Our audience consists of people ages +15 who regularly and enjoy watching a horror films. The ways in which we attracted this audience was through the use of music/sound, mise-en-scene, editing, the USP of our film, cinematography and horror conventions.
MUSIC/SOUND
In our film, we included a range of different sound techniques, diegetic, non diegetic, sound motifs, sound effects, synchronous sounds and contrapuntal sounds, and a lot of these sound techniques is how we attracted our audience, due to how there is quite a lot of scary and spooky.
Diegetic sounds
Sounds that are symbolic of nature i.e. birds, stream and wind are sounds that were natural to our film. I'm quite pleased that we were able to capture diegetic sounds, although with some of symbolic nature sounds they were non-diegetic i.e. the thunder which you wouldn't realise due to the events taking place in this scene and the lighting which was low key.
Non-diegetic
We used the song 'Ten green bottles' in the very beginning of our film but we changed the song to 'One green bottle' so it was symbolic of how at the end of the film there will only be one character left, and we added this music over the nature shots. I think by adding them over the scenes of nature was a symbolic contrast of how nature can be portrayed as something that expresses life in contrast to the song which is symbolic of something that will eventually take life away.
Some of the bird sounds were non-diegetic, in order to create the illusion that they were real and recorded and placed in the film.
At the end of our film we included the sounds of twigs snapping, and the sounds were recorded by covering the lens of the camera whilst making the noise of crackling twigs then we it came to editing our film we detached the audio and added it over the scene when the group are looking for the missing girl.
We also used the same method with the screaming and the heavy breathing. The screaming took a few attempts to make sound realistic. We wanted to make it sound real to create a unnerving mood, which would scare the audience.
Sound Motifs
The recurring sound throughout moving images to represent an idea in our film was the 'One green bottle' song due to how it was used to represent the idea that there is going to be one character left and all of the others have gone missing.
Sound effects
The sound effects we used, consisted of an effect called the 'cathedral', which was available to us on IMovie. The 'cathedral' sound effect echo's the audio but also makes it sound quite spooky and chilling especially seeing as we used this effect on the 'One green bottle' song just to create that unnerving suspense.We used this song at the start of our film and just before the end. This song was recorded by one of our group members, and when we came to editing we detached the audio from the recording and placed this over the film.
Synchronous sounds
The main use of synchronous sounds that can be recognised were our footsteps and also the water sound at the beginning. I think it was a good idea that we used these sounds as it gives it that sense of realism.
Contrapuntal sounds
The only type of sound effect that is non-diegetic and contrasts with the mood of the scene is the first few scenes of nature and the 'One green bottle' song, which is because, as I've said, normally you associate nature with something positive as it is something portrayed as giving life, and if you contrast this with the song, which is symbolic of taking life away as each of the characters go missing, which makes the audience feel quite anxious and creates a tense atmosphere.
MISE-EN-SCENE
I have picked parts of mise-en-scene which I would have said scared me i.e. the lighting and colour, body language and facial expressions,
Lighting and colour
In horror films you'd assume the lighting would be low key because usually because the story lines of these genres create tension and aren't very calming. By using low key light instead of high, makes the audience aware that the film isn't going to be positive but quite negative and unhappy. In our horror film we used a lot of low key light environments and an example of this is in the screen grab below. This screen grab is a prime example of how you know something unexpected and bad is going to happen, baring in mind during this scene one of the character dies. The weather conditions on this day were still dull and dreary, however we did change the colours to make it darker.
Another example of colour and lighting is in the screen grab below, and this shot is just before the screaming starts. I think the use of colour and lighting in this shot is brilliant because of how there is so much symbolism portrayed. The idea that the ideas are black can symbolise intimidation and mystery and the idea that these trees are towering over the group can suggest that they don't have a lot of power and that the forest is controlling them. Perhaps it's controlling their emotions and anxious feelings because of the darkened conditions.
Body language and facial expressions
The use of body language and facial expressions in horror films are key, for example, in the 'Blair witch project' the facial expression of the girl, which can be seen below, suggests she is anxious due to the bulged eyes representing how she is quite on edge and alert, the tear is an obvious presentation of how she is very upset and in perhaps a terrified state, finally the fact that her eye brows are raised shows signs of innocence suggesting she's feeling quite vulnerable and defenceless.
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| The Blair witch project |
Facial expressions in our film can be presented through the screen grab below, as it shows the tension in her face and it can also portray her feelings. She is evidently terrified of something and linking it with the context of our film this shot is just after they've heard the scream, suggesting she's becoming nervous and uneasy.
Setting and props
I think that the setting would very much attract our specific audience due to how a typical horror can be seen as being set in a scary location i.e. a haunted house, woods etc.
This is because it can be quite a difficult place in which to escape, as portrayed through the 'Blaire witch project' and how they get lost. It can also be quite a secretive and intimidating location due to how the trees are towering over you symbolic of how little power you have.
However, some of our film is set on the beaten track which doesn't portray any kind of scary themes of create any tense atmospheres as the group aren't lost, or anything bad isn't happening to them.
I wouldn't describe the props we used scary at all, and certainly not anything that would scare our audience. Although the only prop that I think did create some sort of tension was the torch, because during this scene they're trying to look for their friend, and this light could be symbolic of their hope and perhaps the darkness around them is presented as the anxiety that they are feeling which is larger and consuming them.
EDITING (pace/effects)
Certain parts of our editing I think made the film more tense and scary, these can be shown through the titles of our film, the nature scenes at the start and the colouring at the start of the film.
The way that the camera jumps forward every so often in the tunnel creates that unnatural and spooky effect, especially seeing as there's more darkness which adds more of a tension to the scenes. We also changed the colour at the end of the tunnel take make it darker so that it presents the idea that even if they reach the end of the tunnel, where the light is, something bad is still going to happen
We edited together parts of nature scenes to create a contrast between the happy and more positive beginning in comparison to how nature can be expressed as something negative towards the end.
We didn't use any effects on the nature scenes however we did make sure that the pace was nice and clean. This can be seen through the way we made the camera pan to the left in one of the tree shots and then the next tree shot we carried on the pan to the left and we also did this with the tyre shot however on the shot with the stream we made the tyre swing to the right and then we panned the camera to the right going the same was as the stream.
Finally, the very first scene was edited by changing the lighting slightly to presented the idea that something bad was going to happen, because if the lighting was high key then the unexpected event wouldn't be as effective.
USP- of our film
Because of how our film was inspired by the 'Blair witch project' and this was about students filming going missing, we thought that we could propose our film by making missing posters, but we'd add the date of the film and when it was going to be released.
I think this sort of film proposal is a unique and individual way of trying to get people to see your film, especially if it includes actors/actresses that are famous, seeing something like this would intrigue people to look at the posters and probably want to see the film.
Another way to promote our film would be a trailer, and I think we would make it quite tense but without giving to much away so that our audience feel more interested in coming to see it. I would also include jump scares into the trailer just so that those who like horror films know that it's a traditional horror film that will most definitely scare you.
CINEMATOGRAPHY
The way we used the camera for our film was to present the perspective of the protagonists, for example when the group are walking to find a camp site there's a view of one of the characters pointing the camera on her feet whilst walking up the steps, this is meant to be a perspective of what the character is seeing.
Finally, there's a shot of scene where the group have obviously been asleep due to how the camera suddenly turns on after a couple of seconds of darkness. The way the camera jolts is symbolic of when you wake up from a sudden noise you have to come too to realise what's happening.
The camera is also positioned at a strange angle as though the head was tilted from just getting up off the floor.
HORROR CONVENTIONS
The types of character that we've included in our film which would make our target audience want to watch our film are:
The villain/antagonist- which is the thing that is making us going missing
The Protagonist/heroes- using these characters keeps the audience aware that there is still something scary about to happen because if there weren't any of these characters left then there wouldn't be any more jump scares or any
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