Tishani De Silva

Production Brief
Project name: The Whistler
Length: 2 minutes
Deadline: February 2016
Group member and their roles: Tishani De Silva (Director), Martika Dupigny-Williams
(Cinematographer) and Daniel Akinwumni (Editor)
Brief overview of content: Our opening sequence will involve a girl waking up in the woods,
drenched in blood and covered in dirt and bruises. She is chased by an antagonist wearing
dark clothes and a hood, after being chased for a while the girl suddenly trips over and is
trapped by the antagonist. The production ends with the girls vision blurring and the screen
fading to black.
Target audience: The target audience we chose were 15 to 35 year olds as we thought that
many individuals this age would be interested in horror films and therefore an audience
would exist already. We also chose to target both genders in order to make our target
audience as big as possible and not to limit the product. The socio-economic groups we are
targeting are C1 E as they are the groups covered in the age group specified.
Comparable products researched: The products we looked at horror films such as; The
Nightmare on Elm Street, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and Scream as these films all
incorporated a chasing sequence, which is the fundamental idea behind our production.
The Rationale behind the text: The rationale behind the text is to scare the audience
members by creating tension and building up suspense, we would achieve this through a
combination of non-diegetic score music, shots such as close ups which would reveal facial
expressions and help to convey the feeling of fear, and other non-diegetic sound effects to
ensure that the tension is heightened and the maximum feeling of fear is achieved within the
production.
Representations operating in the text: We have chosen two key stereotypical
representations to operate within the text. The first being the representation of the
protagonist, if the protagonist in a horror film is female she is typically represented as a
damsel in distress and is generally not of an ethnic minority. The second stereotypical
representation that we have chosen to include the portrayal of the antagonist, typically in
horror films the identity of the antagonist is rarely revealed from the start instead the
antagonist is usually represented as a normal person, instead they may be a supernatural
being. We chose to incorporate these elements into our text by using shots such as close
ups to only reveal small details of the antagonist.
Testing the Products Success: We will measure the products success through the postquestionnaire, the focus of the questionnaire will be on audience reaction to the product, this
will help us to clearly identify whether the product did achieve its intended effect. We will also
upload the product onto YouTube, this will provide us with a platform where we can see how
popular the product actually is, it will also provide us with tools where we can analyse the
views and see whether our product is actually popular amongst our target audience.
Generic Codes and Conventions: Horror codes and conventions that we will operate within
the text will be; the damsel in distress which will be portrayed by the protagonist as the
character will be young, female and typically unaware of the danger until they find their
selves in a threatening situation, other conventions included will be fact that the antagonist is

Tishani De Silva
male and their identity is not revealed and that the non-diegetic score music and sound
effects will heighten the tension already present.
Overt Messages: The main overt message operating within the text include the idea that you
can never trust everyone around you and that you should always be aware of the potential
danger in any given situation.
Subliminal Messages: The subliminal messages operating within the test will be that you are
never truly aware of the danger surrounding you, and you could be in danger and not realise
it.
Potential Resource Constraints: As we only have a short amount of time between now and
the deadline, time will be the main source of constraints on the product as we will not be able
to spend a lot of time filming and editing and therefore we may compromise the quality of the
product. Another large source of constraints may be the budget of the production, as we are
creating an opening sequence for a horror film we will rely on mise-en-scene elements (e.g:
costume and props) to convey a large amount of the codes and conventions of the genre, if
our budget doesnt allow us to create a believable world through these elements the
verisimilitude of the production will be poor and therefore it will not achieve its intended
effect. Also as we are not very experienced in terms of using the equipment (e.g: final cut,
camera, tripod e.t.c) this may also compromise the quality of the final production.