research

 

Colour Matching & Colour masking

Colour matching is where all scenes that take place will look the same for example if the lighting is brighter in one scene and you want it to look the same as another, colour matching allows you to match the background colour to one that you want.

Colour masking involves changing the background colour to be completely different to the image or clip in the foreground.

The first clip that lasts up till 13 seconds is where I have used the colour matching and colour masking effects on the video.
During the hand shake sequence outside the background colour was bright as we filmed on a sunny day therefore it was considerably brighter than when i filmed inside, but by using the colour match tool on Final Cut Pro X i clicked the background of the first clip and then the background of the second clip so that the background colour would match, this was successful as the lighting changed.   ( this can be seen in the video sequence after 13 seconds as that is the un-edited version)

I used colour masking in the clip by making the entire background black and white, however I kept one of the people in the clip in colour, again by using Final Cut Pro X mainly by changing the colours on the correction tool.

Textual Analysis

Paranormal activity ta from Nicko1998

The purge re done from JoeChapo97

The hitcher analysis from JoeChapo97

Woman in black ta from Nicko1998

Ancillary Textual Analysis

Poster magazine ta from Nicko1998

Sub Genre Research and Genre conventions

Horror – sub genres

Action horror: the sub-genre action horror always contains a supernatural event or an evil force, the shots are very fast paced and the film contains gunfight scenes and chase scenes like an action film. Conventional themes for the film are gore, Zombies and demons/Evil spirits. Examples of some action horrors are ‘Dawn of the Dead’ and ‘Resident evil’.

Body Horror: This sub-genre features the deconstruction of the characters body. The films contain unnatural body movements and the incorrect or displacement of limbs. This Unnatural look is used to create a monster like Frankenstein. Clive Barker is a specialist director who focusses his films on this genre.

Comedy Horror: This genre is a clear mixture fallout of comedy and horror. The prime example of this is ‘Shaun of the Dead’. Comedy Horror can also be categorized as ‘Black Comedy’. Comedy Horror will often use satire on horror clichés as its main source of humour. The Comedy horror category began as a hybrid however after recent success it has now emerged as a new sub-genre in the film industry.

Slasher: The Slasher sub-genre typically involves lots of violence as well as murders by psychopaths and deaths featuring however in comparison to the splatter sub-genre there is a plot that follows the killer and less gore as the film focusses more on the story. The weapons used by the antagonist are often bladed to create more of a gore effect. The idea of a Slasher film was in 1960 through Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’ however this idea peaked between the years 1970-80’s.

Splatter: A splatter film is sometimes referred to as a gore film that deliberately focusses on graphic portrayals of gore and graphic violence, gore is shown through the use of special effects and tends to focus on the vulnerability of the human body, In a way it is similar to the Slasher genre but focusses less on storyline and more on gore and violent killings.

Psychological: A psychological horror aims to create discomfort through the use of common psychological or emotional vulnerabilities and fears. Some examples of this are suspicion, distrust, self-doubt and paranoia therefore the film genre works on mental conflict. Psychological horror tends to keep the monsters hidden and to involve situations more grounded to artistic realism.

Monster: the monster sub-genre fits into the horror fantasy genre and often involves innocent civilians and emergency services struggling to stay alive in assaults against monsters. In most cases it is applied to films that feature oversized monsters.

Target Audience

The target audience for my film would be a variety of both female and male between the ages of 15-35 as I believe that people between this age group would be more interested in watching a horror film because of the thrill and excitement they would get from watching it. My film would be contain an age certificate of 15 due to the violence that would be included in the story which may be unsuitable for younger people to watch. According to the socio economic scale the target audience that would apply to my film would be from groups B to D as these are the types of people that can relate to the storyline which would make it more believable for them therefore they will enjoy it more. People in the highest band (A) wont find the film believable because of their lifestyle in comparison to our actors.

Influential figures

Flash Card Deck created by Liam Nixon with GoConqr

Media Theories

For our production we will look to follow Todorov's theory of starting with an equilibrium which will be of the character Shaun walking along the path where everything will seem normal at the time. The recognition of the disruption will occur once Shaun begins to hear something or feel a presence is watching him and he is seen being followed by an unidentifiable man (the antagonist). The disruption will occur just after this when the audience will hear a scream which connotes that Shaun has been murdered or attacked by the antagonist. There will be no attempt to repair or new equilibrium as our production is only a trailer therefore we don't want to give away too much information to the audience so by not showing the audience it will build up more suspense for the release of the film.

I will use Propp's theory, however only for the two main characters. I want to include the obvious Hero and Villain to the production. The hero will be the character that struggles with the antagonist (Villain)and continues on a search after them during the storyline, therefore the villain is the character that struggles with the hero. These are the obvious character that will appear in the horror trailer however some of the smaller characters, for example the donor will not be included in the trailer as I don't want the audience to find out to much.

I will try to include Levi- Strauss's theory which consists of binary opposites like Protagonist vs Antagonist. This is the most obvious one that I will include and it is a convention for the horror genre. This is because there is often conflict between the antagonist and the protagonist. Another Binary opposite that I will include is Good vs Evil as this links to the Antagonist vs Protagonist as the antagonist is the character that will be evil and the protagonist will be good as he tries to defeat the antagonist. Finally I will try to include the binary opposite of Weak vs Strong as the antagonist will be seen as the stronger character in the trailer and will be filmed chasing the protagonist who will be looking scared and running away. I want this to be the case as it makes the antagonist look scarier and more intimidating therefore it will have a longer lasting effect on the audience. 

 Cohesive Marketing 

Flash Card Deck created by Liam Nixon with GoConqr

Form Research

Throughout any trailer the producer makes sure that the best features occur in order to entice the audience and encourage them to purchase the film once it’s been released. For a horror trailer to be effective the director must be aware of their target audience so the trailer can play to their fears for example if the target audience is teenagers or young adults then the actor/actress in the film would roughly be the same age to create an effective storyline that the target audience can relate to. The character may also be living by themselves when they encounter memorable experiences with their fears therefore making the trailer more effective and applicable to the target audience.

It is important for some horror trailers to have a USP (Unique selling Point). This makes the trailer stand out to rival films and encourages people to view it. This will also make the audience more scared once they have seen the trailer as it will not be similar to other films so the audience won’t know what will happen next. An example of this is paranormal activity franchise. The franchise claimed that it had the scariest films ever, this was proved when the audience reactions to the film was shown in the trailer. The genuine shots of people in the cinema being frightened made people want to feel the thrill of being frightened for themselves.

A wide variety of camera shots are used in horror trailers to give the illusion that it is real life. Also since horrors are usually made up or a real life situation has been adapted into the plot, to allow the audience to believe that what they are watching is real, camera shots from different angles lure the audience in.

Some horror trailers like ‘The Purge’ feature typography though the trailer to give the audience little pieces of information about the film. The text is normally in a dark colour to represent the mood, the most common colours to be shown in horror trailers are either Red or Black, and both of these colours are associated with danger, death or blood which again will give the audience a sense of fear.

Most horror trailer normally begin with long camera shots with reduced movement and shot speed tends to be slower when the audience are in the equilibrium stage of the trailer. However cuts are still sharp as the camera jumps from scene to scene. More recently horror film trailers have been beginning with a series of fast shots so the audience struggle to get a clear view of what is happening, this will entice them to watch the film once released as the audience will be intrigued by the trailer. The speed of the shots increases as the trailer progresses to create a montage where editing speed reaches its peak.

Music or background sound is similar for all trailers. Eerie music is played over the trailer. Towards the beginning it is high pitch but a low tempo and is normally quiet. The music commonly keeps pace with the speed of editing and when the montage begins towards the end of the horror trailer the music is at its fastest, during the montage the sound will be low pitch and will have a strong beat. The music may change during different scenes and increase in tempo to build tension and make the audience think something is about to happen. This is to establish that the audience are being pulled into watching the film and when it quietens down the audience can relax, this leads to the sting theory.

The sting is the final couple of shots in the trailer usually just after the title of the film. It is the final surprise to scare the audience into watching the film.

For a trailer to entice the audience to come and watch the film it has to attract their attention first. A horror film needs to be realistic to the audience so sometimes it is difficult to develop a plot that has many disruptions before it reaches the repair followed by the new equilibrium. So trailers cannot always show the main disruption. To increase tension trailers leave the audience with a cliff hanger. For example if it is a slasher, the audience may be left to believe that this killer won't be found whereas in the film the antagonist may be found and punished for the crimes.

Directors do not use very famous actors in horror films because people world have seen the actor/actress in other films so they automatically know that this film isn't real and lose that sense of fear that is brought on from watching horror films. It also means that the audience are less likely to apply themselves to the film if the actor/actress is to well known. Unknown actors are used because it makes it feel as though it is real life footage.

Finally for horror trailers, production and distribution companies are advertised in the film, this is used to lure people to watch the film as the audience believe they will like the film from the distributers and production companies’ previous releases. Straplines are also used to persuade the audience to watch the film. An example of a strapline is "Before you experience the fear, before you know the pain, to witness the horror, to uncover the truth, you have to go back, to where it all began" is from the horror 'House at the end of the street' which indicates to the audience what the film will show them without actually giving away the plot. 

Ancillary form research - Horror poster

Horror film posters use darker colours mainly Red, Black and Grey colours, these colours connote danger, blood and death and therefore allowing the poster to inform the audience what genre their film is just through the use of colours as well as creating a gloomy atmosphere which implies what will entail during the film. However the typography is often in white to make it stand out on the darker background so it catches the audience’s attention. The title tends to be in a medium size towards the bottom half of the poster.   I have found that the traditional typography for horror titles is often Serif. Some examples of this are ‘The possession’ and ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’. The typical poster has one main image placed in the middle filling the entire screen as the image should be the optical focus, the image commonly shows a character from the film (often the antagonist) or the location to cause suspense in which the events occur therefore giving the audience a snippet of information about what to expect in the film and characteristics of the antagonist through the use of costumes and props they are shown with in the image. However the lighting is often low key to try and disguise the character making it harder for the audience to identify them so it builds suspense for the story. Also at the bottom of the majority of horror films there is a release date to inform the audience when the film is out therefore its function is to try and maximise the films views for the opening weekend. Horror trailers tend to ask an enigma to the audience to entice them to watch the film, the best example of this is ‘Drag Me to Hell’ as this asks the enigma of 'Why is she being dragged into hell?' therefore intriguing the audience to watch the film as they will want to find out the answer to this.

Ancillary form research - horror magazine

Film magazines of the horror genre always have either the protagonist or the antagonist in the centre to grab the audience’s attention but also to intrigue them by showing them glimpses of what to expect in the film therefore persuading them to go and watch it, through viewing this photo the audience can often see the clothing the character is wearing as well as props and intent of the character through the use of facial expressions and the way that they are shown e.g. from there stance/ pose.

The title is based in the primary optical area making it visible to the audience therefore generating more interest for a well-known magazine. The typography is often bold and for a horror film the colours will be darker and similarly to a horror poster the font will be sans serif.  for example the I Am Legend magazine which features a sans serif font.

Sometimes in horror film magazines screenshots or slogans will appear on the front cover to entice the audience to read the magazine. The screenshots will often be of action scenes from the film to make it look exciting and scary therefore the audience are more likely to want to watch the film, Slogans are occasionally used as a brand image or something to remember the film by which is often part of the films marketing campaign.

Pilot Questionnaire 

Create your own user feedback survey

Final Questionnaire

 https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6YZCCTQ

Focus Group based on questionnaire

  

Transcript for Survey

Introduce yourself –

Dan- ‘I’m Dan Brown, I’m 18 years old and I do media, business and IT.’

Luke- ‘erm I’m Luke Snowdon, I’m 18 years old, I do Chemistry, Business and Maths.’

Lennon- ‘I’m Lennon Ford, I’m 17 and I do Business, Maths and IT.’

Question one

Lennon- ‘I say in a forest or wood’.

Luke- ‘erm, I say in a school.’

Dan- ‘I’d probably say in a village.’

And Why?

Lennon- ‘I’d say a forest because it’s quite a creepy location.’

Luke- ‘I’d say a school because you wouldn’t expect it and everyone has been to school so people can relate to it.’

Dan- ‘erm, I’d say a village because people, the audience can relate to the story.’

Question two

Lennon- ‘Bold colours to attract my attention.’

Luke- ‘I’d say not too much text and lots of screenshots because you want the suspense when you actually watch the film.’

Dan- ‘I’d say a reasonable amount of text so you know the storyline of the film.’

Question 3

Lennon- ‘I’d prefer to see the film trailer because it will give you more of an idea of what the film is about.’

Luke- ‘yes, I’d say a trailer because it gives you more of an idea of the storyline and how scary it is going to be.’

Dan- ‘I’d say film trailer because it is more interactive with its audience

Question 4

Lennon- ‘I’d like to see the antagonist because it would be a more interesting character.’

Luke- ‘erm, I’d like to see the protagonist because I don’t want the identity of the antagonist to be revealed.’

Dan- ‘I’d probably say the antagonist, if they were wearing a mask so the identity isn’t revealed but if he is not wearing a mask, then I say the protagonist.’

Thanks very much for your time

analysis of focus group and questionnaires

From our questionnaire we found that our most popular location to shoot our trailer would either be in a house or a forest, from the focus group results only Lennon agreed that we should film in a forest whereas Luke and Dan preferred the school and village location. The House setting would be similar to the village setting mentioned by Dan but on a smaller scale as the location we would film in would be smaller than a village.

We realised from our questionnaire that we missed finding out information about our ancillary products. Therefore we focussed some of our questions from the focus group on this and found that for the magazine Lennon said he wanted to see bold colours to attract his attention, Luke and Dan said he wanted to see lots of text to find out about the film, This shows a difference in opinions therefore we would need to include a mixture of both in our magazine to meet the demand from our target audience. Luke also stated that he wanted to see screenshots from the trailer in order to find out more about the film but also to make the magazine more interesting instead of being heavily text based.

However all members of our focus group would rather watch a trailer than read a magazine as it provides the audience with more information about the film. This is partly due to the advancement in technologies as a magazine is beginning to become outdated therefore is only read by the minority. Film trailers are becoming increasingly popular as there are more devices to watch it on and it gives more information about the film that is more enjoyable for the audience to watch. Although on the previous question our focus group said that they would read a magazine if it caught there attention through the usage of bold colours with screenshots to grab their attention.

Our final question was based on the poster and what they wanted to see as the main image, Lennon and Dan said that they wanted to see the antagonist on the poster in order to make it more interesting and Dan also said that he would only want to see the antagonist if they were masked so that their identity stayed unknown to add suspense. If the antagonist wasn’t wearing a mask Dan agreed with Luke and stated that he would rather see the protagonist once again because they didn’t want the antagonist to be revealed, We noticed that we didn’t have a question based on our ancillary task e.g. the poster, so we have adapted our questionnaire by adding another question asking what the audience would rather see on a film poster. Finally we have adapted our questionnaire questions to make it clearer for the participants to understand like the rating questions, we have now told them the scale for example 1 being the worst and 10 being the best.

Graph analysis 

From this bar chart we can see that there are two noticeable favourites in terms of location, the locations are a House and a forest. I have decided that we should film our piece in a house as it was the overall most popular answer that our target audience wanted to see but also this location would work better with our ideas therefore it would be more suitable to us.

The results from this question show that almost twice as many people want to see our film in third person which connotes that facial expressions is an important aspect to a horror film as they can be used to build tension and give the audience more information of what is to come later in the film. This also makes our product differentiated from other films like the 'Paranormal Activity' which might encourage more people to watch.

The Stalker plot received almost half of the overall votes which connotes that there would be a gap in the horror genre for a stalker film. This would also link to our initial ideas as they relate to a stalker themed plot which therefore would meet the demand from out target audience.

The response for this question showed similar results for a mask wearing antagonist or a deformed looking antagonist however as a group we have decided to use a mask wearing antagonist as i feel that it relates better to the plot we have chosen.

Results show that the stereotypical male protagonist would be the preferred choice by our audience, this is because males are seen as being superior over women therefore it would make the protagonist look more masculine and powerful and more like a 'hero'.

 From this bar chart it is clear that a knife would be the best weapon for our antagonist, this is because we would be able to see the character up close with faster action shots which could be built up through the film creating more tension and more effective jump scares.

Finally our audience would like the music to build up slowly until the main action takes place and then the music will be much faster to connote danger. This is conventional to other horror trailers as they often start off slow and when they enter the montage stage the music tempo increases.

 Audience Profiling 

Final Pitch

We have decided to change our idea to a stalker movie trailer this is down to the fact that our target audience has said that they would be more interested in this than a movie based on revenge. In addition to this we feel as though because Stalker movies haven't been used a lot it will give our production the edge on others. In the stalker movie we will easily be able to connect with the audience because everyone has that feeling as though they're being followed now and again but in your head you never truly believe it. This trailer should aim to strike fear into the audience and I think the base behind the trailer gives us the best opportunity to do so. Two step flow gives us the best option to capture how the audience will react as we feel as thought the audience will be directly effected by the main opinion leaders in the trailer. If they do become effected it shall give them the effect that they are in the movie and will be looking over their shoulders every time they are out alone. Tzvetan Todorov's theory should be easy to replicate in the trailer as we will have an equilibrium where the victim is unaware of what is happening and is happy. The disruption so the stalker is seen for the first time and the recognition of disruption so the protagonist knows the antagonist is trying to get them and then the attempt to repair so there should be some shots of the protagonist fighting back against the antagonist. Finally we should not use the new equilibrium because that will give away the whole story and as a result people will not want to go and see the movie.