Storyboards

How effective is the combination of your product and ancillary texts?

Risk Assessment

My Own Idea

My Own Idea The idea i had about a film was based in the woods, i got the idea of the location from Fritton woods which is near to the college. the story line i thought of was a group of young people going into the woods away from their families to have a party before all of them go their separate ways to different universities. over the weekend they were at their camp site a different set of happenings would happen that would see the size of the group diminish and slowly all of the characters would disappear and they start to fight back against the weird goings on. Eventually it will be a couple of people left when they are finally confronted by a killer who they knew from school and in their attempts to escape they have to face up to and kill the predator who has been hunting them down.

Poster and Magazine Ideas

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

Final Magazine

Final Poster

Finished Directors Cut Trailer

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

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

First Draft: Magazine Cover

First draft: Poster

Friday 13th Poster Analysis

The Grudge Poster Analysis

Scream 4 Poster Analysis

How Research Impacted Our Idea

Audience Research: Questionnaires

                       

Horror Trailer Conventions

Research and Planning

Audiences and Institutions: Woman in Black

First Draft of Trailer

Narrative Theories in Relation to Halloween and The Crazies

History of Horror

History of horror:

Roots of horror in classic literature:

·         "Frankenstein", "Dracula" and “Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” are the three best known original horror stories

·         Frankenstein raised a lot of controversy with science vs. religion arguments coming from the film. Also there was a controversial scene in the film where the monster throws a small girl into the lake imitating the act of throwing flowers in the lake. This was not common to see in films of the day.

·         Horror first properly originated in Britain in the late 18^th century

The silent era of horror

·         19^th century audiences enjoyed seeing ghosts captured in still photography. So it was natural that the techniques of superimposition would be transferred to new technologies so supernatural stories could be told in moving images.

·         The first horror movie was made in 1896 entitled “le manoir du diable”

1930’s

·         Horror movies were reborn in the 1930s with the addition of sound.

·         Sound adds another dimension to horror with the use of music to build suspense or to signal the presence of threat.

1940’s

·        At the end of world war 2, films about werewolves and cat people were beginning to be made.

·        Hitler himself had strong links to wolves, with his name (adolf) meaning noble wolf and also many nazi HQs being named after wolves.

·        Women at the end of the war were released from their roles in factories etc. and men took back their places. Women had shown they were capable of doing mens jobs and were actually quite dangerous and films represented this in films such as cat people, where female characters would trick men and then they would kill them.

Mutant creatures and alien invader

Most popular sci-fi films were “the thing”, and “the day the earth stood still” among others

The space race between Russia and America in the 50’s sparked an obsession with aliens and outer space. People believe technology was too advanced for the time and believed it would take over their lives.

Hammer Films

 Founded in 1934, a British horror film company but died down in the 1960s

·        It thrived worldwide in its best years

·        Its films were surprisingly big hits
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Slasher movies and body horror

·        Advancements in FX meant more gore could be shown on screen

·        An obsession with the human body and “what is inside” sparked an increased number or films with the main focus being on modifying or maiming the human body. 

Conventions of horror

Conventions of Horror

One of the conventions of a horror movie regarding the setting is that where the story is based has a past to it, for example an old lunatic asylum or a house where a death has happened and it is haunted by the ghost. A second example of a convention of a horror movie setting is that in most horror movies the setting is a small secluded town, or isolated place, or for example a quite neighborhood.

There are also technical codes in horror movies that become conventional to the genre. Firstly, for example, a naturally lit scene and secondly an example of a technical code that has become conventional to the horror genre is a strong sound mixing with footsteps being made louder in editing to build a sense of fear.

As with every movie genre, there are different iconographies within the genre that the audience can identify with. In the horror genre, iconographies include the colours Red and Black, which connote danger, blood, darkness and evil. Other forms of iconography which are related to the horror genre include icons of the supernatural like Ghosts, and demons and also signs of religion like crosses and other symbols. As well as this, there are also dolls and clowns which have become iconographic conventions of the horror genre.

The conventional narrative structure of a horror movie can follow many different paths. For example, out of a group of victims one becomes and obvious hero and sets themselves on a quest to destroy the evil and bring the killer to justice. Or for example in a supernatural horror film it is the job of the hero to send back the evil forces and restore a new normality.

A conventional character type of a horror film include: for the moster/killer, their identity is normally hidden and in some cases they have become psychotic by an event earlier in their life. a conventional victim in a horror film are a group of teenagers who are stupid/immoral.

Horror films also have conventional themes, for example the hidden evil inside (slashers) or what happens after death (supernatural horror films).