Question 3 what kind of media institution might distribute your product and why?
despite our low budget and lack of tools such as mics, lighting rigs and sets, our horror film is undoubtedly mainstream. Our film would be considered mainstream for a variety of reasons. Firstly, it follows many of the conventions of a teen horror. One such example of this is our main character for our opening (Marie) being completely isolated from physical communication. While she does text someone near the beginning of our footage, we don’t know who it is to. She has no bonds with any developed characters in the footage, as she (other than the killer) is the only character. We portray her house as empty by having almost the entire upper floor of the house in our footage, providing visual evidence that she is alone. This is backed up by the fact she gets a phone call from her own home. This make the audience think something is wrong, as getting a phone call from your own house while you are in it is a strange occurrence. The victim of the killing in our opening is female, again, going by the conventions of the teen subgenre. She is stereotyped as a vulnerable defenceless female, unable to defend herself.
Another convention of mainstream teen horror is subtle foreshadowing to upcoming events. Mainstream films such as scream foreshadow Casey’s death by being stabbed in a shot where a knife block is what the shot is focused upon
despite our low budget and lack of tools such as mics, lighting rigs and sets, our horror film is undoubtedly mainstream. Our film would be considered mainstream for a variety of reasons. Firstly, it follows many of the conventions of a teen horror. One such example of this is our main character for our opening (Marie) being completely isolated from physical communication. While she does text someone near the beginning of our footage, we don’t know who it is to. She has no bonds with any developed characters in the footage, as she (other than the killer) is the only character. We portray her house as empty by having almost the entire upper floor of the house in our footage, providing visual evidence that she is alone. This is backed up by the fact she gets a phone call from her own home. This make the audience think something is wrong, as getting a phone call from your own house while you are in it is a strange occurrence. The victim of the killing in our opening is female, again, going by the conventions of the teen subgenre. She is stereotyped as a vulnerable defenceless female, unable to defend herself.
Another convention of mainstream teen horror is subtle foreshadowing to upcoming events. Mainstream films such as scream foreshadow Casey’s death by being stabbed in a shot where a knife block is what the shot is focused upon
scream also has foreshadowing for caseys death, where there is a shot that focuses on a swing from a branch outside of her house. This indicates that Casey will be hanged from here.
For our horror opening we decided to utilize similar foreshadowing. On Maries computer there is an image of a waterfall, signifying she will be drowned. She also makes frequent trips into the bathroom, to add make up and to collect things for when she goes out. The third time she enters the bathroom, she is killed.
On the other hand though, our film could be perceived as independent. This is due to complete lack of budget (we spent nothing), one HD camera, one tripod and some average editing software. We had no paid actors or anyone with actual experience; it was also set in one of our group members houses, using only 3 rooms. We also had to add a great deal of sound effects in editing, as we had no mic for recording. Overall, our film is very much mainstream due to the content of the footage, but the equipment we had would represent an independent film.
To gain interest from production companies, we could enter various film festivals to attract attention. As our film is a horror, the screamfest horror film festival would be an ideal festival to be able to show our film at. In its 10 year history, it has introduced some major horror films to the world. The most notable of these include paranormal activity, 28 days later and wrong turn. One of the positives about using the screamfest horror film festival is they are prepared to take on films that many other festivals turn down. The best example of this is paranormal activity, which only got accepted by the screamfest festival, as no one else would show it.
Another way to try and get our film recognised by potential production companies is to enter in a bigger named festival for example, the Cannes film festival. This festival is very popular and attracts a great amount of potential from production companies. Films that manage to win the coveted Palme d’Or always gain lots of hype and word of mouth about the film’s success has the potential to attract companies to our film. However, it would be more likely for us to win the Cinéfondation award (prizes for student films). This award fits our film and we would have a greater chance of winning. Just like winning the Palme d’Or, this would gain our film lots of hype and word of mouth would get it recognized.
There are multiple ways in which we could generate buzz or hype for our film. To do this we could post our 2 minute opening on a well known site such as YouTube or a social networking site such as facebook. The buzz that this would generate could be increased by using these sites to our films advantage. We could post a status that asks for a specific amount of likes or subscriptions (for YouTube) to unlock a full trailer with another minute or so of footage.
We could also utilize viral marketing to gain buzz for our film. We could have an interactive ‘uncover the killer’ style Easter egg hunt, spread out over multiple websites. This not only fits with our theme of a serial killer, but could also be used to add backstory to our plot. This technique was successfully used by cloverfield, where information that could be linked to the monsters origins was available for those who looked into the various websites enough. This could successfully generate buzz for our film.
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