Ben Bowen: 2012

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

For our media product, ‘Mind the Gap’ we tried to use horror conventions, while still using completely original ideas which went against usual horror conventions. We did this so that our audience would know what genre the film was, while also showing them that it is not like all other horror films, that it would have original ideas to keep them excited and to want to keep watching.

One of the main horror conventions is that it is in the dark, this is used in the majority of successful horror films as it plays on the common fear of the dark. In the opening scene the sky is pitch black, apart from the full moon which is often associated to unnatural things (Dog Soldiers, a 2002 film about Werewolves uses the full moon as the point in which they transform), where as the second scene is a little bit lighter, although getting dark, which not only shows the time difference between the two, but shows that the second scene is actually the start of what is to come, where as the first scene is when it is at its peak.

Another convention which is obvious in our piece is that ‘The Follower’, the villain in our piece’ is always dressed in black, while Amber, the victim, is dressed in white clothes, the two contrasting colours symbolise two different things, the white, the innocence and vulnerability, while the black symbolising danger and evil. It could also have connotations to heaven and hell, the dark representing a creature from hell and the white something from heaven this is portrayed well in ‘Psycho’ as ‘Marianne’ is shown in elegant white clothes, while ‘Norman Bates’ in dark clothes, showing the audience the huge difference between character’s morals and roles.

What makes our piece much more effective however is the fact that there is also points which are unusual to a horror film; the way our piece is structured means that the ending comes at the beginning, and it then cuts back and shows how it started, this is very unusual and keeps the audience on edge as they are aware something will happen, but they do not know how why where etc. We also cut before ‘The Follower’ actually kills Amber as it leaves it to the audience’s imagination, rather than telling them that that is how she dies, it keeps it open and exciting for the audience, a film which uses this effectively is ‘Silence of the Lambs’ as they leave ‘Hanninabal Lector’ following a man who is hinted at that he is going to kill, but you do not get to see it which lets the audience decide what happens.

Another convention we have challenged is that of the villain being in the dark, as whenever you see ‘The Follower’ in our piece, he is in some kind of light, the majority of the time underneath a lamp, I think that this gives a much more eerie effect as it makes him seem as though even though he can be seen, you cannot predict what he is going to do, the fact that he seems to disappear and reappear without ever actually seeing him move makes him extremely scary to the audience as it creates an effect that you cannot run or hide from the villain. I think the way we have portrayed ‘The Follower’ is more effective than how other horror films portray their villains as he always almost inanimate, which completely separates him from the audience and shows that he is the character that you are not supposed to sympathise with.

Another convention we went against was that of setting, where usual stereotypes place their victim in a forest, dark old house, etc. We set the main portion of ours in a station, which

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

When choosing what characters we were going to have in our piece, we thought choosing a character like Amber would be most effective, as having a late teen girl on her own shows her vulnerability, and as a large portion of our audience would be of a similar age so could relate to her.

From the two scenes you do not learn too much about from her apart from the fact of what she is wearing, which is light coloured fashionable clothes in the second scene, such as her leather jacket, white scarf & white vest top and just the white vest top in the first scene, which shows her growing vulnerability. The fact that there is no dialogue and or extra information about Amber means it leaves the audience to guess about her character, and means that she will appeal to the sympathy of a much larger audience, whether it be relating to themselves, a sister, girlfriend of an audience member etc. We also gave her an I phone which is very modern and shows that she is a teenager involved in new social trends. On the phone she is texting at the station, the text on the phone actually says “ Where are you”, and Amber replies “On the way” which shows she is planning on getting on a train but as the audience have already seen, she does not get to her destination, but at this point Amber does not know, which makes the audience feel awkward as they know what is to come.

We dressed ‘the Follower’ in dark clothes, wearing a hoodie obscuring his face. The fact that he is wearing a hoodie relates him to youth, which attracts another audience who is more scared of real life issues like violence in youth. The fact that you never see ‘the Followers’ face or learn anything of him leaves the audience to guess at his appearance and makes him a much more mysterious character overall. The fact that you never see him wielding a weapon makes him also creepier as it gives him the effect that he does not need a weapon to do his damage to his victim.

What kind of media institution would distribute your media product and why?

I believe that our media product would be more of an arthouse production, an independent film rather than a more mainstream production. I think this as the ideas explored in out film are quite unusual for a normal horror film, and actually go against many of the usual conventions of horror so is therefore hard to compare to other films and there production company. But if I were to choose a company which best fit our film, it would be possibly be Paramount Pictures as it produces a large amount of films, including horrors, which can be lightly related to our piece. It is also one of the top production companies, so its logo and name would attract fans just from its reputation who know that it produces good quality films. The fact that they produce a wide range of films would also be an advantage as it would attract an audience of people who would not usually be drawn to a horror film. But most likely it would be a Film4 production, as they are known for taking chances on original and different films. A good example of a film they produced is ‘127 Hours’ a

biographical survival drama film, with James Franco, a well known actor playing the lead role. It received just under $11 million gross revenue so it shows that films under Film 4 can be very successful even with an experimental film, so would work well with ‘Mind the Gap’.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Name: Luke Pepper

Gender: Male

Age: Twenty Three

Education: Third Year at Royal Holloway University studying Business Management, 3 A-levels, 10 GCSE’s

Interests: Sports, Movies, X-Box, Pubs

Current Occupation: Security at club

Name: Catherine Barrett

Gender: Female

Age: Seventeen

Education: First year in Knights Templar School 6^th Form studying Statistics, Dance, English and Biology.

Interests: Dance, Movies, Magazines, Parties

Current Occupation: Waitress at Pub

I have done two character profiles to portray the different sides of our target audience and how wide the variety can be. Our film has a 15 certificate and although there is no specific age on our target audience, we predict that the majority of audience will be between fifteen and late twenties. First of all there is Luke, who is twenty three, so an older member of our predicted audience, I think that our film would be suited to him as he is an outgoing man, who is a big fan of movies. As you can see in his photos he is an outdoors kind of person and is a bit of a thrill seeker, so would enjoy our film as all his personality traits show that he would like the thrill of our horror, but also with his age would appreciate the storyline behind it and as he is a fan of films would enjoy the structure of the plot and the excitement of how it is revealed. He is a University student so will have a lot of time off to watch films & also most do not have kids or many responsibilities so can afford to enjoy themselves. Where as Catherine is seventeen, so more to the younger end of our target audience. She is of similar age to the victim in our piece and also has to travel via train to 6^th Form each day so can relate to character on a few levels, where Luke would enjoy it just for the story and the thrill, Catherine could relate to the character further so would probably would probably be more scared than appreciating the story line and structure, even though she is a big fan of films. As you can see by her photo, she enjoys being out and is open to knew things, so our production would most likely appeal to her as she can relate to the characters and will scare her more. Although as she is still at school, means that she still has responsibilities and most likely not as much free money to spend, although would most likely have enough to be able to occasionally attend the cinema. The reason I chose two different possible audience members was to show that people from the two different ends of the scale would still enjoy the film even though they are of different ages, genders, have different interests etc. So basically our film is open to a wide range of people.

How did you attract/address your audience?

We tried to attract our audience by having the main character/victim as someone who can relate to either the audience member, or someone close to an audience member, which makes the film much more scary as it makes it feel much more realistic and as though it could happen, which is ultimately the thrill that people who enjoy horror films look for. We also put the audience into a situation from the beginning that it shows the ending, of the victim and ‘The Follower’ and a very climatic scene, so they know that this is going to happen, but have no idea on how, why, who etc. So it draws the audience into the story right from the beginning. And in the second scene the audience know that something is coming, where as the character does not, so it puts them into an awkward position where they have a mix of sympathy and anticipation. So throughout our film, it keeps them excited and on there toes. Also, when we opened into the second scene, while still on the blackout a train station announcement goes on, which is a familiar sound to the audience, and the only voice in the project, so puts the audience into a false sense of calm, but almost immediately after she stops talking the eerie high pitched music which was playing all through the first scene plays, which tells the audience that they were wrong to think that everything was ok. Overall all of these methods we used were to keep the audience excited and on there toes, and keeps there attention throughout. When we asked fellow teenagers there opinion of our film, the females stated that they got the thrill out of relating to the fear of the character, while the boys found the special effects such as ‘The Follower’ disappearing behind the train more eerie.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

In the entire project of making our film I learnt many things, how many different types of effects you can get from the camera, just by changing the pitch, height, it’s movement etc. For example in the opening scene the different shot types move from feeling in the position of the killer and watching Amber with a tracking shot which gives a sense of voyeurism and makes the audience feel uncomfortable, to being in the position of Amber from a low angle shot, which gives a sense of helplessness and vulnerability. I also learnt how you should never dispose of footage until it is fully edited and put together, as something that can originally look like some bad footage, can look brilliant once put together with music and fully edited. Some of the problems that came our way when trying to film where on the first occasion when filing the train station scene was that when we set up the tripod and got everything ready, we realised the camera was out of battery! This taught us to always check the equipment is working before you set up. Although, because of this, we used our phone cameras and did practice shots from different angles, and as we only had a short period of time where the light was perfect for our scene, it gave us a good perspective and a well needed practice for the real thing. The next problem that we occurred was that when doing the forest scene, we needed it to look an hour after the train scene so in darkness basically, but with no natural light and only the street light as un-natural light, the shots were much to dark, so we improvised and used the lights from our phones; there was a point when ‘The follower’ is chasing Amber from his point of view, and George( the follower) was actually running after Amber with the camera, with me running behind with the lights in my hand, and although what felt comical at the time, when watching it, it is actually very eerie and effective with the light almost looking like moonlight.

In the editing room, our one major problem was that of when ‘the follower disappears behind the train, when filming, George moved a second early and you could see his knees move, but we overcame this as the camera was stationary and the train was moving so fast, we just needed to cut out the frames where you could see him move and it worked perfectly

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

As we did our preliminary task as a comic piece and our main as the horror it may seem a disadvantage, but I think seeing it from both perspectives actually gave us a better view on how the horror shots should and should not look. In our preliminary task all of our shots were not very organised, and we were not very disciplined, and used shots which still had problems and continuity problems with them for example when they are sat down in the room one shot shows people sitting in the background, and when it cuts back they are gone and would have been seen in the camera if they had moved. Where as in the real thing we knew exactly what shots we needed each time and worked effectively in the time we had to get the shots, and would only use shots which were perfect or that could be edited to look perfect. Also in the main task when editing we would all be there, so that any decision could be mutually agreed and worked on so that we were all happy with what was happening. Our group relationship became better for the main as we all were determined to get each section of making our film done successfully and with good quality.