Planning for production: Final title chosen

After much debate and consideration my group and I all decided upon that using the font "impact". along with the title and tagline would be best suited because firstly it was inspired by the worldwide record label DEF JAM.

Planning for production: Typography

One of the most important aspects of film production is choosing the correct font, All the great horror films have their own identifiable fonts. The typography of a movie does really shape the target audience, if the font is too rounded it can be misunderstood in genre, also the name of the film is essential, My group and I choose the title "DEATH JAM" we all felt that this was perfect due to its a shortened summary of the plot outline.

Choosing the right font.

I logged onto www.dafont.com and chose 8 unique fonts (seen on the left), I then download and imported these into photoshop where I began to manipulate and adjust the fonts to a suitable format.

I then began to select my top 2 on the grounds how much did the font relate to the main themes and genre of the project. Using my knowledge of textual analysis I then began to weigh both fonts on how well they would suit the role of the main typography. Here are my results:

The font I have decided to headline as the typography of this project is "Cold night for Alligators"

Planning for production: Character profiles

Vocalist: Sekander Omary, 17, comes from a rather dysfunctional upbringing. He lives with his single mother and 6 year old sister in a small council estate located in the centre of Camden. Sekander’s mother suffers from depression which has caused her to give up on supporting her family. Unfortunately, Sekander has been forced to look after his little sister and rather play the role of a brother he has been the father figure of the home. Sekander’s father was a full time thief and a drug dealer for several years, he used the money to mainly benefit himself and the small proportion of his earnings that was given to his family barely covered the cost of food. Additionally, violently abused Sekander and his mother when he arrived home. He was later arrested and charged with a 15 year sentence. The impact of his home life has caused Sekander to have low aspirations and drop out of 6th form. Despite this, he has still continued his love for music and is apart of Dead Math, a heavy metal screamo band. He plays the role of lead vocalist and like the other band members desires to make it into the industry so he can separate form his family. Sekander uses music to forget his worries and responsibilities. 

Sekander is approximately 5ft 8, small framed, has a sharp chiseled facial structure and coffee complexion. 

Eye Color: Large dark brown eyes

Hair: Dark brown hair, shoulder length with a fringe 

Clothing Style: Black skinny jeans, typical t shirt with various heavy metal music artists printed on the front, Converse or Vans. 

Speaking Style: Usually the quiet one in a crowd until he is up on stage. He only speaks when spoken to and tends to say as little as possible. 

Best Qualities: Confident and talented vocalist,  Listens and observes situations, cares for those closet to him.

Worst Qualities: He is assertive, short tempered, and a perfectionist.

Weaknesses: Has a fear of not succeeding and turing into his abusive criminal father. He is hurt by the mentioning of his mother or family circumstances.

Bass Guitarist: Christopher Barnes or Chris, 18, has also dropped out of 6th form. His constant maladaptive behaviour, poor attendance, disgraceful grades, and drug/ alcoholic addiction has caused him to follow life down an awful path. He has not been affected by a dysfunctional up bring and instead lives with his parents and younger brother in a comfortable 3 bedroom house located in the quiet area of Hampstead. His parents have undoubtably given up after the many failed disciplinary attempts and instead ignore Chris and allow him to fend and support himself. His parents are disgraced and despite living in the same house they are apart most of the time. While Chris’ parents are working during the day he wakes up at noon to an already rolled joint lying beside his bed. As you can imagine, his room is covered in un washed clothes, filled ash trays and empty sprit bottles. When his parents and younger brother arrive Chris is already out either at a friends house or party and doesn’t return till after midnight. The money he is spending to fend for his hobbies comes from his savings account that was updated constantly from when he was born and until he runs out of money he will continuously repeat these daily events until he is either jailed or dead. 

Chris is approximately 5ft 11, Big boned healthy frame, has a rounded facial frame and light complexion.

Eye Color: Dark brown eyes

Hair: Shaven brown hair with a side fringe 

Clothing Style: Preppy Urban look. Typically Camel colored trousers/ straight cut jeans, woolen jumper/ Shirt partnered with vans and a baseball hat. 

Speaking Style: Confident and loud, not afraid to stand up for himself.  

Best Qualities: Confident, Comedic, Talented bass player.

Worst Qualities: Aggressive, Suspicious, Sneaky

Weaknesses: Believes he has none

Drummer: Simon Jones, 18, Studies English, Music and Dram at 6th Form with ambitions to become a well established musician and music technician. He currently lives alone and has done since the age of 16 due to his mother not supporting him and his ambitions, she always wanted him to achieve and academic profession and fails to see the possibilities of success within the creative field. He has ignored his mothers disapproval and has successfully remained in school whilst juggling with a part time job in retail. Additionally, he is passively attracted to Natalie and whilst putting on a confident front he is too afraid to admit his true feelings. Simon strongly believes that he will achieve his dream despite all the odds. 

Simon is approximately 6ft, slender phasic, smooth angular facial structure, medium complexion. 

Eye Color: Medium brown eyes

Hair: Long circular cut with a full length fringe

Clothing Style: Baggy fitted denim shorts and t shirts, trainers and a baseball hat.

Speaking Style: Confident, always has something to say, sarcastic wit, and a fondness for pushing things too far.

Best Qualities: Confident, Comedic, Talented bass player.
Worst Qualities: Irritating, isn’t as unemotionally untouchable as he makes out, compulsive liar 

Weaknesses: Failure to succeed and thrives for his mothers support 

Electric Guitarist 1: Ryan Howley, 17, studies Media, Art, and Biology at 6th form. Ryan lives a rather normal life with his parents, Younger brother and occasionally sees his older sister who is currently studying Psychology at University. Ryan has ambitions to work within the media industry yet loves the trill of playing sports and updating his knowledge on the current sport industry, therefore he is unsure of his future and what he wants to achieve, hopes of attending university are weakening.  Outside of school hours he works in a local restaurant 2 nights a week, is a guitarist in a band called Dead Math and is a team player for the school football team. He has also been dating Ella since for 2 years. 

Ryan is roughly 6ft 3inches, slim bodily frame, small yet rounded facial shape, light complexion. 

Eye Color: Small Medium brown eyes

Hair: Typical short length hair with a side fringe 

Clothing Style: Preppy style, straight cut jeans, formal shirts, trainers, clean cut image. 

Speaking Style: Cheerful at times yet can become easily quiet and distant 

Best Qualities: Confident, A team player, organised

Worst Qualities: Easily offended, reserved, two faced

Weaknesses: Deeply cares for his girl friend and doest want anything to affect their relationship

Electric Guitarist 2: Art Lynch, 17, lives with his over weight alcoholic father who 90 percent of the time barely notices or takes interest in Art’s life. His mother sadly died in a car accident on his 7th birthday and distinctively remembers what happened during that night and at the hospital, he continually thinks about it when he is feeling down and wants to forget so he can move on in life but can’t. He feels like he doesn’t belong and that no one cares or wants him around. He has attempted suicide on two occasions in his mid teens by overdosing on prescribed  medicine and alcohol, he has fortnightly psychologist sessions since these events. Art has been fired or quit many full time jobs in the past and is currently working in retail. On the side he is a graffiti artist and over the years used his creative passion to express his emotions and disconnect from society. Art has no career paths or ambitions and tackles life day by day. 

Art is approximately 5ft 8inches,  slim healthy phasic, long oval facial structure, medium complexion.

Eye Color: Dark brown eyes

Hair: Typical long curly hair 

Clothing Style: Black slim fit jeans and black shirts, black trainers. 

Speaking Style: Short and sharp

Best Qualities: Creative, Calm, Observant

Worst Qualities: Manipulative, scheming, Pessimistic

Weaknesses: Afraid of death

Typography examples

The typography of these titles are the common fonts used in horror film posters, and show how the fonts vary according to sub-genres, for example the font used in a 'western horror' genre film would be very different from a font used in a 'slasher horror' type film. These fonts will be considered when creating our film poster to advertise our horror trailer.

Planning for production: Stock characters & Protagonist

The stock characters consist of all of the band memebers who are unfortunatly killed off through the theme of revenge. The story revolves around the main protagonist and is a first hand view of their life experiences as band and as a group of friends. This is what has generated our emotional hooks of humilliation and rejection. Additionally it shows the divide between friends and carrer plans. 




As previously stated the protagonist is the individual who experiences rejection from his fellow band mates and the film is from his point of view.  

Planning for production: non-diagetic sound

After school we had a session with an ex-student at our school. He now works in the music industry creating his own songs. He came in to let us listen to his music and possibly use it in our trailer. However, for our group, the genre of his music wouldn't fit in with our trailer so we decided not to use any of his songs.

Planning for production: room plans

We used a new method of creating an ariel view of the location and pointing where every camera will be placed and all of the shot types we could use so we could have a brief idea of how our trailer will look.

Generation of ideas and story boarding

These images show the planning process and generation of ideas we had in order to come up with a fixed firm idea of what we wanted our trailer to portray and who our target market will be.

Planning for production - Icons

Icons used include:

A mask in order to deface the villian and generate greater fear of the unkown. The mask also acts as a second personality to the previous, slightly more sane persona and highlights the murderous cognitive thoughts. 

We're planning on stitching masks. We got inspiration from a film called 'strangers' and a band called 'slipknot'.

Spooky surroundings have been used when filming scenes in the void, graveyard and Angelia's house. Mysterous and un recognisable territoy creates a sence of alarm and the connotation of negative outcomes.

Furthermore we have attempted in generating our own icons by using the form of musical instuments which cycle the reason for revenge as well as becoming a new icon of horror. An example includes, prior to the existance of Jason hockey masks were not associated with horror and after the success of the film hockey maskes have been associated with Jason and therefore murder. 

Here are a few of our icons:

Representation of women in Jennifer's body

The representation of females in Jennifer's body supports and contradicts the male gaze theory. The reasons for it supporting the theory are that Megan fox is shown as a sexual object. Furthermore, she provides visual pleasure for men, this is shown through the clothing.

However, this film contradicts Mulvey's theory by having a female protagonist. Mulvey suggested that protagonists were always male. Another contradiction to Mulvey's theory is that the female is shown to be more dominant. Women are shown as a stereotypical blonde girl, however the female protagonist completely contradicts the stereotypical representation of women. I think that a lot of women would also see this film as a film which doesn't involve male gaze, which contradicts Mulvey's theory which suggests that women are also positioned to identify with the male gaze and see through the male eyes.

Laura Mulvey's Male Gaze Theory

- Classic hollywood films, women are represented to provide visual pleasure for men.
- Women were only showed on screen to provide visual and erotic pleasure for men.
- Protagonists within a hollywood film would be male, the audience were expected to be male.
-  Influences of Freud to Laura Mulvey's theory is the idea of castration anxiety which is what a person unconsciously thinks. E.g if a women was not objectified in the way she was in a classic hollywood film, then men would be less powerful.
- This unconscious idea is that a males power and dominance over a female is in his penis, and dominance is threatened by a woman if she does not arouse this.

Shot type idea

Recently, I watched the movie 'Rec'. I really liked a shot that was used in that film and I later discovered that it is used in the trailer. The shot is a low angle canted shot, during this shot the news reporter is being dragged across the floor. I thought this shot would work great in our trailer because the killers face would not be shown keeping him hidden creating a sense of mystery towards the protagonist.

Todorov's theory - Friday The 13th

Todorov's theory suggests that convention narratives are structured in 5 stages. This theory is true for almost every movie. The first stage is a state of equilibrium, in Friday The 13th's trailer, this is the establishing shot, a shot of the countryside. The next stage is a disruption of the equilibrium, this stage is also in the trailer, in this case it is when the girl spots Jason, this disruption is shown through the panic the girl is going through. A recognition of disruption comes after this, in the trailer we are shown a montage of deaths, which is a clear indication of the disruption. Todorov's theory suggests that the next stage would be an attempt to repair the disruption, a lot of trailers do show this attempt, however they're not easily recognized unless you've seen the film. This is not the case for Friday The 13th as we find out that he's looking for his sister which is the attempt to repair the disruption. The fifth and final stage is a reinstatement of the equilibrium. In movie trailers the fifth stage is never shown. For example, Friday The 13th we are not shown how the problem is solved, this is because if the reinstatement of the equilibrium is given away there will be no mystery to the movie, therefore people wouldn't want to get see the movie if they already know what the ending is like.

Todorov's theory also suggests that the 5 stages happen in order, however in movie trailers this does not happen in chronological order. This is because if these stages were to be shown in order, viewers would know exactly what happens in the film, therefore, they would not be interested in going to see it.