Violet

Foundation Project Evaluation

Violet by Ruby Cowan

In what ways does your product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The Movie Violet directed by Ruby Cowan is about a young girl called Bella who is lured away from her house into the woods by another girl called Violet. Soon after the mother begins to get distressed and runs after her into the woods. As Bella is led by Violet deeper into the woods, Kate who is the mother begins to get more and more worried, made evident by the louder and more frantic ‘Bella’s.’ Eventually Bella and Violet end up at what appears to be a grave site, Bella and Violet stare intently at two grave stones as Kate finally catches up to them. Kate then makes it clear to Bella that she was very worried, which Bella then retorts to by saying that violet made her do it whilst pointing at nothingness. Kate visibly disturbed by this walks away with Bella as Violet watches with an evil look on her face.

Violet most commonly reflects elements of films such as the grudge, the ring and has elements of the shining in it. Its main themes are Death
(More specifically life after death), Ghosts, and evil children. Our film references the films that were named above in various ways. In the Ring (Gore Verbinski 2002) which is the most obvious reference to our film, there is an evil girl which kills using a videotape. Whilst the girl in Violet never explicitly kills someone, there is still the same idea of being lured into her trap. In the ring it was the videotape that lures the viewer into Samara’s trap of evil and death; however in Violet it is Violet herself that lures Bella and even her mother to her burial site.

In the Grudge (Takashi Shimizu 2004) which was another large inspiration for Violet, there is a Japanese house where the family was killed in a violent rage. When originally planning the film’s conception Ruby, the team and I discussed what the name of it would be. We originally were going to name the film the Victorians and it was going to contain a scene at the beginning where old black and white pictures would be shown of the family, making obvious reference to the fact that the family was long dead. We were then going to try and film a noose which would hint at the fact that Violet was hung. The premise of the grudge was very similar as not only did it have an extremely similar back story but in the grudge there is an evil boy that screeches like a cat. If the grudge had been set in England, and the little boy was replaced by violet, then the film would have almost been a dead ringer.

In The Shining (Stanley Kubrick 1980), the film which had the least amount of influence on Violet there is a scene in which Danny who plays the son of the main character Jack Torrance, is riding along a corridor on his tricycle. Danny turns a few corners and eventually is confronted with two ghost girls at the end of a corridor. In Violet the girls are meant to be twins and this is one of the most direct references to any movie. Whilst The Grudge and The Ring had the largest influence on Violet the idea of the twins most heavily originates from the shining.

When the viewer is watching the segment of the film where Violet and Bella are looking at the grave stones, they will notice that they are both in the shapes of crosses. This provides the scene with a certain irony as a cross is often a symbol of righteousness and divinity. In contrast with the evil portrayed with Violet then this is a rather effective image. Whilst this scene is good and symbolises a lot of what the film stands for I personally would have chosen to put less religious imagery in as this is a film about evil children and not Satanism. Instead I would have chosen to film a swing and children’s toys.

How does your Media Product Represent Social Groups?

The social groups that are most commonly represented in my piece are female children from an upper class society. As a team we decided to give the girls a modern dress sense, even Violet. The reason for this was to make Violet appear more deceptive. The fact that Violet is dressed in modern day clothes hints to the viewer that her time of death may not have been as long ago as the viewer may think. Violet’s tone of voice is generally playful and innocent, yet we as the viewer know that this is far from the truth. This is in contrast to Kate’s loud frantic screaming. The idea here was to help give the film an atmosphere that something is not quite right. The reason this worked is because the girls are going about their business as if nothing is wrong whilst at the same time Kate is running through the woods screaming. This is once again used to give Violet an element of deception.
Violet generally moves normally and the same as most girls her age tend to move. Ironically Violet is made to look considerably paler than Bella; this is the one area in which deception does not come full circle. Looking back we could not have done it anyway as Violet would have looked like a normal girl if we had. The idea was to deceive the viewer whilst at the same time giving Violet an air of mysteriousness and evil. The Archetypes that are most commonly represented in the film are that of the two evil little girls, and the panicked mother. We constructed these representations in the way we did as they apply rather heavily to modern day culture as parents are becoming more and more worried about there children. Not only this but children are becoming more domesticated and the image of the two girls running off into the woods together is not one that is often seen today. Whilst we could have changed the representations of the girls / family by doing simple things such as changing what they are wearing, we chose not to as we believed that it would have looked clichéd and it would have not given the film the effect we wanted.

What kind of Media Institution might distribute your Media Product and why?

Violet is a low budget film as it was not produced on nearly the same scale as a high budget film. The reason for this is because we didn’t have nearly the same budget as the average film that is produced today, which means that we were not able to use the wide array of resources that most production companies are allowed access to. This meant that we were not able to get the best of the best in terms of actors, and had to make do with unknowns, we didn’t build our sets (not that we needed to) and had to use natural settings we also rented the cameras we used to film rather than buy them.
Another reason that Violet is considered to be low budget is because the deadlines that were given to us were significantly tighter than the deadlines that would be given to an actual film crew when filming. Not only this but the deadlines that we were given were allowed to be extended if we were running behind or were not completing work to a satisfactory standard. The final reason that I would consider Violet to be a low budget film is because we did not take part in any marketing. Not only could we not have afforded it but we needed to spend the majority of the time concentrating on making the film. Not only this but because Violet is only being shown to the school we did not need to advertise its appearance as people will naturally end up watching it.
I believe that arrow films would be most likely to distribute our film as it specialises in Low Budget Horror Releases.





Who would be the Audience for your Media Product

The audience for Violet would most generally be a national audience. That is to say that the film most probably would not be released anywhere outside of England as it is a low budget film. Not only this but it is filmed in England so American audiences may have a harder time relating to the situation the characters find themselves in. Violet would be a 15 because it contains scenes of a psychological nature. It is still however not worthy of an 18 certificate as it doesn’t have any harsh language, or explicit gore.
Violet would be released in 2011 as it is not produced on the same level as an international film and therefore would not take as long to make. The DVD would then most likely be released six months afterward as that would give the audience enough time to absorb the movie before moving on to the DVD release. I would expect the revenue to be average as the idea behind the film is not particularly original. In the finished product as a team we would work to ensure that there are some particularly disturbing scenes in it, and try to tone down on gore as that is not particularly effective at scaring people. At the moment there aren’t any particularly scary scenes in it however there is one scene toward the end where the girl is seen with her hair hanging down in front of her face, and then another scene where she is seen smiling.

How did you attract/address your audience?

In terms of attracting an audience as a team we would most probably aim to go for viral marketing as I can honestly not imagine having t-shirts advertising Violet. We would use viral marketing as that would work well with the film’s general atmosphere. The fact that it would be viral means that we would be able to mass advertise it by use of the internet. This is obviously something that the film needs as it is national and low budget. In terms of a particular image used for the film it would either be of the woods that the children are running through, or of violet with her hair covering her face. When releasing the DVD we will include a few deleted scenes and bloopers and even an alternate ending. The reason for this is that there is a lot of footage we deleted yet still believe to be of good quality, yet for a number of reasons didn’t make it into the film.
Finally we will advertise its appearance on Facebook and Myspace and may even include a Blog for the mother in which she details her life with Bella and how she starts to act strangely.





What have you learnt about Media Technologies from the process of constructing your Product?

Since I originally started using a camera I have learnt a lot about the planning, filming and editing process. I remember when I originally started I knew the basics of how to use a camera, but wouldn’t be able to tell you how to change the focus, distortion or anything like that. Since then I have learnt all of those skills including more such as how to move the film from the camera to the computer to edit it. When it came to final cut pro once again I had used it in the past as one of my friends has a copy of it. However when it came to using it to the degree that we used it in our film, I found that there was a lot more to it. E.g. I wasn’t aware that Final Cut Pro had a companion called Soundtrack pro that is used to provide the film with music and sound effects. In addition to that I learned a lot of the complex things in editing and have taken a lot away from it.


Looking back at your preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt about the progression from it to the finished product?

There was obviously a huge difference between the preliminary task and Violet, the first and most obvious difference being that we had come a long way from when we filmed the preliminary. Not only this but we were able to hire actors for Violet, which is something we were not able to do with the preliminary task. For Violet we also had a considerably large budget (large in comparison to the preliminary). Interestingly enough I remember feeling quite intimidated by the process of filming the preliminary however I found that the preliminary was a piece of cake compared to Violet. When I got round to filming Violet I remember thinking that I find everything extremely difficult as I found the preliminary difficult. However I found that once I actually got round to it I was able to do much more than I originally thought I was capable of. That was a nice epiphany. If I had been able to communicate more with my group, and I had gotten on with them better, then I would have received a huge sense of satisfaction from it.
To conclude I have learnt a lot from when I originally began filming at the beginning of the year to today. I Feel that the experiences I have had paid well.

Audience reaction

So far the comments I have got on Violet are generally positive with a few negative criticisms here and there. It is generally criticisms of the shots that are most praised. E.g. the shot of the ornaments are particularly praised. Most people who have commented however have generally not known what the significance of the ornaments actually are. T o clear things up the ornaments are meant to be graves, and more accurately the grave of the ghost girl Violet. An example of one of the comments we got is ‘the mise en scene of the girl's outfits and the mother's coat is a nice contrast.’
The contrast between what the mother wears and what the children wear, was considered when filming so to realise that it has not gone unnoticed is good.

Another comment we got is this one ‘Like the scary image of the isolated girl at the end, using the disconcerting wood as a location works well too, maybe other locations could have added to the atmosphere.’ The idea of the girl that is isolated at the end of the video was actually mine, of which I took a lot of influence from the ring. To know that this image was effective is good to know as I was intending for it to look scary and to know that, that is what I achieved is good.

Another comment we received is this one, ‘I thought the sound is pretty effective. It helps to create tension through the whole piece. There are several cool shots of the girls in the wood. I thought the idea of using children is a very interesting theme to explore in thriller.’ This comment is quite interesting as young children are often used in horror films to scare people, some examples include the shining and children of the corn. To know that this idea is considered to be frightening is nice to know.

Day Of Shoot

My Role in Crystal Productions is that of Assistant director. During the day of the shoot I took turns with Ruby, Katie and Anna to use the camera and microphone. I was also in charge of the permission to shoot document, the kit list and the hazards list which will have made its way into the production pack.

Generally i didnt have too much of a role on the actual day of shooting because the group hadnt sat down and explicitly discussed what we were going to do beforehand, so when it came time to shoot I especially just wandered around trying to work out what to do. however I made sure that I did as much of the filming and recording as everyone else. I would say that overall everyone managed to get as much time as possible doing their fare share of the individual tasks presented to them on the actual day. I would say that Ruby had the most contribution in the group as she was the director and then Katie and Anna would come second in that regard and then me last.

The role of Ruby was director, Katie was producer and Anna was the Creative Artist. Since Ruby was director the thriller was her vision and she was generally in charge of where in particular in the woods she wanted to film, it was Katies Job to help Ruby and check if what she was doing fitted with the script, My role to help Ruby with any additional camera work and sound recording and Anna provided the location of the shoot, gave us food and put the makeup on the children.

Overall the communication in our group is pretty bad because since the beginning we have been fighting over roles/vision and this is something that has then effected our organisation and that is definetely something we need to work on Not only this but the children were not particularly scary and if it was my choice I would have had actors playing the children however due to a combination of money issues and a lack of actors this was not the case. If we had been able to find actors to play the children and had better access to makeup then i genuinely believe this film could have been ten times better. The reason for this is because it would have made the film much scarier and believable as opposed to a child which is smiling all the time.

We used a Sony PD 170 to film our thriller it is pictured below







I have learnt many things from the entire experience including how to properly use a camera, how to use final cut pro and how to cut the film to turn it into a thriller. Whilst my group doesnt particularly get on I have still learnt alot about how to work in a group and this will prove to be a valuable learning experience for the future.

Thanks to Ffion however we managed to get someone who played the twins mother particularly well.

In terms of lighting we didnt use any, I think the reason for this is because the thriller took place in a natural environment (the woods) which means that we used the sun and the natural shadows the covered the forest floor, however i am not entirely sure as this was once again not discussed by the group.

Overall what you see in the finished product is exactly what was written in the storyboard however the girls were still not as scary as they should have been and the lack of lighting whether it was intentional or not did not add to anything.