Institutional Context

'YouTube' 

• 3 former paypal employees created it in Feb 2005
• In Nov 2006 'Youtube' was bought by Google Inc. for $1.65 billion and now operates as a subsidary for Google.
• The company is based in San Bruno, CA
• Uses Adobe flash video technology to display a wide variety of user-generated video content. Inc: movie clips, TV clips, music videos.
• Most of the content is uploaded by individuals although media coporations (Inc: CBS,BBC and UMG) offer their material as part of the 'YouTube' partnership programme.
• Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jaued Karim set 'YouTube' up and Chen and Karim studied computer science together at University of Lllinuis at Urbana-Champaign.
• Began as a venture-funded technology start up, from a US$11.5 million investment by Sequoia Capital.
• Headquarters in its early stages situated above a pizzeria and japanese restaurant in San Mateo, CA.
• The first video posted on 'YouTube' was 'Me at the Zoo', this was posted by Karim on 23rd April 2005 and can still be seen today.
• 'YouTube' is the dominant provider of online video in the US and holds a market share of 43%
• The name choice of 'YouTube' led to many problems as there was already a website ' http://www.utube.com/, the owners of this website made a lawsuit against 'YouTube' in Nov 2006
• In Nov 2008 'YouTube' reached an agreement with MGM, Lionsgate Entertainment and CBS which will allow the companies to post full-length films and TV shows, accompanied by advertisements.
• On Oct 9th 2009 it was the 3rd aniversary of the acquisitia by Google, Chad Hurley announced in a blog posting that 'YouTube' was recieveing over 1 billion views a day- worldwide.
• 'YouTube' has made it possible for anyone with an internet connection to post a video that a worldwide audience could watch within a few minuets (Internet Culture)
• 'YouTube' has a slogan: 'Broadcast yourself'
• 'YouTube' is also available in 14 different languages, making it available to many different ethnicities.

'YouTube' however has had some critisisms:

• Copyrighted material: 'YouTube' has been critised for failing to ensure that copyrighted material is not uploaded. A notice comes when your signing up for a 'YouTube' account: 'Do not upload and TV shows, music videos, music concerts or commercials with out permission unless they consist entierly of content you created yourself. The copyright tips page and the community guidelines can help you determine whether your video infringes someone else's copyright'
• The videos are not viewed before they are posted online which makes it difficult to see whether they are copyright free or not.
• Viacom,mediaset and English Premier League all filed lawsuits against 'YouTube' for copyrighted material on the website.
• Video ID checks uploaded videos against a database of copyrighted content with the aim of deducting violations.
• piracy and inappropriate content are also issues/critisisms which 'YouTube' have had.

Production schedule

Test Footage: Friday 6th November
Shooting of Killings (Day 1): Thursday 12th and Friday 13th November
Shooting (Day 2): Monday 16th November
Shooting (Day 3): Monday 23rd November (final shooting day)

Podcasts

These are our podcasts which we will be doing on a weekly basis to keep you up to date with what we have done so far and what we plan to do the following week. Hope you enjoy!


Podcast 1
Podcast 2 
Podcast 3 
Podcast Final 


Final Podcast

Target Audience and (notional) BBFC classification [DRAFT]

Age:

• Our media product is targeting an age group of 15-21 years old. We are targeting our teaser trailer to this age group because the characters in our teaser trailer are all of a similar age (15-21- Youth culture) which will make it easier for an audience of that age to relate to therefore make the audience feel empathy for the characters as well as possibly encouraging the audience to or not to watch the teaser trailer and later the film.
• While deciding which BBFC rating we should give our teaser trailer we compared it to 'Prom Night'( Rated a 15 )which is very similar to ours in the sense that moderate language, moderate sex refernces, issues relating to drugs and alcohol and sustained threat were all included.We also looked at was 'Find her keep her' (coming soon and Rated a 15) which contains, strong language and frequent moderate sex references, which again is the same as our teaser trailer. Another film we looked at was 'The Stepfather' (Rated 15 and Directed by Nelson McCormick) which contains strong psychological threar, menace and violence, again the same characteristics of which are in our teaser trailer.
• After these comparisons on the BBFC website we felt very confident in labeling our teaser trailer as a 15 as it contains all of the characteristics a typical 15 rated film would contain.
  
  Ethnicity:
  
  
  
  • Our teaser trailer only includes a caucasian cast however i feel it will appeal to a wide range of ethnic groups as many mainstream productions continue to sideline mainstream talent but dont seem to suffer comercially for this. Our teaser trailer has therefore gained a hegamonic status.
  • Our teaser trailer would also only be released primarily in the UK and also English speaking countries therefore we feel this would work well. Also in the Uk now, there is more of a mulitculltural society therefore lots of different races will be used to seeing a prodminantly caucasion cast.
  
  

  
  

  Gender:
  
  
  
  • 'Film has been called an instrument of the male gaze, producing representations of women, the good life, and sexual fantasy from a male point of view' (Schroeder 1998, 208). We took the male gaze into account in having 2 different representations of women.
  • Sarah is the final girl so her characteristics are; Brunette, sensible, not very sexualy active, dignified, covers herself up (for example she doesnt wear sexually provocative cloths) juxtaposed to Hannah who is our typical blonde scream queen, her characteristics are slightly different; she is more confident, blonde, wears low cut, short, sexually provocative clothing.
    
  Socio-Economic Groupings:
  
  

  • The class profile of our characters is generally C2DE. This means that our teaser trailer can appeal to those classes (C2DE) as they are more likley to be able to relate to the characters better whereas the more sophisticaed ABC1 audience may find it harder to relate to due to the genre being 'horror' as alot of people classed as ABC1 may not like the genre or may not be rased in households where such films are/were allowed due to the content of them. (violence, moderate sex references, strong language)
    
    Nationality/Region:
    
    Nationality/ Region: Our cast are from Yorkshire and so they have Northern accents which may make it difficult in the box office rating as there is not much cross-over appeal. So we would at least aim for the UK-wide audience as we don't maintain a hedgemonic status.
    
     

    Distribution:
    

    
    
    

    • lionsgate
    • working title- Shaun of the Dead (15)
    • verve pictures- possibly as its a film distributor particuarly of British and independant films.
    • WarpX- due to the fact that warpx deal with low budget production methods to make high value movies that can reach cinema audiences across the world, As our teaser trailer would be a low budget production warpx would be a good distributor as this is what Warpx specialises in. Also warpx has released films such as 'Donkey Punch' which was an insiration for us when it came to writing a narrative.
      

    Fans Of...:
    
    

    • Some films that target the same audience that we are going to  and to help communicate the ideas and inspirations behind our narrative idea are films such as 'Prom Night', this links in with our ideas because they are both classed as a 15, both have similar content (language, sexual references, violence and threat) It also links in with our idea because the characters/cast are all of similar ages (17/18) and they are both aimes at the same ages and culture.
    • another film that is similar to our idea and gave us great inspiration is  John Carpenters 'Halloween' even though this is an old film, it has been a huge inspiration for many horror films. We can link our ideas into this film because the cast/characters are all of similar ages, there are numerous killings throughtout the film of which are the main characters friends which is the same in our narrative as sarah's (main character/final girl) friends all get killed at some point. 'Halloween' can also be linked in with our ideas due to the simple facts that they both have a final girl, a killer and a authorative figure and are located/set in an urban area , which are in most if not all horror/slasher films.
    • We used features from these films to help us identify our main target audience and to develop our ideas and understanding of horror/slasher films.
      
      Sexuality:
      
      
      
      
      • pink pound-Ben-a rugby player and Ben Iliff a geek shows a spectrum of looks to the homosexual audience.
      • male gaze-Hannah (the girls friend)- has a large chest of which is reguarly shown off in the teaser trailer whilst wearing sexually provacative clothing, especially when compared to the Brunette female (Sarah) as it further anchors her sexual activity.
      • female gaze- eye-candy Ben-rugby player so he has a stereotypical jock figure, entising girls to watch (this has been shown in the past by Zac Efron 'High School Musical')
        
      Psychographic Profile:
      
      
      
      
      • Our typical would-be-punter is likely to be a...................(teen youth (Primary audience)
      • 'Maslows hierarchy of needs' as its basically a pyramid system hierarchy for motivation, it has many levels and all levels must be completed before a state of self-motivations reached.
      • This links to my target audience as psychologically my consumers are likely to be in the 'safety/love and belonging levels of the pyramid, as they may not be in a loving satisfying relationship or be in steady employment. My film relates to people in this level as the characters in the film are also in this level and deal with similar issues relating to 'Maslows hierarchy of needs', so the audience are more likely to feel empathy with and understand the characters and their story.
      • The characters in our film and a lot of our target audience therefore lack self motivation so are unable to move on emotionally grow or mature they're in a mental state of paralysis. 

    
    

Evaluation [DRAFT]

The questions that must be addressed in the evaluation are:

• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
• How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
• What have you learned from your audience feedback?
• How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evalutaion stages?

Genre research and intertextual links

I have looked at a book 'Legacy of Blood' where i have found lots of good research to help me with my production.
Slasher Bloodlines:

• The film 'Halloween', Directed by John Carpenter in 1978 is considered to be the first slasher movie however it draws much of its inspiration from earlier films.
  
• One critic described 'Halloween' as ' The shower scene from psycho stretched out for an hour and a half'
• The character Norman Bates from 'Psycho' in 1960 has become a template for the standard slasher killer! Sexually ambiguous and impotent, subverting sexual desires into violence and his disguise during the killing.
• The Primary function of a slasher movie remains to be the presentation of images of sex and death.
• Italian film makers created their own brand of psychopath, ( from seeds of Hitchcock's movie)
• The Giallo film first began to develop in 1964 with Mario Bava's ' Blood and Black Lace', Centered around a black killer, stalking and brutally murdering a group of young women.
• In the mid 70's Giallo became one of the predominant Italian film styles , producing a number of acclaimed directors ( Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci ) 
• One of Bava's most influential later films is 'Twitch of The Dead Nerve' a humorous film that influenced ' Friday the 13th ' and its clones. 
• 'Twitch of The Dead Nerve' follows the Giallo format and features a string of elaborate and ex-plicitly gory murders with the setting of a wooded rural area.
• Bava mixes a good deal of humour in with gore, creating a ' Chain of `murder'
• Several of the scream slashers have returned to the Gialli for inspiration, preferring to leave the inhuman, mutated monsters in the 80's.
• Halloween has a high level of fame and is a big influence on slasher films today.

Genesis:

• John Carpenters 'Halloween' in 1978 had a small budget of $320,000. The initial concept was suggested by producer Irwin Yablans, a business man whose intention was to release low budget, youth orientated films.
• Carpenter and girlfriend ( Debra Hill) started to write a script which centered on simple acts of terror: crashes outside the door, pale faces peering through windows and Halloween costumes that suggested real dangers. Main character was Jamie Lee Curtis who is daughter of legendary actors, Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis. 'Halloween' grossed more than $80 million worldwide and it was said that the slasher movie had been born.
• Another very influential film was 'Last House on The Left' directed by Wes Craven, this film came from Ingmar Bergman's play, 'The Virgin Spring'

The Heroine:

• The modern horror has become very reliant upon the idea of the teenage heroine.
• The majority of such films created over the past 20 years has always ended with a lone surviver, almost always a teenage girl.
• Carol Clover, in her book, 'Men, Women and Chain Saws' decided to call this kind of heroine the 'Final Girl',  a generic term that reflects the highly generic nature of the character.
• All final girls have some basic characteristics. All intelligent, smart and resourceful, signs of trouble are always far more apparent to them, Invariably the first to realise what is happening, the final girl usually finds corpses of her friends which alerts her to the danger that surrounds her, the final girl remains one step ahead throughout the film.
• The climax of the film always centres around the final girl and her attacker.
• Often the final girl is a blood relation to the killer. The most example of this is in Halloween (1978) which centres on the relationship between Michael Myers and his sister, Laurie Strode.
• Some of the characteristics of the final girl occur with great frequency, they are by no means universal. One of these which is most often discussed is their status as virgins and their attitude to sex.
• The final girl is always assumed to be virginal while at least one of their friends is sexually active.

The Killer: 

• The aspects of a film that stick in the audience's mind are invariably the weapons and equipment used by the relevant psychopath.
• Characteristics of the Killer are important, Their gender (mainly male). Pamela Voorhees from 'Friday 13th' is one of the most famous examples of such a famous killer. The Killers usually act alone.
• Motivation is very important.
• Revenge is the main motivation but its not always directed against those who were responsible for the incidence.
• A large number of slasher films feature a strong family background for the killer, and example of this is 'Halloween' where the film is based around Michael Myers and the Strode  family.
• Most Antagonists in films use a variety of different methods to kill. 1) Manual slayings 2) tool-based killings
• There are also many different kinds of disguise used. Not used to conceal the murders identity, instead used to give an inhuman and emotionless face to the killer.

Location:

• Most slasher movies are set in one of three general locations: 1) campus 2) wilderness 3) Urban
• Campus: sorority houses are a prominent location, dimly lit corridors and darkened classrooms of schools.
• Wilderness: One specific location ( the summer camp ), Woodland camping ground, nearby a forest and wooden cabins.
• Urban: In a pleasant, suburban environment, middle class housing and well groomed gardens ( example of this is Elm Street) 

Parents and Authority Figures: 

• Obviously for a genre that is primarily targeted towards teenagers and teenage concerns, parents feature heavily in teen horror films.
• Usually hero/heroine's mother/father.

• The encyclopedia of horror' (edited by Richard Davis, fowarded by Peter Cushing)
  
• Richard Davis describes horror films as having developed 'new and rather disquieting trends' From this book i've discovered the plot of a modern horror film is largley centerd around countless killings and sexual refferences(according to the opinion of Richard Davis). This text looks more indepth into films produced between 1910 and 1980. Since these films the genre has developed to meet the consumer wants.
• During the period this book looks at it list horror as it 'pertains to the Realms of the Marvellous' (Page 8). It is almost suggest it is to similar to science fiction or fantasy in that it is an 'extension to the known world.'(Page8)
  
• Though the books claims to have this point of view there are sections of the book causing it to appear hipocritical. A picture (above) from theWarlords of Atlantis (1978, Kievn Connor) supports this hippocritical view. The denotation of the photo shows a giant octopus grasping a provocativley dressed, buxum female; her mouth is also partially open. This photo suggests the connotation  of sexual refferences and sexua activity. Both of theses connotations show a hippocritical opinion compared to that suggested about the films at the start of the book. This hippocritical is again supported with the Jaws (1975, Steven Spielberg) poster used on page 20. This is again a film that casues a hippocritical view with the books opinion of the genre. The film is known for a number of killings again goin against their opinion of the genre.
  
• RD thinks that-Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly(author of Frankenstien)-'undoubtedly achieved what she set out to write:a story that "awoke thrilling horror"
  
• The genre this book largely reffers to is concerning the 'realms of the marvellous'. Frankenstien is a prime example of the use of this in the genre, as 'throuhout the world the name is synonymously with horror, instantly conjuring up images of ugly, hulking monsters stompin murderously across our cinema and television screens'.
• This is also linked to biblical references such as the the story of Adam and Eve in 'Paradise Lost' accounted by John Milton this cant just be coincidence the stroy is dotted with these references throuhout.
  With Adam as the monster and God as Frankenstien, the monstrous Adam never gets to go into te garden of Eden (human society) and God (DR Frankenstien) denies him companionship of Eve.

• The genre as a whole unlike other genres has been able to establish and sustain franchises of a number of films. Over the years there have been successful franchises ranging from Dracula to Saw. Dracula and Frankenstein made by hammer horror between 1959 and 1974 were two of the most successful franchises of their time. These are also considered as some of the most successful British franchises. However it is American cinema that has produced films such as Friday the 13th, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Saw. Of all of these franchises the longest running is Friday the 13th originally released in 1980 now consists of 12 films the most recent being released in 2009.
• The Friday the 13th franchise along with other franchises has experienced convergence into other media sectors, including a TV series and merchandizing. Running over twenty nine years the franchise is still releasing new movies, demonstrating how a franchise can be successful.
• Franchises are a good idea for mostly movies with a big budget and experience overnight success with their first film, as it will be provided with wealth for years to come, as its able to keep old fans with the old background plots but gain new ones by keeping up to date with the media and other films, they will therefore be a trusted name so people are more likley to want to see the new sequel film as the earlier quality is expected, this will therefore target a vast target audience bringing in more wealth from sales, and although horror can also be construed as a family film in some cases as it will apply to so many ages.
• Dimension Films is a subsiduary of The Weinstein Company, formely used as Bob Weinstiens label within Miramax films, so they could produce and release genre films; in particular horror films. The Weinstein Brother kept this name when they seperated from Miramax owned by the conglomerate Disney in october 2005. "Disney continues to share half the proceeds from the Scary Movie flicks and any other future installments in pre-existing Dimension franchises."
• Some of the films the Weinstein Brothers are famous for both when working for Disney and after are: Cursed, Darkness, Halloween, Hellraiser, Scary Movie, Scream, The Amityville Horror, Jeepers Creepers and Black Christmas including all prequels/seqeuls, these were all very popular films.
• These are all horror films, despite some being hybrid genres such as Black Christmas which is both a horror and thriller, the Weinstein Brothers obviously specialise in scary horror films for many years of which have been very influential and set the standards for other horror films, we have even used the intertextual link from Scream where Drew Barrymore is being watched through the window by a male in a hoody in our film, however have developed this link from her on the phone to the stalker to a more modern day text to the stalker, as it is easier for our young primary target audience to relate to.
• I feel that these hybrid genre films are more popular now as they reach a wider target audience, meaning there’s more scope for cross-over appeal, such as 'Black Christmas'-horror/thriller (released 2006) Jeepers Creepers-horror/drama (released 2001) and Scream 3-horror/mystery (released 2000). They target a wider audience because they have more variety in film that they have to offer.
• However these usually have quite high budgets and seeing as ours was a low budget film it would be a little unconventional to try and target a huge audience, as with most low budget films we were targeting the youth audience, also our cast all have regional northern accents as that’s where we live so may not be as clearly understood by say 'southerners' or an American audience as there’s little cross-over appeal apart from some intertextual links of scenes from scream and music from Friday the 13th. But British films with cross-over appeal typically use actors living down south using 'the queens English' accent, so Northern accents may not even be construed as British to them.
• The genre of our film is therefore horror with a hint of slasher, not necessarily to target a larger target audience, although acting in this way is more to keep up to date with modern horror films having sub genres our sub genre is argued as slasher.

Shots

Try out shots (Friday 6th):

1.  Boy 1 and Girl 2 walking towards the camera, holding hands- Long shot/ two shot/ Mid shot
   
2. All characters + Extras gathered round, with a lot of focus on Boy 1 and Girl 1- Long shot/ Mid shot/ Zoom
3.  Girl 1 and Boy 2 sat around a table doing work while Boy 1 is standing outside, glaring into the window- Mid shot/ Zoom/ depth of field
4. Girl 1's friend 1 sat on her sofa watching TV- Mid shot/ Zoom/ friends POV/ External shot
5. Boy 2 behind the door of the friend 1 house, dark figure with a knife- close up
6. Boy 2 moves in towards friend 1 sat on the sofa, shot from behind- mid shot
7. Girl 1's  friend 2 running through a wood- panning shot/ mid shot
8. Friend 2 laid on floor ( dead ) in the wood- slight zoom/ close up shot
9. Girl 1 and Girl 2 sat inside on the sofa- External shot ( as though someone is looking in on them)- Long shot
10. Girl 2 leaving the house, walking away from the house- Long shot
11. Girl 2 walking away from the house as Boy 2 walks up behind her and kills her- Mid shot/ POV shot
12. Girl 2 on the ground ( dead ) - mid shot/ slight zoom/ close up
13. Girl 1 and Boy 1 bump into each other at a shop, Girl 1 jumps and looks scared- Mid shot/ Two shot
14. Girl 1 sat alone in her house, watching TV- POV of Boy 2 ( as though someone is watching her )- Long shot/ Zoom
15. Boy 1 stood outside her house, looking into a window- Mid shot/ long shot
16. Girl 1 sat alone, Back towards the camera, turns round very quickly, looking very scared- Mid shot/ Zoom

Test Shots:

These are just a few still camera shot of the filming we were doing for our test footage. They are mainly of Sarah, the final girl and also Ben, her ex-boyfriend. With a few social shots and some shots of Ben Iliff, the killer standing behind the girls before he kills them. We have also got still shots of the killings and the corpse. We took a variety of shots to see which would work best.

Pre-production Schedule [ DRAFT]

Friday 6th: 

• Test shots, trying out the cast and seeing if the shots work well together.