Day 64 : Inspiration Research

Today I have been researching different Horror trailers of past students to gain a sense of inspiration, but also become enriched with the element of Horror which some of our filming was missing. Overall this helped me come up with more ideas which I will share with my group members via email and whatsapp to keep absent member Afreen updated. I plan to blog about the new ideas once they have been filmed if received well by my peers who enjoy Horror but also my group members.

Here one of the students trailers I looked at from YouTube. I enjoyed this trailer in particular as not only did it engaged me through the sycronised use of sound but I was also impressed by the strong element of Horror which was communicated from start to finish.

Day 63 part 2 : Influences

Me and Priscilla have been gaining more influences from real media texts buy watching various different trailers. One of them include Hide & Seek which includes a female protagonist who is mature just like Flora, which is why we agreed to would be a good trailer to watch.

Here are some scenes which I found effective:

Deconstructing the Hide and Seek trailer gave me a sense of how children are usually portrayed in Horror movies conventionally. This trailer inspired us as a team to follow this convention as we thought it would be more effective to subvert (using an ethnic minority) and conform (an evil, twisted little girl). In our final trailer I hope we are able to successfully make our audience curious and intrigued, as if they could actually go and see our movie.

Day 63 : What I've been doing so far

We started our production on January the 6th. Since then there has been a variety of of trials and tribulations which has caused us to reevaluate and plan out our ideas.

CHANGING FLORA 

Due to much complications despite planning ahead me and Priscilla decided to go on the hunt for a new Flora. We had to change our actress from Jalisa to Safia as her mother would not let her style her hair in the way we had planned. Despite having no main protagonist we used are initiatives by asking Jalisa if she knew anyone else who could take part and this is when we found Safia. Safia is extremely good at drama and is naturally cute and twisted fulfilling the traits we wanted for our main protagonist, enabling us to film in candle/church scene on Monday the 6th of January. 

CHURCH/CANDLE SCENE

Throughout the filming of the candle scene Safia was easy to direct and acted professionally. We contacted her parents on the weekend and scheduled to film in the studio after school on the 6th filming until 4:30. I took on the role of filming and lighting the candles and gathering props, this meant I had to be organised but also careful when constantly moving around to move chairs out of the frame so I don't knock over the wax or cause a fire hazard. In feedback ms enjoyed these scenes however I learnt that pans aren't very effective for Horror as they are too slow. 

DEATH SCENE & JEAN/MENTAL ASYLUM  SCENES & VIOLENCE (Wednesday 9th Lunch Time)

Me and Priscilla spent alot of time taking turns filming our footage at lunch time and after school scheduling time which could suite us best. I brought in my eyeshadow kit and Priscilla depicted a black eye and bruises on Kenrique's (Jean) eyes to highlight the abuse she received from her husband (James). This was extremely effective but in terms of mise en scene it lacked due to the background on the drama studio weakening the element of Horror. 

SCENES AT FRANCESCA'S HOUSE (9th January 3:10-6:30)

Most of these scenes will have to be redone due to limited lighting but also poor use of mise en scene. Hopefully on Monday we will be able to film all the scenes of Megan and Flora, but also consider potential changes we could make in our narrative in order to make the filming process easier as the people we previously included in our narrative may not be able to re-film our footage.

CONCLUSION

Today we gained feedback from our teacher and realised that elements of mise en scene and lighting need to be improved. An example of this would be a scene we shot of our main protagonists sister Megan being dragged from her bed, as not only did the message of fear not get across as it lacked urgency but it also was unclear. Me and Priscilla plan to film on the 12th and redo this shot, as well as some scenes in the park of Flora. Through Whatsapp I will be keeping up to date with Afreen due to her being potentially unable to attend due to illness, to maintain coherence through our group and work well as a team.

Day 62 : Poster and Magazine Ideas

Me and Priscilla started to research different Horror featuring magazines and Horror posters which we found effective, but also which could be easily applied to our narrative in terms of use of colour, media language to connote themes and how we can make both  of our ancillary texts link. For example in our final poster and magazine we hope to use red and have Flora with red ribbons on both, so that the viewer can straight away see they are from the same film. 

The images below represent our ideas so far:

Outcome

Brainstorming ideas enabled us to gain a deeper sense of how we want our final piece to be presented to our audience. Creating this brainstorm was also useful in terms of updating Afreen on what we have been doing through her absence. It was evident through discussion that all of us as a team have a level of cohesion of how we want our final magazine and poster to look, enabling us to become closer as a group.  

Day 60 : Shooting Schedule

Here is my groups schedule for shooting. Aspects will most likely change if actors and actresses our unable to shoot or if our ideas do not go to plan, however we will keep organised and power through all are trails and tribulations which I also plan to present on my blog. I will refer back to this schedule everyday before we film so I can plan what props to bring in and discuss what props my fellow members could also bring in, but also the organisation of our time around when our actors, actresses and venues are available.

Day 59 : Carrie (2013)

Carrie (2013) is a more gorey and chilling take on the 1976 original directed by Brian De Palm. 

Click here for a list I found online which outlines differences between 1976 and 2013 Carrie.

Here are similarities and differences I found while watching:

What I thought of the movie overall & How it relates to our project 

1. Overall I really enjoyed this adaption of the original. It subverted alot of elements such as there being no use of Psycho strings when Carrie breaks the lights in the shower. The change which I found specifically interesting was the use of violence, as it shows that people who engage in Horror in contemporary times expect to see blood and graphic imagery. This contrasts with directors in the 70s who were aiming to scare audiences by toying with their imaginations, which is shown in films such as Halloween (1978) and A Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). 

2. In our Horror trailer we must make sure our target audience is able to gain a sense of familiarity with what they expect to see when engaging in Horror, but also that as theorist Paul Wells highlighted in his research younger audiences are becoming harder to scare as they are increasingly immune to graphic imagery, which means as we plan to make our trailer a 15 we must remember different ages react differently to certain themes. 

3. We agreed that 15 would be a perfect classification for our narrative because it is psychological in the way it toys with the audiences imagination of who is good and who is bad (which challenges expectations of contemporary Horror films as they are often graphically explicit and scary), but also graphic in terms of the fathers death with the iconography of a knife. Overall if we get the perfect balance of gore and psychological aspects I believe we would definitely be able to effectively elicit a strong reaction of fear from our audience.

Day 58 : The concept of Male Gaze in regards to Megan Black

 Introduction 

As “encoders” we have to be careful what messages we place in our trailer as the media can be highly effective through its representation of specific subgroups. It could potentially encourage negative behaviour towards individuals in society, which in this case is women. This would also contradict the market research (Questionnaire) I conducted on the representation of women in Horror and Final Girls, as it was evident that both men and women agreed women should have a wider variety of roles in Horror.

Detailed Summary

•       We plan to make Megan follow the conventional “slut” trop often presented in the Horror genre. This will be through the clothes she wears and camera angles/shots, but also the fact that she is a victim of our young villain Flora. Megan is also unconventional in comparison to the typical female victim presented in Horror, through her personality as she is intelligent, confident and mature when looking after Flora.

•       The representation of women in horror who express their sexuality freely through what they wear is often negative. Making Megan intelligent is a concept which challenges the dominant ideology suggested in Horror that women must be conservative and restricted in comparison to a man who is free to express their sexuality, which is why I believe it is a positive representation of women. (This will also appeal to a female audience who are often forgotten by male directors in the Horror industry)

How this will be presented in our trailer

We will be using a variety of camera techniques and angles to sexualise Megan. This ranges from point of view shots which were presented in our storyboard as Flora watches her sister Megan getting unchanged, but also slow motion and tilts of her body to enable the heterosexual male watching our trailer to be able to become closer to Megan.  (This will be shown through a point of view shot reinforcing the theme of voyeurism often seen in Horror). We will also use low angles and close up shots as Megan is introduced to the audience, e.g of her lips, eyes and legs. The use of eyes is inspired by Psycho (1960) as Hitchcock consistently presented eyes to symbolise fear, e.g when Marion Crane is stopped by the sheriff you can see she is scared by her eyes. Rather than fear we will present insanity through Jean as she is in a mental ward desperate to escape and Flora as she is wearing her mothers old clothes and makeup.