Final Lacerate Trailer

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Stuart Hall’s reception theory is the idea that all media texts are interpreted by the viewer, there are different types of audience: Dominant (when the audience agree with the intended meaning), Negotiated (when the audience partially agrees with the intended meaning) and Oppositional (when the audience reject the intended meaning). We thought it would be interesting to see how people perceived our trailer, hence we included questions such as ‘has the female protagonist been portrayed in a positive or negative manner?’ We decided to stick to conventions with a female protagonist who was shown as innocent, hence it was intended that she’d be portrayed negatively: weak and vulnerable. Out of the 9 replies, 1 rejected the encoded meaning, while 4 agreed, the other 4 were unsure. This demonstrates how different audiences interpret text in different ways.

The purpose for a film trailer is to make people want to watch the film, so to see how successful it was at achieving this we asked ‘would you see Lacerate at the cinema?’ We also asked ‘How often do you go to the cinema’, as if a person went to the cinema very rarely, it would be a great compliment that they would go to watch the film. 37.5% of people surveyed said they would watch the film at the cinema, considering 55% only go to the cinema yearly, this is a good sign. Furthermore, 44% of people surveyed only watch horror films rarely, meaning people were impressed with the trailer.

Horror films have established conventions and it’s typically very easy to follow the steps to creating a horror: a supernatural villain, a creepy setting, scary music, a vulnerable protagonist, visual effects, jump scares and gore. In our film we used a demon to ‘haunt’ the protagonist, we used a knife to convey violence, while having an eerie soundtrack in the background, the second half was an intense action sequence which is typical of films in the horror and thriller genres. However, some people still mistook the film as a thriller, granted, our film didn’t contain too much gore (as we wanted to make it appropriate for younger teens). 33% saw the film as a thriller, 11% even saw it as a comedy; perhaps they thought it was a spoof of a horror film. We also asked ‘Does the trailer convey the conventions of the horror genre?’ To which only 33% said yes, this was surprising for us, as we felt we did well to stick to conventions, however upon receiving this feedback,  we think we could have done more to do this, for example using a more eerie location for Summer finding the book. Most (77%) of our audience felt that our film was targeting 15-20 year olds; this is good because we purposely made sure the film was appropriate for the 12 certificate. Genre theory is relevant here; Steve Neale said that ‘genres are instances of repetition and difference’ and that ‘difference is essential’ as repetition alone wouldn’t attract an audience. Relating this to our film, we stuck to conventions somewhat, however these differences set us apart from other horrors.

Finally, we asked our audience to look at the film poster and the magazine cover. There were mixed responses towards the poster, as only 44% of our audience liked it enough to see the film, the same amount said ‘maybe’. This is disappointing as the poster contained all elements of a typical horror poster. We then asked them how clear the links between the parts of the media package were, thankfully 77% said the link was ‘clear to see’

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Here are all of the technologies I used throughout the construction of my media package:

Adobe Photoshop- used for the creation of magazine cover and poster

Serif Movieplus- used for creation of trailer

Microsoft Publisher- used for annotating movie posters for semiotic analyses

Microsoft Word- used for typing up information before putting it on blogger

Blogger- used to present work and progression

Youtube- used to upload trailers to show to others to gather early feedback

DSLR Camera- used for images for magazine cover and poster

HD Camera- used for filming the footage for film

Prezi- used to present work

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

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

Our theatrical trailer was from the genre horror, which is widely known as having a great number of usually unchallenged conventions, such as darkness, blood and the supernatural. For this reason it is fairly easy to create a film which can be easily linked to the genre, attracting an already established audience. We opted to use a villain which is never shown on camera, therefore giving it a psychological edge. Many horror films such as ‘Paranormal Activity’ never actually show the ghost/spirit, leaving the audience free to use their imagination to fill the gap, which will also

allow them to get more engaged with the plot. We opted to use a female as the ‘victim’ to the demon’s plans as stereotypically females are the victims in horror films; examples include ‘The Babadook’, ‘Alien’ and ‘Scream’. In a ‘slasher’ film, which is a sub-genre of horror, the protagonist is almost always female, this is because stereotypically females are weak and in need of protection, this representation follows from films which were directed in a more sexist era. There are many theories for this; one is down to the ‘male gaze’, which claims that films often put the audience into the perspective of a heterosexual male, thus seeing a ‘damsel in distress’ is stereotypically going to resonate with the audience. This convention was adopted in the making of our film as films often play on stereotypes whether they are true or not, we wanted to make it obvious our film was of the horror genre.

Stereotypically horror films are set in small, isolated areas, dark streets and alleyways, yet our film primarily takes place in a house and in a school. This highlights how in this aspect the film strays away from conventions, it is worth noting there is a small section with ‘Professor Culkin’ laid down in the middle of a road, this is sticking to conventions as the scenery is dark and the area appears to be deserted.  There are possible environments which may have improved our film, we considered shooting a scene of Summer being chased through the woods, however we opted for other clips. We used a shed as the setting for the scene where Summer finds the book, when we were planning the film, we hoped to use an abandoned building of some sort so it would create an eerie tone, however during the filming phase we opted to use a shed as it was adequate for the purpose. In general having darkness and ghostly elements is important, and our setting definitely did this so I think it was effective.

The use of technical codes in the trailer also followed conventions; the camera was from high and low angles throughout to connote fear. Furthermore the use of close-ups allowed for the audience to see the fear on the characters’ faces, primarily Summer. Sounds were used like heartbeat which is non-diegetic, but also diegetic sounds like the beating of a drum, this was important in setting the scene and communicating how the characters felt. The editing was also typical, with a high intensity montage scene at the end. A piece of editing we included which was uncommon was the part where the protagonist, Summer, was thinking about the death of her teacher, Professor Culkin, here, we used an overlay to have the picture be semi-opaque so it was clear she was thinking of him. This was used more as a narrative tool than a horror tool though.

The poster for Lacerate generally followed conventions of other Horror posters, after careful research it became evident that a striking or edited central image would be vital. In addition to this some text was required to accompany this, hence “do you dare to decipher” was included, the movie’s tagline, along with endorsements, all of which featured in the trailer. At the bottom was the credits, which is typical of all film posters, not just horror. The use of colours in the in the poster follows conventions, especially as red resembles blood, whereas the white simply stands out on the background. The title being the largest piece of text is also conventional, as this is what you want the audience to remember.

The magazine cover follows the conventions of Empire magazine, with the masthead being written in the same font across the top, the date, issue number and price can be found in the curve of the M. The magazine also has several cover lines which is found in virtually every magazine. Other components I used are puffs, barcode and a central image. The use of colour doesn’t particularly

Lacerate Poster

Magazine Cover