'Vengeance' - Evaluation

My film promotional package uses representations of different social groups in regards to age, gender and mental disability. In addition, the narrative of the film focuses on issues such as mental health, family abandonment and jealousy. In both trailers, I have represented gender using traditional stereotypes from the horror/thriller genre. In the 'Abducted' TV spot, the two sisters of Leo are represented as very vulnerable as they are tied up and look extremely frightened. Both female representations have blonde hair and a pale complexion which juxtaposes against the dark tape around their mouth and due to stereotypes in the horror genre historically, females with blonde hair were often seen as vulnerable and innocent. I wanted to create this representation within my film so meaning could be connoted quickly within the trailer. Sarah, the main victim in the kitchen scenes in my other TV spot is again stereotypical as she is first seen cooking and again, these are traditional stereotypes that links to representations of women within the media. I wanted to use these stereotypes to show typical conventions of the horror genre. In addition, Leo the antagonist is male and although we don’t directly see him because he is in a mask (shown on my poster and Instagram), we can see his actions are very dominant and controls the action and violence within the scene. This again re-enforces stereotypical representations of masculine toxicity where the male is asserting his control over the females. The father challenges the representations to some extent as he is also vulnerable amongst the hostage scene. However, the father is older and often older people are less powerful against the violent antagonist.

The issues that I have represented in the narrative deal with mental health issues where Leo has been treated badly by his step family and is taking his revenge on them. Clearly Leo has mental health problems which is why he was sent to a mental health unit. Throughout the narrative, I want to address the psychotic mind of Leo whilst also creating a horrifying film. I think it’s important to address the motive behind Leo’s deep risen insecurities as it will reveal how young people can driven to crime (An issue that is continuously being discussed on the mainstream news) therefore although this is a fictional narrative, I wanted to touch on real life issues to help develop characters. In addition, I wanted to create intertextuality with films such as ‘Halloween’ (1978) which also deals with mental patient ‘Michael Myers’.

It is really important that the audience can tell that all the marketing materials are advertising the same film, so I made sure that I had done a variety of things to keep the branding consistent. For example, my instagram page uses still images from the trailers which includes the protagonist, ‘Sarah’, the antagonist, ‘Leo’ and the two others who were abducted which was shown in one of my TV spots. Some of these cast members were also shown on the film poster to further link the posters, trailers and instagram page together. Another branding element that is used to link the marketing materials together is mentioning certain crew/cast and production companies for example on my instagram, opening scene and trailers I mentioned ‘James Wan’, ‘Charlotte Dean’, ‘James Robins’ and ‘Blumhouse productions’. This helps connect/link all the materials together which ultimately creates a form of branding. In addition to this, the font ‘Coliseum Pro’ was used throughout which further relates the material together, with the tagline and title. One final branding elements was the use of reviews across all of my marketing materials.

My target audience is likely to be slightly older as the certification from my film is 18+. The film is aimed at a horror loving audience and super fans of horror will not only enjoy the narrative but also the intertextual links to other horror films. 'Vengeance' is a British horror film that will target a wide audience. Fans of horror films such as ‘Insidious’, the ‘Scream’ franchise and even older classic horror films such as ‘Halloween’ and the ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ will be captivated by the narrative and the characterisations within the film. 

 Within my trailers, I have used a variety of media language to captivate audiences into the narrative and create meaning for the audience. In the 'Abducted' Tv spot, the camera starts with an extreme close up shot of Sarah which immediately connects the audience to understand that she is a main character. However, the extreme close up shot of her fear connotes something is not right. This immediately draws the viewer into the scene as the enigma builds up. As the camera zooms out, the audience are taken straight away into the disruption of the situation. The wide shot reveals in the mise-en-scene that two other people and Sarah have been tied up and gagged. This disturbing scene accompanied with the non diegetic sound of tension ascension immediately puts the audience in an uneasy situation. The sound creates an eerie atmosphere and the hostage scene brings the audience straight into the action. The narrative poses many questions to the audience and I wanted the enigma to engage them into watching and wanting to find out more. 

The other TV spot is also very enigmatic by the shots I have chosen which again puts the viewer in an uneasy situation as they can see the girl is being spied on and the cross cutting from the inside of the house to the footsteps for example create an effective element of dramatic irony and build tension to engage the audience. I also chose to use titles saying ‘From the producers of paranormal activity and m3gan’ as I wanted to target the horror fans who have previously seen these other successful horrors and show that this film has the same producers which helps market the film to the viewers as they will see it as the same quality. I wanted to keep the trailer quite realistic as I wanted to show a normal situation so the audience could relate to the character. I chose to set the scene within a kitchen environment where Sarah was taking part In a normal activity and set it in her house where people should feel safe. The close up shot of the antagonists hand on the door handle will build up tension for the audience as they know time is running out for Sarah and through the dramatic irony, engages the audience further. The sound gets louder towards the end of the trailer and the scream of Sarah cuts the enigma off at a normal point and the intention was for the audience to go and watch the film and find out what happened to her.

The film poster uses a medium close up of the masked antagonist. The blood on the knife re-enforces the horror genre but also foreshadows to the audience the danger and horrifying events that will happen within the narrative. This again creates enigma and hopefully will entice the audience into wanting to watch the film. I have also used the tagline ‘some grudges never die’ which again creates enigma and gives the audience an understanding of the narrative. In addition, the social media pages have images of various different scenes throughout the trailers as well as the information of the release date. The images chosen again create a sense of enigma to persuade audiences to watch the film.

As my film is a horror film, targeting a mainstream audience, it will be released in the cinema around October which coincides with Halloween as horror fans would like the link. It will then shortly after be released on amazon prime and Apple TV as a paid for film. My marketing campaign includes posters, trailers and social media pages as social media is cost effective viral marketing. Finally, I have used positive reviews across the marketing campaign which will help the film appeal to a wide range of audiences beyond horror lovers.

Before I came up with the idea of my film, I did a lot of research into existing trailers, film posters, film websites and social media sites. This was to get an idea of the common conventions of these types of media but also to get an idea of different purposes of trailers and posters. I looked at many trailers from a range of different genres and analysed them in the way they used generic conventions. This gave me an insight into understanding a wide range of genres. What I noticed was that trailers and posters often introduced characters and used a lot of iconography that was generic of the horror genre. I also noticed that the genre is very important to the products as they have to convey the genre to the audience. Although mine is a hybrid, the main genre is horror so I have focused on the conventions of horror within my marketing material. In my posters and trailers for 'Vengeance' I decided to follow the clear iconography of horror and introduce the main characters whilst keeping the antagonists identity hidden. For example, in the film posters that I analysed, the iconography such as blood, knives and eerie settings or fearful victims I wanted to incorporate in my own. The trailers that I looked at included ‘I know what you did last summer’ and ‘single white female’ and within the trailers, there was always enigma and tense scenes using many cuts. Within single white female, it is clear that we see the victim is in danger and the antagonist overpowers and dominates. I included this throughout my trailers. I looked at both horror and psycho thriller trailers and posters as I wanted to use a combination of conventions as the hybridity of my film would create exceptional enigma and target a wider audience.

I also noticed during my research that production company logos appeared at the beginning of trailers and that titles or billing including names of actors, the name of the director and the title of the film were all common features in trailers and posters. I included all of these elements in my trailers and poster to make them feel as authentic as possible. I used Blumhouse productions as it’s a successful company associated with horror and decided on James Wan as the director as he is also very successful in the genre. Many horror films inspired the overall production of my films and I have taken elements and conventions of these and use them within my own. ‘Scream’ really inspired the setting of my film and older psycho thriller films ‘Cape fear’ where I wanted to show a dominant antagonist intruding in the safe environment of a family home.

Overall, all the film trailers and posters that I analysed really helped me create my products as I learnt so much on the layout and structure of the texts and also the horror typical conventions used in marketing material.