. I added effect to these credits using a fade effect on it giving it a more creepy feeling.

From trial and error and previous knowledge gained during my preliminary task, I was able to cerrect the low quality scenes.
I have managed to merge and transform scenes using Corel and managed to add in suitable sound clips. Finally, I have also learnt how to add in titles and credits without disturbing the mood of the film opening sequence.

I have learnt that you must be extremely delicate whilst using the tripod as a single disturbance could upset your entire scene. I have also learnt that panning is quite difficult and wasn't needed really anyway, according to my teacher they don't look that great. The final thing I've learnt about tripods is that they're very helpful, you'd be struggling much more without them and we wouldn't have much of a movie otherwise.

G321 - Evaluation - Question 5

The elements of text that attract my target audience
Our film is very minimalistic to create a theme of emptiness which relates to the genre of psychological horror.

I think the main attraction to my media text is the mysteriousness involved in the storyline and opening two minutes. This gets the audience to get involved and start thinking along with the movie and will get them deciding who's the victim and who is the criminal in this movie. Finally, it will get them trying to figure out the explanation to everything that happens in the movie. This help my text fit into the psychological horror genre.

The storyline carries much information that can be linked with real life issues happening on the news and in the media today which our target audience will have access to. These issues can be couples killing one another due to psychological problems, suicides and murders, stressful relationships and finally abusive relationships. These issues are linked with the hospital and officials like police which are both involved in my film opening and bring in an improved realism factor.  My audience know that these factors are very much real and could potentially happen to anyone and everyone no matter how safe you think you are, building up the fear and throwing the audience into the depths of fear.

My main character Quinn Wakely is a very important factor when it comes to attracting my audience. She is young, attractive and has a great potential to do amazing things in life, which are all features of my target audience.

Another factor is that she is rich and comes from a stable background family, she is educated and respected. The lower audience (C1, C2, D) may feel envious towards the snobby and high profile Quinn Wakely, but are soon satisfied when they see her life falling apart. Seeing nurses and inspectors (C1 and C2 class) talk down to her satisfies the audience classed C1 and C2.

Another factor would be that she has just left University and has been thrown into a life of constant work and stress which has triggered her to become emotionally unstable, paranoid and for her bi-polar side to become more prominant. My target audience will be around the age of most university students so they themselves can relate to the fear of leaving education and going into a busy and hardworking job.

During the ending scene in our two minute film opening I dress Quinn up as quite adult, with expensive leather jackets and skinny jeans which would appeal to the older generation. However these clothes give off a hint of sexyness, such as the rocker style with the boots and jacket which appeal to the younger target audience. These clothes would appeal to my target audience and you would most likely seeing them buy clothes similar to Quinn's after seeing them on a young attractive movie star.

Although my main setting isn't included in the two minute opening it still has a big part to play in our overall film. It is indicated in the synopsis and tells us that she shares it with her fiance. It is located on the edge of town which would give it a quiet peaceful feeling however it is still very close to modern society. This is a perfect place to live and many of our target audience will be envious of this

The editing speed and pace of my film will appeal to both my primary and secondary target audience. This is because we build up the speed and keep it fast paced and quick which will appeal to our younger target audience. It also appeals to my older target audience as it gives them an adrenoline rush which gives them an excitement they may not usually get.

G321 - Evaluation - Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

"I think people between 20 and my age would enjoy this type of film. Mostly women would be attracted to it because there is a female lead who faces real troubles. Plus the career as a nurse is very feminine. However, males may enjoy it too due to the horror side of it and the mystery and excitement." - Ann, 50

My Typical Audience Member

Gender: Female

Age: 20-50

Class: Lower middle class/Working Class

Nationality: British, Caucasian

Personality Traits: Hard worker, imaginative, thoughtful. Aspires to lead a happy, healthy life. Is open-minded enough to believe in things that cannot initially be proven. Can be easily subjected to stress.

Interests: Reading, other creative hobbies, travelling, having a close family.

Second Typical Audience Member

Gender: Male

Age: 15-30

Nationality: British Caucasian

Class: Lower middle class/Working class

Personality Traits: Outgoing, daring, joker. Always up for a good scare. A bit of a dreamer. Loves the outdoors.

Interests: Gaming, playing an instrument, biking, kayaking, other extreme active hobbies.


Items my audience may spend their money on

My primary audience, being fond of seeing the world may indulge on travelling to other countries. So buying holidays would be of interest. Also going to places closer to home such as theatres, concerts, cinemas, etc. Which would accompany travel costs.

My secondary audience, being of late teens to early thirties, will be quite fond of their cars, which most will have. So, petrol costs would be a big aspect of their spending. Going to sporting events or concerts would also be quite important to them. And so travel costs very much come into this.

 

 

 

My primary audience would enjoy other genres like Animated and Supernatural films. Movies such as Finding Nemo and A Bug's Life, although movies for children, can appeal to the parents too. My primary audience would enjoy watching these particular films with their children. Supernatural films, however, would appeal more personally to them. Movies such as Sleepy Hollow, The Lovely Bones and The Village.

 

 

 

TV programmes such as wildlife documentaries would appeal to my primary audience as it gives a peaceful, realistic look to the world. Chat shows such as The Graham Norton Show and Alan Carr: Chatty Man would also appeal it's quite casual and comic to watch.

 

 

G321 - Evaluation - Question 3

G321 - Evaluation - Question 2

How does your media project represent particular social groups?

Quinn Wakely

The type of person we wanted to representate through our character Quinn was a higher-middle classed young woman who has had an excellent start in life. We wanted to target a person who isn't troubled by money problems or has relationship issues so therefore wouldn't seem to be effected by psychological issues. By using a female who has a stable life and then throwing her into the horror of having mental problems will make the movie much more effective and horrific towards our target audience. Someone who leads such a great life and doesn't have any noticeable problems makes it scary when we find out she is struck with minor bi-polar and paranoia, making the audience believe you're never safe from developing psychological problems.

Character

Quinn Wakely is our main character in our short movie. She is a young woman who has just left the comfort of university and has been thrown straight into a busy life with a stressful job. She has a nice house payed off by her parents which she shares with her fiance. Altogether she is quite well off and well cared for considering today's economical issues. She is in her early twenties.

She is very considerate and realises her place over people; she does not look down on other people however she finds is difficult to relate to them. She tries to be charitable and being a nurse gives her the opportunity to give back to society.

What we do not realise until a fair way into the plot is that Quinn Wakely has mild bi-polar, however no one aware of this whilst she was in the comfort of her parents. How that she has moved into her own house and is dealing with her own problems we start to see her illness slowly infect her weakening personality. This is shown clearly later on in the plot, when her dark side shows through. She does not realise she has this illness but her fiance is worried books an appointment with a psychiatrist, she ignores this and unconsciously runs away from the troubled half of her mind. It is hard for her to deal with stress, and being under a high pressure job does not help this.

Quinn Wakely's relationship with her fiance is very loving, but does often put herself before him as she believes in the traditional values of women ('Prince Charming' and the 'Damsel in Distress').

During the first couple of clips, I wanted Quinn to come across as mysterious and blank. However I also wanted to show that underneath all that, there is a colossal

Costume

During our short film we dressed Quinn Wakely very appropriately, making her look like she fits in to the mental institute perfectly. We based Quinn's outfit on a straight jacket as this was the classic mental institute clothing. The colours of the clothes she wore were very simple, just like the walls of the room. We also kept the amount she was wearing limited, anything that wasn't needed wasn't added and therefore we only dressed the character in a plain white vest and some plain white trousers. The reason we didn't decide to go with a straight jacket is because Quinn isn't quite that insane - yet. The straight jacket gave off the feeling that's she's dangerous but no one actually knows at this point. Also by using a straight jacket would mean giving her character away right into the start of the film which mean it we couldn't make twists in the plot as effective later on. We chose these simple items of clothing to show how normal and plain the institute wanted Quinn to be, perhaps trying to make her feel normal and more sane than she actually was. On another note, her clothes blended in well with the background wall colour which was also white. She had bare feet and wore no earring, necklaces or bracelets as we didn't want to give much about the character away to begin with, you catch more on what she'd usually wear later on in the two minute opening. It also shows no sign of materialistic items, which contrasts completely with the pre-institutionalised character.

During the second half to our film opening we get flashbacks and memories fading in, and you get the opportunity to see what she would wear on a normal day. This consisted of some black skinny jeans, a leather jacket with a casual shirt underneath and some heeled boots. What she wears is smart, yet very casual for Quinn which shows that she is well off compared to most people out there. You also find that the running and stumbling around whilst wearing these perhaps expensive clothes is quite odd, giving off the impression that she does have something wrong with her.

Makeup

In the institute scene Quinn wears no makeup as she has no way of getting any whilst being contained in the area. As Quinn wears no makeup we are able to match this to the clothes she wears which are plain and blank. The clothes, background and makeup all go well together because they're all blank and normal, the institute want their clients to feel normal and get treated from their illness and throwing the client into somewhere so horrifically boring contrasts with the clients illness. A final point would be that because she is in an institute not having the makeup is also a metaphor for being washed clean of her bi-polar personality.

During the scene where Quinn wears her casual clothes you don't really see what makeup she wears as everything is so fast pased, also we never get to see a close up shot during that part of the two minute opening therefore the audience cannot tell what makeup she is wearing at that part of the movie.

Body language

The body language of Quinn is quite misleading during the mental institute scene where she does not move even an inch of her body, giving the impression she is quite settled and at peace. This could also give a completely opposite impression that she does not fit in to her surrounding and is scared stiff. The final impression could be that she has completely lost her mind and is a huge trance. As everything around her is moving she is completely still and lost within her mind. The impression we tried MOST to get across was the third one, her being completely lost in her mind in a huge daze. This is because we want Quinn to be as mysterious as possible and to give away only tiny fragments of her personality to begin with.

However, thought she does not move during this scene her body position is quite unusual, and shows that something is wrong with her. She is sat upright and looks uncomfortable in her surrounding like she shouldn't be there. It looks alsmot like she's in an invisible straight jacket, her shoulders show this by being square and straight. Her hand is in a twisted position which makes it clear that something here is not right with her character. Sudden movements of the eyes confirm this as they dart around the room looking over to each wall of the institution. if we pair this to her slight twitching then we can start to get a clear picture that Quinn isn't her normal self.

During the second part of the two minute opening Quinn's body language is packed with much more action as she is running through a forest with very fast paced movement. It's not clear what she's running for, all we know is that she's in a hurry. We see her take brief pauses to catch her breath, she seems to be wanting to get somewhere quickly, or perhaps run away from something quickly. We don't know for sure which leads the audience to ask questions right away. We used fast body movement for Quinn during this scene to show that her character profile is completely different to how she's acting now, showing a great change in personality which could suggest that something isn't right with her.

Facial expressions

Quinn's facial expressions are vital to making our film very effective as for the first half of the two minute opening most of the footage contains her, and focus mainly on her facial expressions. The majority of her facial expressions are blank like she's in a trance, she does not look happy or unhappy, she doesn't look scared or relaxed, her expression is simply blank which is why it's so effective. We put in her facial expression as blank because that way we can show that something is perhaps a little wrong with her, and she isn't acting at all like her normal self. Her face comes across as slightly creepy due to how blank it is and how she is staring into nothing whilst being lost in her own mind. Another reason we used this was to get the audience thinking and asking questions to themselves to why Quinn a supposedly quiet and innocent girl would be acting strange like this.

During the forest clips you don't see much of her face, and when you do it's her being exhausted from the running. We obviously showed this to make the running scenes more realistic because if she wasn't taking breaks and breathing quite heavily during each break it wouldn't have as much effect. It would also be very strange for a nurse such as Quinn to be good at running and not get tired easily, so this added to the realism.

During the section where we bombarded the audience with many clips of different scenes to add confusion, there are a many of her laughing and sobbing that take place in the institution and an unknown place. By adding clips of her laughing and sobbing in this unknown place adds more confusion to the first two minutes, the entire first half of the opening consisted of her with a blank expression, not once moving a muscle or giving off any facial expressions. However now she is must more obvious with her expression giving the audience a sinister laugh while seconds later giving them an innocent sob. This shows her emotions are everywhere during this scene and will get the audience asking themselves things like 'what has happened to cause this mix up of emotions?'. We added in the laughing because she has done something that she is happy with, in an evil way of course. We used used plenty of laughing to hint to the audience that she's slightly insane, the sobbing contrast well with this as it shows her sane side and her seeing what she's just done come to reality.

Using camera shots and editing to add to the representation

When it came to using camera shots to help add to Quinn's character representation we didn't use much as it wasn't needed. However what we did use did add great effect, for example the shots of Quinn sitting down staring into the camera with a blank expression whilst nothing else was going on in the scene was a great effect and was definitely the creepy effect we were looking for Quinn to create. Another shot type we used were the high and low angle shots, to begin with Quinn was looking up to inspector giving us the impression that she's vulnerable. However when the inspector kneels down and starts pleading with her, she doesn't seem as vulnerable as she is now looking down to the inspector which is a good effect and shows change in the characters.

With the forest scene not much is seen of Quinn in great detail, everything is much more fast pased, we do discover that she's in a hurry and have shown this by her running quickly through a forest. The way we placed the camera showed how deep she was into the forest, coming across streams and steep banks which she would stumble on whilst running the whole time, showing nothing was stopping her from achieving her current goal.

When it came to editing we didn't add in anything as it wasn't needed. Our filming gave off the effect we wanted perfectly and neither of us felt the need to edit something that was already perfect.

The Inspector

The type of person we wanted representate through our character 'The inspector' was a middle ages man who is very loyal and passionate about the things he does in life. He is down-trodden and is going through a bit of a mid-life crisis, he doesn't have too much worries and doesn't have much family either. People are always putting him down yet he still tries his best to do his job properly, but his nice side often finds a way of appearing during the wrong moments. By using a middle aged man who wasn't too great at his job to fit the role of the Inspector would be interesting as he has to interview and deal with something he has no control over and will find very hard to handle causing him too look bad and to create some stress for him.

Character


The inspector wears formal clothing which consists of some smart trousers, a grey blazer, a smart tie and some appropriate shoes. You wouldn't think right away that he's an inspector because of this, the grey woollen blazer can throw you off track. As I've already said, he's a little bit of an outcast to the rest of the people he works with and therefor dresses slightly differently and doesn't appear as up to scratch as some of his colleagues might do.

By giving his this type of clothing we can show the audience that he's different to what most inspectors are really like, and that he may very well have a soft side which plays a part in the two minute opening. The clothes that he wears may come across as quite boring to the audience leading them to believe he's not too exciting with his life and leads the same old routine everyday and wearing the same smart clothes.

Makeup

During the clips where the inspector was seen during the two minute opening, at no point do you see him with any makeup, hair gel or any beauty products that cause his appearance to change from his normal self. Primarily, an middle aged inspector such as himself doesn't care about looking good as he knows people will still think the same of him either way, he also isn't comfortable with wearing something like hair gel as that isn't him at all. He is shy and keeps his thoughts and appearance to himself which. Therefore by not wearing anything like this at all can reflect to the audience that he's a shy inspector who keeps to himself and doesn't without realising, reflects his personality because of this.

Body Language

Inspector Hodges is a middle class man who has been working as an inspector for quite a long time. Although he has years of experience under his belt he has never become the successful inspector he dreamt to be and is down-trodden and has been pushed around quite a bit. Not much people have respect for him yet he's always trying his best to impress and do the best job he can.

The Inspector is quite passionate about his job and the people around him, he has devoted many years of his life working as a failed inspector. Over the years he has never thought about giving up in the slightest, he is determined to do well. The Inspector can also be quite sincere, and always trying to improve himself.

The doesn't have much relations with people as he doesn't have many friends even though he values the people who work with and around him. He also has very little family which means he is less distracted from his work as an inspector which improves his drive to do well and someday become successful.

Costume

The Inspectors body language isn't really meant to show much about the character, but then again not much can be shown about the character through his body language. The body language that is shown by the inspector is very similar to his personality which can be quite shy, especially when he's nervous. During the clip where we talks to Quinn his body language is shown as nervous and prepared, he is standing up without slouching and his body is turned directly facing Quinn.

 After talking to her for a few seconds he gives in and kneels down closer to her whilst trying to get some answers, this is also where the Inspectors softer side emerges. You see him become a little softer with his actions and tries to maintain contact with Quinn although this fails due to him being nervous. Eventually he reaches in his pocket and grabs a photo and shows it to Quinn with perhaps a little more confidence than he has currently shown. We used shy body language to add to the inspectors character because we thought that we didn't reveal enough using the other aspects. We thought by making his body movements steady and nervous we could show the audience more about the inspectors character.

Facial expression

Once the inspector stops talking you catch his eyes wondering around the room due to him feeling nervous and unsure of what's going to happen. After another second or two he gives and and talks to Quinn face to face, he tries to maintain eye contact but struggles and often drifts left and right avoiding looking at her. The Inspector never shows if he is happy or sad during his clips, but speaks with a positive attitude and you'll see a very slight glimpse or two of him cracking a little smile after every sentence or two just to reassure himself about the current situation.

We added in the small facial expressions done by the inspector to get the audience to understand this character a little more as we thought we didn't develop this character as much as we developed Quinn. By adding in these small but crucial facial expression done by the inspector the audience would catch small glimpses of his personality, and along with body language and makeup could combine to give you a bigger image on the inspector and what all these show of him as a character.

Using camera shots and editing to add to the representation

When filming the inspector we used varied shots of him to catch different aspects of his character. The first shot you see of him is a very low angle where you see the bottom half of his legs and his shoes. Other shots are one of the side/back of his head facing Quinn whilst standing next to the nurse, Mid shots of the inspector from Quinn's point of view and close up shots of the inspector talking to Quinn. We decided to used many varied shots in the first scene to capture a great amount of information about the inspectors body language and facial expressions. We also filmed over the shoulder shots to make it seem like there was some form of conversation going on in the clips where the inspector talks and Quinn gives no response.

When we were editing the clips with the inspector in we chose to focus on certain parts of his body, for example his face, his legs or his arm. The reason why we did this was to show the audience different features and characteristics about the inspector as he was perhaps the weaker character out of the two and was also a much more uncommon character in general. We focuses greatly on his facial expressions and his body movement, making sure we focused on both of these at least once.

The Inspectors facial expressions don't give away much to begin with as he faces Quinn and explains to her what's happening and how anything she says will be put into a statement.

G321 - Evaluation - Question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop of challenge the convention of real media products?

Conventions of a real media product

The chosen film genre for my two minute opening is a Psycological Horror. Both planning and filming combined showed that I stuck with MOST of the general methods, techniques and conventions used to make psycological horror movies.


An example of one of the typical conventions I used in my two minute opening would be the use of characters, such as the very typical lead role from a young female and perhaps the role of authority, in this case the Inspector. Going beyond the basics, we've also developed and moulded our characters to fit a typical psycological horror movie. The main character for example, Quinn, she fits into a typical psycological horror movie due to her image and her characteristics. She is a young and attractive woman who has a great life and a fiance, no one would expect such innocence and beauty to turn out so horrid and gruesome, which is a common convention, An unexpected killer. Other characters often used could be close relatives of the main character that could get killed or kidnapped which have a negative effect upon the main character. Directors often use these for a plot twist or to lead you to come to judgements to soon, getting you to think along with the movie. In our short movie, we created a fiance for the main character who, in our synopsis, gets killed. We did this to get a bigger picture on the outcome of events after the two minutes, and gives a good effect of everything being covered and nothing being missed.

More great examples of using typical conventions lay within the storyline, the main structure to everything. This is what makes every movie unique, however, many horror movies in this generation continue to use the same conventions as they did in previous generations. This is because of new trends and technology, directors have been able to add their own twist to a convention and then create their own.

Conventions that you would expect to see built up with the story line are features of the main plot. For example, it would be full of suspense, with horrid twists and mental torment. You'll also find the main character is in the centre of all this horror, it's a more common convention for the main character to be the one being under the threat of all the bad things the movie has to offer, often losing close ones and perhaps showing a glimpse of unexpected bravery at unexpected moments. Perhaps the most renown convention of all would be that there is almost NEVER a happy ending. The main character could die, leading the audience to believe that the horror cannot be stopped. We used nearly all of these conventions as every good horror movie ever made also tends to use these common conventions. As long as you add your own twist and change to it, it can be a new horror experience each time.

Moving on from characters and storyline, you start to approach the image to your movie, the setting. A typical convention for a psycological horror will have dim lighting, or none at all. Sometimes the light source is replaced  to a candle, which gives an instant atmospheric touch, the character has automatically been driven out of civilisation and thrown into the dark ages with the candles! As for buildings there isn't too much variety, although if you get the lighting and setting right, you can make horror out of almost any building. Typical buildings used in these types of horrors would be abandoned shacks, warehouses and even police stations. Typical conventions would be an abandoned town, no help for 30 miles for example, a feeling of vulnerability. Another common one would be a mental asylum, very plain and blank which may give off a contrast. If people are in an asylum, they have something wrong with them, their head is all over the place yet the walls are so plain and everything is so quiet, almost like there is a maniac loose within this quiet building.We created a great effect from choosing an asylum as our main setting because we used very good props such as the painting of a calm and happy picture which was a good contrast and perhaps led the audience to believe this would be a calm scene. We also made this scene effective by giving it a real authentic asylum feeling to it, bringing it a nurse with a clipboard for a section. All these factors made sure our scene for the asylum felt real and effective.

One of the more important conventions to a psycological horror is the sound played during certain scenes. The music could be very calm yet misleading, preparing the audience for a fright, or perhaps just distracting them from something more horrific.

 For a classic psycological horror you may have slow music, perhaps a violin weeping away in unisen with the speed of the scene and the characters movement. There will always be a build up of sound. A heart beat for example, starting off slow and very calm which then slowly builds up bringing a faster paced beat as time goes on. The scene gets fasted and more intense and the music stays in time with this which creates a phenominal effect of fear and shock. This is a convention that simply cannot be missed out in any psycological horror let alone any horror for that matter, it's a very good movie technique and one we have made sure of using in our two minutes opening, like our movie, it's the key to building up suspense without the audience realising.

Carrying on from sound we have props, these can be extremely important in some scenes, especially if the character comes in contact with the prop and interacts with it. Typical props for a psycological horror would be comforting things, shown as scary or mutilated. For example a Teddy bear or a porclean doll, in the right environment can be comforting and soothing, but when thrown into the world of horror it can take away even the strongest comfort.

A teddy bear is meant to be there for you to hug, but who'd want to hug a half burnt teddy bear with missing eyes? Other typical props are a little more common and consist mostly of weapons, knifes, barbed wire, hammers, scythes and cleavers. Moslty built up of instruments that aren't meant for killing, which gives you a fright and the feeling that anything can kill you.

For our opening, only two props are interacted with, the clipboard and the photograph. The clipboard is used to make it clearer to the audience that the character with the clipboard is a nurse. The second prop is a very important prop, it's used to trigger off a series of thoughts in our main character head that spirals out of control and come to a grand finale before the two minutes it over. The effect that that single prop makes over our movie is very effective as the entire short clip goes out of control and creates confusion among the audience.

The final convention is cinematography and editing. Each type of film, if it be, Horror, romance, comedy or action will have significant cuts and edits which make them fit into what category they're in. Psycological genres tend not to use fast movement of the camera, everything on screen is usually quite clear and there is hardely any, if not no zooms. When a zoom is used, it will be a very slow zoom, usually panning onto the characters face. Editing can add in flashbacks, and a mix of emotions and memories to create an effect of confusion and getting mislead. Typical conventions will be things such as, like I've already stated: Flashbacks.

For our film we used a prop to trigger a series of memories and thoughts, which is all packed up into 20 - 30 seconds. There is much activity confusing and getting the audience to ask questions about the scene, and what's happening in her head, again one of our main goals - to get the audience asking questions and thinking along with the movie.

Conventions that I've twisted

When deciding what convenstion to twist we needed to be really careful, changing the type of character wasn't really a great idea as a female lead is a strong choice. We knew we had to keep the female as the lead role due to how sucessful previous movies have been with female lead roles, you don't often find a good psycological horror with an elderly man or a teenager, therefore we decided on keeping the young woman. We were happy with the setting also, and either way the sound and lighting would be the same, this meant we needed to choose something that would be extremely effective towards the audience and leave them shocked by the end of the movie. Our choice was to make our movie storyline similar the the storyline of 'The Others'. The audience are led to believe something horrid is happening to the main character, and that the movie is based on them trying to escape the evil trying to get to them. In 'The Others' The audience are led to believe that the main characters are being haunted, when actually it's them doing the haunting which is gives a strong impact for an ending, leaving the audience with questions to ask, and bringing in confusion, making them think about the movie and what's just happened as the credits roll.



Me and my partner loved the idea of this so we decided, instead of filming from the victims points of view, film from the killers point of view. This is VERY unexpected, especially from the character we created, we're sure to leave the audience in suspense and confusion towards the end of the two minutes, questions will need answering and this is exactly what we want - The audience to ask questions

Audience Feedback

This is a video showing three good examples of our target audience. We showed a larger group of people our two minute opening to our film where we then asked them if they would be willing to tell us their opinion on camera. Three of them were willing to be filmed, and so we asked them a couple of questions that would give us some good feedback as to what we did that was good, and what we could improve.


We also posted our video to the social network website Facebook, and got many responses on what they thought of the video. This was a good thing to do because we then targetted a larger target audience and from there we could see what they also thought. Below is a screen shot of some people and their thoughts on the movie...

Altogether we got loads of great feedback and also some improvements we could have made to the film opening.