Progress Targets

On return we begin the post production stage of our journey and editing begins from the onset - make sure you are video blogging and keeping your page relevant and up to date.  Make sure you have evidenced all the following areas of focus over the break to maximise your marks for research and planning.  The numbers reflect the amount of posts expected, at least.  You are capable of exceptional attainment here - grab it!

  Research

•Genre Research 10

•Soundtrack research (non copyright music) 1/2

•Costume and location research – google earth and pictures you’ve taken. 1/2

•Actors and props photos and interviews 3/5

•Audience Research and Profiling (typical audience member and similar films) 1

•Uploaded YouTube videos of openings – analysed 15/20

•Opening titles analysed in detail – font researched 1

•Analysed Film Openings from from your genre in particular 5/10

•Institution research (Paramount etc) 1

•Certificate research 1

  Planning

•Own film idea brainstorm 1

•Own film treatment 1

•Relevant Online Tutorials and Comment 4/5

•Documenting of influences on production 1

•Shot lists 1

•Consideration  of representation in your film and stereotyping – use theory from G322. 1

•Questionnaire (and feedback) Get some feedback on your initial ideas!

•Diary of filming/editing etc with photos and screen grabs

•Mood board 1

•Script 1

•Practice titles created and uploaded 1

•Storyboard – animatic.1

Research and Planning Feedback

You need to evaluate your preliminary tasks and evidence wider analysis to be working towards a band four.  Use my guidance from my earlier post and evidence wide analysis.  We should be evidencing every stage of the journey towards production now.

Storyboard

This is my storyboard for my film. I used this to help me plan out which shots I was going to use within my film and also helped me to plan out how my film was going to look.

 

I put my drawings into a video to show how the shots should look when my film is complete.

 

 

Practice Titles

When creating a horror film, it was important that i created the right titles to present the name of my film. The font need to follow up the genre of my film and need to draw in the audience by being bold and eye catching.

Due to the fact that my film is a horror, I have selected fonts that either look scary or include blood to show the danger of the film and how scary is. It also allows the audience to identify whether the film is aimed towards them. This is therefore, using blood on my font will allow parents to identify that the film is not aimed at young children and will fit the target audience well.

I tried to create my own text / borrow text from online websites, but it either wouldn't let me download them or they did not fit the expectation of a horror films titles. However, I was looking through fonts on Word and discovered "Chiller", once I had changed my titles to this font I found it suited them really nicely and fitted the genre. They look as if they have been created using blood. I also followed the idea of using blood to draw it by changing the colour of my font to red which meant that it looked more realistic and real.

 

I am going to use these titles within my opening 2 minutes as I feel it suits the genre and also links to aspects of my film due to the idea of the blood used.

Moodboard

Results From Questionnaire

Here are the results that can be generalised from my questionnaire that was given to 20 people.

How old are you?

Are you male of female?

What is your favourite genre of film?

Here the participants were able to select three genres that were their favourite so this pie chart is out of 60.

Do you watch horror films?

Which of the 3 titles do you think sounds most like a horror film?

What age rating would you normally expect a horror film to be?

From the results I have gathered, I am going to use this information to help me when creating my very own horror film.

Questionnaire

I created this questionnaire to research who my largest target audience would be if I was to create a horror film to allow me to focus my film based on the age of my viewers. In my questionnaire I used a variety of different questions including both open and closed questions which would allow me to average out certain results.

I gave this questionnaire to 20 different individuals with varied age ranges to allow my questionnaire to be fair.

From this questionnaire I am hoping to see what it is that people look for when they want to watch a horror film so that I can include these elements in my own work, and also so I can see what who my target audience would be.

Questionnaire

How old are you?

ÿ        0 – 11 years

ÿ        12 – 14 years

ÿ        15 – 17 years

ÿ        18 – 29 years

ÿ        30 – 39 years

ÿ        40 – 49 years

ÿ        50 – 59 years

ÿ        60+ years

Are you male or female?

ÿ        Male

ÿ        Female

What is your favourite genre of a film?

ÿ        Romance

ÿ        Action

ÿ        Adventure

ÿ        Comedy

ÿ        Crime & gangster

ÿ        Drama

ÿ        Historical

ÿ        Horror

ÿ        Musical

ÿ        Science fiction

ÿ        War

ÿ        Chick flicks

ÿ        Fantasy

ÿ        Sports

ÿ        Thriller

Why is this your favourite genre of film?

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

Do you watch horror films?

ÿ        Yes

ÿ        No

What makes you watch horror films?

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

Which of these three titles do you think would suit a horror film?

ÿ        The follower

ÿ        Stalker

ÿ        Waiting

Why does that sound like a good title for a horror film?

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

What age rating would you normally expect a horror film to be?

ÿ        U

ÿ        PG

ÿ        12

ÿ        15

ÿ        18

Consideration Of Representation In Your Film And Stereotyping

When looking at horror films, there are certain stereotypes that we expect to see when watching them.

One stereotype that we expect to see is for the antagonist to have their identity hidden and are normally shown as an old woman who can sometimes be linked to a witch / curse to enforce power between the characters. Within my film their aren't many stereotypes within my film that our audience would expect to see. However, there are some stereotypes that we would expect to see within a film.

I have used a young character as the protagonist so that i can show them to be vulnerable within the setting they are in. I have shown this through the clothes he is wearing (his school clothes) which tell us that he is still at school and is a teenager. I am also going to show him to be quite timid by sharp and sudden movements to show that he is frightened.

Another stereotype of a horror film is that we expect it to be set in a home or a mansion. This therefore allows the audience to relate to the scenario and involves them more within the scene. Having my film set in an ordinary home will make the scenarios within the setting seem paranormal and unusual to allow the audience to relate to the environment that the film is set in, therefore making the film more scary.

I have chosen to film my film at dusk. This is a stereotype of a horror film as we normally link the idea of the night to the idea of seeing ghosts and this is when the audience is more likely to watch the film so they are more freaked out by what they are watching. Filming it at dusk will also mean that it is not too dark that the lighting is terrible and we cannot see clearly the scenery and what is happening within the scene. However, filming at dusk means that we can see the setting and we also get the affect that it is getting towards the evening.

Shot Lists

Here I have selected various shots that I have used within my opening 2 minutes of my film to give different affects.

 

Establishing Over The Shoulder Shot:

 

This shot allows the audience to see where the film is set as it is at the very beginning of the film and having the shot from behind the actor, allows the audience to be straight away introduced to a character within the film. Having this character shown first within the film, shows that this character is important or is one of the main characters within this film.

 

High Angle Shot:

 

Having a high angled shot allows the audience to see that the character is quite weak or is easily threatened. It can also show power between the antagonist and the protagonist. In this shot, the antagonist is shown as not having any power and is weak.

 

Medium Shot:

 

A medium shot is used to show the facial expression of a character and their body language. I have used it within this shot because he has just seen the antagonist so this shot allows us to see his worried and frightened face. I have also placed the actor to the left hand side of the shot, this looks more affective than placing him in the centre as we read from left to right so his body is the first thing we see and therefore our eyes are not focusing on the scenery in the background.

 

Close - Up Shot:

 

A close - up shot is used to show detail within a shot. I used a close - up within this shot to show the panic within the character and to also show what it is he is doing.

 

Low Angle Over The Shoulder Shot:

 

Using a low angle within this shot, allowed me to show the power between the antagonist and the protagonist. It also emphasises on the vulnerability of the protagonist. An over the shoulder shot is affective within this shot because it allows us to see both characters and therefore leads the audience to believe that they are standing behind the character.

 

 

 

Relevant Online Tutorials

I have research make up tutorials that have taught / inspired me to create the same / similar look on my antagonist to allow them to fit the way I want them to look to create horror amongst my audience.

I am going to replicate the make up created within this YouTube tutorial on my antagonist. However, I am going to use less eye shadow on the eyes as he is a male character and it may appear to obvious that he has make up on if I copied the eye shadow that is in the video. I am using blood around the eyes to show danger. The colour red represents danger and the fact that it is fake blood also shows us danger and pain.

I am also going to place fake blood onto the antagonists t - shirt like in this tutorial. We stereotypically expect the antagonist within a film to be either scruffy, have some form of blood on them or have old fashioned clothing on. Here I will follow this stereotype by using blood on the t - shirt. This will look affective in my shots as the blood will stand out against the white on the t - shirt, to catch the audiences eye.


I am not going to use any make up on my protagonist as I want them to look innocent and make up may cause them to look unrealistic or give the impression that they have been possessed.

Own Film Idea Brainstorm

When planning a film I decided to brainstorm all my ideas I had inside my head to allow me to decide what would look good and meet the audiences expectations.

Here is what I came up with:

Certificate Research

I am researching what the BBFC say is suitable for certain films, this will allow me to see what age rating I should give my film and why it has to be the rating it is.

 

The BBFC website gives the following outline as to what can be permissible in a 15 rated film.

 

What might I see in a 15 rated film or video?

Any of the following:

•   strong violence
•  frequent strong language (e.g. 'f***').
•   portrayals of sexual activity
•   strong verbal references to sex
•   sexual nudity
•   brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence
•   discriminatory language or behavior
•   drug taking

The BBFC website gives the following outlines to what can be permissible in a 15 rated film.

I think that the thing that is the most surprising is that sexual nudity and violence of a sexual nature is permitted in some films. In would want my film to have a fifteen certificate because I would want to appeal to a mainstream horror audience - they would expect set pieces which would include strong violence.

Final Destination

	Age:	%:	Gender:	%:	Class	%:

	4-6	0%	Male:	53%	AB	29%

	7-11	0%	Female:	47%	C1	33%

	12-14	0%			C2	23%

	15-24	56%			DE	15%

	25-34	19%

	35-44	6%

	45+	19%

 

 

From the information above about a similar film to mine you can see that the 15 to 24 year old audience can be a very valuable market.

Horror films in the eighties used to frequently get 18 certificates and one of the ways they've kept a broad adult fan base whilst getting lower certificate ratings is by moving away from sexual scenes and they have stopped dwelling on pain and injury - which has led to a smaller sub-genre called goreography.

I would want my film to be a fifteen so I would create suspense and tension leading up to kills and would avoid extended scenes with dwelling on pain being caused.