Film Opening 

After so much stress and nights without sleep, it's finally out, hope you enjoy!

Here it is.

Whoop whoop

CCR 

    Oh my goddd, the end is near

CCR #1

Genuinely don't know how I finished this in time. Here it is.

CCR #2

Here it is. Podcast!!!!

 Reflection

    And so here we finally are, April 2nd. It feels so surreal to finally say "I'm done" after spending the last two months of my life stressing over this but as Greg Hirsch would say: "if it is to be said, so it be...so it is" I'M DONE. This entire experience has be so...crazy??? After so much (fake) blood, sweat, and some tears, I uploaded by final project on YouTube. The little pessimistic, perfectionist voice in my head is telling me that it's horrible and reminding me of all the little editing mishaps, but most of all I'm trying to be as proud and happy with my final result as my mind will let me. Seeing this idea form before my very eyes, starting off as a half-baked idea that had so much trouble developing to a pretty decent opening has been quite interesting to witness. I'm so excited to take A level next year and already starting to think a little about what I'm gonna do. This is my last blog post before I post my final project ad CCRs, and well, this is it I guess? To anyone who happens to be reading this, thank you for putting up with my absolute delusional midnight ideas and breakdowns. Hasta la vista, blog.

 CCR Script #2

    

(1)How does your product use or challenge conventions and (2)how does it represent social groups or issues?

    1. When I was starting to develop the idea for this production, I fell into this I guess rabbit hole of horror films. I watched so many horror openings and read so many opinions on what make a "good" horror film opening. I quickly realized that, with horror, audiences want to be immediately entrapped by the opening. For many great horror films, the first few minutes begin with a terrifying scene, often used to give context to the rest of the story, but not completely related to the actual plot of the rest of the film. My production mimics an opening like this to try to engage audiences by using conventions of the horror genre. Aside from the slightly obvious stereotypical production choices, the dark room and creepy statuette, the actual plot takes many traditional horror aspects and adapts them into this new idea. As part of the paranormal horror sub-genre, this production fits into the "possession" trope. TV Tropes calls this specific body snatchers trope a demonic possession and defines it as "A spirit or energy being who puts the host's mind in a straitjacket.". It's not much of a subverstion of this trope, but rather an adaptation for a new story. 

   2. While writing my script, especially working in the horror genre, I knew that I wanted to represent teenagers in my production. The most obvious reason being that it's what I know best. But also, teenagers make up a large majority of the audience for horror. It's the third most popular genre amongst Generation Z (9 years old to 27 years old), and specifically for paranormal horror, the average age of the audience is 27% younger than the general moviegoing crowd. From the first minute of my production, I wanted to show how social pressure and general teen stupidity can lead to something like this, obviously not literally, since getting possessed by a spirit is quite unlikely, but in figurative horrific manner. Within the opening sequence, I wanted to represent this theme through the limited dialogue that I incorporated throughout the opening. Phrases like "it'll be fun" give the impression that these kids do not have consequences in mind before doing something of this magnitude. Although the characters introduced in the opening scene don't make an appearance later on in the film, their scene serves a purpose to introduce the issues, groups, and tone that the rest of the film will be exploring.

How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

(3) I set out to first and foremost, to make the most engaging, atmospheric, and scary product that I could with the resources I had. I was heavily inspired by the genuinely terrifying and abrupt openings from horror films like It Follows and Talk to Me. Again, since I chose the horror genre, I tried to make a production that could be relatable and scary for the target younger audience by incorporating not only classic genre conventions from horror films like possessions and rituals, but also by incorporating certain genre conventions from teen movies, such as parties (although albeit mine was a small get together since I couldn't get a big enough cast) and through mise-en-scene elements like clothing. Mostly though, I used production techniques to engage with my audience. The atmospheric music was chosen not to scare the audience, but rather to give an impression of eeriness to the entire scenario. The dark setting only being lighted by candles again is used for the purpose to build this atmosphere. Of course, the "scarier" elements are introduced once the opening goes on the situation escalates. The purpose of the opening is to introduce the audience to these characters, make them slightly attached to them, and then completly flip the script, this way the audience is already gripped onto the plot from the beginning.

(4)     Since this a smaller production, it unfortunately won't have a theater release. However, to gain audiences, Malignance will premiere in various film festivals, specifically horror or genre based ones such as the Fantastic Fest in which The Last Night in Soho and Titane premiered. Additionally, Malignance would be released on the streaming service shudder, which is self-described as a the  premium streaming service with the best selection of horror, thriller and supernatural movies and series uncut and commercial free, from Hollywood favorites and cult classics to original series and critically-acclaimed new films you won’t find anywhere else.