Who would be the audience for your media product (Question 4)

Our main audience for our film would be men and women aged from 15-30 as they are the most common ages of people that watch psychological horrors.

Our film is rated 15 by BBFC standards as it has no gore yet it is slightly too dark and scary for 0-14 year olds.

Guidelines and Classifications from BBFC

www.bbfc.co.uk/classification/guidelines

Horror films rated as 12 are allowed when the theme of the film is quite mild scares and the scares aren't that frequent throughout. Minor use of violence of sexual themes are allowed, also drug use shouldn't be used to give instructional detail. Explicit language mustn't be commonly used throughout the film. 







The horror content in a 15 rated film is allowed a quite appealing and evil threat, without use of sexual acts or sadistic scenes. Drug use is also permitted but should not be encouraged in any way. Gore is not permitted but strong language is allowed to be frequently used.







Any horror themes are allowed to be violent, sexual scenes, nudity, torture and sadistic scenes if the film is rated an 18. Yet scenes that breach criminal law for example detailed scenes of sexualised assault are most commonly unacceptable. Gore is acceptable also in this genre. Most extreme scenes are allowed to be 18 as people over 18 are allowed to choose what they watch.

Our Film Poster (Question 3)

This is our sample film poster, it follows similar conventions of other horror film posters as it shows the main threat in the image which in our the film is the house. We chose to make it black and white as many horror film posters don't have much colour in their posters to make them more intense and give a stronger feel. 

I inserted the films BBFC age certificate and inserted our production logo at the bottom (LastMinuteFilms) I also included the release date at the top to show the audience when the film will be out in the cinemas. I also included two reviews from top newspapers about the film to lure the audience in and I have seen this a lot on film posters therefore we decided to add it in to our poster. 

Release Diary:

Cinema Release: 28th March 2012

DVD Release:  20th July 2012

This is our production logo which follows certain conventions for horror production logos as the text is quite splattered and almost represents blood apart from it not being red. We decided to make it more of a dirty brown colour because red is very commonly used in production logos. We also used a black background to allow it to stand out as it would be crowded with a detailed background.

This is 'Twisted Pictures' logo who play with the name of their company within the logo by making what is almost barbed wire twisted around the text and use the big spike in the middle to separate the two words. This keeps it very simple and down to earth, the black background helps the logo stand out much more as it wouldn't stand out very well with a coloured background.

Here 'Lionsgate' use a very dark, striking, horror looking red. The typeface is very big, bold and square, it stands out to the audience it is almost very serious as a font. The layout is simple as the title is big and bold in the middle surrounded by dark red clouds, this makes the title very iconic as almost straightaway the logo is recognisable without even properly reading the text. The logo establishes the scary horror theme and the stone coloured text suggests the realism and seriousness of the company and sets quite a mysterious tone

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

In marketing, distribution is the process of moving a product from its manufacturing source to its customers. In film, distribution is the phase after packaging. The package will be on some distribution medium such as a DVD or may be simply located on a server where customers can download it electronically. Distribution is also the process of getting your film seen, promoting your film using advertising such as posters and trailers. 


We might distribute our film in ways such as posters and trailers using examples for inspiration:

This film is distributed by Dimension Films who have a parent company who are Walt Disney; a major distributor. This poster is quite striking as it shows the typical 'Scream' mask which is commonly known for many film fans to show the film is 'Scream'. The mask blends into a blade which shows the film is quite evil and obviously a slasher. Colours are mainly black, white and red which are commonly known as quite common colours for horror films. The text is very basic and bold and makes it clear, they also changed the A in 'Scream' for a 4 to show it's the 4th film. 

The trailer also fits in with the theme of the poster, the titles are blacks, greys and reds and also in the same text style of what is used in the poster. There is dramatic horror tension building music throughout the trailer and jump scenes. It draws in the viewer using things such as tension building music and smooth dark titles. Also the trailer goes from quite slow clips to very fast paced clips. This keeps the viewer entertained so they do not get bored watching the trailer, the trailer finishes with everything going fast paced and the main threat is shown many times. It is topped off with the title 'SCRE4M' in the same style as it is on the posters fading into the distance. 

This poster for 'Shrooms' was distributed by Vertigo Films who are an independent UK film company. The poster is quite similar to the scream poster as it uses black and white with hints of green/blue, but mainly it has almost a skull face in the moon similar to the mask face on scream's poster. The text is a lot more basic in this poster and is almost blurred white lines coming from the text. This poster actually includes more of a background unlike 'Scream' which just had a black background with the threat. The titles and text work around this picture and the layout works really well. Although given that it is distributed by an independent film company the poster doesn't look somewhat as professional as the 'Scream' poster which was distributed by a major media institution. 

This trailer is very well done and keeps the viewer watching, it is a slow start with long length shots and as the trailer goes on and the music gets more intense the clips begin to shorten and more events happen in them. The fonts used are the same that are used for the title 'Shrooms' yet at the end of the trailer isn't the same font as used in the poster. Colours used in the title are greys and whites such as in the poster again, at the end of the trailer the clips get very jumpy with scenes of the threat. 

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The victim here is a white american female aged probably late 20s, by the looks of her appearance and home she is most probably working class possibly middle class. She is represented being very anxious and quite scared, due to this she can't sleep and wakes. The threat however is quite a tall long haired white male who looks around 30/40 years old, he is wearing quite dark clothing and is probably working class. He is represented as very short tempered when he sees the woman he suddenly becomes quite angry which scares the woman. This follows a lot of stereotypes and the dominant ideology that males are the dominant gender and are more controlling over women therefore they scare women very easily.

The victim in this scene is a white young boy aged roughly around 10, he is represented as quite scared and worried again probably because he is younger. Strange things are happening around what looks like his home and he is very anxiously exploring to try and find the source of the strange sounds. He is almost quite brave as he explores the house and confronts the threat. This challenges many stereotypes as most people will believe young boys to be easily scared and not to confront threats head on or try and find the problem. The threat is a white girl roughly aged the same as the boy who is represented looking very sad and ill, she doesn't look that threatening as most stereotypical psychological threats. This challenges stereotypes and also the fact that the girl is now the threat and the boy is the victim is challenging the stereotype from the previous video.

How has your planning evidenced your understanding of social groups representation?

We chose the male actor because he seemed to fit the part. As he looks quite old and mature, because of his facial hair, he's an English white slim character which fits the stereotypes of most psychological horror couples. 

The female actress also fits the part as she looks the right age to suit the male actor and looks very mature. She is also slim and white English which suits the stereotypes of psychological horrors again. 

The story of a new couple moving into a new house trying to start a life fits our actors appropriately. There seems to be strange behaviour in the neighbor hood, and weird happening from inside the house too. This fits with the conventions of modern psychological horror films as most of them seem to be young couples being haunted because of their house of their family.

Our target audience is mainly 15-25 year olds as they match the age of the victims so it will reference to them and their lifestyle much more than for example a 70 year old man watching the film. People who will watch this will probably be working class couples that are interest in horror films.

Reflective Evaulation

These images below show how our film has used, developed and challenged forms and conventions of existing media products.



This logo follows the stereotypical features of a psychological horror such as the main colour used is red which tends to represent blood in horrors and evil. Black is also used because horrors are dark and mysterious, the font used looks quite traditional almost but the ends of the letters are slightly split and twisted to probably represent evil and horror. The title is very large on the screen to almost jump out at you, the text is also written in capitals to maybe suggest realism and seriousness.

This is our logo for our film, it follows stereotypical features of quite a scary dripping horror look. It is not that similar to the Insidious title though. However it still gives off the same obvious message that the film is a horror, it still uses dark colours and quite striking text. The text here is also in capitals to suggest realism and seriousness of the film.

These titles are from 'Sixth Sense' and follow a very stereotypical psychological horror sequence, the text is again in capitals and there is also an old monochrome background of a city. There is also a black vignette around the video to create the mystery and a slight sense of the unknown. The font used is quite crooked and slightly odd looking, the text is also in white to match the black and white theme of the sequence.

 These are the titles for our film which follow stereotypical horror conventions as the text is capitalised and quite different looking. The visuals are also an old book that is being blown about in the wind which follows stereotypical psychological horrors which usually show strange objects in strange locations.

This picture is of a character out of Insidious and this image instantly shows that the film is a psychological horror, this is because firstly you can notice the lighting is used from below and creates deep shadows on the face to show possible stress or worry on the character possibly because of surroundings. Secondly the woman looks quite serious and almost as if she is looking at something evil. The woman is also dressed as far as we can see in normal clothes which is the stereotypical costume of a psychological horror for the victims.

Here in our film you can see straightaway this film is a horror due to the lighting causing dark shadows on the characters face showing clear scared and worried emotion. This character also looks like she has possibly seen or is about to find something quite evil and scary. She is dressed quite normally as most victims are in psychological horrors. 

This image clearly shows that the character shown is an evil character, this is shown by the use of pale white make-up and dark around the eyes. The use of costume also shows that this character is an evil woman as it is wearing a dress with a weird veil covering the characters face. The candle the character is holding also creates dark shadows on the characters face creating an evil look. This is not always the stereotypical look for a psychological horror enemy. But it does relate to some psychological demons and ghosts.

In our film we didn't actually show a clear shot of our threat or evil character as it was more psychological within the house and not necessarily visible. Our main threat was inside the cupboard where strange noises and sounds were coming from. You could tell this was evil due to the sound editing we added and the tension built up to opening the cupboard.

This image is a perfect example of stereotypical mise en scene for a psychological horror film containing demons. As you can see there is very dark and moody lighting in the room creating dark corners and mysterious shapes. The room is a stereotypical boy's bedroom which would be considered very normal as stereotypically in psychological horrors the victim's lives are normal until the plot unfolds. There is almost a strange demon shaped figure in the corner reaching out for the boy which gives a great sense of danger to the scene. There is also hospital equipment being used as props to show possibly pain and unease, this makes the audience believe there is something already not so right about the boy in the bed.

Here is a good example of mise en scene as This shows the audience that this film is about moving into a house that's being haunted, which is a typical theme from psychological horrors of today.The rule of thirds is also used here as the threat is in the thirds line showing the audience that this character walking past is significant to the movie. 

 I chose this key image because I believe it shows the stereotypical couple from many psychological horror films, as you can see the woman looks very worried from her facial expression and the man is seen to be trying to keep the woman calm with a slightly worried look himself. The costumes used are very casual normal clothes as are the couple. This is seen to be very common in modern psychological horrors as the victims are seen to be normal people to show things can happen to anyone.

This key image shows the main victim from our film, we were originally going to use a couple in our film but we had to make changes due to not being able to get the right actors. But a young female is very stereotypical of psychological horrors as they are commonly chosen to play as the victims in many of todays horrors. Here she looks very vulnerable and alone with a slightly confused and worried look.

 I chose this key image as I believe it is very shocking image from the psychological horror 'Insidious' and shows the evil happening to the normal everyday family. As you can see the bed sheets have been torn and stained with blood in the shapes of hand prints. The boy on the floor looks like the main victim here and is unconscious on the floor while his parents are trying to make sure he is okay. This is a very stereotypical situation in a psychological horror containing a family as the most vulnerable (the youngest) is usually targeted as the audience normally care more for children.

This key image from our film shows our character about to be shocked by what she sees in the cupboard. This a good jump scare yet the audience don't actually see what is in the cupboard which keeps the audience thinking of what could be in there. They have to presume the worst by the emotion that is about to be shown on the victim's face.

 This shot is very important i think as it shows the very normal looking father from insidious being almost mocked by as we can see the evil character in the story. The make-up used on the demon is very striking colours; red and black. Which are usaully represented as evil colours for example red can mean blood and black is dark and mysterious, the unknown. This shot is very striking and is used to shock the audience in the film with a slight jump-scare. Which is a very common way to scare the audience in psychological horrors.

I think this shot is a key image as it shows the victim being teased or mocked by the threat by it walking past the window and making the victim go to the window yet not seeing anything or anyone. This is very common in many modern day psychological horrors as the main threats tend to lead the victims onto places or do things they may not want to.

I chose this image as a key image as I believe it is a very stereotypical view on psychological horrors, the mother is standing in the dark room shocked by what must be something evil that the mother did not expect. The lighting used in this creates quite a mysterious feeling and a sense of the unknown. The camera is mainly focused on her to show the audience that she is very important in this shot and should be noticed to show the audience that something bad has happened. There is also a man holding technical equipment in the background to make the shot even more mysterious and for the audience to think 'what is going on?' this is a good use of props and backing up the ideology of modern psychological horrors.

I chose this image because like above I believe this is a very important part of our film and very stereotypical in psychological horrrors. The victim has just opened the cupboard and has almost a shocked expression because the victims face is almost blank in shock. The lighting causes a very dark feel to the shot and gives off the impression something very evil is inside the cupboard. This makes the audience think and try to guess what horrible thing could of been inside.