Following and Challenging Codes and Conventions.
Following the codes and conventions of horror media texts is very important when creating a horror piece of media. The practitioner needs to remember to keep the audience familiar with the media texts which is exactly what I did. I followed the codes and conventions of horror media texts but also challenged them in certain areas to keep my media texts fresh and new.
For instance, the front cover of my film magazine adopts the basic magazine structure that includes a masthead which reads 'FILM HOUSE'. Which also states clearly that it is a film magazine.
The cover also displays a main image of the little scary girl who stars in the film being promoted and a main sell-line that reads the actresses name 'Kimmy Sue on horror, being a young actress, and finding her comfort zone in the role!' The front cover also includes additional sell-lines that read 'The creepiest girl on the big screen!', also interviews with actors (with a list of the names below). Not forgetting the inclusion of the bar code to make the cover realistic.
The film poster contains the codes and conventions of media texts of its kind, as it includes the main image that dominates the page (a medium shot of the scary girl, Abbie), a large piece of text stating the title of the film (The Sweet Revenge), and the tagline which reads 'She will come back'. Of course unlike a magazine cover, the poster includes a lot less detail to keep the enigma. It will conventionally include the main image, film title and tagline. Creating a successful film poster one must keep the layout and organisation to a minimal.
The film trailer follows the basic narrative of structure which includes an introduction to the plots 'equilibrium' where we see the protagonist with her family laughing and smiling and enjoying each other company like any happy family does. This is followed by the 'disruption' in which we see the little girl Abbie starting to act strange and eerie. The 'reaction' stage is then followed, where the protagonist is arguing with her husband about Abbie acting strange. The trailer carries on with a sequence of different shots giving clues to what the plot of the film is.
Up until this stage, I have followed theorist Todorov's film structure which includes Equilibrium, Disruption and Reaction. However the other two remaining stages which include Repair and New Equilibrium are not shown in the film trailer because of the obvious reason that it would reveal the whole plot and narrative of the film taking away the enigma and excitement from the trailer and the audience wouldn't feel the need to watch the film. The whole purpose of a film trailer is to tease audiences, not to reveal the entire plot, which is why this structure must be followed.
I have followed the codes and conventions of existing media texts to ensure that my products are recognizable and familiar to my target audience and meet their expectations. I conventionally also used soundtrack and strap-lines in my trailer which helps aid the audiences understanding of the narrative and also creates excitement.
Pushing myself...
In order for me to understand the codes and conventions of horror media texts I had to experience them. Meaning I would have to push away my fear of horror and watch horror films and trailers and anaylyse them as-well as film posters and magazine front covers.
This was probably one of the hardest things I ever had to do in my media subject. Watching horror films is my worst nightmare, the fact that I can't even watch a trailer without feeling sick meant that this was going to be very hard. Knowing that after my summer holiday I would have to have a whole year of working with horror texts made me really not look forward to coming back after the summer holidays. I thought that it was the time for me to over come the fear of horror. I thought to myself 'you know what, I'm 17, I shouldn't be such a baby, you will come back and do great in this subject and you will not have the fear of horror any more!'
In the summer holidays I watched a few horror trailers but couldn't bring myself to watch the actual films. September came closer and I was literally dreading it. When we came back and were introduced to the new project I instantly hated it, I didn't realise what I have got myself into. But later on in the year I started to get used to it a lot more. I haven't got myself to the stage of watching a horror film yet, which is disappointing because I really thought that after this project I wouldn't have the fear of horror anymore but I am proud I pushed myself to create horror media texts and believe that they are successful, you wouldn't even know that the practitioner is scared of horror!
Inspiration
I felt like finding inspiration was hard because of my fear of horror. It's not exactly easy to find a horror that inspires you if you cannot even watch it. What I decided to do was to watch horror trailers instead and look at the imagery of the trailers and what it is that I would like to include in my own trailer. My inspiration was 'The Unborn', a horror film that I did find too scary to watch and even difficult to watch the trailer, but it's narrative really sucked me in. The basic narrative is about a woman who finds out she has an unborn twin who comes back to haunt her. The haunting part really intrigued me which explains what the inspiration for my narrative was.
After studying the narrative and trailer for 'The Unborn', I took the inspiration from it and created something of my own, it helped me understand what sort of narrative I wanted to have and what sort of things would come up in my trailer, for example creepy shots of Abbie, fades and so on. I fell in love with the mise-en-scene element of the trailer. I also found the shots of the ghost boy very chilling which is what inspired me to do with my own trailer. I knew from that point on that I wanted to create a chilling and beautiful trailer displaying a family with a haunting daughter and show to the audience that she have an evil spirit in her with beautiful and creepy shots of her.
Evidence for my inspiration is shown through film stills of the trailers 'The Unborn' and 'The Sweet Revenge'.
'The Sweet Revenge' - Introducing the family
'The Unborn'
'The Sweet Revenge' - Introducing Abbie (the possessed girl)
'The Unborn'
'The Sweet Revenge'
'The Unborn'
'The Sweet Revenge'
'The Unborn'
I believe that the trailer itself gave me a lot of inspiration and that I didn't feel the need to even watch the film. I got all the shots that I wanted of Abbie that were all inspired by the shots of the boy I saw in 'The Unborn' trailer.
Moving onto the film magazine front cover I do believe I challenged the codes and conventions is some way. For example the target audience for film magazines are mainly men, which is why you often see sexy females on the front cover of them to attract even more of the male audiences' attention which is not something I myself did. As the most eye catching character of my film trailer is the little girl Abbie, I decided to put her on the front cover of the magazine. I made her look more creepy and scary which I believe will catch my target audience's attention by making them intrigued in what it is that's wrong with her, why she is so creepy and will want to watch the film. I think that using a sexy female on the front cover of a film magazine is a very clever way of luring in the male audience but on the other hand, I believe that if I used the protagonist to be on the front cover, the narrative of the film wouldn't be as clear as it could look like it's promoting any film, but having Abbie on it clearly shows that it's a horror film featuring in the magazine and that will lure in more horror film lovers! Also because my target audience are more women than men I felt like I didn't have to use a sexy female on the front cover and the female audience wouldn't exactly feel attracted to her.
Audience Feedback
My three pieces of media, the ancillary task and the trailer combined create a promotional package. They are aimed at the 18-35 target audience both male and female. I believe my film poster follows the basic conventions of the genre that the audience are familiar with. I believe, or I am hoping that it's a successful promotional piece as it attracts all the correct target audience who love horror and can easily identify the genre of my promotional package. I have created a symbiotic link between the created between the three media texts through the elements of mise-en-scene, lighting, and costume/hair/make-up and through the similar editing. This keeps the audience familiar with the texts and can easily associate them with one another.
Looking at audience feedback from 'Facebook', I believe I have created a successful promotion package, I was told that my trailer was the most successful out of the three media texts which I am very happy about. Getting that feedback also gave me a chance to make last minute changes to the poster and front cover such as spelling, which is one thing that my feedback audience noticed and I didn't. Getting the feedback made me see things that I didn't before, things were pointed out to me which made me see things clearly and made me feel proud of my media texts as they were appreciated by someone other than me.
I am also very proud of my poster as I feel like it has a very simple layout to it but a strong effect which proves my point of 'simplicity is everything' and 'less is more'. But I do believe that I could have worked and improved a lot more on my magazine front cover.
Media Technologies
As a student who studies media, I realised just how many media technologies are out there, not only that but also how clever and technical they are. I mean, you can literally do anything! Of course the internet was the biggest part of my research and planning. I used websites such as YouTube to research and analyse film trailers and research the music that I was going to use for my trailer. Without the internet I believe that this project wouldn't have grown or gotten better and I wouldn't have achieved anything. It's funny just how much you can do with the internet, I learned a lot about the history of horror through Wikipidia, another amazing website which has information on anything and everything! Google Images also played a big role in the research an planning part, displaying images and decorating my blog visually.
Another form of media technology which was used was of course the video camera to film my trailer, my iPhone to capture the photo that I used for my poster, and a normal digital camera that I used for the photo of the magazine front cover. Apart from the video camera, the two media technologies I have used previously so I wasn't exactly learning to techniques but with the video camera it was interesting, you not only had to know how to use it, but also when to use it. The creativity rushed through me and capturing scenes of the film trailer was a very enjoyable process.
Hobby Inspiration
Before filming I was very nervous as I have no experience with moving media, I thought that I would be more successful in the photo taking process as I always enjoyed capturing moments with a camera or an iPhone, especially an iPhone as it has amazing camera apps which allow you to edit your photos in the simplest and quickest way! So when it came to filming it was a big new to me. But when I started I realised that it was something that I really enjoyed! The fact that something can seem like one thing when it's filmed, but behind the scenes it's something so different, it amazed me. For instants Abbie, she is the brightest and sweetest girl but I made her look so scary and creepy with simple lighting, mise-en-scene and make-up. I really enjoyed filming as it was a learning process and also very amusing. Normally you don't get bloopers for horror films as the film makers believe it ruin the horror effect, but when filming my own horror trailer it involved so much laughter! It made me feel not as scared as it really drew a thick line between reality and film which felt very good. I really feel like I have found a new hobby that I truly enjoy and will do more of.
Blogger vs Tumblr
Blogging has always been something I was good at, before we had to make a blogger account I already had an account on Tumblr, which is another blogging website where you post images, text, music and so on. So when I created blogger for school purposes it felt natural to me. I spend a lot of time on Tumblr posting my thoughts through images and text, I've always loved writing and talking about my thoughts and Tumblr is the perfect place to do that. I wrote about everything and anything from what I was thinking to what happened to me on a certain day. Blogger is a little different to Tumblr as it's layout is different and also I don't 'follow' anyone making my dashboard very boring as on Tumblr I follow hundreds of blogs which all have people posting different beautiful things on them. I do like Tumblr more than Blogger but Blogger allowed me to learn more techniques with a different website which is beneficial. I also found a Blogger app that I downloaded for my iPhone which allowed me to blog from my phone anywhere and everywhere!
Editing Programs
(Adobe Photoshop and Premier Pro)
When it came to working on my images for the poster and magazine front cover I was not so excited. Photoshop is one of my biggest weaknesses, I do have experience with it from the year 12 project, which took me a long time, a lot of effort and stress. So when it came to working with photoshop in year 13 I was dreading it. Weirdly enough after half hour of starting on my still media texts I began to enjoy it, I learned even more new skills and learned a little more on how to use photoshop from the help of YouTube videos.
Premier Pro on the other hand was something I really enjoyed using. I have never used it previously before the year 13 project so it was all very new to me. I missed a lesson on 'how to use premier pro' so I had to get my teacher to quickly explain the basics to me. Then I was on my own, playing around with different effects and learning at the same time. I ended up learning an amazing new skill as Premier Pro looked like such a 'techy' program that I freaked out as soon as I saw it, but a little thinking I ended up loving it, I am very happy as I have now added Premier Pro to my skills development list.
Conclusion
In conclusion I believe this whole project has challenged me mentally and physically. I challenged me in the way of over coming my fears and kicking butt! I am proud that I got this far with the horror genre and creating three successful media texts that I am truly proud of. I kept a symbiotic link between the three texts which makes it a successful promotional package, I got the feedback I needed to help me in the creating process and made me learn from my mistakes. The access to programs such as Premier Pro has given me new skills that I will forever have, making me very proud of myself that I mastered something that I never thought I could, giving me more faith and confidence in myself. I put all my idea to life with the help of different types of technology which truly amazes me, the fact that I took a simple thought or idea and created it and made it real makes me feel very good about my ability of achievement.
Overall I feel like the year 13 coursework that was provided was a very rewarding and enriching process. I challenged myself so much, I put all my creativity and passion into creating a visual and interesting blog and as-well as an effective promotional package for my target audience. Although at times I was ever so stressed out with the load of work and effort that I had to put in, and the fact that I had horror involved in my every day life which was the worst part, I feel relieved and proud of what I have achieved. I feel like I may have not over come my fear of horror, but I fought my fight and did what I had to do. This whole process has been enjoyable and exciting, I am happy that I could write honestly without having to lie or say stuff like 'I love horror!' because we both know I do not. And I am sad to say that this journey has now ended, I have achieved what I could and this whole process has been truly amazing, and I am now happy to say that I will never watch a horror trailer, ever, ever, again. Yapee for me!
