1. How do your products represent social groups or issues?
When thinking about the plot to our movie, my group and I wanted to create a story that was outrageous and fun while also using themes that many of our peers could relate to. The products that my group and I created within the last couple of months can represent the social issue of peer pressure and violence. Specifically, the peer pressure and violence that teenagers may feel from each other. This is most clearly shown in our movie. In the beginning of our film, the character Ava is pressured and forced to go inside of an old, abandoned house that she did not want to do. Her friends kept pressuring her and pushing her into the house against her will. This part of the film represents peer pressure because Ava felt as if she couldn’t really stand up for herself and since her friends were teasing her, she couldn’t stand firm on saying no and did not try hard to fight back against them. We felt that this was a critical issue that should be brought to light because many teenagers fall victim to peer pressure which may have some severe consequences on their life. Our package also represents the social issue of violence. Violence is something that almost everyone fears to which is why we thought we could incorporate it into our package. Within the film, there were multiple scenes of violence and death. This can relate to the violence that many teenagers must face around the word from gun violence or bullying. Our postcard represents this issue with showing a picture of a frightened girl on the ground with blood on her hand.
2. How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’?
The elements of my production work together to create a sense of branding by using specific and core objects in our movie throughout our package. For example. One of the biggest plot points of our film is the haunted mirror that possesses the Ava’s character. This mirror is also the thing that solved the conflict of the story. Since the mirror plays such an important role in the film, we decided to incorporate that into our package including our websites, postcard, and social media. Along with this, since our movie was a horror movie, we wanted to make sure that our brand was specifically horror related. To do this, we made sure that our website, social medias, and postcard all had horror element to them. In order to do this, we used creepy images from the web along with some of the spookiest stills from our own movie. On all our social medias, we used a creepy picture of a mirror as our profile picture. This worked as sort of a teaser for the audience to know that are film is horror and to also hint at the significance of mirrors in our film. The Postcard includes the still shots from our movie and has a picture of Ava screaming into the mirror on the front and a picture of Ava on the ground with blood on her hands. We also used a lot of dark colors within our package to create a spooky and ominous tone and set the mood for the audience for when they view stuff for our film.
3. How do your products engage with the audience?
The products that my group and I created were able to engage with audiences in many ways. The way we engaged with audiences through our film was through the different camera angles that we shot with. For example, for some of the scenes we used a tracking shot to shoot them. The purpose of using a tracking shot was to have the camera follow the characters and make it feel as if they are walking with the characters in film. We also used a POV shot to make the audience feel as if they were there in the film and seeing what the characters in the film see. We were also able to engage with audiences within our social medias. In today's society, almost everyone uses at least one form of social media. In my package, we had four different social medias: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. We were able to use these social medias to engage with our audiences by posting creepy picture with captions giving some information on our movie. The use of the creepy pictures was used as a shock factor with the hopes of someone scrolling through their feed and seeing one of our posts. If they see are post, they may become interested in learning more about our film and maybe want to see it when it come out into theaters. Our postcard and website both have similar objectives. Their goal is mainly to inform potential audiences about our movie. They describe the plot of the film along with who is in the film. The use of darkness and mysteriousness within our website and postcard may engage with horror audiences and make them want to see our film.
4. How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?
By researching multiple different horror movies and their package, I was able to notice the conventions that were used within those products and choose if I wanted to use it in my group and I’s products. My research was able to inform my products and the way they use or challenge conventions of the horror genre using sounds and music, lighting and more. My group used many common conventions of the horror genre. For music and sound, we made sure to use music that was creepy and had a very unsettling sound to them. Our music choices of creepy piano playing were able to mimic other classic horror movies such as Halloween. We also used a lot of the lighting conventions from horror movies as well. Many horror movies have dark lighting and take place at night, we did this as well in our film to create a sinister and mysterious feel. The lighting also helped to contribute to the color scheme that we had within our products. Our social medias, website, postcard, and movie all had a dark color scheme to them which is seen throughout the Horror genre in their packages. Along with the lighting, we also used a slightly less common convention of the horror genre, and that is having the film take place on Halloween night. Though this is not a convention in all horror movies, taking place on Halloween is a quite common occurrence for movies in the past such as Halloween, Trick R’ Treat, House of 1000 Corpses, and many more. We did challenge some modern conventions in our film. Based on my research, many horror films nowadays have a lot of gore in them, though my film did have some violence in them, my products did not rely on gore to make it scary.
