In our short film called ‘possessed’, there can be certain social groups and issues represented. For our film, it starts out with a group of teenagers that use peer pressure and exploit a young teen girl’s fears by forcing her into an abandoned house. This movie shows the miss guided way teens can be when it comes to peer pressure. The teen who gets peer pressured into going into the abandoned house got encouraged and wants to follow their peers by changing their attitude or is forced into an uncomfortable situation. Teens are more likely to succumb to peer pressure due to the need to ‘fit in’ with their peers. In the film, peer pressure can be seen in the beginning scenes, where the group of friends find an abandoned house. In this scene, three of the four teens can be seen pushing and dragging one of the group members into an abandoned house. It can be seen that the young teen did not want to go inside but succumbs to peer pressure and goes inside the house. This social issue is very prominent in today’s society when it comes to teenagers. The social group that is mainly represented in our movie are teenagers. As such, our whole cast and crew were made-up of teenagers. This representation of teenagers connects with younger and teen audiences. In the film the teenagers had to go through major events and had to work as a unit instead of branching out and doing their own thing. The whole incident shows viewers the repercussions of peer pressure and its effect on teenagers.
For our branding, quite a few elements of our production helped create the sense of our brand. One of our most important elements that was utilized, was the use of mirrors. In our story line, one of the friends in the film gets possessed from looking into a mirror. The mirror can be seen in most of the scenes, it was the main prop used in the film. The whole film was based off of the friend getting possessed by the mirror. We used this in all of our social medias, our post card, and in our film. In our social media, for our main photo, it shows a spirit coming out of a mirror and for our front of our post card my group and I used a photo of the character holding up the ‘hunted’ mirror, this helps push our brand to show the way the friend got possessed and that that’s the main plot of the movie. Along with the mirror, we also utilized the friend being possessed for our branding. For this, we named the movie ‘Possessed’ and used photos of the friend acting possessed in our social medias and our post card. By naming the movie after the main plot of the film, this helped show that are brand is about the mirror possessing the friend and wreaking havoc on the friend group. The last element we added for our branding was the use of dark lighting, and fonts to help push the horror theme in our branding.
In our short film, our product engages with our audience through our social media and the shots that we filmed. My group and I wanted to make sure that we created an immersive experience for our audience. We created an engaging experience to give the audience the full horror experience. One way we engaged the audience was by using a POV shot. This shot can she seen when one of the characters, Alex, gets ambushed by the possessed friend, Ava. The POV is of Ava choking Alex. We filmed this by having the camera man stand in front of Ava and have Ava “choke” them. By using this shot, it helps make the audience feel like they are getting choked. Another method of engaging the audience was by using a lot of tracking shots throughout the film. The tracking shot is a shot where the camera follows a character whether it is forward, backward, or moves alongside of the character being recorded. This method allows the audience to feel like they are actually following the character. In the film, the use of a tracking shot can be seen when Ava, the possessed friend, finds the mirror and when she gets possessed. We used this shot again in the beginning of the film when the group of friends enter the house and split into separate groups. The camera man used tracking shot while following the group that consisted of Morgan and Jake while they walk into another room. We also use this shot to follow Ava and Alex when they look around the living room of the abandoned house. We use this shot quite a few times in the film to help immerse our viewers. Through our social media we also got to engage the audience by keeping them updated on how the filming was and when we expected the movie to show in theaters. We used behind the scenes photos and sneak peek poster photos to keep the audience intrigued and interested in our film.
Each genre of film whether it be horror, comedy, or a coming-of-age movie, has its own certain conventions and cliches. When it comes to the research that went into our movie, we utilized the “cliche” horror film conventions in our own short film. We looked at old and new horror movies to help deepen our understanding of our horror genre. One cliché that we stuck with was using low lighting for all of our scenes. For our movie the scenery was supposed to be set in an abandoned house, as such we only used one source of light (flash lights) to create the hunted, eerie feeling. Another convention we used was using eerie, twisted or striking titles for the beginning titles. For our film we used a type of blood dripping font to add the horror feeling. The last cliché convention we utilized was using eerie and creepy music to really add to the horror theme in our film.
