Final Export Of Unknown

Official Radio Trailer for 'Unknown'

Official Poster for 'Unknown'

Evaluation: Question 4

Evaluation: Question 3

 Here is the evaluation based around audience feedback:

Evaluation: Question 2

Evaluation: Question 1

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

I feel that we've successfully observed and understood the conventions of things such as continuity and editing and this is evident through our final products. Not only did we understand the importance of these technical elements within our short film but we also maintained this idea of continuity throughout our poster and radio trailer. Within our film we used editing effectively as we used a range of fast and slow paced editing. This is common within our chosen genre (horror) as it helps create an uneasy atmosphere within the audience as the pace if the editing is constantly changing. Therefore the audience aren't given the chance to feel comfortable while watching our film. This use of editing helps create a sense of intensity which is one of Richard Dyer's Utopian Solutions which features within his theory of entertainment. This constant change of pace within the film connotes that the character on screen is experiencing a large amount of fear and because of this intense emotion within the film, it provides a sense of entertainment for the audience as in the real world, it is rear for the audience to experience such a large saturation of emotion in one moment, therefore providing a form of escapism from reality. A film that uses the pace of editing in a similar way is 'Drag me to Hell' and one scene that stands out is the ending. At the beginning of the scene, it is connoted to the audience that the equilibrium within the narrative has been restored so therefore, slow paced editing is used, making sure that there is no tension in the audience whatsoever. Then, later on it proves that it was a false sense of restoration as the male character pulls out a button that is cursed and this is where there is a very obvious change in pace and this is constantly changing throughout the scene, changing from fast to slow paced editing and this makes the audience feel uneasy and this is what we did when editing our film to help make the audience feel uneasy and frightened.

Another element that we used within our film that compliments the conventions of the horror genre is the idea of an anti-climax. In every film ever made, no matter what the genre is, there is always some form of climax and in the horror genre, producers, directors and editors like to experiment with climaxes and also anti-climaxes.  An anti-climax is where there is some form of build up within a film (this is generally done using tense music or the pace of editing) and after this build up, there is an underwhelming event that ends the build up. We use an anti-climatic moment within our film as we use tense music to build up the tension and fear within the scene and this is used as the main character walks towards a door in which a figure is stood on the other side. Then as the door is opened, the figure turns out to be a pizza delivery man and the music cuts. This creates and anti-climax and creates a false sense of fear within the audience. This appears in many horror films as it stimulates the imagination of the audience, making them feel scared of something that actually isn't very scary. This helped contribute to making a successful short film from the horror genre.

Protagonist walking towards the door - Music is building
setting up for a 'climax'

Music cuts when pizza guy is revealed - anticlimactic

Another feature that we decided to use within our short film is the idea of a twist at the end. Many horror films tend to use twists to conclude their film as it can usually lead onto sequels. However, short film makers tend to use them to make the audience think about what could possibly happen next, stimulating their imaginations once again. We decided to use this as we thought it would be effective to not reveal what is ultimately causing the knocking. Within our film, we make the audience think that the knocking that is being heard throughout the film is being caused by the pizza delivery guy. However at the end of the film, after the pizza guy leaves, the knocking is heard once again and the films ends. This creates a sense of mystery as the audience perception is changed. This use of narrative is used in the previous clip from the film 'Drag me to Hell' as the audience believe that the main character has finally been freed from the curse but then it turns out that the cursed button has never left her, which ultimately leads to the protagonist being 'dragged to hell'. 

After using all of these elements that usually appear in horror films, I feel that we have created a very tense and gripping short film. We maintained continuity throughout and we've used iconic conventions of narrative and editing as well as mise-en-scene such as a night time setting and a single character on her own throughout the majority of the film.

Notes for Video (Evaluation Question 3)

Here is the notes for my video where I will talk about what we learnt from our audience feedback. I will use these notes as a guide when I am speaking within my video

Notes for video from JamiiSmiith

Feedback from our Second Audience Questionnaire

Audience Feedback Questionnaire for the Final Film

Radio Trailer Script

Here is the script for the voice over that will feature in our Radio Trailer. The Voice over will be done by Millie England

The Process of Making our Film Poster

To begin with, we started off with a black background and then we decided to insert an image of our main character with eerie (green/yellow) lighting. This looks effective as it looks as if the main character is surrounded by darkness and this gives off a sense of vulnerability and this is common for the horror genre. Also, after this image was placed, we changed the hue and the saturation of the image to give it more of an impact. This makes the colours a lot more eerie and helps submerge the character into the darkness of the black background. The saturation of her face also gives it a slightly vintage look which works well for the horror genre.

Next we decided to insert the film title. Originally the font we chose was black and obviously this wouldn't work with this poster as it wouldn't be visible so using Adobe Illustrator we image traced the font. This helped make the font a lot more solid and easier to work with as it was extremely difficult to get rid of the white background that came with the font. We then expanded the font and used the live paint bucket tool to change the colour of the font from black to red. This really compliments the dark colours used within the poster and this choice of colour makes it obvious to the audience what kind of film they are going to watch. We used red as it is a convention of horror films.

Then we began to incorporate general elements of a film poster. We decided to use the 'Steel Tongs' font to add generic information about the film including roles and who performed each role. We decided to use this font in grey as we felt that using white would contrast the black background and this would have taken the eerie feel away from the poster so we decided to go for grey font.

After that, we decided to add a tag line to our poster. The words "Knock Knock" link to our film as the main character can hear a knocking noise coming from somewhere in the house. The colour of the font here looks really effective as it is similar to the colour in the photograph of the protagonist and also looks slightly dis-coloured, connoting to the audience that there is something strange going on.

Finally, we added some final details to the poster and these included elements such as the age certificate of the film, the production logo and also reviews from film magazines and websites. This helped make the poster look a lot more professional and ultimately create a better composition, making it easier for the eyes of the audience.

 

Horror Film Soundtrack

Theme Songs by Bands and Singers

The remake of Fright Night made in 2011 has Hugo's cover of  Jay-Z's 99 Problems as it's theme song heard at the end of the film.

The Lost Boys film from 1987 has the theme song Cry Little Sister written by Gerard McMann and Michael Mainieri and was performed by McMann.

Stephen King's 1986 film Maximum Overdrive has the AC/DC song Who Made Who as it's theme song.

Horror Film Soundtrack

John Murphy 

John Murphy is an English film composer who first gained recognition from working on the Guy Richie film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. He als composed the scores for 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, Sunshine and the remake of The Last House On The Left. "In The House, In A Heartbeat" from 28 Days Later and "Adagio In D Minor" have since been used in many adverts, TV shows and film trailers. Murphy's music seems to be the in the eye of the storm as his music is a calming force in a chaotic situation. 


 

Horror Film Soundtrack

Joesph Bishara 

Joseph Bishara is an American composer and actor who has composed scores for horror films such as all three Insidious films, The Conjuring and Annabelle. Bishara's music tends to be slow quiet but builds tension throughout and finishes with a crescendo to scare you. 

 

Horror Film Soundtrack

Charlie Clouser

Charlie Clouser is a past member of the Industrial Metal band Nine Inch Nails. Clouser has helped produce and remix many films soundtracks, most notibly that of all 7 Saw films along with Dead Silence, The Collection, Resident Evil: Extinction and TV series American Horror Story. Clouser plays keyboard, synthesizer, theremin and drums which can all be heard within his soundstracks, all of which seem to hold a slight sound of the Industrial Metal he used to be asscoiated with when in NIN. His music is fairly fast paced with great influence from drums keeping the pace steady yet hectic throughout as to mirror the genre of films his music seems most associated with. The tension that builds along with the music keeps the audience on the edge of their seat as they watch along, especially with the brutal traps and gory deaths seen in the Saw francise.  

Title Sequence Analysis: The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

Title Sequence to The Rocky Horror Picture Show: http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/the-rocky-horror-picture-show/

The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a musical comedy horror film that was released on screen and also was performed as a musical on stage. The film was directed by Jim Sharman and starred Tim Curry and Richard O'Brien along with other cast members. This film has a very iconic opening/title sequence and very much compliments the conventions of a horror film and this is the title sequence that I will be analysing.

The film begins with the 20th Century Fox logo as this film was distributed by this company. Then as this fades to black an ominous wind can be heard as the words "Twentieth Century Fox Presents" appear on screen in red text with a black background. this makes it obvious from the start that the film will have elements of horror in the film as the colour scheme of red and black is iconic to the horror genre.

However, the colour red also connotes passion, lust and promiscuity which are themes that runs through this film. Also, the font is a typical type of font that is associated with grand buildings like churchs and castles as the thin lettering connotes the idea of grandness. This is also given off through the font being a serif font which means that the font contains small flicks on the ends and this connotes sophistication which links in with the idea of old and potentially spooky buildings. This helps establish to the audience that the film is set mostly in this kind of building.

After this a pair of red lips fade onto the black background and the opening song (Science Fiction/Double Feature) begins to play. These lips then begin to sing and only the lips can be seen. This is effective as lips are commonly associated with passion and this is a running theme within the film. These lips begin to sing the opening song and this is also effective as this entices the audience to sing along as this is very common with musical films. However, this is also used to help make the audience feel a little bit uneasy as it is very unnatural to see a pair of lips without a face or any other facial features. This helps create a slightly uneasy atmosphere within the audience and this is a common convention within the horror genre in which this film is influenced by.

Then after the first verse of the song, the lips freeze and fade to black and white. Then, the title of the film fades over the top of them. The positioning of the title is very effective. The diagonal title connotes the idea of something strange going on, similar to a shot filmed at a canted angle. As well as the positioning of the title, the font is also effective as it seems to be dripping and the colour of the font immediately connotes blood, showing to the audience that there will be an element of horror within the film. However, this font really emphasises this idea of horror to the point that it looks very exaggerated and over-the-top. This helps draw in an element of comedy. This is effective as it shows that this film merges both horror and comedy together, as well as the style of a musical, to help create a mad and passionate film. This continues through the title sequence up to the first scene of the film.

 

Poster Research

Horror Film Taglines

For our poster we needed a fitting tagline that would fit with our genre. Taglines tend to give you an idea about what will happen in the film a sentence or two, sometimes only in a few words. To help with the making of our poster we looked at some horror film posters that included the films taglines as to see what were suitable and what similarities and differences the taglines had. The taglines help build tension and expectations for the film before you get to see the film, and will usually link with something in the film. The builds anticipation for the seeing the film. Simple seems to be the main choice for posters as it seems more snappy and is easier remembered than a long tagline.

"It knows what scares you."



"The Night He Came Home!"



"Fearing is Believing"



"What you don't believe can kill you."



"Your journey terminates here"

Font for 'Unknown'

 

To start with, we decided to use the above font for our film title and this font would appear both in the film and on the film poster. However, when working with this font in Adobe Photoshop, it was very difficult to seperate the font from the white background and this was a problem we encountered when trying to intergrate this font onto our film poster. So we decided to take this font and modify it so that it is easier to work with in photoshop and also to try and improve it so that it stands out on our poster. To achieve this i took the font and placed it in Adobe Illustrator and here we decided to image trace the font and then expand it so that it gives a more defined edge top the text and also makes it a lot more solid so that we can easily change the colour of the font and give it a transparent background so that it can easily be transfered into Photoshop. 

The image above shows the font after it was modified in Illustrator and this will appear in both our film and our poster. Even thoough the final font is a little more defined and solid than the original, we still managed to maintain the horror-like 'scratchiness' of the original and this works well with our poster design. 

Changes To Plot

From Comedy Horror to Horror 

Because of timing issuses with our film we had to make changes as to make the film fit the 5 minutes needed. For this we had to add extra scenes to our film, by doing this we also had to change the genre of our film slightly. This change came when we decided that we wanted to include more knocking in our film as to give it more of a horror edge to it, this ended up making the film seem more like a horror even with it slight comedy twist of the pizza delivery guy being the one knocking. Instead of now ending the film with our protaginist getting a craving for pizza and ordering one we decided to end it with more knocking and ramping up the tention with one last knock as the credits end.