How does your media product represent particular social groups?

I and my group decided that our media product will be aimed at a rating of 12 for viewing. Our media product is about a ghost horror that possesses a 16 year old teenage girl.

Initially we had decided to cast both Brunna and Hanna for two vulnerable teenagers who get attack by a paranormal sensation. However we didn’t feel as if the filming had represented two best friends and felt that they didn’t portray the sense of being scared and vulnerable. This was important as in horror genre films it’s known for stereotypes to take place.

Women in horror ghost are usually the first to go. This is because they are broader minded and easily believes in ghost and paranormal activates happening. They are more vulnerable and innocent as well as portrayed as the damsel in distress.

Teenagers in horror end up being evening more of an easy target. This is because they have an ‘untouchable’ attitude towards these paranormal signs and try to act all ‘cool’ and shakes it off, pretending not to care. The lack of maturity allows them to become a vulnerable target.

With this information we decided to make our main character a teenage girl. This makes the opening even more interesting as we have put together two social groups that are usually the first to go.

We decided to re-film and only show one main character. From this character we can see that she’s vulnerable, by the way she looks around and fidgets with her cardigan sleeve. In a ghost horror is expected to have a vulnerable, innocent female as part of a social group. Even though our character does not talk throughout the opening sequence, we have portrayed her through her actions and how she looks.

Her dress sense suggests that she’s from a middle class background as it’s neat and looks decent. Her clothing suggests she is quite young and having a bag by her side on both days’ shows that she attends something i.e. School therefore is a student. Our character wears dark colours which could give away the thought of her being closed, quiet and reserved to herself rather than wearing bright and bold colours and catching attention, With this it becomes even more

creepy and scary of how she caught the attention of this paranormal being, especially of being with a girl of a good social class background it’s the least person you’d expect. However does make her an easy target.

We have twisted some of the main conventional codes of a ghost horror by having the innocent female not only as a victim but also as the villain, our main character, which was shown at the end of our opening. You could tell something had changes with in her by the way she looks directly in to the camera.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

A media institution is an ‘organization or company, public or privately, owned that produces and/or distributes media products’. Examples of some media institutions would be

Universal pictures

Warner bros

Paramount pictures

20th century fox

Lions gate

20 th century fox

From research we have found out that this media institute usually distributes films like action comedy, comedy, romantic, and action. With popular films like ‘Avatar’ ‘Titanic’ ‘Star wars’ ‘home alone’ ‘ mr and ms smith’ and ‘ ice age’ it doesn’t seem as if 20th century fox distributes any horror films and therefore doesn’t make sense to distribute our media product to them.

Warner bros

Warner bros have distributed some horror films; however they have mainly been in the genre horror comedy, with likes of ‘beetle juice’ and the ‘Gremlins’, it clear that our horror doesn’t fit in here. However warner bros have recently distributed two top horror movies out, likes of ‘The conjuring’ and ‘The Exorcist.’ This may encourage the idea of using warner bros.

Lions gate

Lions gate is usually known to distribute film genres such as comedy and action. For example they have distributed a box office success ‘American psycho’ they have also produced a major hit movie ‘The hunger games’. Having researched this I don’t think it’s appropriate that Lions Gate distribute our media product.

Universal pictures

Universal pictures have distributed many top grossing films like ‘E.T’, ’Jurassic Park’, ’Jaws’ ,’king Kong’, ’Ted’ and their most recent ‘Fifty shades of Grey’. By looking at these, movies the genre in which universal pictures seems to focus on are action, romance and comedy.

Paramount pictures

Paramount pictures have distributed many films over the years. With their first one in 1912. They’ve done many different genres over the years and continue to do so. However with research done we have found out that they have distributed ‘The lovely bones’ ‘Friday the 13th’ and ‘paranormal activities’

With this I believe that it would be most suitable to use paramount pictures to distribute our media product.

Our media products is a ghost horror which consists of certain conventions such as possession, paranormal activates and strange events, therefore will need to be support by a media institution (Paramount Pictures) that will allow age appropriate viewings.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

By doing research on the ‘BBFC’ website we went through the different age ranges and read through what was appropriate for each rating.

We found out that having a horror film at 12 or 12A is allowed as long as the horror sequence is not too disturbing.

Taking the decision to make it a 12, means that we believe that parents would be comfortable for their children to watch the sequence knowing it’s not going to disturb or affect their minds in any way.

We can support our decision as we can look at the successful movie ‘The Exorcist ‘is also rated 12. With this movie also being about possession we can say that it’s a safe choice to rate our media product a 12.

How did you attract/address your audience?

Our media product is a ghost horror. It’s usually seen to have a religious connotation. Our opening sequence has a Muslim female teenager as the main character. With this choice being quite different from all the others it might attract many young females, especially Muslims. However this is a new experience and may or may not attract that market.

I also believe our editing throughout the opening sequence would attract many horror ghost fans. Our editing consists of different cuts, which builds up tension throughout the sequence, engaging and attracting out audience.