Poster conventions

Poster Sub Genres

By looking a film poster you should be able to identify which genre or sub genre the film is. 

Comedy Horror 

 From analysing this poster I can tell this film is a comedy as the supposed 'killers' are warm looking    characters who look quite simple and dumb. which is not the standard horror killer. Also the use of the blonde bimbo in her under wear.   

Splatter Horror 

 When analysing this poster the main image tells the audience that this is a splatter horror, as the use of the leather mask being tied round his head. This gives the idea of torture and therefore blood and gore. 

Psychological Horror  

 This poster conveys a strong psychological horror genre because of the black background and the ghost like ring around the title. The title itself is written in childlike writing, creating a strong psychological feel of the film. 

Slasher Horror

By having the iconic symbol of the blade in the killers hand shows how it is a slasher.

Character bios

 Final Girl: Jessica Summers:

She’s Caucasian with a height of 5’4 with blonde long hair and brown eyes. She has as slim physique. Normally wears tight, skinny jeans with holes cut in them. Normally wear a fluffy body-warmer jacket covering long sleeved purple jumper with a white vest covering cleavage. In her school, Lewis Duncan Secondary school she hangs around the following; Julie Saunders, Brad Jones Johnny Rogers and Kevin Coulson. She met Julie who is best friend and Brad when she came to the school on her first day. She kept losing her way around school but found help in Julie and Brad and then they started to socialise with each other and enjoyed each other’s company. Kevin and Johnny are her childhood friends; all three of them living on the same street ‘Auburn Road’ they constantly after school went to each other houses to hang out or going to the local park. Jessica is one of three children raised in northwest London in a nuclear family. Brother, Jack is the youngest aged 13 and Sister Zoe is the eldest aged 25 and lives by herself. But constantly come around the house to check up on the family.  Father John works as a cab driver works long hours so they rarely see him but on the weekends the family have him to themselves. Mother Cindy works part time an accountant in a Business company called Golden International,. Jessica is a lively person, always full of energy and never down. Whenever her friends see her they first see her wide, shining smile that wakes up the room or corridor they’re in.

We took some iconic characteristics from the final girl and applied it to our final girl. Eg, not having her cleavage showing giving the intention she is a virgin.   

Popular Girl: Julie Saunders:
Her height is 5’8 with brunette hair and blue eyes. Wears skinny jeans and a light leather jacket covering her black short sleeved shirt inside. Her body size is similar to Jessica. Always uses perfume spray and before going to school has a 10 minutes session in her bathroom to do make-up. In her school, she socialize with her boyfriend Brad, best friend Jessica and her childhood buds Kevin and Johnny. She and boyfriend Brad have been going out for more than 2 years which started out as friends and over time feelings started to develop and the physical attraction towards one another way there. They spend the majority of their time in school together and with their friends. But they also spend time apart as well e.g. with family, going to the local gym, having a girl’s night. She is Oldest of two in her Family with sister Sarah aged 15 looking up at her as a role model. Her house is a 10 minutes walk from Jessica House. The family’ atmosphere is very stressed to say the least; Parents always fighting and sisters don’t get along. Julie is bitchy, quite vain, cares about her image in the way of how people in school think of her.

The popular girl usually cares about what she looks like so we incorporated this to comply with the horror genre.

Jock: Brad Jones:
He’s mixed race; more black in him then white, with a muscular stocky build. He is about 6 foot with short black hair hardly ever combs his hair and has brown eyes. As stated he’s very stocky; but not let that fool you the kids fast, has strengthen and got quick reaction reflexes. He is the captain of the school football team and is looking to get a scholarship to a football academy  Majority of the time wears short-sleeved shirt with baggy, lose trousers and wears snap-back hats. As stated in Julie section; he and her having being dating for more than 2 years now, started as friends and have grow ever since. Amongst them when he’s with the boys only (Kevin and Johnny) he stands out because of the success he has in football in past and present but always because he won the best good-looking boys in the year.

The iconic jock is usually from America. However, as our film is set in England we gave him the popular characteristics of a popular boy in England using the iconic jock. Such as, being captain of the football team and not the quarterback of the American football team. 

Wander: Kevin Carlson:
He’s 5’9 with short black hair and black eyes. He has a tendency to wear black clothing, which consists of tracksuit bottoms and top. As Kevin is the wanderer he has no stable friends and so joins any group as a way to affiliate himself as anything and anyone, other than a loner. Often this leads to him feeling like he is not part of the group and so he tends to be quite and passive. Kevin feels that Johnny is his closest friend as they are similar i.e. not very important in the group but their presence is needed so as to increase the size of the group. He usually spends his free time playing video games and rarely leaves home, this protrudes from his past experiences in school i.e. being bullied. His father died years ago and his relationship with his mother is strong although without the father figure in his life he has not been able to learn how to socialise in large groups and generally make friends of his own.

Our wanderer is also got the characteristics of a geek. And being the outsider of the group gives the reason other then he goes off to get killed first.  

Joker: Johnny Rogers:
He’s 5’11, with short straight black hair and has dark brown eyes. He wears glasses because he’s shorted sighted and wears a red zip up jumper with slim tight dark coloured jeans and wears a dark blue jacket with a hoodie attached to it with headphone hanging around his next. In school when he with the gang constant makes them laugh whatever the occasion or situation. He takes part in ridiculous activities but can at times feel like he is not part of the group so makes a way to be accepted by others. He lives at home with his father and mother; his father is an alcoholic, this being the reason behind his humour as he tries to find a release from home by humouring his fellow peers. His father beats his mother when he is under the influence of intoxicating beverages. His family is conventional (nuclear) but unconventional in the sense that they do not do the normal family activities i.e. eat together or go out on trips; this includes his (Amy) along with his mother and father. He often protects his sister from his father. 

This character has replaced the character of the pervert, however in certain scenes could be mistaken for one. Even when they realize something is wrong makes jokes.

Group discussion

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Films cool session 3: Brain storming with Jesse

This session was a one on one with Jesse. As a group we had come up with our idea and plot but just need so readjusting and help to link the killer, protagonist and her friends. Jesse used his skills as a written to explain and help us refine our plot and characters. A really good piece of advice he told us was if you have a really good section or idea for your trailer or plot but the rest of your story doesn't fit and you keep trying to work around it, get ride of it because in the long run in will serve to be better. Even though at the time it feels like you are getting ride of the best part of your story.

Synopsis of our plot

Group of kids at Lewis Duncan Secondary School have been giving Mr. Simon Ricketts a hard time for some time. They Taunt at him in class, they shout at him in lessons and call names and cuss him outside school, it has made Mr. Ricketts life’ hell. One afternoon he has enough and gives them a length detention on a Friday. It happen to be day of one of the detente’ birthday, Jessica’ Summers. Best friend Julie, Brad Julie’s boyfriend, Kevin and Johnny, childhood friends, joined her. It turns out that her that everybody in the year was going to be there; turn out to be the party of the year. During this detention Mr. Ricketts had to leaved the room to have a quick one-to-one chat with the head teacher. Jessica and her friends took the opportunity to leave the room to get to the party as she didn’t wanted to be late to her own party. After his one-to-one chat with the head, Mr. Ricketts return to an empty classroom. But he realizes where they are going to be. Jessica and her friends take a shortcut, which is suggested buy Kevin. As they walk through the shortcut, Brad and Julie go a separate way because they want some alone time together. Noticing that they have disappeared, Kevin breaks off from Jessica and Johnny to search for them. Soon after Kevin leaves, Brad and Julie return meanwhile while Kevin looking for them he see a familiar face and gets attacked and taken. Noticing now that it has been a while since Kevin went searching for Brad and Julie; the go off to search for him, but with the intention of getting even more alone time together.  Johnny and Jessica decide to stay where they are to make easier for the other to know where they are. After a lengthy wait they realizing they would be late to the anticipated party of the year. However they decide to go and search for them but as they go searching they find a trail of their friends belongs that leads to a lair. Jessica and Johnny go in and find bodies supposedly of their lost friends. Out from the darkness emerge a silhouette of an elderly man. He starts to run at them with speed and with the pair expecting impact. They start fighting, blood spills on the damp floor with shouting and grunts being made. The killer kills Johnny but doesn’t kill Jessica. She manages to infect maximum pain to him but breaking a couple of his ribs which penetrates his lungs which prevents him to breath and then pass out. Jessica manages to escape and runs for freedom. When the authorities come to investigate all the bodies have been removed and the killers in nowhere to be found. After the traumatic pasted, in a new school a new teacher was introducing himself to his class. His name on the white board was Mr Simon Ricketts.

Representation and Audience Theory

Film school Question and Answer with Gary Osborne and Jesse O'Mahoney

After the session discussing our ideas about our plots and trailers, we has a question and answer with Gary and Jesse. This allowed us to find out about how they got where they are and ask about their jobs. Giving us tips about writing and the bigger picture.

Films cool session 2: Gary Osborne and Jesse

In the session Gary Osborne introduced the Ivor Novello awards and what they are about. We then got into our groups and discussed our ideas for out storyline for our trailers using a Ivor Novello award winning song.  We had chosen to use 'mad world' as we felt the lyrics and the theme of the song gave us a lot to work with.


When talking to Gary he helped us pick out ideas from the song, as he knew the writer and told us what he wrote it about which really helped explore our ideas. We came up with themes such as, a birthday and what our killer may be like.

Gary Osborne introducing the session

The we spoke to Hugh, a producer very involved in the industry and at every films cool session. He got us to develop our ideas and try to explain why we would have certain ideas in out trailers. We focused on the story as a whole not just what would be in the trailer. Huge explained we should do this to really understand our idea and to know what goes in the trailer we must have a over all plot and story. 

Todovors Theory

Todorov's Theory on Prezi

Trailer Treatment

For our task we was given a title of a film 'BLOODSHED HIGH' and needed to create a trailer, plan of a trailer, using conventions to market and promote the film.

At first we we created a storyline. We had group discussion about what our plot should be and came up with: One by one teenage students are being killed off by an unknown killer. Police look into the situation, and conduct an investigation to find out who it is. The jock gets found dead in the locker/changing room, his friends suspect his death is not a accidental, but that he was murdered. The protagonist(his girlfriend) finds out someone is setting traps to cause the accidental deaths of the students, she has to prove it before she dies.
Characters within the film: JOCK, FINAL GIRL(girlfriend), POPULAR GIRL, NEERDY BOY, CARETAKER.
Then we plotted our storyline onto our storyboards. Choosing the right shots to used within a trailer, what transitions would be used between, music, sound effects and typography act.

After we came up with a narrative we used Todorov's theory to plan out our story onto a grid. With a Trailer only some of Todorov's theory can be applied, however the return to a new equilibrium cannot be applied.

Our Unique selling point was the famous actors staring in our film, at first we chose Zac Efron and Selena Gomez. However, after we thought that Annalynne Mccord as we saw her more as a promotional tool for marketing our film. Our trailer uses conventions of a horror such as blood and gore(shot 6+11), mystery of the killer using lighting and shadows, stock characters using costume seen coming off the bus in shot 4. The trailer we created is used as a promotional tool within our marketing campaign using famous stars to hock our audience.

From this task I learnt that a lot of planning needs to go into planning a trailer, even just decided the plot. Also how within a trailer not all the narrative theory applies as trailers do not run liner and do not show the end as thats their hock to get people to go and watch the film.

Experimenting with Make Up

Christine Blundell showed us that you do not need expensive equipment and resources to create effective make up, by using food colouring, brown eye shadows, and even gelatin we can achive a high standered of profonal looking make up and effects.

 By dabbing yellow and orange food colouring and coffee around the flesh of his eye, we created the effect that is was swollen and bruised.





We mixed golden syrup with red food colouring and we got the right constancy painted it onto his face. Creating the effect of him bleeding.



The end product was that Wole's face looked beaten up and sore. With blood dripping from his nose, head and lip. A swollen eye and on the other side a bruised cheek.



Films Cool session 1: Christine Blundell Hair and Make Up (Q&A)

Question and Answer.

After Christine talked through our brief, what we would be doing for our projects, and explained what she does and how make up is used within film and to what extent directors go to when using it. We then had a question and answer to ask Christine anything else we wanted to know.

By having this question and answer it enabled us to learn and ask specific question we had about her job, how she got there. Which in turn would help us with our own progress within this project. For example people asked what was her favourite make up to do was, which gave ideas for us as a group to maybe use or use a variance of that.

Films Cool session 1: Christine Blundell Makes Up

 Our First session at films cool was with Christine Blundell who is top of her game as a make up artists. She has work on films such as Sherlock Homes and works very closely with Mike Lee and his films. She showed us different types of make up she does and the effects and lengths she goes to to create the best effects and make up. Such as, a fake leg which has been mangled at the stump and the knee mashed in. We saw how much detail is use where there was fine hair all over the leg so that the camera is able to shot up close. Christine told us before she even has an idea for anything she creates she has to go through discussions with the director, fine out about the character, and also how close they are going to want to shot so she can know how much detail to put into it. So now time and money is wasted. That was very beneficial because I learnt that before we decide even what make up to use we need to plan out our plot, characters profiles and create a storyboard. 

Mulveys Male Gaze- audience theory

Mulveys Male Gaze from poppysm

Mulveys theory is backed up by many trailers including Tucker and Dale Vs Evil and also Scream. Within this trailer we see the shot slow as she undresses and we are seeing her as a sexual object through a males eyes, just as Mulvey suggests. 

Analysis of 'House at the End of the Street'

Analysing the trailer 'House at the end of the street' using Mis-en-scene, Sound, Camera angles shots etc and editing.

The Establishing shot shows where the films and story is going to be set. The suburban town is an iconic feature and setting of a horror film, being isolated from the busy city it allows for strange situations to occur without being unrealistic. This firmly follows the horror genre.

The dialogue over this long shot of the house says 'I think you will be very comfortable here'. The effect of this statement is ironic because as the trailer continues we see she is the most uncomfortable she has and will ever be in her life. The use of irony here clearly sets us up in the genre of horror. The lighting used within these shots at the beginning rare very light with yellows and light greens reflected by the natural light of the sun to create a safe happy atmosphere, which is quickly forgotten as she discovers the house.

The over the shoulder shot and close up of the the main girl works simultaneously with the diegetic dialogue "where are you?" because as she says this the figure behind her apeares from the darkness, the effect is that we can see him but we cannot which is typical of a horror. The darkness all around her shows how she is in hopeless danger. We can see from this shot that her finger nails are all dirty and hair is sweaty and grubby, which shows us a direct contrast from her arriving with fresh flowing blonde hair and clean bright clothes. This transition of contrast relates to the horror genre as the victims always start out fine and happy and turn into a mess as the only thing that matters is trying to stay alive.

This shot shows clearly it is a horror as the girl face shows nothing but fear and the the figure is only a shadow which keeps the villain a mystery which can be a convention of horror films, not knowing who the killer is for the audience and the victims. The editing within this shot is a sharp cut. From the shot before we see how the camera lingers to show relief then as the shadow jump to the window the shot suddenly cuts to a side angle to portray the same feeling of fear she is feeling. This type of editing is commonly used within the horror genre as it help create the jump factor to frighten the audience.

The low angle at which this shot is taken brings us closer to the action of her being dragged away into the unknown by the killer. By using this angle we are not able to see the killer or where they are taking her and are being put in the same position as the victim. This creates a horror type feel as the unknown is a major theme within horror. 

The close up of the kitchen knife in the killers hand is icon within the horror genre. It leads us up for someone to be killed and creates anticipation to know who, when, why and will they survive. In this shot the dark colours present the unknowing and fear of where they are and the there is only the smallest ray of light which hots the knife so we can see its outline. The low angle also prevents us from seeing the rest of the killer who holds it.