CREATIVE CRITICAL REFLECTION

 How my film promo pack represents social groups and issues?

In our film, a young athlete is confronted by a serial killer who is motivated by revenge. Modern celebrity culture makes heroes of the young, beautiful and successful through instantaneous social media worship, exposing them to jealousy and threats that they are ill-equipped to handle. Sometimes the threats become real, as in our story. We have positioned our protagonist as a stereotypical young success who becomes the target of the vicious envy of an unbalanced mind. Our film narrative tropes are thriller and horror film staples, like the concept of attractive victim and vicious assailant, shrouded in enigma. Our casting has been vital to our representations. According to Stuart Hall, media produces an edited version of real life through representations. These are constructed through codes that use imagery, language, sound and editing, which play a vital role in shaping how people see the world.  Stereotypes are used by the media to create characterisation by reducing social groups to a few key traits or visual cues depicting a set of behaviours and social hierarchy. Our film’s range of stereotypes are short cuts for the audience to gain a rapid understanding and we have ensured that these are also obvious throughout our promo pack.

 

The social issues identified in our film are violent crime, jealousy, mental health and revenge. These are depicted by using visual codes: the issue of violent crime is clearly represented throughout the promo pack in a number of ways.  These include imagery of a dark-clothed, face-masked character carrying an axe in a menacing way.

How the elements of my promo pack work together to create a sense of branding?

Our film is about a runner and a serial killer and the killer’s final target. The homepage of my website has a striking moving image of the main character screaming for help. This same image appears on my film poster as well as the profile picture of the Twitter page. On my “about page” of my film website there is an image of the serial killer. This image is then used again on my poster and for the profile picture of the film’s Instagram page. The images signify the horror/thriller genre as they are graphic and shocking. This gives the audience the immediate impression that they are going to be watching a sinister and thrilling film.  At the bottom of my film website there are icons for both Twitter and Instagram. Once clicked these automatically take the viewer to the Twitter and Instagram pages of my film. This helps to create a sense of branding as my website links with my social media pages all of which follow the same theme as the website. The film’s tagline also appears on the poster, webpage, social media pages adding to the continuity between them. The tagline “Will this be his last mile?” also creates a sense of mystery and wonder and captures the audience as they want to see more of the film and want to discover whose last mile it is going to be. The font is also consistent across all media reinforcing the branding of the film and its genre because it is red and looks like the red letters are bleeding, immediately signifying a stereotypical cue of the horror genre of my production. My film company RFM Films Ident is shown at the start of the trailers. The ident that appears at the start of my trailer is the same ident as the one that has been used in previous RFM Film productions such as The Fugitive this creates a wider sense of company branding

How my film promo pack engages with audience?

 

My poster creates a sense of the thriller/ horror genre through visual codes such as the colour. The poster has a black background with red font these colours are typically used in horror/ thriller films. The centre of my poster sees the main character screaming for help, faded into this photo is the girlfriend who is seen in a state of shock. This helps to create a sense of tension and suspense. The centre of my poster is shocking to encourage the audience to watch my production. The sense of danger is created through the lit-up silhouette of the serial killer. I decided that I would design the poster to look like the serial killer stood taller than the athlete creating a sense of intimidation. The film title draws the audience’s attention because it is big, bright red and looks like it is dripping blood. The tagline of my film attracts audience attention, “will this be his last mile?” makes the audience wonder who the question is referring to.  My website engages with my audience as there is a striking moving image of our main character screaming for help with the title of the film in the same font as the poster. My website also contains the social media links as well as a shop where people can buy film merchandise. This helps to engage with my audience. The genre of the film is clearly shown through the colour scheme of my website and of the gallery and the ‘about pages’. The horror genre also uses stereotypical filming styles and we have used some of these to engage with the audience throughout our film. The main ones we used are a number of jump scares, lighting techniques, music, editing techniques and camera angles. Jump scares are very typical in horror/thriller films and we thought that they would be acceptable in our film as they build suspense and tension as well as being able to make our film fast paced and gripping from start to finish and the use of music to create suspense is another stereotypical technique used in horror films.

How my research informed my products and the way in which they use or challenge conventions?

The lighting in my trailer creates the sense of the horror genre, this is because the lighting is dark and sinister as well as there being fast paced flashes of light. My trailer fits the conventions of the genres as it uses stereotypical codes and conventions throughout the trailer. It is clear who our target audience is as we have made the film with teenage characters so we felt that it our target audience would be able to relate to the trailer. We demonstrate continuity throughout the filming as the actors are wearing the same clothes in different locations when we have filmed on different dates. Our teaser trailer is around 30 secs as this is the ideal time for a teaser trailer and our main trailer is around 2 minutes as this is the ideal for a main trailer. The trailer will have links to the social media and website at the very end of it this helps to build a wider sense of branding. Posters, the colours that i used on my poster were generic to that of the horror genre, this genre often uses simple and dark colours. For my poster I decided to use three colours of black, red and white all of these colours can be seen in previous horror film posters. What is pictured on the poster links into my trailer with the queen of hearts as the background and the axeman and leader actors all of which have been taken from scenes in the trailer. It is clear from the font used on the poster that it is of the horror genre with the red blood dripping. The website I created is full interactive and easy to move around, everything is clearly labeled and easy to read. I have included hyperlinks to my social media pages at the bottom of my website to aid people when they are on my site. The web design and colour choice is simple and effective in creating a horror environment.