Vacant CCR

 

How do your products represent social groups or issues?

The two main social groups/issues being represented in our movie is mental illness awareness and discrimination due to social status. Our film does this by showing how out of control someone who has an untreated mental illness can become. The teenagers are unwilling to talk to the homeless man simply because of the fact that he is homeless. They take him as a joke and think he is disgusting.

How do the elements of your product work together to create a sense of branding?

We created a sense of unity between our separate films by using the studio name “Meyler sibling Studios” we found this name to be very catchy and memorable so, we decided to use it again. We also wanted to create an expanding universe in our film similar to Quentin Tarantino’s films. We did this by making the movie the friends were going to see a movie Meyler Sibling Studios made. For our post card, we used a picture from one of our original posters. This was one of the main characters, James, holding a lighter. We wanted to show consistency throughout the movie, so we attempted to stick to the general aesthetic shown in the poster. For editing, we want the Meyler Sibling Studios editing style to be easily identifiable and almost iconic. Because of this, we used many similar editing techniques to those we used last year. We wanted to use a reoccurring actor in the Meyler Sibling Studio films but, we had difficulties contacting him and trying to find a time to meet up with him so unfortunately, we were unable to use him. Instead, I had to be the only reappearing actor across all the Meyler Sibling Studios films. For the filming itself, we like to use the Pov shot, we used it extensively in our two-minute opening project but minimally in Vacant. Nevertheless, I feel as if our cinematographic style is something that represents our branding.

How do your products engage with the audience?

Our film tells the tale of what happens when someone messes with the wrong person. Albeit this topic is a little overdone especially in the horror genre, I think we have put a unique twist on the sub-genre. I have never watched a horror movie involving a murderous homeless man. I feel as if this scenario could quite possibly happen since many people who live on the street have some sort of mental illness or are addicted to drugs. Although it would likely require more than refusing to spare some change and scoffing to cause a man to go on a killing rampage, it is never out of the possibility. Unlike many horror movies, our villain isn’t too unrealistic and exaggerated to add fear. The fear comes in the fact that this could happen, even if not under these exact circumstances. Aside from the plot, the fact that much of our editing has been done in no more than two weeks is no small feat. My sister’s editing skills are impressive to say the least.

How did your research inform your products in the way they use or challenge conventions?

1)      How did research affect the film?

2)      What conventions we used (horror: choppy editing dark lighting)

While researching the conventions for the horror movie genre, we decided we didn’t want to follow the mainstream design of many horror movies. Because of this decision, we gave our characters more comedic, likeable personalities. This differs from many generic horror movie characters who you almost root for to die. One convention we did stick to however, was that or characters would make dumb decisions. This would be the easiest way to continue the plot as quickly as possible. Decisions such as Conner entering the crawlspace seem questionable at best, this seems almost comedic. It seems very implausible that a friend at a party would be so willing to enter a crawlspace all because he heard a noise. Lighting was a convention that we followed when it came to the crawlspace portion of the movie. The lighting almost appeared to be in a found footage style. The only difference being that the cameras weren’t being carried around from our characters.