11 Ritson Rebecca 3346

8/14/2019 11 Ritson Rebecca 3346

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The basic conventions of a horror film include:

Blood, a victim, a villain , a weapon, darkness, binary oppositions

To enable the audience to associate our film with the horror genre

we reaffirmed these conventions in our film.

- We used blood to differentiate our film from a thriller

- Our victim was stereotypically blonde, female and wearing whiteto highlight innocence.

- The villain was male as men are seen as being dominant andsuperior within society. To identify him as the villain weplaced him with a weapon - a knife.

- We developed Claude Levi-Strauss’ theory on binary oppositionsby contrasting the genders of the victim and villain to help

distinguish between the good and evil.- Due to findin it challen in to film in darkness we filmed usin



The Victim in our film is portrayed as being a young teenage girl. Tocreate the ‘damsel in distress’ character we made sure our victim wasa young female with blonde hair to play to the idea that all blondefemales are defenceless and vulnerable. We dressed her in a plainwhite t shirt to highlight her innocence and naivety. This shows young

girls as being in constant danger which is a common conception withinsociety.

The Villain was played by an adult male. This is because men areviewed in society as being dominant, controlling and superior towomen. To reinforce this image of hierarchy we used low angle shots

and extreme close ups to create trepidation towards the villain, onceagain making the male in control of the audiences emotions. The facthe’s an adult adds to his authority and power over the young girl.



Our film is classified under the genre of horror and may be seenas controversial for it is based around the idea of cannibalism.

For this reason I believe Lionsgate may distribute our film.

In 2000 they begun a trend of distributing controversial films andhave released films similar to ours such as Saw, Hostel, Teeth andmost recently My Bloody Valentine.

All these films carry the same certificate we are aiming for -



When carrying out research in to a target audience we found thatthe majority of people thought that horror films of a certificate 18are of a better standard because they can fully explore theconventions of a horror film.

Because of this we decided our ideas should be gruesome anduncensored so we decided to film scenes involving the removal of limbs, organs and cannibalism.

After carrying out research in to films similar to ours we foundthat the majority of them were 18s due to their violent and gory

nature.

For these reasons we have decided BBFC would class our film ascertificate 18.



The title ‘The Jar’ is ambiguous yet simple so therefore createsintrigue within the target audience as they wonder how the nameis relevant to the film. This may attract and encourage them tothen watch the film to work out the link between the title and plot.

We adhered to the conventions of the horror genre so as not to

disappoint the audience. It will interest and engage those whoenjoy suspense and watching horror films.

The film is set in a restaurant kitchen which causes apprehensionas the location is so familiar that it puts the audience at ease andgives them something to relate to, yet as customers we don’t

venture into the kitchen… The victim is a teenage girl which therefore addresses theaudience as she is around the same age as the target audienceallowing them to engage with her.



Before we started filming I was able to use a video camerahowever over the period of time we spent constructing ourfilm I have become more confident with my abilities and havelearnt new techniques. I am able to frame shots moreartistically with the use of rule of thirds and I have learnt a

wide range of different shots, camera angles and cameramovements.

As well as improving film I have learnt a great deal aboutediting using the Macs. I am now able to crop clips, creating jump cuts between images, apply effects such as adjusting

the colours so only one colour is prominent, adding transitionsso the scenes flow, finally extracting and adding sound.

I also learnt about the uses of the different equipment and avaluable lesson that tripods are easily broken…



When filming the preliminary task I learnt how important it is toframe my shots properly especially when filming an over theshoulder shot as the composition is crucial.

Although we were more limited with the range of shots and angleswe could use in the preliminary task the basic knowledge of rules

such as the 180 degree line helped when storyboarding and filmingour two minute opening .

We realised that the mise-en-scene staying exactly the same everyscene was essential to the continuity of our film. If Claudia wasseated next to a box in one shot it was crucial it was still there in

the next shot.I am now aware of the effects lighting, composition and cameraangles have on a scene so when I was filming a scene I was able touse all of these to create the desired effect.

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11 Ritson Rebecca 3346