Evaluation 3 - The voiceover (gathering infomation)

For the question of evaluation 3 'What kind of media institution might distribute our media product and why ?'we had to research distribution companies. The role of a distributor is to bring a movie to the market place and deliver the correct audience to the chosen film. This is done through finding a films USP (unique selling point) and using this to aim a film at an audience, blockbusters like 'King Kong' or 'Transformers' for example to be aimed at children and the family so best to show these in the summer months etc. British independent distribution companies do this through  a similar way  acquiring ideas from film festivals such as 'Cannes' for example.

We found this information through our research, due to my sick leave however i started this research a bit later then planned however i soon caught up. We began looking for a distribution for our own 'short horror' looking into  various companies such as 'working title' however due to their 'comedy' reputation with making films like 'Paul' with comedy duo Simon Pegg and Nick Frost we choose to avoid them as our own film was that of the horror genre.

We ultimately found Film 4 (a well known and successful film distributor) was the best choice for our horror short 'The River' with its work on films such as 'Monsters' and 'The Cat With Hands' we thought they would be best to distribute our film with links such as these.

Final version of 'The River'

We originally believed that the previous draft of our movie would be the final version of our film however we later discovered that we should have put our jobs into the opening title sequence. Although it was harder to fit in as we had to still allow reading time for the audience while making sure it fitted in with the movie overall we managed it, mentioning the my role as writer and director, Josh Spoelstra's roles as editor and producer as well as Jonathon Fromont's role as director of photography.

Here is the final version of our film at last, enjoy :

Media horror opening evaluation 2 - How does your media product represent particuluar social groups ?

In our horror movie we made sure that the characters were relatible, relating to specific social groups as well as being stereotypical to the horror genre eg. an antagonist through a murderer, creature etc. This was shown how we choose masked villains, which clearly relate to many other horror films which included masked villains, 'Jason',Halloween as well as the scream franchise etc. We picked characters that we felt resembled the stereotypical and conventional cast of the horror genre and hopefully showed this quite clearly in our production. The character from the film who i will be using as an example to explain how we linked characters to a social group(s) i will explore below. -

In this evaluation i will be comparing the main character of my horror movie opening 'The River' with the main protagonist from 'A stranger calls'. Although their roles vary slightly they do have quite a few similarities, for example they both resemble a similar group of people being teens of the ages 17-19. Both characters appear quite similar in personalities also, getting annoyed at a younger brothers,texting on phones etc which both are quite stereotypical aspects for the social group of a typical teen. Teenagers often feature in horror films,so the use of  characters such as these are quite conventional to the genre. Teenagers like these are used in horror so frequently, as stereotypically they are thought of as vulnerable to an audience, and also they appear with a lesser intellect on average, again to heighten the mistakes they make thus furthering the gore and violence in a horror film. Teens are also used a lot in horror as the main  target audience is generally people of the same age so this makes them much more relatible to the audience, being the same age and being put in similar situations etc.

The two characters above are both targeted by the antagonist of the film and this is another way they relate, being victims of some sort of evil/horrific attack, they both have similar stereotypical personalities of a teenager and this is needed for their place in the horror genre, both characters also appear to be somewhat similar so i think it is evident of their relations.

Horror Movie Opening Evaluation: Activity 1

Activity one: In what ways does the media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. of film openings)

After studying various horror film openings such as 'Halloween' and ' A Stranger Calls' , we made our own by carefully following the key conventions of the horror genre such as the correct lighting, music, characters, story, location etc. After making an appropriate story and planning a storyboard we found our chosen location which we chose as the woods, we gathered the props and a stereotypical horror cast of our own group, (Jonathon Fromant and Josh Spoelstra) and additions in Rowen Elliot, Michael Walters and Harry Smith. After editing, finding a logo  and finally after a critical evaluation from the class, we improved the opening for our own evaluations.

I am going to analyze our horror opening myself by exploring how our product uses, develops, and challenges the forms and conventions of real media products by examining nine key shots below. I decided to choose these shots as they are key to the opening in representing many aspects of our film, such as the title, the setting,costumes,camerawork,the title's font,the story, the genre and the introduction of characters as well as some of the special effects used in it.

This is the production logo for our horror opening and it is also the first shot in our film. We choose this as our logo because a raven is stereotypically though of as a symbol of death, and this has been its general connotation throughout time so I thought it would be appropriate in linking with the genre of horror. This makes it link quite nicely with the conventions of a typical horror film. The logo also looks quite modern and by it coming out of a blue screen it links with the 3D era that is a very popular at the moment, it also emphasis that our films are detailed,modern and also have a classic feel to them with this neat font. This appears to challenge the conventions of horror as it doesn't look as modern as the logo itself does, however it does imply that our logo has classic elements from films that modern films lack, and this is what I wanted to convey to the audience. The general colours such as red,orange and black also clearly connote death/danger which goes along with the general conventions of horror films today.

This is our second shot from our horror opening, our title sequence. Our title sequence is a pan across the river itself, with black titles appearing slowly then disappearing. I did this because a river can be a dangerous thing with connotations of drowning etc, it also links with the title of the production as well. The shot acts as an establishing shot too by showing that our opening is based around a river and a wood. the isolation that comes with this shot is also quite efficient especially for the conventions of horror as it shows that our characters are all alone and the river,bare trees and the shadows here shown here also connote horror as the audience has most likely seen other horror films in woods so they can already have some expectation of what could happen here. The font used also looks quite ominous.

This was our main prop throughout our opening and it was very effective in driving the story forward as the whole plot featured around it. This is sometimes the case in other horror movies like a group looking for something etc but not for all, so it can be seen as to both challenge and use the convention in the horror film. Although the ball may not be completely conventional to the genre it's the reason why the children go deeper into the wood. It later acts as a tragic device as after its found the first time and a scream is heard the audience expects that whenever its found something bad will happen so this gives the audience a bit of predictability, developing conventions of such other horror films, so the audience can begin to feel the rise in tension produced in the scene. The ball also shows the increase of evil throughout the opening as with the colour white (a connotation for purity) then being tainted by blood connotation of evil/danger, showing how the children s purity and innocence has been taken away by evil forces.

This shot is the climax of our opening and it works well by foreboding whats to come to the audience. This shot was originally filled with numerous effects such as ghosting, which made the two masked men appear inhuman, the two masked characters themselves can easily be related to films such as 'Scream' as well as 'Halloween' so they clearly link with the horror genre, the original special effects worked very well and really appealed well to the horror conventions however in the end they had to be removed because they went blurry, this is a shame as it would have greatly added to our opening, effects like this are used quite often in horror productions featuring ghosts etc.

This shot  comes near the end of our horror opening and this was done to show that what just happened is nothing to whats to come so this gives many expectations for the audience to look forward to. The titles in horror films are often shown after the opening itself, like in 'Drag Me To Hell' for example, by giving an explanation of the title and also hooks them into what to expect further on. The title itself links with the typical conventions of horror as films often use 'the' then something else as titles, for example 'The Others', 'The Thing' etc, so i thought 'The River' would be quite appropriate. The title itself is in quite an ominous font and the 'waving' of it links to it through water etc. The colours are also key here as 'white' connotes goodness whilst 'black' connotes evil, as their is more black here it emphasizes the sheer amount of evil compared to good in the film.

The story is set up quite nicely with the introduction of the two antagonists of our opening it clearly addresses the genre through a masked villain and also sets up the story to come, that its about strange masked men in the woods, so this shot is very effective in setting up the story to come for the film by including such key conventions of the horror genre. This shot also gives a look into costume with the white mask, it shows how a simple mask can add the difference, just a normal man wouldn't appear as scary as this does, so the mask does add a lot and links to other horror films such as 'Scream' and 'Halloween' as I mentioned previously. So overall our horror film both addresses the story and forebodes what is to come as well as establishing the genre of our production.

This shot is near the beginning of our opening and it nicely introduces the main characters to the audience with their names appearing near them, allowing them to link names to faces, this is done in various other films also, not horror alone. The audience get to see the opening's victim's relationship and realize that they are average people which makes them quite relatible indeed. In this shot the two are addressed in a mid-shot, so both characters are visible side by side, showing their relationship etc. The two characters also link to stereotypical victims of a average horror movie as well, seeming young,weak and defenseless, following the conventions of typical horror victims.

This shot is of Michael (the first victim of our opening). For this low angle shot we didn't have a ladder so i needed to kneel down on the ground to give it the point of view of Rowen, showing that the character is higher up then he actually is, so it seems more realistic when the drop of blood fell on the ball from a high. This shot adds to the realism and fools the audience in thinking hat he is high up in a tree, rather then just on the ground. For this shot we used a skipping rope as the rope that was use to hang him and we also decided to put this shot in black and white to show that 'Rowen's' world has just crashed around her, seeing her brother in such a way. I think this shot develops the conventions of horror with a variety of shot types, showing that evil can be lurking anywhere and i think this is good  to show to the audience so they don't expect where the danger will come from and this is clearly developed from this scene as the danger surprisingly comes from above. I feel that the editing is key in this scene as well, again using dark colours known to the horror genre and a variety of editing effects should make it more engaging for the audience.


I believe that our media product has incorporated the conventions of horror well and also has developed such conventions, which is shown by the tense atmosphere of the production beginning with a reasonably happy scene which begins to spiral out of control until the main cast of the opening die, I think this is very accurate to horror and story as a whole beginning with a happy scene then transferring to a complication as it were.

Horror Movie opening: 'The River' final draft.

This is likely to be the final version of our horror film, after two critical responses from the class we improved our film from the feedback and to a standard we were happy with so hopefully it comes across better and looks improved to the inital draft of which I uploaded earliar.

Props in our horror film

We used a range of props in our production such as a rope which we used for Micheal's death scene, we also used ketchup as blood and masks for the antagonists to make them appear as scary as possible. We also used a football which was the main prop in our film, the ball was chosen as white to show its purity and innocence and when the blood fell upon it it showed it was tainted which resembles the characters innocent teens/children oblivious to the dangers of the forest then suffering for it by the hands of the 'masked ones' the blood being spilled showing their innocence and purity is forever gone.

Horror Movie Opening storyboard

We posted these later then we wanted because of apparent problems with the scanner. This storyboard shows the plot of our opening, aswell as action,sound type,camera movement, type of shot, the edit etc in each shot. After the storyboard was made however we did change a few things such as an extra scene at the end to emphasise the opening was not the final thing as we had our title appear at the ending. We also changed some edits throughout and also put in some extra effects such as when we put Michael's hanging scene in black and white, which made it more conventional to horror and emphasised that the girl's world had crashed around her. Some of the shots also changed when filming the real thing also, some were removed to reduce time.