Aims and Context

Aims - the aim of my creative project is to make a short film using the conventions of the psychological horror genre

Context - My film will be aimed at the mainstream target audience - 16-24 year old's. It will appeal to this age group as the actors used will come into that age group and the storyline - of the students originally filming a project for college will also. As I am using cinematography to create the sense that the students are making the film on a hand held camera, I will be one of the protagonists in it - I will be doing the filming. After researching the psychological horror genre and looking at films such as The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity for example, I hope to take influence from them. As creating tension is one of the main aspect of psychological horror, I hope to use cinematography to do this, through the use of camera angles, lighting and camera movement. As I want my film to appear as if it is done on hand held cameras and is actual footage from the characters, I won't be able to rely on non-diegetic sound to create tension. Therefore, whatever sound I use will have to come from the footage itself, something I know I will have to plan carefully for it to have effect. I will also be undertaking the role of directing my film, and I hope that I can incorporate the conventions of the psychological horror genre into my film. I am looking forward to creating my film as well as learning and being involved in each step of producing it. I will use what I learnt from the previous year's coursework and focus on stylistics to help me with this, especially the focus on cinematography I used. 
      I have a location planned for where I am going to do my filming, but I am going to visit it first to find an exact place to film and make sure that it is suitable for what I want to achieve, such as the lighting and what the setting would connote to the audience for example. I hope to get my filming done over three afternoons so I can focus mainly on editing, though I will have to make time for if any footage needs re-shooting.