Graphs: Product Research

 These are constructed pie charts of the results of our questionnaire, these have results for each question and will provide the foundation of our project.

This totally decides our target audience due to over half the people filling out the questionnaire were in the 16-25 age range, which is also our age who are creating the project. I was happy to see this as I believe that this would be the easiest target audience to aim our project at.

A clear proportion of this chart is the horror general, with horror comedy following up, just as we had hoped horror was the favourite selected amongst 16-25 year olds and this is another positive for the production of our film. We can just focus on horror elements among out target audience which will be the best suited task amongst our team

The most popular horror movies were Cloverfield, 30 Days of Night and 28 Days later which all our very good and scary films which have the use of good techniques which my team would be happy to incorporate into our own trailer. Things such as the zombie chasing one man over a field to show intensity in 28 Days Later to a hidden zombie face in 30 Days of Night. In Cloverfield they use a free hand camera.

This shows that infected was the most selected option which bodes well for us, as we were thinking of going down the zombie route but were aprehensive to the fact with such a low budget to make a realistic scary zombie. If we end up going for the infected

Questionnaire

We have compiled a questionnaire to delimit certain characteristics of our trailer such as the target audience, certain killer, music selection and overall genre.

1. How old are you?        

15 and under [  ]

16-25 [  ]

26 and over [  ]

2. What is your favourite film genre?

Horror [  ]

Comedy [  ]

Action [  ]

Thriller [  ]

Horror-comedy [  ]

Other?                      ……………………

3. Gender?

Male [  ]

Female [  ]
 

4. What stands out most for you in a trailer?

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

5. What is your favourite horror?

28 days later [  ]

30 days of night [  ]

Cloverfield [  ]

Crazies [  ]

Hills have eyes [  ]

Other?                      ……………………

 

6. What is the scariest scene?

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

7. What do you think is the scariest type of character in a horror?

Zombie [  ]

Mutant [  ]

Infected [  ]

Vampire [  ]

Human [  ]

Alien [  ]

Other?                      ……………………

 

8. What music do you think best suits a horror?

Rock [  ]

Punk [  ]

Indie [  ]

Metal [  ]

Hip Hop [  ]

Drum and bass [  ]

Other?                      ……………………

Target Audience?

We have discussed amongst the group that we have 3 different types of age group we would want to aim our film at, it either:

>15 and under

>15 – 26

>26+

These age groups are among our selection as there is not much difference between the actual ages but there are major differences in the dynamics of them surrounding our target audience.

15 and under

This will be a tricky group to target as it will shape the scariness and rating of our film as it can not be too graphic or scary. If we did go to 15 and under we could get a smaller response in the audience size however due to the young age and difficulties of paying and getting to the cinema. This group would have its positives though how easily we could scare them, as they would believe it more and have a less sustainable grip on things.

15 – 26

I believe this would be our strongest target audience as it falls in our age category and will therefore be in the same mind frame and be aware of the same things and ideas in a sense. This group will also have a high cinema attendance percentage due to own supply of transport and work, bringing in income and funds to see the movies. Also with this age group it’s easier to scare them than adults as they would have seen fewer movies and will be more vulnerable, also an outing at the cinema is what age group between this range would be doing rather regularly. This age group also have a lot of age’s in-between which would watch the type of movie we will try to create.

26+

This would also be a strong age group to target as they attend the cinema a lot and can always watch 18 rated movies, so there is no limit in the goriness or scariness of the movie which would be a plus, instead of having to worry about disturbing scenes which would affect younger teenagers. This target audience could have a flaw though which could be that it would be harder to create a film which interests this older age group, certainly if people younger than them are going to be starring in it, it would make more sense to have the actors starring in it around the same age as the target audience.

We discussed that we would send out a questionnaire and have more of a discussion on what our target audience will be and then base our trailer around that audience.  

Genre Selection

The selection of genre proved a tricky one to suggest as we wanted add comedy elements to the production but found it tricky to find places to add comedy. When we looked at horror/comedy successful film they were all our favourite films such as Shaun of the dead and Zombieland, so we wanted to create a trailer such as this. We sat down and decided that the funny parts of these films were the goriness, violence and the stupidity and casualness towards it. Examples would be in Shaun of the dead which is a spoof movie of dawn of the dead which has such a casual attitude and perverts the forms and conventions of the horror and replaces it with comedy. This example would be where a zombie fall onto a half-cut jagged, rusty swing ball pole which impales here, now in the context of the film it’s hilarious, through this reverse of conventions. Also in Zombieland which takes a comical approach to murdering zombies in which it’s the least funny thing in any horror film and portrayed in a disturbing way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ0gSbcG1FI – This clip shows the element of comedy of killing a zombie in Shaun of the dead, by dancing around and hitting him with snooker cues. It’s very light-hearted and along to the track of don’t stop me now by queen which is a generally cheerful song. This would be a very difficult technique to use as we couldn’t use the music due to copyright or hit a human being with snooker cues or use the talented camera angle or acting to make it funny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0L6B6QESnU – This is a clip from dawn of the dead which is very disturbing and does not have any comedy elements to it. We believe this film genre would be easier to portray as we can scare people more easily then make them laugh.

When we took these points into place it was clear that it would be difficult to reverse these forms and conventions of a horror to make it funny, with no experience and a low budget. It is two opposite genres and it would be very difficult to make this funny with no gory kills or very good casual acting towards death, it takes a lot of skill to add comedy elements to horror and get it correct, and I believe with my group that we can create a better horror film, than a horror/comedy film.

Research

We researched many trailers and extracts from horror and horror/comedy films to get ideas of camera angles, sounds, effects and general techniques to use in our film. I have researched many film trailers for inspiration and have embedded the trailer and a description of what technique to incorporate.

Shaun of the Dead - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhBGFqldAvk

In this extract we saw the technique of using a news report of the outbreak of disease, this is useful as it’s a similar story to ours and we could incorporate this to a different media form such as the radio with a lower budget.

Zombieland - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=071KqJu7WVo

In this extract we acknowledged a good technique which could be used in our film to show the brutality of the zombies where a zombie rugby tackles a civilian, which we could portray in ours easily.

I Am Legend - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7CC0kbGj6s

In this extract a part of this trailer has an infected humans hand smash against a car window, this technique can be used by us as it’s difficult to show a zombie with our budget but we can replica parts quickly, this makes this technique perfect.

28 Days Later - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBZnuUZIbBQ

This trailer had a part in which a zombie smashes a car window through; we could use this technique if we put a glass pane over a wound down car window to good effect. Also there is heavy rock played over the trailer to give the feeling of intensity and urgency, this could be used.

28 Weeks Later - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwxbTDPQNG4&feature=fvst

In this clip a part we found extremely scary and effective was a chase between one man and a group of infected humans, this was a gripping short clip and sums up the idea of a film and creates an unsettling feel which is what we want to portray.

Cloverfield - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufYF0f-zMgY

In this whole clip and film the movie is shot with a free hand camera. This gives a realistic and scary feel but can also be used by us as it is difficult to keep a steady camera.

30 Days of Night - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvFDOs4Km4U%20

The trailer uses one of the zombies faces in a shot with the other characters but you cant see the zombies face without looking very closely at the trailer or watching it over and over again which we thought was a nice effect.

The Blair Witch Project - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D51QgOHrCj0

This clip and film is also filmed in free hand and uses the effect of making it seem like a true story with this group of young adults experiencing stuff which they wish they regret, very scary film.

First Lesson

My group consists of Tom Homewood, Grant Cool and Lewis Brown. All of these members bring different elements towards the group, such as good camera work, computing ability and comfortable acting.

Name	Attributes To Group
Lewis Brown	Took the role of overlooking the film and the director’s spot. This shows responsibility as it’s an important role. Lewis is good with the camera and has a clear idea in what he wants to achieve for the trailer.
Tom Homewood	Very good on the computer and technologically intelligent, understands complicated computer programmes and will be handy in the production of the poster to make it realistic on limited software.
Grant Coull	Grant took up the production of the magazine cover as he is into magazines and has gained a lot of ideas and information through that. He is also good at art which helps with the production of this.

We had to choose between our two favourite briefs which where the teaser trailer film with a magazine cover and a film poster or a 5 minute short film with a poster for the film and a magazine cover. With the teaser trailer we felt that it would be easier to do as there is not much story to be shown in the film its more about showing clips and edits from the film to demonstrate the action involved in the film. With the short film we would have to make up a story and show the characters, action etc in only 5 minutes which is a difficult task. We chose to do a film trailer with a film poster and a DVD cover. We originally thought to make the film a horror/comedy or just horror. We were choosing between the genre of horror or horror comedy but are finding it difficult to comprehend how to add comedy elements to horror with such a low budget and professional actors, but it’s up to our audience feedback to decide which we go for, depending on our demographic.