Shot, prop and call list

Narrative

Creating the logo

Production company and logo

What people expect from home invasion films

Following up on my research as a group we decided that we would be most likely to create  a psychological home invasion film. To find out peoples expectations of what should be included I went around asking different people what they would expect to see. This gives us some ideas of moments and elements that could be included in our final trailer.

Contemporary horror advertising campaign analysis

Audience theories: reception theory

Audience theories: cultivation theory

Audience theories: uses and gratifications theory

Audience theories: hypodermic model

Audience theories: desensitisation

Audience research - reactions to trailers

The first trailer contained a lot of jump scares which were most effective towards the start of the trailer however too many were used and started to have a lesser effect as it went on. The last jump scare was also effective as there was a longer shot before hand which acted to build up tension. 

The second trailer had very few jump scares which drew less of an impact from the participants. The main comment that I grasped from this trailer was 'did they just pull off his nose?' along with a shocked expression. This tells me that the audience are still shocked by gore but not as much as jump scares as one participant didn't even flinch or move at the gore.

What I have drawn from this is research is that audiences like trailers being jumpy and scaring them more than seeing lots of blood and gore.

Participants with their consent forms.

Audience research - questionnaire findings

To begin my audience research I chose to do a questionnaire as it is a quick easy and effective way to collect people opinions on particular issues. My questionnaire was formed of 6 questions which each aimed to find out something different from my target audience. I gave it to 15 people and recorded their results.

Question 1 - How much do you enjoy horror on a scale of one to ten?

This questions aim was to get an idea of how much my target audience enjoyed horror as a whole.

Question 2 - What type of horror film do you enjoy the most?

The aim of this question was to find out what sub-genre interested the audience the most so that as a group we would be able to know what the people want to see. This is important as it is easier to watch something that you want to see and actually like in comparison to something that you hate.

Question 3 - Which  part of the film is most exciting to you?

In finding out what engages the viewer the most it allows me to know what they will enjoy seeing most in a horror trailer which will make them want the watch the film more therefore achieving the goals of a trailer.

Question 4 - How often do you watch horror films?

The purpose of asking this question was to again test my target audiences interest in horror as a whole  and how much time they are willing to dedicate to it.

Question 5 - When watching a horror trailer what makes you want to watch the film?

Similarly to question 3 this also aims to find out what audiences seek from horror trailers however these questions are more general and technical categories. I have done this so that I roughly know what excites and interests the audience however allows me flexibility with how I wish to achieve it.

Question 6 - Which of these scenarios do you find the scariest?

By asking this question it gives me an idea of what sort of plot line will interest my audience most. This is helpful because it gives me an starting point on creating a story that will cater for the audiences needs.

Research rationale

Age group decisions
The age group that I have chosen to focus my research on are those between the ages of 15 and 19. This is because I have the most access to people that are these ages through school. I chose for the youngest age included to be 15 as I wish to make my horror a 15 rated trailer. I have chosen not the make the film and 18 because it would not only be difficult to film the content needed for this without it looking cheap and fake, but also because there is no need and a lot of horror films rated 15 work well and do not need 18+ features to be good. I have chosen to use teenagers as my target audience not only because of easy access to them, but also because research such as that of Wells’ supports the idea that young people enjoy horror more than other age groups.


Audience research - Questionnaire and interview
To research my audience, I am going to use two different methods. The first of these will be an interview where I am going to ask people about their fears as I can later manipulate this information and use it in my own trailer. This research is qualitative as it allows the participant to elaborate on the question. After collecting videos of people discussing their fears I am going to create a chart to make the information readable by putting it into categories e.g. Ghosts, bodily mutilation, possession etc. Also by having the information in a chart formation I can compare it seeing which category scares the most people.
I am also going to create a questionnaire to collect quantitative data. This will mainly include questions using scaled answers e.g. ‘how much to do you enjoy horror films?’ on a scale of 0 (being not at all)-10 (love them).
In order to support my research I will most likely search online for similar studies to use as for comparison.

Market research
For this I plan on doing online research on test audiences and people's reactions to them. This can be useful as I can see the audiences reactions to specific parts of the film therefore grasping what scares them. I plan to replicate this experience with people in my target audience so that I have first hand data that I know is accurate and reliable. I will also be able to see what specifically scares my target audience which will be helpful in deciding the theme of my trailer.

Barthes' Enigma code

Wells' research and Cohen's moral panics

The monstrous feminine

(the videos will not play on the slideshare so are available below)

Directors commentary

Prelim clip

Prelim construction

To create out prelim all met up as a group and went to our decided setting (Aamina's house). We then met up with the models and reminded them of what they had to do shot by shot. We took it in turns to film different parts of the scene allowing each member of the group to feel comfortable behind the camera and each contribute to the clip.

 

Once the shots were all filmed we met up on a day that we had off of school to edit the footage. The clips were then all uploaded onto premiere and we sorted through the good and the bad. After doing this we then cropped them and added them in the correct order. The original clap scene did not feature any special cut transitions so we did not include any to make it as accurate as possible. Once this was completed we downloaded in some music and added in the clap sounds that we recorded separately on a phone. Finally we exported the video and then uploaded it onto youtube.

Clip analysis

The clip begins with the main character of the clip saying 'first clap' followed by the sound of a clap. She then exits a doorway wearing a blindfold and moves into the hall where a clock gong is sounded and she clumsily barges into a  small table messing up the ornaments. This is likely to have been included to tell the audience along with showing them that she is playing  a game. The use of a blindfold makes her appear vulnerable which is a point further pushed by the stumbling and banging into things. This is because if an antagonist was to appear she would not know and be at total risk of attack. After walking into the banister a tracking shot is used to follow her down the corridor which is when the second clap is sounded. There is then another tracking shot used where the camera faces the character who walks towards it (0.19-0.25) which is very effective and something that I am thinking of using in my final  horror trailer. Once she has walked down the hall she enters a room with a large wardrobe at the back. The room is dim and dull with only a window providing light and a lot of the furniture is brown. The camera is set in the right corner of the room in an establishing shot. When the wardrobe doors eventually open, they are made to sound dark and creepy through the use of music and a loud creek. As she began approaching the open doors, she says 'I'm gunna get you now, I can hear you breathing'. This again suggests a threat to the audience and the music continues to play building up tension. The point of climax is reached when a child bursts in from around the doorway taunting that the mother was looking in the wrong place the whole time. The audience then fully realise that the claps were not those of  the child but something else. The aim of this clip is to create a chilling feeling which I believe that it does well  which is why we have selected it as the clip that we will be recreating.

Another thing that I have noticed about the clip is the characters predominantly red costume. Red is regularly used to symbolise danger leading the audience to believe that something bad is likely to happen to her.This is  a carefully insert enigma code.

Prelim planning

For our prelim we are recreating the clap scene in the Conjuring as it is simple enough to recreate in the locations we have available to us while still being effective.

The first thing that we did after watching the clip was come up with a storyboard of all the shots in the clip. We drew, described and timed each of these shots so that we could recreate the scene as accurately as possible.

To sort out our shooting schedule we first worked out which lessons who had free for us to work on our prelim in. The green colouring shows when we all have free periods while the purple shows our media lessons and the orange shows when some of the group but not all are available to shoot or edit. 

We also came up with a prop list of different items and important furniture that appear in the clip that we are creating and a suitable location to do filming. 

Psycho

Scream

Mulvey's male gaze and Clover's final girl

Camera shots

Timeline breakdown

Timeline showing;

technological/social development, general themes/ideas and key films of the era

Timeline

Narrative theories

Horror poster deconstruction

28 Weeks Later

V/H/S/2

Horror film conventions

Vampires

Film analysis

Eden lake (2008)

Film Analysis

Evil Dead (2013)

The plot to this film surrounds a teenage girl called Mia, who in an attempt to kick her drug addiction isolates herself from society by going to stay in a desolate cabin in the middle of the woods with some friends and her brother. It is here where an evil spell is unknowingly released by one of her friends, freeing a creature allowing it to possess and control her. One by one this possession spreads through to her friends making them not only die but also brutally mutilate themselves and each other. Eventually the evil being is cast out from inside Mia and she must go head-to-head to defeat it.

By having the setting deep in an unoccupied forest it suggests from the beginning that to one will be able to escape or access help when everything starts to go wrong leaving the main protagonist and their crew stuck alone in the area waiting to die . This is exactly what happens throughout the duration of the film as none of the group of friends are able to escape either their possessed friends who are trying to kill them or the possession its self.

Jump scares are used throughout the film especially after scenes of built up tension. For the example the clip below showing the character Olivia in the bathroom used both sound and visuals to physically make the viewer jump. As horror films are created with the intention of scaring viewers these short shocks work well.



A lot of gore is used during the film and the genre of horror as a whole mainly to shock the audience and create an uncomfortable feeling amongst them. This shock can thrill audiences sometimes to the point of creating a lasting impact upon them. Both the clips above and below show two different characters mutilating themselves in different ways.

Introduction