How to market to your target audience..

The easiest way to market a film to its audience is to pick the perfect time within a year to release it. The best time to release a horror film is october as october is the month that holds halloween and so the audience will be in the mood to watch a horror film them relates to the same sort of mood.

To market the film 'saw 3' they created a whole musical evening inspired by the soundtrack of the film. It featured bands such as Helmet and The Smashup. Shawnee Smith, who starred in all three saw films was part of the show along with appearances from other cast members. There was also a saw museum created for the event and a fan club that people could then join to get early access, meet and greets with cast members and goodie bags. This was a good idea to market the film. Since the saw films there has been even more success including The Saw Ride and maze in the theme park Thorpe Park.

Research into target audience

In 2010 there was 31 horror films released in the UK and Republic of Ireland. The top title of that year was Paranormal activity 2. Only 5.3 % of the box office is usually horror films. The average age group that a horror film would have is 18 such as saw 3d but only 3.4% of the gross box office has this age rating, therefore showing that not many horror films are released in the cinema and its mainly only the big named ones that do. However, the most popular horror film to be released that year was actually a 15. I think that this was successful as most horrors are usually an 18 so for them to make it a 15 the target audience would be a little bit younger making it more successful as more people would go and watch it. You will not get a horror film that has a younger age rating than 15. This is because it is a horror film, meant to scare and creep people out therefore it is not suitable for people younger. Out of the top 10 '18' classified films there was 2 horror films and in the '15' band there was just one. This shows that there isn't really many horror films but when there is they are very successful in whichever band they are in.

From doing some research online I have found out that horror is just a genre that never gets old and it has the highest rate for risk/reward ratio in the movie industry. They also have lower budgets than other genres but still often enjoy box office success and video/DVD sales without having to fork out for major stars. They have a loyal audience, mainly in the area of 18-35 year old males.

Still Frame Analysis

Shot 1: Medium shot of teenage girl, she moves from right to the left side of the screen. Looks like a normal kitchen at night and the girl has just made herself a drink and as she moves she goes to take a sip of her drink. When she gets to the left a light of a Tv is reflected into the window, she stops and looks frightened. She slowly brings her glass down from her mouth.

Shot 2: Close-up of her face turning round looking very afraid and frightened. girl goes of the screen to the right.

Shot 3: long shot looking into a hallway, a white double door straight in front of the camera. Slowly pans round to see a Tv on. Camera keeps going round so you can see all the decoration of the living room.

Shot 4: Medium shot, looking slightly upwards towards the girl, shes standing on the right and theres a wall next to her. She looks around looking confused. She then moved forwards towards the camera so its a close-up of her face.

Shot 5: Close-up of a leather sofa with a remote control for what we presume the Tv.

Shot 6: Medium shot of girl she bends down to pick up the remote and then points it slightly left of the camera.

Shot 7: Quick close-up of the Tv as it turns off.

Shot 8: Back to the medium shot of girl as she drops the remote. She then walks back the way she came from. When she gets back to the wall that she was leaning on you can see the reflection of the Tv back on the window and she stops walking, hesitating. She slowly turns back round and it starts to pan closer to her. It pans all the way to a medium shot and shes shouting. She then moves closer to the camera again then runs straight past it.

Shot 9: close-up from the side of the Tv, the girl runs straight to it and puts her head right next to it. She then looks really frightened and goes round to the back of the Tv.

Shot 10: Close-up of the plug socket as she pulls it out.

Shot 11: Back to the close-up of the Tv as it turns off. It turns round to her looking at the Tv. The camera then turns around at the same time as the girl to look at some windows which lead to the kitchen.

Shot 12: Close up of the girls face, shows the fear she is feeling. She slowly walks past the camera.

Shot 13: Medium shot of a doorway, the girl slowly makes her way up to the door way, looking towards the camera she stays there hesitating.

Shot 14: Long shot of the kitchen, the fridge door opening on its own.

Shot 15: Back to a medium shot of the girl, walks towards camera again

Shot 16: Back to long shot of the kitchen, the girl runs straight over to the fridge

Shot 17: Close up of her slamming the fridge door back shut. It stays, focusing on her as she turns around slowly. This then turns into a long shot as it focuses on the background and the doorway behind her.

Shot 18: Long shot looking down a staircase. Girl slowly comes round the corner on the left and looks upwards towards the camera. This makes her seem vulnerable and small in comparison to what ever is upstairs. She moves slowly towards then stairs, then runs up them.

Shot 19: Close up of the staircase from the side, see her feet running up the stairs.

Shot 20: A close up of a hallway, you see what coming from a door on the left and then it focuses on the background, see the girl at the end of the hallway. The girl moves slowly down the hallway, coming towards the camera.

Shot 21: Close up of girls face, looking very frightened.

Shot 22: Close up of a door nob, see her hand coming into focus to grab the handle.

Shot 23: Back to the close up of the girls face.

Shot 24: Long shot of what looks like a normal teenagers room, the door bursts open and you see the girl just stand, staring into the camera.

Shot 25: A close up of the television, showing an old fashioned looking tape, black and white with a picture of a well in a field. This zooms out so you see it's in a room.

Shot 26: Goes back to the girl, her face now shocked and her mouth open wide. This quick zooms in on her face to a close up, her face has changed and gone all green and scary looking.

Shot 27-34: Same effect as on the television, lots of different clips put in at about 6 per second, different things like an edge of a house and a ladder.

Shot 35: Lastly, there is just the fuzzy effect you see on a television, like the girl saw earlier on on her own television.

Conventions of horror genre

Main Character Types

In a horror film there will always be a main character who will be the victim/hero. They tend to be the person that the villain is after and in the end they are normally the ones who kill or capture the villain. The hero/victim also tends to be a women who doesn't seem normal and will always have a story behind her either adopted, parents killed when younger or maybe that she killed someone but she will have a story and that's why the villain wants to kill her. By the end of the film she finds these things out, becomes stronger and kills the villain.

The villain, who tends to be either a monster, mutilated freak, alien or serial killer normally has some sort of grudge against the victim/hero who won't rest until they have killed them and don't care who else gets in their way whilst trying to do that. There is also the type of villain who was bullied when they were younger, or has had something bad happen to them which has made them that way. I found a good example of this in Texas Chainsaw Massacre where the killer and his family's town went bankrupt and so everyone else from the town left except from then and they had no way of making money so his family sent him out to kill people passing through the town for them to eat. The villain in this film also had a condition and so didn't really know what he was doing. The villains are also often men. However, in some films we find villains aren't just people but are fate or have some weird background such as films like final destination and the ring. In final destination the victims were meant to die in a plane crash but got off but fate won't let it be and kills them all off in the order they would have died on the plane. In the ring there is a tape and if you watch it 7 days later you will die. This film is abit more logical and you go through the process of one women trying to uncover the truth of this tape before she dies from it.

We then have a stupid teenager who gets killed by the villain so easily. These characters are helpless, think they are more powerful than they really are and mostly they are clueless. we see these characters alot in the start of the films such as in scream, where an innocent teen is just at home when she starts getting mysterious calls and in the end ends up dying as she can't cry out for help even though her parents are right in front of her.

Next we have creepy children, these children are always wise and you see them alot as the child of the main character such as the ring. In these films things happen to these children but they don't seem as scared of it all as the main characters and this leads them on to seems creepy and disturbing.

We then have a police officer who is trying to help the case but doesn't really know as much as the victim/hero or doesn't believe them. This person tries to help them out and sometimes in the end kills the villain when the victim/hero is trying to kill the villain but isn't quite able to. They are sometimes known as a second hero, who saves the victim/hero in the end. Sometimes there is a relationship them and the victim/hero but that is not always and when there is a relationship formed between two characters in a horror film one of them isn't always a police officer but has this role throughout the film where they are still trying to help the main character.

A typical villain with a typical prop. LeatherFace in texas chainsaw massacre.

The villain from scream on the left and Sidney Prescott the typical teenager and lead role who survives. Otherise known as the heroine.

Themes

In a horror film there is many different themes. Most common themes include:

.Lust

.Envy

.Suicide

.Insanity

.Revenge

.Religion

.Madness

.Nightmares

.Supernatural

.Beyond death

.Good versus evil

.Childhood issues

.Science gone mad

.Zombie apocalypse

Settings

Many settings that are used for horror films are all built around the thought of isolation and being alone. These include small communities, urban environments, dark streets, narrow alleyways, large cities and small ghost towns. There are many different places that can show this type of loneliness.

Another type is places with a dark history like abandoned or haunted houses, hotels, factories and insane asylums.

Setting for texas chainsaw massacre. A deserted town and a large, scary looking house.

Nightmare on elm street, setting is dark and mysterious revolving around your dreams and typical teenage life.

Technical Conventions

The camera work seems to come out as not very natural using high and low angles to connote fear and nightmares. It is also very common to find POV shots roughly at the end or about the middle of the film. You can find them when the monster is chasing the hero. These are very important as they allow the audience to see whats happening though the monsters eye. Handheld shots are also used. This is to make it difficult for the audience to really see whats going on giving them the impression of the unknown and making them feel terrified of what will happen next. Sometimes the framework is used, making it harder to see the monster creeping up behind it's victim. Close ups of the victims face are used to show the real horror and feelings that they are feeling, this is also used as you don't see the monster making it seem like more of a threat. The editing of a horror film can make tension and suspense. When the editing starts getting quicker you know something bad is going to happen soon. Non-diegetic sounds are also very common within a horror film such as footsteps and heartbeats as they make it seem disturbing.

Narrative structure

The most common ending for a horror film is that the hero tempts to kill the villain, thinks they have done it but in the end the villain gets away leaving it open for a sequel. Usually at the end the hero, who is usually a girl, has to go on some quest to kill the villain.

The most common horror storyline is that the villain had either a horrible childhood or went insane and after many years go back to their hometown and start killing teenagers. The teenagers represent stupidity, usually they start the horror in the first place or they just get killed quickly on the villains road to killing the hero who is usually the only survivor, most likely a female character.

Props

In horror films the visual style is always the same with dark colours, usually black and read which link to death, evil, blood and danger. Lighting is used in a non-natural way, using low light to express shadows and unfamiliar shapes in the darkness. Props are used to show that the film is in the horror genre. Specific props can be linked to a certain villain such as a chainsaw for the texas chainsaw massacre and a knife for scream.

Michael Myers from Halloween with his typical prop of a knife.

Continuity Edit: Practise

Halloween: Art of the title

Halloweens opening titles seem to be very simple but yet very effective. The plain black background is very specific because black is a very common colour to find in horror films as it normally signifies death and grief. The pumpkin, which you can hardly see apart from the orange flickering light inside, is very useful as pumpkins are always associated with halloween and so it gives a clear picture for the audience to understand what the film is about. The flickering light within the pumpkin is another point that shows this is a horror film because within many horror films they use this technique to show that danger is near and so by using this in the title sequence it is telling the audience that there will be danger and horror throughout the film. The dramatic, creepy non-digetic music adds even more to this effect as it seems to be very uncomfortable to the audience with the high pitched notes clashing together but then holds them in suspense with the long low notes.

In the opening titles the font ITC Serif Gothic is used. This font worked well because it is very bold and stands out. It also worked well because it seems very gothic and even though it's a bright orange colour the gothic look makes it feel very dark and mysterious. The orange colour matches the colour inside the pumpkin and when it gets darker the font colour gets darker too.

John Carpenter: Horror Director

John Carpenter is a American film director, producer, screenwriter, editor and composer.

He is mostly known for his well known horror film Halloween (1978) His film Halloween was a smash hit and helped to create the slasher film genre. For this film Carpenter worked with a very low budget of $320,000 and the film grossed over $65 million which made it one of the most successful independent films of all time. Carpenter made Halloween more scary than gory like you see in newer horror films as it made the audience more afraid of the main character, Michael Myers. It is a film full of cheap tricks but this is why this made it such a successful horror.

The next horror film he created was The Fog (1980) which was a ghostly revenge tale that was inspired by horror comics. Carpenter found The fog to be very difficult and with the rough cut he was dissatisfied. He decided that it didn't meet his standards and decided to film more footage and approximately one third of the final film is newer footage. It had many problems and negative feedback but it still created gross of over $21,000,000 in the United States when the budget was only £1,000,000.

His next film was The Thing (1982) which is known for its high production values. It was made with a budget of $15,000,000, the largest amount John Carpenter had worked with up until that point and it was distributed by universal pictures. However, this film was called a box-office disappointment but once it was out on video it became very successful and is know known as one of the best horror films ever made.

In the late 80's many of Carpenters films starting becoming let downs and this caused him trouble as he was finding it harder to get financed for a film. This led him to create more lower budget films again such as Prince Of Darkness (1987)

His career became even worse in the 1990's as it was full of box office disappointments. In the 2000's he still made a couple of films and in 2007 Rob Zombie created a re-imagining of Carpenters Halloween and then two years later created a sequel.

In 2011 Carpenter said that he was working on a new gothic western movie, but didn't see it working out as western movies are not selling so well anymore.

From his Career John Carpenter has had many ups and downs, Seeing some failed movies and some great success. However, I think he will really only be known for being the creator of Halloween as this was his most successful and most known movie.

History of horror films!

The Gothic Tradition

The term horror was first used for Horace Walpole's 1764 novel, The Castle Of Otranto, a story full of supernatural happenings and mysterious melodrama. This started a craze, making many imitators into what they call gothic mode of writing. There then went on to be better writers such as Ann Radcliffe ( The Mysteries Of Udolpho) and Matthew Gregory Lewis (The Monk) who took the genre to new heights and suspense. The first great horror classic was Frankenstein, written in 1818 by Mary Shelley.

Nineteenth Century Masters

In the nineteenth century many great novelists tried their go at horror fictions, paying tributes to the gothic traditions. Many of the novelists included Emily Bronte with wuthering heights in gothic situations, Dickens with many ghost stories, Herman Melville with many supernatural elements and so did Nathaniel Hawthorne.

End Of The Century

Sigmund Freud began exploring into the human consciousness which made the literature take on a more psychological turn, taking a toll on the boundaries we call sanity. These stories consist of slow unravelling of the mind, so the reader is left to decide whether the causes are supernatural or psychological. H G Wells then went on to make science-themed novels which have elements of horror as well as fantasy. Then the great war came, causing horrors that none of these great minds could have conceived.

The First Horror Movies

The early horror films were surreal, dark pieces. However, they did not have the technology that they do today and so they didn't turn out as well as they'd like. Many of the early horror films are lost because of the fragile quality of film and so there is only three classics left on DVD.

The Golem ( 1915/1920)

There were several versions of this film, and it was known as the 'first monster movie'.

A golem is designed to save the ghetto, but when his job is finished he refuses to cease existing, and starts causing chaos but is eventually to be confronted and defeated by a little girl.

The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari (1919)

Also known as the 'granddaddy of all horror films'.

A man named Francis relates a story about his best friend Alan and his fiancée Jane. Alan takes him to a fair where they meet Dr. Caligari, who exhibits a somnambulist, Cesare, that can predict the future.
When Alan asks how long he has to live, Cesare says he has until dawn. The prophecy comes to pass, as Alan is murdered, and Cesare is a prime suspect.
Cesare creeps into Jane's bedroom and abducts her, running from the townspeople and finally dying of exhaustion.
Meanwhile, the police discover a dummy in Cesare's cabinet, while Caligari flees.
Francis tracks Caligari to a mental asylum.

Nosferatu (1922)

Nosferatu is the very first vampire film telling the normal story of Dracula. It is described as the vampire movie that actually believes in vampires and gives us a more frightening vampire they'd ever seen.

Horror films from 1930's - now

In the 1930's the horror movies started getting better as sound was introduced making the experience even better. Since then the horror movies have been getting better and better.

There has been remakes of the classics and even more psychological thinking added to make the audiences really get involved with the film.

During the 1940's horror films were cranked out by hollywood. They stuck with the same ideas that they knew and made variations of one theme. Within the 10 years from the 1940's- 1950's the horror genre had changed very much. As many people had their own horror stories through the war they needed to get new ideas that would scare people, creating new fantasy monsters including films such as Mutant madness and The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms.

In the 1950's the horror genre were dominated by the 'B' picture. These were budget films, made in a hurry and mostly aimed at teenagers which is shown through the names they used such as The Ghost In The Invisible Bikini. Also in the 1950's they started thinking about the ideas of outer space and aliens creating the idea of the unknown.

The 1960's saw a great change in what the audiences found horrible. They were used to explore new ways of perceiving sex and violence. They saw much more on-screen violence, nudity and other things that pushed society rules. They wanted to make the horror more believable, more realistic and more sophisticated.

Horror movies in the 1970's reflected on the grim mood of the decade, causing the society to go bad, making the horror films good. The big-budget films came back focused mostly on fears and society's problems.

In the 1980's special visual effects finally caught up with horror films and they were able to make less humanly figures making the monsters look much more realistic and different. However, they still remained to use the same types of monsters such as ghosts, werebeings and slimy things.

By the end of the 1980's horror films had become so reliant on gore causing the audience to be more shocked and amused rather than scared.

During the 1990's most horror films were decribed as thriller films as they didn't want to be associated or compared to them. They had seemed to run out of original ideas and started to make big budget remakes of older horror films and ideas such as Dracula and Frankenstein.

As September 11th 2001 came, it became very hard to sell horror films during that year and there were even calls to stop horrors to claim world peace. however, by 2005 horror films were even more popular than before. During the 2000's the monsters had to changed, from fate killing people in final destination to deseases spreading and causing zombies in films like 28 days later.

Thriller Opening

Here is a thriller opening I created as a practise. This didn't really work out as well as we planned because we didn't have the right props and didn't have enough to to edit as we didn't plan it all out very well. This showed me that when you are making a film you need to be ahead of it and make sure you know exactly what you are doing, making sure you save yourself time at the end just incase something goes wrong.