How did you attract/address your audience?

How did you target your audience? Why that particular group?
To target my audience I created a poster which included a few details, such as title of the film, tag line and a some images that portray the film. We chose this age group because we thought they would be able to understand the film a whole lot better than that of a younger age since, it won't have a complicated story, however, the storyline might be a little more difficult to follow than those of a younger age group, and since there will be some gorey bits then we had to the age rating up from 15 to 18.

How would your film appeal to that audience?
Expectations?

The film will appeal to this audience as, it won't be just another teen horror, it will 'mess' with your head and will leave you with chills! The film genre is Psychological horror/thriller, I will be hoping that this will go to Cinema and then to DVD as a lot of films that go straight to DVD do not have a very good reputation as you would believe that they 'weren't good enough' to be in cinema.

Gender?

This film will be aimed at both genders, since it's more likely to be a film that you would watch together with your friends since, that is what you usually do when watching horror films together, however if I had to choose one gender or the other, I think it's more primarily aimed at males, because of the gore.

Stars?

So who would I choose to be in my film?
Joe: Cillian Murphy- This is because he is a very good actor, and because in Batman Begins, he plays a corrupted psychiatrist, which would be perfect for our killer, Joe as he would want to play a lot of mind games with the rest of the characters and since he seems very 'reassuring' and speaks in a calm manner, he will end up leading you into a false sense of security.

Olivia: Natalie Portman- She is an excellent actor, such as in V For Vendetta and in Black Swan, she plays someone who is starting to go mental, so this will be ideal for our film, since when Olivia starts hearing voices no one will believe her I think she is starting to go a bit crazy.

Jenny: Radha Mitchell- She has acted in some films such as Silent Hill and The Crazies, this means she is good at acting scared, which means she will be perfect for this part.

Director

For my director, Christophe Gans, because I thought that his directing for his film was amazing because the fact that manged to create a film from a game, and still keep to the storyline of the game. I think he really takes into account the writers ideas and show them very well through his films, so that is why I would like him to be my director.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Film distribution is what actually happens to the film after it has been made, whether it goes into a small cinema, or a multiplex cinema, or if it just goes straight to DVD.

What is the difference between how British and Hollywood films are distributed?
British Films
*British films are lower budget, but can still be more successful internationally, meaning more profit.
*Britain has more distributors(meaning more likely that your film will get into cinemas even if it's a small film)
*British producers are more likely to have success with an independant distributor, who would have to construct a more limited release pattern.

Hollywood Films
*A Hollywood film can cover its costs even with moderate audiences by using the large network of cinemas. Further profits can then be taken from distributors in other countries, video and television deals, sales of sound track & merchandise.
*Hollywood has a bigger budget- $19.48m compared to British film £1.6m.
*Although only 5 distributors, they are 3 times more successful than British distributors.

So who would we want as our distributor?
For our distributor, we would want a British distributor, as I believe in trying to keep British films alive, instead of Hollywood films taking over the whole film industry, so we would want Warp to be our distributor.

Why Warp?
Warp films are more likely to distribute our film as it is a Horror/Thriller. They have distributed other films of this genre such as Hush, and they also have a majority of rating 18 films, so our films suits Warp's usual films. Also they are a British company, we'd be much less likely to go to Working Title as they tend to distribute more RomComs and ratings of 12 which is completely opposite to our genre and film.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our target group is 18-21yr olds both female and male.
When looking at this age group we found that they would likely to be doing in their freetime:
*Social networking (Facebook, Twitter, Myspace)
*Going out (Clubbing, to the pub, parties)
*Alcohol

They would be likely to be into a lot of trends so would shop at high end fashion shops:
*Topman/Topshop
*River Island
*H&M

To make up for buying expensive clothes, they'd likely to buy food at:
*Tescos
*Asda
*Sainsbury
*Morrisons
*Local Shops

We decided that this age group would probably be most suiting for our film, as we didn't want to make just another teen horror aimed at 15yr olds. We wanted to make a film which would have a lot of depth to it (and not just all about killing) but a film that would also have a running mystery in it, one that was full of 'whys' and 'whodunits'. Although, there will be quite a lot of gore (which is one of the reasons it's an 18) it would be done tastefully and not just killing just for the sake of it!
So in whole, the film will contain some sosphication.

This isn't the best representation of sophisicated teenagers.

First and Second Time Round

These films were filmed before we did our prelim task! This was just getting used on how to film a short sequence of actions.

First Attempt

After analysing this film, even though it does have it's good qualities (considering this was our first attempt), we made a lot of rookie mistakes, such as we didn't have too many angles and the main flaw to this was that it was all filmed from the same height (standing up)We tried to correct these problems in our next attempt.

Second Attempt

This was a lot better han our first attempt, we included the good bits that we did in the first attempt, however we had a larger range of angles and managed to film from different heights so the filming didn't look so wooden and the audience would be able to understand and feel closer to the characters within the film.

So That's Who Inspires You!

There are many different directors that inspired me for the ideas of our horror film, including unusual angles and shocking plots!!

Let The Right One In (directed by Tomas Alfredson)

This is one of my favourite horror films! It's got a lot of typical horror conventions such as Vampires, little girls and a lot of conventions of loneliness. However, what made this film so great is that the Director Tomas Alfredson, portrays the friendship between Eli and Oscar perfectly, though with a lot of horror conventions, it is not too scary and is really a heartwarming story of friendship. Though, this is not a very well known film as it is swedish, however, recently there has been an american remake of the film 'Let Me In', so this film will probably be more well known to people.

Trailer

The Orphanage (Juan Antonio Bayona)

The Orphanage is one of my favourite movies as you can see in one of my earlier posts, however, one thing I would like to add, is that Juan Antonio Bayona really does inspire me as it shows that you don't have to be famous in order to create a great film! Since in the past he has only really made short films.

Trailer


28 Days Later (Danny Boyle)

28 Days Later, I absolutely LOVE!! The director Danny Boyle has done such a great job!! The most amazing thing is how he managed have London deserted in order to make the film, this makes the film look really effective as if it actually could happen to us in modern day!

Trailer


Silent Hill (Christophe Gans)

Silent Hill is an excellent film! The reason why I think the director has done well with is because the fact that it was originally a game and he has been able to make it into a film so well, with all the interesting plots that are contained within the game!

Trailer

My Goodness...What has happened to your face?!

So the other day, my group were discussing about how our horror film should be an 18, there are only a few ways to do this:
*Make it very scary!
*Make it extremely violent (fighting)
*Make it very Gory

So we thought... how about all three?

Luckily, as so happens, I knew someone who was currently doing a theatrical and film make-up course, so I asked her whether she would be able to help us with our media film and provide the make-up for this.

So she went ahead and did some tests on me, this make-up will be showed in the final scene of the film, when Jenny is getting killed, and also when she is trapped in a mirror.

Hand burns/cuts:

Face Burns/Cuts:

So there we go! We are well on our way to making a horror film! Hooozah!!

Credit goes to Sarah Ashby for the Make-up.

So, What Scares you?

There are many things that scare people, I asked a few people as to what scares them, and a lot of them trurned out to be typical horror conventions.
Here are a few examples:
Inanimate objects coming to life

This is scary since it's something 'that should not be', by this I mean that objects should not be coming alive and it also creates the fact that something is always watching you.
Hearing Things

This is always freaky as if you've got a good imagination the easier for your mind to wonder and start to create mental images of what you are hearing (often creating situations ending in death).

Spiders

This is because they are 'freaks of nature' they are one of the only creatures that has eight legs, and their crawling like movement often freak people out, also they seem to get everywhere and you cannot escape them.

Young Children

This is because they're supposed to be innocent, however...they are not, their voices are often shrill and they can hide in small places meaning they could really be anywhere, from in your wardrobe...to under your bed.

Masks

This is because you cannot see their face, so they seem to have the same expression all the time, this freaks us out because we don't know what the 'killer' is hiding, it often keeps a distance between the victim and the killer.

There are many other horror conventions such as vampires, however for our film we have decided to go to a more non-traditional approach since we don't have supernatural element, since we decided since we are making a student film it will look a lot more realistic as keeping to the more 'creative' path means it won't look as fake meaning we will maitain the verisimilitude.