The Uses and Gratification Theory

'The Uses and gratifications theory is an approach to understanding why and how people actively seek out specific media to satisfy specific needs'.  The theory explained that the audience have four basic needs:

•  Escapism
•  Personal relationships
•  Personality identity
•  Surveillance

When looking into horror films I found that this theory is relevant for possibly explaining why people enjoy the horror genre.

When thinking about Escapism we can relate this to people being able to escape into a world of a horror film. Being able to escape into the world of a horror film for a short period of time and knowing that is just a film often gives the viewer a buzz/adrenaline rush. The viewer is able to briefly forget their own problems in the real world and think about the problems of the characters in the film.

When looking into Personal relationships I can relate this to people bonding whilst watching a horror film. It's very common for friends to watch horror films together at sleepovers etc. Horror films allow friends/family to share the brief traumatic experiences in the film and to speak about the film together.

You can relate Personal Identity to people being able to identify with the characters or idolise specific characters in the film. This point covers pretty much all genres. People can relate and be inspired by characters characteristics. In some ways this could be bad as people may be inspired by negative things such as murder etc. however it is possible to have a positive effect on people such as if they are inspired by a characters bravery.

Surveillance relates to an audience being happy or finding pleasure knowing that what they are watching is only just a film and isn't real. Even though the person may be scared they would still feel safe knowing that they are not the ones who are actually in danger.This could link to my first point about escapism.

Cultivation Theory

I have been looking into other audience related theories. I came across the Cultivation theory developed by Professor George Gerbner, dean of the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania
The professor believed that television is responsible for shaping, or ‘cultivating’ viewers’ conceptions of social reality. This means that by people watching television overtime the media can shape the way we see things in the real world such as different religions, countries etc.
Research related to this theory included carrying out tests on people that watch a lot of television and people that only watch a little television. They discovered that people who watched less television had more sources of information and were more open minded then heavy television viewers.
This theory also supports the saying 'You watch too much television' which I'm sure most of us have heard in our lives.

Example of theory:
'In a survey of about 450 New Jersey schoolchildren, 73 percent of heavy viewers compared to 62 percent of light viewers gave the TV answer to a question asking them to estimate the number of people involved in violence in a typical week. The same survey showed that children who were heavy viewers were more fearful about walking alone in a city at night. They also overestimated the number of people who commit serious crimes. This effect is called ‘mean world syndrome’. One controlled experiment addressed the issue of cause and effect, manipulating the viewing of American college students to create heavy- and light-viewing groups. After 6 weeks of controlled viewing, heavy viewers of action-adventure programs were indeed found to be more fearful of life in the everyday world than were light viewers.' http://www.utwente.nl/cw/theorieenoverzicht/theory%20clusters/media,%20culture%20and%20society/cultivation_theory-1.doc/


I do think that this theory makes a lot of sense because if you compare older and younger peoples views on television the example supports this. It more common for a younger person to sit and watch more television so a violent scene may not be phase or offend them. However if an older person were to watch it they may be offended by it as they don't watch as much television and when they were growing up there either wasn't television  or wasn't much violence, swearing, sex etc. on television. Where as many younger people of this generation have become desensitised due to growing up with it.
The previous example however is interesting and important to our film as the target audience to our film is younger people. By reading this theory I now feel that our film has the potential to effect/scare young people as we are setting the film in a very normal/safe environment meaning we are dragging the audience into a false sense of security.

The Hypodermic Needle Theory

The hypodermic needle theory is one of the most famous theories. The theory suggests that the media is like a syringe that then injects its ideas and beliefs straight into the audience's head. The theory is no longer taken very seriously today however I feel that even though it was developed in the 1920s the theory still has some relevance today as recent events such as high school shootings etc. are often linked to violent computer games, films etc.
The theory basically looks into the effect the mass media has on the consumer and suggests that the media can easily influence people. It suggests that the messages in the media product go straight into a passive audience's mind and they are immediately influenced by the message.
I believe this theory was probably most relevant during World War Two when countries produced propaganda especially the Nazi party that used this to gain followers and brainwash people into thinking their polices were correct.

Personally I am in two minds about this theory as I feel that each individual perceives things differently. I personally think a person can passively be influenced by a media product however I think it is too simple to blame things just on media as I believe a persons background, culture, home life etc. has to be considered when blaming the media for things. By this I mean, when looking into this theory I found examples of crimes related to violent media and in the majority of cases the perpetrator had a bad home life or had some sort of traumatic experience that could have triggered the desire to commit a crime.
Overall I feel that the theory is party correct and relevant to this day as I believe a persons personal life linked with violent media could potentially cause someone to commit a crime such as murder. Therefore I do believe the media can potentially passively influence an audience.

Initial Storyline Ideas

Myself and my group have been brainstorming ideas so that we have something prepared for when the cinema get back to us about filming. We game up with this rough storyline that can also be found on Laura's blog.
We liked the idea of incorporating the 50s into the start of the film by editing the footage so that it will be in black and white and also using 50s music to set the time period.

The start of our short film begins with old style black and white footage of the cinema in the 50's, showing a group of teenagers going in there to enjoy a film. News paper clippings could then come flying onto the screen showing how the group of young teens never came out of the cinema and went missing ever since. A black screen then appears saying that the case was suspiciously closed and now in 2013 it marks the 50th Anniversary.

It will then returns back to the present day, a young girl becomes very interested in the case and wants to find out more. She decides to go to the cinema with her friend with her hand-held camera to question the cinema owner and find out more. Everything looks normal and she meets a man who claims to own the cinema. After asking the cinema owner what happened the day the teens went missing he begins to tell stories about the old Gaol that once stood there before his cinema. He thinks that the prisoners of the Gaol still walk the screening room and he believes that the paranormal were responsible for the missing teens. The young girl begins to believe what he is saying especially after unusual things happening during her tour around the cinema.

The end of the film depicts the young girl begins to explore on her own and finds a golden watch with one of the teenagers names carved into the back of it lying in the owners office. She immediately begins to panic and finds herself running out of the cinema. She contacts the police and urges them to come back to the cinema with her and arrest this owner for being responsible for the missing teens. When they arrive at the cinema there is nothing there but an abandoned building. Nobody was in there. Including the 'owner.' She couldn't understand what had happened and it wasn't until later that night when she was searching for answers on the Internet she stumbles across a website with the history of the cinema. There she sees the cinema owners face but there he wasn't a cinema owner. He was a prisoner of the Gaol who had killed himself in his cell before the teens even went missing. The last shot could show the young girls face staring blankly at the screen. The audience are left with many questions and it's up to them to form their own answers.

This is our first attempt at coming up with a whole story and we all feel that even though it still needs a lot of attention it would make an interesting film.
Hopefully we will hear from the cinema soon so that we can continue to brainstorm ideas and begin to make plans.

Mockumentary style films

As my group has decided that we want to do a Horror/Thriller film in the style of a documentary I thought it would be beneficial to look into other productions that have been made in this style and are this genre.
Two extremely popular films in this style that I thought of immediately were 'The Blair Witch Project' and also 'Cloverfield'. Both of theses films were extremely successful and also have a cult following (especially the Blair Witch Project) behind them. More recent films that have been quite successful include the 'Paranormal activity' films, 'The last exorcism', 'The devil inside' and also 'Apollo 18'.
Speaking from my personal experience initially I believed that all of these films were true stories(apart from 'Cloverfield'). As I thought this, when watching the films I believe that they had more of an effect on me as I thought the events happening in the film actually happened in real life. Also as I personally find the supernatural scary the thought that the events really happened made me think about the film more and it actually scared me more. I found my self having to research some of the films after watching them as I wanted to find out more about the stories.

The following is a trailer for 'The Devil Inside' this is a red band trailer meaning it's slightly more graphic then a normal green band. I actually found this trailer very hard to watch as this kind of thing scares me. I thought the way the trailer was made makes the film look like it is a true story mainly because of the text that comes up throughout the trailer. At a certain point 'The Vatican did not endorse this film' appears on the screen. This made me automatically think that the film was true and that is was exposing some kind of conspiracy.
I also think that the news reports are a good touch to the film as this also makes it look like it was a true story. The hand held camera style of filming  obviously makes the film look like it is a documentary  leading the audience to believe the film could be real.
Throughout the film there are 'interviews' with people that also make it look like the film is genuine. The music used in the trailer is extremely effective as it jars against what is happening. By this I mean that religious music that sounds nice and angelic is being played over the top of a very dark piece of film. I feel that this works very well as the music makes me feel on edge and very anxious and leads the audience into a false sense of security.



Overall I feel this is a very effective trailer. I feel this because it scared me but also made me want to watch the film. I think that the style of filming, music used, lighting etc. all made the film look so effective. I think there are a lot of techniques my group could use from this clip in our own short film and I will share this with the other members of my group.

British Board of Film Classification

I have been looking into the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) to see what our should film should be classified as.

By reading through each of the classifications I feel that our film would be classified as a 15. At first I thought that it would be a 12 as we don't intend to include very strong language, sexual scenes or very much violence in the film however when reading the 12 classification section it mentioned the overall tone of the film and said that this can hugely effect the certificate. Here is the paragraph taken from the official BBFC website:

How important is the tone of a film at 12 or 12A?
The overall tone of a film or DVD, and the way it makes the audience feel may affect the classification. For example, a work which has a very dark or unsettling tone which could disturb the audience would be less likely to be passed 12A even if the individual issues in the film were considered acceptable under the BBFC guidelines. Similarly, if a work is particularly positive or reassuring this may stop it being pushed up a category from 12A to 15.

After reading this I realised that the tone of our film could be seen as unsettling and disturbing to some. I think that our film would be a 15 only really because of the overall tone of the film. I think this as we don't intend to include sexual scenes, very strong language or violent scenes that would often be included in a 15. Here are the other factors that make a film a 15:

.
Is 15 really stronger than 12A?
 Yes. 15 works are stronger than 12 or 12A rated works and could include any of the following:

• strong violence
• frequent strong language (eg 'f***').
• portrayals of sexual activity
• strong verbal references to sex
• sexual nudity
• brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence
• discriminatory language or behaviour
• drug taking

What about horror works?
Many horror films are rated 15. At 15 there can be strong threat and menace (as long as it is not sadistic or sexualised), although the strongest gory images are unlikely to be acceptable.

I have also looked into other films related to our genre such as 'The Blair Witch Project', 'Grave Encounters', 'Paranormal Activity', 'Apollo 18' etc. and they all have been classified as a 15.

To make sure that our film stays a 15 we must make sure we do not over step the boundaries mentioned previously above.
Here is the link to the official  BBFC website where all classifications and information can be found.
http://www.bbfc.co.uk/

Our group's questionaire

My group constructed this questionnaire that Laura then sent out to our target audience. After researching various Horror/Thriller films we found that they are most popular with people in their late teens early 20s. Of course older people watch these films too however this age range is the most common. We also found that most successful Horror/ Thriller films were all given a 15 to 18 certificate by the bbfc. This also shows us that the films are more popular with people of this age and not any younger.

Here is the questionnaire that we sent out to our target audience to try to gather peoples thoughts and opinions to help make our film successful to our audience.
 

Age:                Gender:

1.      Which one of the below are you most scared of? (Please write Yes beside your choice)

a)      The dark

b)      The Supernatural (ghosts)

c)      Aliens

d)      Criminals (Murderer etc)

 

2.      Could you explain the reason you are scared of the option you chose?

3.      In a dark situation what is the main thing you would be scared of happening?

4.      Are you more likely to watch a horror film that is, (Please write  yes beside your choice)

a)      Based on a real life event

or

b)      A work of fiction

 

5.      Do you find yourself more jumpy in,

a)      The day

or

b)      The night

6.      Before something jumpy happens in a film do you find yourself more scared when there is a soundtrack building the tension or complete silence?

 

a)      Soundtrack

b)      Silence

How to Make an Effective Horror - Interview with Allen Jennings

I Found this extremely helpful and interesting interview looking into techniques that make a Horror film effective. I think the point Jennings made about music in Horror films was the most important point he made as I also feel music is an extremely useful and effective thing to use in not only Horror films but any type of film. I think this because it helps set the scene, create different moods, build tension etc.
I also found the points he made about editing very interesting as this is means that we can create tension and potentially scare the audience by simply editing our shots in a specific way. Overall I think that we should take all of the points made in this video on board when creating our piece as when looking at successful horror films these points can all be seen used in the films.