Inspiration for 'Obsession' poster

When creating my poster for 'Obsession' I took inspiration from four existing media products, 'The Amityville Horror', 'Antichrist', 'Woman in Black' and 'Nightmare on Elm Street' posters. All the pieces use very dark colour schemes which reflect the tone of the films they are promoting. I liked the use of black and red text within the 'Antichrist' poster, and was something I wanted to emulate on my own poster. The use of red text on three of the  posters is representative of the horror genre as it has the connotations of blood, danger and evil. These associations being made in regards to 'Obsession' add to the overall eerie and scary tone I was aiming to portray through the poster. As so many of the posters I researched featured this colour for their text, I decided to use it on the 'Obsession' piece and follow the normal convention of a horror film poster.

The use of a silhouette or dark figure stemmed from seeing 'The Amityville Horror' and 'Nightmare on Elm Street' posters. I really liked how the killer was presented as an intimidating figure in both pieces, and it also tied in with our trailer and how we wanted to conceal the killers identity and make it remain a mystery. We had a similar scene within our full length trailer, so I recreated the scene to make it more suitable to to edit. Having the various pictures of the girls as the background to the poster was an idea which derived from 'The Woman in Black' poster. The pictures were a key aspect to our trailer, and one of the shots we received the most positive feedback for and I therefore thought it was suitable to use these images for my poster as it revealed some of the narrative and themes of the trailer.

On the majority of horror film posters the villain is almost always pictured in the middle of the page, I was thinking about subverting this convention of horror posters and portraying the victims on the 'Obsession' piece, however after some feedback from our target audience it was revealed they would be a lot more inclined to see a film where the villain was conveyed on the poster as this was the most scary and what attracted them most to the horror genre. In order to make my poster appear as professional as possible I added a cast list, production company names and logos and a website address for 'Obsession' as these we all features of the real media product, and I wanted to follow the normal conventions.

The end product was this;

Evaluation-Question 1 (in what ways does you media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

When initially deciding on the plot for our horror trailer we decided we wanted to follow a structuralist template; having an equilibrium and moment of disequilibrium. Using Todorov's theory of narrative, we had a basic outline of how the narrative within our trailer would be constructed. We looked at other horror trailers which had a similar plot to our own eg Prom Night and Texas Chainsaw Massacre and we soon realised they were quote structuralist in the way they were out together, using all the paradigms of a horror through setting, editing and mise-en-scene. This therefore confirmed to our group that in order to make a successful, professional horror trailer we would choose to follow the structuralist template, like the real media products we researched with similar plots to "Obsession".

When deciding on the characters, and how we wanted to portray them, we were looking at Propp's theory of characters, Clover's final girl theory and different feminist opinions. We also researched similar media products and how they portrayed their characters. As we had already decided on a structuralist layout, we felt this should also carry over into our portrayal of the characters. So when casting for the victims we decided through mise-en-scene to portray her sexual, blond and flirtatious. This would be conforming to the conventions set by real media products, because through research we realised the promiscuous female character wad often the first to be killed and stereotypically she was unintelligent and unable to defend herself. We decided in this case to challenge and slightly subvert the typical portrayal, and convey her as a more respectable individual, who fights back and attempts to escape. We felt that we didn't want our trailer to conform to the stereotypical connotations that are immediately assumed about a blond, promiscuous woman within a horror film. We did however follow the normal portrayal of the killer as seen in the majority of horror films. We made him dress in black, concealed identity, calm and eerie movements to create a mystery surrounding his identity. We felt this made him more intimidating as he appeared as something supernatural or otherworldly and therefore capable of causing more harm.

The mise-en-scene within our trailer tended to be conventional. We wanted to use all the normal paradigms displayed normally in horror trailers eg knife, isolated area and blood. We decided to use a knife as the main weapon as we felt it was more intimidating and scary in comparison to a gun as it is a recognisable household object for all members of the audience and therefore makes the plot more realistic to the viewer and as a result is more scary. Our group believed this would reinforce to the audience that our trailer was a horror as these are all objects they associate with the genre.

In terms if editing we really wanted to create a calm tone at the beginning period of equilibrium which we could then juxtapose with the frantic chaos in the period of disequilibrium. This was a technique we saw in "Prom Night" , which began leading the audience to believe it was a teen drama/ romantic comedy, similarly Texas chainsaw massacre begins with a relaxing car journey with calm music and serene surroundings and we felt it.was really dramatic and was something we wanted to emulate in our trailer.

In order to create the desired effect at the period of.equilibrium we used a lot of fade in and fade out to make transactions between shoots. This meant that the editing remained continuous and wasn't jarring at all. This made the period of equilibrium significantly different to the second half of the trailer and we really liked the very calm and flowing quality the transitions added to the trailer.

In order to make our trailer appear as professional as possible we followed the normal conventions of having tone cards at the within the trailer or to clarify narrative or create tone. We also had two cards at the end of the trailer stating producers and directors, a mini credits. Although this was optional, we felt that having it there made our trailer look more realistic and professional. We also created this by having production logos at the beginning of the trailer.

Overall we wanted out trailer to be shot in the dark. Our group felt it would create the eerie tone we desired, although this proved harder with regards to lighting. However we felt it was something which enhanced the trailer in the end as the minimal lighting was something we had seen a lot of in other horror trailers.

Obsession-Magazine Cover

"Obsession" Poster

Feminism-Final Girl

Many feminists believe horror films such as Scream, which feature scenes of the blonde, promiscuous girl being killed off first, are derogatory and stereotypical. Horrors are notorious for placing the women within the role of the damsel in distress, too weak and feeble to defend themselves from the male aggressor. This depiction of women in cinema is exactly what Laura Mulvey was commenting on when discussing ‘The Male Gaze’. She believed that as an audience we are encouraged to view the female characters in films in a sexualised manner, as viewers we are meant to identify and sympathise with the protagonist who in the past, tended to be male. Film posters such as Amy Jones’s 1982 horror “The Slumber Party Massacre” feature a group of women in little clothing playing up to male fantasy, the phallic symbols within the image also emphasise the sexual connotations of the poster, many argue that Jone’s is therefore using sexuality to sell the film. However many believe that as a woman, she was emphasising the stereotypes in an attempt to subvert the feminist theory through highlighting how sexualised and at times derogatory cinema can be. Mulvey believes that during the 50’s and 60’s female characters were coded with ‘to-be-looked-at-ness’ for example in Jacques Tourneur’s “Cat People” of 1942 where women only appear in provocative poses and tight clothing. However recently there have been more films which have adopted a feminist approach, classic films such as “Carrie” (dir. Brian De Palma, 1976), where there is a female protagonist, and although she is the killer the audience sympathise with her as she is depicted as the victim. The idea of revenge creating a strong female protagonist was developed recently in Mitchell Lichenstein’s “Teeth” (2007), where the female protagonist uses her sexuality to hurt the men who previously raped her, and again in “Jennifer’s Body”, where although the protagonist is shown as promiscuous and through the male-gaze focuses on the females sexuality eg lesbian’s kissing, Jennifer is seen punishing men and the audience are meant to relate to the smart girl who is essentially a heroin. This representation of female characters within cinema, lead to the creation of Carol Clover’s theory ‘The Final Girl.’

As an audience we are structurally ‘forced’ into identifying, not with the killer, but with the resourceful surviving female. Instead of identifying with the sadistic voyeur, Clover suggests our identification has switched to the victim (a masochistic voyeur). This theory is displayed in “Halloween” where the main protagonist is seen to be defending herself against the villain. She is seen falling down stairs, but she proceeds to act rationally and look for help whilst running from the killer. This is in contrast to previous films, where the women would have given up at the first hurdle, and admitted defeat against the killer. The final girl theory displays how cinema has categorised women, which reflect whether they’ll survive against the killer. The flirtatious, promiscuous blonde is the first to be killed, for example in Scream where Drew Barrymore’s character is killed almost instantly in the first scene. The virginal brunette in contrast to the promiscuous blonde is often ‘The final girl’ the person who rises to the challenge and against all odds survives. This is displayed in Halloween through the character of Laurie, who is essentially ‘the final girl’, grabbing the knife that the killer was using. This act connotes her gaining power and symbolises her strength through defending herself, and goes against the conventions of a woman’s role within a structuralist horror film.

Despite Halloween for the most part being a structuralist horror, made up of the conventional paradigms such as the masked killer, knifes, chase scenes and isolated areas, the character of Laurie as a representation of Clover’s final girl theory, puts a post-modern twist of the now classic 1978 horror film.