CREATIVE CRITICAL REFLECTION

HOW MY FILM PROMO PACK REPRESENTS SOCIAL GROUPS & ISSUES

In The Institute, several different social groups and issues are represented in our work. Firstly, the boarding school community at the heart of our film depicts an elitist social system that is rule-bound and open to abuse, where only the strongest survive and where conformity is the sole gateway to acceptance. We represent these girls through their clothes, self-assurance and RP accents. We use stereotypes to make these upper-class girls behave as if they were above everyone else, thereby positioning them in opposition to our protagonist, Susannah, who is represented as a reluctant latecomer to the system and one who refuses to submit herself.

We use stereotypes to shape our audience’s sympathies for the victim Susannah and to position the school system as alien. For Stuart Hall, stereotypes appearing in the media such as in films reinforce audience expectations about social stereotypes. Audiences may decode the messages embedded in the stereotypes differently, but genre conventions clearly reinforce specific stereotypes. Our horror narrative constructs stereotypical roles such as victim and villain, positioning Susannah in the role of sacrificial victim to the system. However, it also plays with audience expectations about female behaviour, making Susannah an adventurous, courageous spirit who takes risks and explores forbidden territory, flouting stereotypes of female timidity.

 

A familiar social issue is school bullying as the group turns on Susannah because she is different and refuses to be cowed. Had she shown proper weakness when being dropped off at school by the family chauffeur rather than her own father, she might have fitted in with the group’s expectations, but she forges a lonely path and is isolated when the others turn on her. Narratives often feature strong-willed heroines whose troubled backgrounds turn them into bullies, but ours depicts a more complex figure: she is both a teenager secretly missing her parents and an outwardly defiant loner. The father is represented as a distant authoritarian figure who expects his daughter to conform and get on with life, making our protagonist seem a victim of neglect and therefore as in many horror films an easy target.

 

Normally in school communities the matron is the maternal figure for all the girls boarding away from home, but the matron in our film is the arch villain who flouts this stereotype. Her behaviour drives the audience’s concern and sympathy for the girls and provides a pattern for the systematic cruelty and unease that seem to permeate The Institute.

 

HOW THE ELEMENTS OF MY PROMO PACK WORK TOGETHER TO CREATE A SENSE OF 'BRANDING'

 

My film website’s homepage has the striking main image of our protagonist Susannah, this image also appears in my poster adding to the cohesion of the branding. The image clearly signals the film’s genre through the dark lighting revealing only half her face which is very fitting to the horror genre as it connotes a sense of fear and mystery. The font and colour scheme also adds to the horror conventions of a film as well as being coloured red. I used this font on my poster and website creating cohesion to my promopack. The film tagline features prominently on the website homepage as well as our production company’s logo of  Moonlight Productions, our production team name is mentioned across our social media too. All the social medias have been linked to my film website to make it easy for any viewers wanting to access all other aspects of our film.

 

The timeline on my instagram feed features many key moments from making the film, such as behind the scenes photos of the cast and crew in action which engages the viewers to want to see what we were working on. The cast are an important part of creating recognition in our audience, through the behind the scene images we have posted.

 

To promote brand recognition for my film, I designed t-shirts, face masks, phone cases and bags that feature exclusive posters made linked to the film. This makes viewers feel involved as well as creating brand recognition.

 

HOW MY FILM PROMO PACK ENGAGES WITH MY AUDIENCE

 

My poster creates a sense of the thriller / horror genre through visual codes such as the dark colour tones with pops of red, the spooky style in my poster specifically engages with my audience as it makes them want to explore more about the film,this is evident through the dripping blood hands and dark lighting used on the poster. The centre of visual interest is the main character, Susannah, making the audience engaged as they are intrigued to know what she has done or what has happened to her. The tagline attracts the audience's attention with the words “the basement  never sleeps”, this hooks the audience because it leaves them knowing the unknown on what happens in the basement which is very intriguing. 

 

At the centre of my promopack are my trailers. They use horror conventions through the visual and sound codes such as suspenseful music, and fast pace editing to make the audience engaged and question what will happen next. My trailer introduces the main character Susannah as a problematic and rebellious student at the school who doesn't follow the rules. In contrast, the school matron is depicted as an evil woman who is not the stereotypical  nurturing matron, making the audience immediately dislike her and assume she has something to do with the basement. The audience can relate to Susannah, as everyone understands what it is like to not fit in with everyone else, this makes the audience sympathize with her despite her rebellious side. Sound is very significant in engaging our audience especially the dialect of the Matron who is forceful and rude to the girls, making the audience really dislike her.

 

My website landing page has a strong impact because of its visuals which include a dark image of Susannah, immediately suggesting to the audience  that she is the main character. My website invites audiences to use it because it is easy to navigate as it has tabs that open to all our social media, making it very easy to explore. The gallery shows interesting photographs of behind the scenes of filming, exclusive character posters and pictures of the filming locations which all give sneak peaks to what is in store to watch. Reviews such as some from the Guardian and the Times build up my film's credentials and reassure audiences about the film's quality, making audiences really intrigued to watch a film that reviewers loved.

 

HOW MY RESEARCH INFORMED MY PRODUCTS AND THE WAY IN WHICH THEY USE OR CHALLENGE CONVENTIONS

I researched the horror / psychological thriller genre and was inspired by aspects of trailers such as A Quiet Place. Our trailer shares the sense of menace which builds throughout, quietly at first, then drawing on a mix of light flashes and colour bursts combined with a sound track that becomes increasingly intense. The music escalates from sounds that are glacial like single drops of freezing rain towards more sustained louder percussive sounds that alarm and disorientate, connoting the terror of the school girl who stumbles on the basement and its dark secrets. For me, sound is a key code in all horror / ghost film techniques. We also build in jump scares like A Quiet Place, such as when our audience is driven into the basement in long tracking shots as our protagonist flees along the echoing corridors. The use of mise-en-scene is another horror / thriller convention that we have acknowledged as being important in creating atmosphere and lending authenticity. Initially, we took the idea of a late 1950s boarding school setting from TV drama like The Crown, where Prince Charles is marooned in the freezing inhospitable Gordonstoun. The traditional trope of the haunted house film, such as in The Woman In Black, inspired our use of a period mansion with imposing flights of steps outside and staircases inside. However, we gave a modern twist to the horror genre in that we hint at a warped, evil mistreatment of the girl boarders by a psychopathic matron who administers medicine as a punishment. In present times, with media panic about the possible dangerous side-effects of vaccines, we wanted to tap into this deep-seated suspicion about scientific experimentation. We felt that this gave our film its USP, its topical edge.

I draw on all the traditional features of a film website, in particular, I capitalise on the huge potential of the home page to deliver an extreme close-up of my protagonist’s face taken with harsh lighting that draws attention to both her extreme youth and vulnerability, thereby engaging the audience’s interest and sympathy and showing her terror which clearly signals the horror genre. Engaging the audience through interactive features is essential for my target audience of 15-35 year olds, so I have interactive links to other pages (cast, screenings, release dates etc…) and most importantly, to social media like Twitter and Instagram, which our audiences use. We may be unusual in that we have created a TikTok, but this is increasingly used for promoting films to younger audiences.

I have adhered to all poster codes and conventions like having the centre of visual interest being the protagonist’s serious face in chiaroscuro lighting. The protagonists tense body language, colour connotations, red font, bloody hands and the mansion in the background which connotes peril and danger which adds to the horror codes and conventions making it extremely fitting to our genre choice. The colour palette of dark red and black really helps to emphasise the genre and supports the generic codes and conventions of horror film posters. From researching successful movie posters of a similar genre, like A Quiet Place, I noticed the recurring theme of red font and a close up, darker central image. Therefore, I felt it was very important to mimic these conventions in my own poster. I prioritised the protagonist to be the main central image however wanted to draw upon the location of the film, so felt it was necessary to include the Mansion in the background. The mise-en-scene of the protagonist in a smart blazer and scraped back hair immediately suggests a sense of authority over the protagonist and the smart location does the same.