Film influences

While getting ideas for the story of my film I have looked at some other films to get inspiration and ideas.

One of these films was the Blair Witch Project : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0185937/

Here is a basic synopsis of the film from the Internet Movie Database :

"Three film students travel to Maryland to make a student film about a local urban legend... The Blair Witch. The three went into the woods on a two day hike to find the Blair Witch, and never came back. One year later, the students film and video was found in the woods. The footage was compiled and made into a movie. The Blair Witch Project."


The Blair Witch Project was made with a ridiculously small budget and with minimal advertising. Despite this it turned out to be a huge success and is a great inspiration for ideas and creating an atmosphere when making a horror film.




Halloween was another great horror film I looked to for some ideas and inspiration : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077651/

"The year is 1963, the night; Halloween. Police are called to 43 Lampkin Ln. only to discover that a 17 year Judith Myers had been stabbed to death, by her 6 year-old brother. After being institutionalized for 15 years, Myers breaks out just days before Halloween. No one knows nor would wish to find out what would happen on October 31st 1978, besides Myer's physciatrist Dr. Loomis. He knows Michael is coming back to Haddonfield, but by the time the town realizes it, it'll be to late for many people."


Like with the Blair Witch Project this film has a very tense atmosphere throughout. It also uses sound very effectively with very powerful, tense and frightening music at points in the film. 




The Shining is another classic horror film I really enjoyed that involved some techniques I thought where effective : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081505/

"A man, his son and wife become the winter caretakers of an isolated hotel where Danny, the son, sees disturbing visions of the hotel's past using a telepathic gift known as "The Shining". The father, Jack Torrance, is underway in a writing project when he slowly slips into insanity as a result of cabin fever and former guests of the hotel's ghosts. After being convinced by a waiter's ghost to "correct" the family, Jack goes completely insane. The only thing that can save Danny and his mother is "The Shining"."


This film shows a lot of nice film techniques and character development which can be effective in a horror film. It also has a few unique techniques with the sound and lighting and how they are used. One distinct thing I remember from the film and I assume most people do is that loud uncomfortable screeching sound in it that plays quite a lot. The film also has signifiers to heart beat sounds and other things through out. The film is able to portray the fathers slip in to insanity very well and gives a strong feeling of isolation. 




Scream is another film that focuses on the horror genre but this time it acts as a parody often mocking a lot of its predecessors and making the film more of a comedy than a horror. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117571/

"One year after the death of Sidney's mother, two students turn up gutted. When a serial killer appears, Sidney begins to suspect whether her mother's death and the two new deaths are related. No one is safe, as the killer begins to pick everyone off one by one. Everyone's a suspect in this case."


With my film I have been looking at making it in to a parody as it can be difficult to make a serious horror when you have a budget of basically £0. This means Scream will be a huge influence in how I approach it as this was one of the first and most successful horror parodies.




Scary Movie just like Scream acts as a parody of most horror films mocking a lot of the things that consistently appear in a horror film and breaking conventions to become a comedy. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0175142/

"A group of teenagers including Cindy Campbell and Bobby Prinze, accidentally hit a man when driving, and dispose of the body, but now they are being stalked by a very recognisable masked killer. The victim count increases, whilst Cindy must survive the carnage that she has seen in so many films before."


This will probably act as another huge influence to my story just like Scream as a parody can often be filmed with a smaller budget effectively and it allows you more freedom as you can challenge conventions regularly and are often encouraged to do so.

Even more advertising

Advertising plays a huge part in the medias success and is probably the largest source of income for some parts of the industry. On the internet particularly advertising provides the majority of revenue to a lot of websites. Video streaming sites such as Youtube and Blip.tv and live streaming sites like Ustream and Justin.tv are hugely dependent on advertisements to get enough money to keep running. This advertising can come in a few different forms. On video sites the most common will be picture adverts with links often there due to google ads. More recently there have also been a lot of adverts during the videos like at the start of a Youtube video there will quite often be a advert for something relevant to the video. This is becoming very similar to television where advertising in between programs is a huge source of income.


When looking at ways to advertise my short film with its posters it is important to consider all these different techniques that people use to raise awareness about there products. I think an effective way to advertise a short film with posters could be the internet where you can create your own web pages dedicated to the film or furthermore you could pay to get a picture placed in the side bar or somewhere on the page of a website that attracts an audience that would be interested in a short film.


Alternatively there are far more traditional ways of advertising the film that need to be considered such as a page in a newspaper. With this you would need to look at the audiences for each paper and which audience would be more interested in the genre of film. A good example of this would be comparing something like The Sun to The Guardian. They each attract very different readers who will most likely have different opinions on a lot of films.

Another more traditional way to get a product advertised is the radio. This was actually one of the options for the extra task in my project brief.  Radio advertising can be very effective to appeal to a large demographic of people while also not being as expensive as television advertising. Like with all advertising there is a lot to consider with radio advertising such as which station? What is that stations target audience? What time would you want to advertise? On radio the morning is probably the peak prime time slot as that is when the majority of people will be listening to the radio on there way to work hence advertising at this time would probably be far more expensive.

A lot of advertising is also partially subliminal such as with buses that have adverts on there sides or even   a far more subliminal one would be carrier bags which have a huge brand logo on them advertising the shop you have been to. phone booths as well when they where prominent would also carry posters on there sides advertising local products. Bus shelters will usually have a advert for something that would appeal to a very large audience such as a consumable product or a film.

These are all things to consider when it comes to how I can effectively use the advertisements I have created to appeal to the largest portion of my target audience possible for minimal costs. Another important thing to consider with advertising is funding. ukfilmcouncil.org.uk is known to give out extra support and funding to help independent films with advertising and promotion.


All images where obtained from google image searches

Epic!

A few months back our media group was lucky enough to go to Epic studios in Norwich.
 http://www.epic-tv.com/ We spent the day there learning a lot about the actual media industry from prominent figures that are a part of it. The day started with a interactive news broadcast in which people from the colleges and audience where able to come and take part in some of the different aspects of a live news production. Watching this I learnt a lot about how difficult media productions can be and how even things that seem simple like auto-cue can be very challenging to get right with disastrous results when done wrong such as if the words come up to fast a presenter may miss them but if its to slow then the speech will not feel natural at all and will have no flow.

After the live news attempt we watched a lot of different presentations and speeches which covered a huge variety of the media such as journalism, radio, music videos and film. The things I paid particular attention to where the ones which more specifically related to the project I was planning to do. These where the film and advertising sections. I also found the internet and website development parts to be relevant to some degree as they can also relate strongly to advertising. During the day I learnt a lot about the media industry and got some inspiration for possibly working in the industry in the future. I also left with a good amount more knowledge about how to approach and plan my project as well as how to present and advertise it when it is finished.

More Advertising

To try and make my poster and review as appealing as possible I have been doing some research in to current adverts that stand out and are creative. Toxel.com was a very effective resource for some of this research. In the billboard section particularly there are a huge variety of different advertisement techniques which I think could be used well in posters as well as the billboards.

This PSP advertising concept shows a lot of creativity while also getting its message across quite effectively. An advertisement like this would stand out and get the attention of people that see it quite easily. The main way it does this is by trying to break down what is real and what is not. This concept is able to very accurately portray the real surroundings of an area then add something that should not be there to make a audience think about it when they see it. 

This billboard concept can also signify that games on the PSP are incredibly realistic and almost jump out of the screen at you which with the current interest in 3D and more realistic engaging games is a very effective way to get an audiences attention.

This was another very creative advertisement that I liked. It is a billboard advertisement for toothpaste with an unreal exaggeration of its effects. It shows very creative use of some advertising techniques which can stand out to an audience by being very unique and clever. A billboard like this will also be remembered quite well which is hugely important in advertising.






These are just a few examples of the advertisements I have been looking at to try and get some inspiration and creative ideas for my poster and possibly for the magazine review. http://www.toxel.com/ has been a very effective website for showing me some unique and creative ways in which advertisers are able to communicate with a target audience and I plan to continue using some of the images there as a reference point while i design the adverts for my short film.