Deconstruction of the use of Social Media in 'Unfriended' (2014)
Unfriended is a horror film about a group of friends who are haunted by the spirit of their friend who committed suicide due to cyber bullying.
The whole film is set as a computer interface including the programmes and websites Skype, Facebook and YouTube.
This is relevant for our trailer as we are planning of using social networking for a large part of the plot. We will use inspiration from the trailer, for example how they incorporate first hand use of the website i.e. recording the screen.
The trailer starts with the production company as a low quality video on an illegal film website. There is a time bar at the bottom of the video and info, share etc. button at the top right of the screen, making the film accurately represented.
By using the interface of a computer, the target market are identified.
The target market are likely to be teenagers. The age rating of the film is 15, this means that the target market are likely to be 15 - 21, as these are the ages in which most people use social media.
After the production company, there are multiple, viral video clips shown. Eventually the clips zoom out so that it can be seen that the videos are playing on YouTube. This begins to forebode the plot of the film as an embarrassing clip of Laura Barns (the friend of the group that commits suicide) is put on YouTube.
After the clips of Laura are shown through YouTube, there are clips of a user of a computer typing messages to a friend over iMessage. The user uses online slang, again identifying the target market.
This clip also forebodes the cyberbullying of the character as the messages sent are offensive.
The trailer also shows a number of people, presumably students at the same school as Laura, talking about her over Facebook - another social network used by the target audience.
Again, the comments being made are offensive, highlighting the theme of cyberbullying.
As well as social networks being shown, there is also a news website shown. The website uses the headline 'Laura Barns Suicide', which shows the plot of the film.
The video shows the actual suicide of the character, which could highlight the issues of censorship.
The final part of the trailer shows the characters on Skype. The first image shows the characters organising the Skype call with all of Laura's friends. Most of the film is set on the Skype chat, with the interface swapping between the characters.
The end of the trailer shows the genre (horror) compared to the beginning in which the genre is uncertain. Due to our trailer being a teen drama I wasn't interested in that bit.
I like how on the Skype call, they keep the bad quality video, this makes the plot look more realistic.
We could take inspiration from this by keeping the loading scenes in.
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