Foundation Portfolio - Alex Wakeling

I used 3 different age groups in my film; Young Adult, Adolescence and a child....

Matt Wills; Psychiatrist

Mathew is a 17 year old male who has confidence on screen. He featured as an actor in his own media prodution which gave us confidence in him as an actor. His character is stern and intimidating through the use of his body language, formal dialogue and levels on screen compared to the female character.

We dressed Matt in dark coloured business
clothing, making his character come across as a serious high class man perfect for the role in hand. He is also shown wearing an apple watch allowing the audience to see his job is well paid and has a higher position in society.

Jasmine Croft; Teenage Lily Jones

Jasmine is a 16 year old female who although didn't have much confidence on screen to start with she soon took on the role perfectly as the troubled teenager. Also Jasmine was not our first option for this role, however when we faced problems with availability of another actor she was our next best option. However we were very happy with the result of her acting and she actually suited the role better than our first choice would have.

We used Jasmine due to her pale skin and innocent look which fitted with the personality we wanted for he role however this also matched well with our younger actor and the stereotypical child in our chosen genre.

Lily Butler; Younger Lily Jones

Lily is a 10 year old young female that is involved in stage coach performing arts outside of school. She was our first thought when we realised we wanted a child actor and was easily available due to her being a relative. Her age suited the role due to it being identical to the character we wanted.

Lily has the pale skin and innocent features also to match the stereotypical conventions of a child in a stereotypical psychological horror. She also has the long blonde hair that was perfect for this character also, tied with a long red ribbon. Overall she played the character well, knowing exactly what we wanted from the delivery of the lines and acted in a professional manor on set.

Jamie Thompson; The Babysitter

Jamie is a 17 year old male that also has confidence onscreen. He was however our second option for this role due to our change in the gender we wanted to play this role. Although he definitely took to this role perfectly and again we were glad to have chosen him.

Jamie uses a range of tones in his voice, facial expressions and body language within the film to portray the character given. He was easily available due to the close living distance and flexible hours.
We asked Jamie to come dressed as he usually would to ensure the character looked like your average teenage babysitter. However we did give him the order to put his hood up when we fist see him to fist give the audience a false idea of which character was in danger.

1.
Our opening film sequence challenges conventions of the horror genre mainly through the use of gender. We have included a female as the main protagonist this is because stereotypically it is middle aged men of white ethnicity who fulfils this role. This helps us to create a twist to our story as at first the male characters appear intimidating due to there costuming, however we can soon see that the female holds the most control.

In addition to this, we used a male (in the flashback sequence) as the victim. This helps to create an unusual feel for the audience as stereotypically the victim is a young white female as they can easily be presented as weak which also goes against power through gender roles in this genre. However our use of a male babysitter goes against this through making a male appear the weaker gender, this can also help to show the audience what this young girl is capable of.

A way our film challenges the conventions of a film in general is placing the titles at the end of the opening sequence. This enables the audience to recognise she is the girl in the flashback and Charlie was there in the recalled event, however also creates a jump scare due to the contrast of the low volume dialogue and the sudden up in volume once the title appears.

We also stuck with stereotypical codes and conventions of psychological horrors;
For example, the use of a young child who is easily manipulated by other people or ideas (Charlie). This is shown in other films such as "Mama" when Victoria & Lilly are guided by a maternal figure they call "Mama". This is shown from the very start of our film with the older girl through the lack of response and blank facial expressions emitting affection-less psychopathy characteristics- This continues in the flashback with the same girl. Costuming also helps to express this as in the flashback the girl wears a stereotypical dark coloured dress. From looking at other horrors involving children such as The Woman In Black (2011) we could see we needed a child with pale skin, long blonde hair and of an innocent personality in order to fit the codes and conventions of our chosen genre. Which we did in this case with lily butler.

Our opening title sequence emphasises a dark tone inside the title studio logo with the crystal ball being a metaphor for mystery which occurs in the storyline. The colour scheme used in our studio logo is purple and blue with a dark font to match saying "Darkson Studios". We got inspiration for this from studios such as Lakeshore entertainment which also uses dark colours and tones. On top of this we included audio with high pitched "scrape like" sounds which adds to the idea of what our film genre is going to be, putting the audience at unease before the film has even begun. Audio like this was inspired by the film Pyscho for the famous shower scene.

We used colour changes in our opening scenes to include more codes and conventions of a psychological horror, the cold blue filter on top of the scene expresses the intimidation towards the female character but also due to the shade chosen we were able to manipulate the audience feelings. It allows them to therefore be connected to the situation on screen.

Finally we used dramatic irony in our film meaning we are aware the victim is in danger but they are not. An example of where we used this is when we see the flashback and the babysitter enters the house; We know from the conversation with the psychologist the babysitter is possibly in danger but he is not aware to begin with.

2.
A high socio-economic class is presented (the male who does the interview) to show authority and adds seriousness at the very start of the film. Actor Matthew Wills is dressed in suit trousers and a shirt with a jumper over, all in the same colour to represent power and clear control in his role; The large amounts of dialogue and kinesics show he is an active participant and presents this class to be in control which we felt important as it creates an unnerving scene early on. This is demonstrated in the body language which includes lots of gestures and standing over the girl to show the audience he has to remain on top. The older adult in his job as a psychologist in the narrative makes a stern character where as the young girl (the antagonist) adds innocence as we do not associate young children with crimes such as homicide which is implied in the scene so we are concerned about her and recognise her to be a potential threat (as then seen in the flashback).

Age is portrayed to lose its innocence as the girl creates the disequilibrium which is incorporated into more recent conventions of psychological horrors; For instance, Insididous (2010), Sinister (2012) have plots where children of the family become possessed or haunted by a supernatural figure. Here the visible young age of the girl acts as a false sense of security drawing the babysitter in to the house and entering the world of her friend Charlie. This is typical to include in some more recent horrors such as "Mama" where the girls age is taken advantage of by a supernatural force.

The babysitter in the film also represents a young age category as he is a teenager on the verge of adulthood but is the victim which isn't conventional as we expect males to be the antagonist who are usually middle aged. Swapping the gender roles works well for our target audience of student aged teenagers who are more likely to watch films which have this risk rather than a more mature audience who may prefer stereotypical horrors which include "The last girl theory" embedded into them. This way more females are likely to watch the film as the young girl plays the major role as the antagonist. Also, The atypical representation of a female being the perpetrator breaks the gender bias present in stereotypical horrors.

3.
The British film production company " Hammer Films" based in London would be suitable to distribute our film as they have released The Woman In Black (2012) so work within our genre and are located in the same country. Previously, Hammer have produced classics Frankenstein & Dracula so are recognisable in this genre to an experienced horror audience. "Universal" have experience in Thriller genres mainly but have produced Horrors so would make suitable candidates for publishing. Their production of Mama (2013) is also about a young girl disturbed by a supernatural force so people who have seen this would be interested in "My friend Charlie" because of the antagonists similarity becoming sinister characters. "Lakeshore entertainment" would be most suited to publish our film due to their work in psychological horror. Most recently they published the "The Boy" in 2016 which plays heavily on innocence in ages the doll depicts a young boy sharing age as a key part in our narrative too. Our film would be a large budget venture but could be filmed with a small cast. It would require however require some special effects for the appearance of Charlie as the imaginary friend the girl communicates with would need to be visible in some form. CGI would be put in place which would put it into this category and professional illustrations but only to create Charlie and not for supernatural effects like in Paranormal activity or where a physical monster is created. The figure/form of Charlie plays heavily on the imagination as the film hints its her imaginary friend. By doing this rather than involving a physical sense of horror, a supernatural force can be conceived by the audience who only sees a shadow in the opening sequence.

4.
Our main target audience would be teenagers 15+ to young adults of any gender but towards the female side due to the female antagonist and perhaps British white ethnicity as these are all of the characters race. University students or those in full time education would like the familiarity of the protagonist as he is of this social grade. Moderate psychological threat is featured from the figure Charlie so for this reason the film rating BBFC would be a 15 and not a 12 or 12A as the threat is sustained and features throughout. The parents of the child and the babysitter both come from a lower socio economic class and live in an urban area so audiences of this background would be more likely to watch our film due to being able to relate to this and the environment (semi detached house in a town). The setting is urban and set to date except the flashback which goes several years back. However, there is no futuristic or dated elements to the film and it maintains this current era. This further brings a more natural environment in a family house which the audience can relate to. In particular, those of lower socio economic class with younger siblings like the girl during the flashback. Also, the supernatural element of the child predicting the outcomes of events would attract audiences who enjoy Thrillers or psychological thrillers. We have aimed our media product to be students/teenagers as they are typically rebellious and exploring boundaries so would watch this genre. This is due to the high adrenaline created in signature moments of the film such as Charlie being suggested but never seen, answers that the child gives. For example, when the babysitter asks what the book is about and the child replies "You" and the eventual appearance of Charlie. The babysitter falls into this category and with both main characters not even in adulthood, an instant connection can be established with audiences who may be babysitters or have friends who are so recognise the appearance of the male teenage babysitter instead of an older adult.

5. *notes used during filming*

6. During the editing process of my film I was able to understand many things about technologies. For example how colour change filters of scenes can be used to manipulate the audiences mood. This can be seen in the start of our film as we put a dim blue filter over the psychiatric interview scene. This is effective in the way that it changes the atmosphere of the clip from a normal everyday situation to an artificial cold feel. The colour also helps the audience to have a connection with the idea of an interrogation and the intimidation within the circumstance.
Another thing I learnt about technologies is how i was able to express the idea of time change through the use of transitions. On Adobe Premier Pro I used the dissolve transition between the present day scene and the flashback, I paired this with the dialogue of the line of the date that the flashback happened to make it 100% clear that the time had changed. The use of the fade transition also helped us stick to the codes and conventions of a flashback in films as the fading helps create a dreamlike / thinking process which is used a lot in film time changes.
I also learnt how audio can be used to create an atmosphere in our film, I used this in different ways for example the music box piece overlapping the start of the flashback. This gives a child like feel to the scene however due to it being quite creepy we can make a link between this and the child. Digetic sounds can also be used for example the bumps outside the bedroom door which although is very simple, is effective in suggesting something is there.

7. Since the preliminary task, we have downsized our group by 1 member in order to better communicate ideas and efficiently work without disagreement. This is because we had a different idea that the other member did't like.
We decided to use a small cast and make a production schedule so we could arrange dates for filming on and wouldn't be restricted on these days as only two of the cast were needed for the flashback scene, and a separate two for the interview scene.
Using our own cameras we could operate at a faster rate and as they belonged to us we could have them whenever we wanted.
We also used a different editing tool, Imovie at home to edit the film but transfer the it onto Adobe Premiere when editing at the Sixth form.
The 180 degree rule was still applied in order to maintain coherency in scenes which was used in the psychologist scene at the beginning where the camera is on the right side of Jasmine Crofts shoulder and on the left side of Matthew Wills shoulder throughout.
Intimidation is exaggerated in the over the shoulder shot from Matthew Wills who looks down when talking to Jasmine Croft which helps to build an unnerving atmosphere as we get the impression the antagonist has done something wrong and perhaps committed an offence so bad she is required to see a psychologist.
Transitions were more fluent when compared to the preliminary task as we included a fade in to start the film and a fade out before the Title of the film at the very end. This was successful in adding brief suspense and providing a smooth ending that didn't appear rushed or ended abruptly. As well as this, we added 10 title sequences in order according to the codes and conventions
Finally we knew we had to be more aware of people in the background of our film as this was a problem in our prelim task. So this time we chose more private places to film so we didn't have to worry about this.