Codes and conventions of radio trailers.

A radio trailer should convince the audience to watch the movie.

• Usually a voice over is included which is a make voice to create suspense. This could include the release date of the film or the 'coming soon' phrase. It gives some hints to the plot of the film and the emotions of the character.
• Music is used to suit the genre. For example high-pitched, scary and tensed music. Eerie and sinister music to create a scary atmosphere.
• Sound FX is used, for example the smashing of glass. The conventional high-pitched scream and panicked whispers are used, such as in the trailer for 'The Woman in Black'.
• Commonly used dialogues such as 'who's there?' or 'No!' and 'help me'. We could use this in our product as our character needs help from herself - she doesn't realise she's the killer until she finds out at the end.
• Microphones are used to record the sound and voices.
• The sound from the footage of the film is edited out to use for the trailer.
• Some of the best bits are given away just a little to attract the viewers. 
• Not all of the narrative and plot is given away.
• And enigma code left at the end of the trailer to keep the audience anticipated and eager to watch the film.
• Usually the length of the radio trailer is a minute or under.

How has this helped me?

I can follow these conventions in my ancillary product and challenge some of them. For example, I may choose to challenge the convention of having speech screaming 'No' or 'Who's there' or 'Help me' by not using it and making my radio trailer effective in another way. Another one i may choose to challenge is the male narrator - I may choose to usee a female voice to connote suspense and tension instead.

The conventions I may choose to use are having 'coming soon' at the end and a release date for my film.

Codes and conventions of horror movie posters &Psychological horror movie posters

* How will we use this in our product?
- We will adjust the colours so they are noticeable to the targeted audience.
- Our character will be the main image in our product.
- There might not be a setting, just the picture of our character.
-The main font colours may be white and red.
- We will include low key lighting for effect and recognition of the horror genre.

Codes and conventions of horror movie posters & psychological horror movie posters from m_xch

 * How will we use this in our product?
- We will adjust the colours so they are noticeable to the targeted audience.
- Our character will be the main image in our product.
- There might not be a setting, just the picture of our character.
-The main font colours may be white and red.
- We will include low key lighting for effect and recognition of the horror genre.

Focus Group: Horror Films

We took on a task about researching in a focus group about horror movies.

Evaluation and what we learnt:
The girls had different views on what horror films that they enjoy most. They mentioned that they don't enjoy watching horror films simply because of the gore and violence which creates the horror genre. These typical conventions aim to scare the audience, which is why some people do not like watching movies in the horror genre. However, not all audience members are the same. Some people (as mentioned in the recording) are excited by the killing and gory scenes, their adrenaline pumps. 
Some girls also mentioned that the frustration of some characters and the plot makes them question what is going on and they engage in questions with people around them while watching, this sense of engagement and relationship thee horror film builds with the audience is exciting yet scary and allows people to think. She is clearly and active audience as she likes to receive information and engage with it.

The girls mentioned they access films through Netflix, VOD platforms, cinema and TV. Clearly the girls engage with online platforms and watch films online. This ease of watching films online allows these girls to access the film and enjoy it. From this information, I understand that putting our film on an online platform such as YouTube where people are able to access videos easily.

 

One girl mentioned that she likes films about zombies and the dead coming to life. Another girl mentioned that she prefers thriller movies to scary/creepy movies as thriller includes adventure and suspense without giving chilling nightmares.

Everyone mentioned they preferred psychological horror to supernatural horror, we think especially for teens at the age of 15, they may feel frightened at supernatural and frightening paranormal films that leave them scared and distraught.

The majority of the girls mentioned they like to watch it with people to feel less frightened. However one girl mentioned that she watches alone as she doesn't have anyone to watch it with and she has younger children in her family that are too young to watch horror films.

 If the film does not follow the codes and conventions then it's not scary. For example according to the girls, horror films must have scary music when something scary is about to happen and the setting must be dark and gloomy and link with the scene that is taking place. For instance if a murder were to take place in the film, the setting must have low-key lighting with shadows and the music must get increasingly louder to build suspense and fear.

Majority of the girls think characters must be dark and mysterious. Another girl mentioned she likes the 'out-of-place' characters as it builds this curiosity in a person which leaves them wanting to explore. In many horror films the villain usually has a horrible past that people don't know of until the end of the film. For example, in the film Split (2016) the antagonist Kevin has had a terrible past with abuse from his mother which has led him to becoming evil and dangerous. This mystery of the antagonist kept audiences on their toes, curious to find out about this terrible past.

Everyone in the focus group preferred horror films to have a cliff-hanger as the audience is able to control and decide what happens next with their imagination. This suspense with a cliff-hanger anticipates the audience for a sequel. Moreover, horror films that have cliff-hangers are proven to be successful and popular as the audience ultimately want an explanation of what happens next, therefore this fans go on to writing fan-fiction which builds up excitement and anticipation. Also some people prefer a finality to a movie and want an explanation to what happened.

The target audience benefited our research as we gained an insight into what our target audience like to watch in a horror film and what they don't. It will help to construct our ideas when making our own film and will make it easier for us to create a narrative as we will bare in mind what will make our target audience watch our product and what factors will make them not want to watch it.

Interview: Horror Genre

Noshin (group member) interviewed a 16 year old boy about the horror genre.

Evaluation:

Information we gained from this interview:

• Thrilling/fun to see how mind of a serial killer works. 

 We understand that it's very interesting how these horrible murders that happens in horror films shows the thought-process and motivation of killing the serial killing. In news we see these horrible murders committed by serial killers, but we don't understand what truly motivated them to murder people. Films and TV shows show that. For example, in season 5 of popular TV show: American Horror Story directors made-up the motivations of notorious serial killers. The directors wrote the script to what they thought happened, and described the thought-process of these serial killers. We still question today why these serial killers commit such atrocious acts, and the directors of American Horror Story decided to give people what they wanted but with a twist.

• Reads Stephen King book

Mostly films are most popular to young people when wanting to access horror. However my interviewee really enjoys reading horror novels, specifically the classic Stephen King horror films. Stephen King's horror stories have a crazy twisted plot that many people enjoy because it sounds crazy and keeps us on edge.

• Enjoys the thought gone into gory scene such as makeup and connotations behind camera shots

 The interviewee enjoys the imagination and thought gone into specific shots in horror films. The camera, mise-en-scene, editing and sound help enhance the horror. For example, if a person is getting chased, the camera is typically a hand-held camera shot to create an illusion of running and getting chased.

• Watches with groups of people, to not feel less scared and have an enjoy 

Many people watch horror films together to feel less scared and the thrill of enjoying a film together is momentous because people like the idea of being frightened together as if going through an experience together.

• Accesses on YouTube and Netflix

Young people like to access films easily. The young generation grew up with technology and find it easy to use mobile phones and computers to access films.

• In-depth worthwhile, twisted and truly able to make him jump

 Overall, horror films should be frightening and challenge people's fears, because most people watch horror films to get scared and go though a thrilling experience.

Job Roles: Film Making

Examples of real life personnel:


Production accountants: David Melito, a Hollywood Production accountant.

Producers: Stephen King, Wes Craven, James Wan, Jason Bum - Blumhouse Productions

Actors: Tom Hanks, Leonardo Di Caprio, Emma Watson

Directors: Wes Anderson, David Lynch

ADR: Hugh Jackman

Screenwriter: Diablo Cody, James Cameron, Stephen King, Alfred Hitchcock

Production designer: Catherine Martin, Rick Cater, Judy Baker

Cinematographer: Roger Deakins, Jody Lee Lipes, Bradford Young

Costume Designer: Colleen Atwood, Sandy Powell





sources: http://creativeskillset.org/creative_industries/film/job_roles

Audience Profiles

Review: Finders Keepers

Review: Finders Keepers.

Director: Alexander Yellen
Writers: Jeffery Schenck (story), Peter Sullivan (screenplay)
Release: 2014
Rating: R - because of violence and gore.
Runtime: 88 minutes

Finders Keepers is horror thriller released in 2014. It’s based on a divorced mum’s daughter who is possessed by a doll that belonged to the family living before them in their new home. This followed the conventions of its genre. For example, there were many jump scares and of course, people were being killed. Also most of the stuff happened in the dark at night time, which identified it as horror even more. This got me tensed and scared which would be the intended thought of the director. The lighting was dim and there was black fade ins throughout the movie which created a dark setting and atmosphere. The doll was supposed to take away all the worries of the child but instead hurt the child and possessed them.

Overall, I would rate this film 3.9 out of 5 as it was immensely scary because of the doll's possession and the violence. This satisfied the conventions of horror (in my opinion) and allowed me to use the uses and gratifications theory for escapism. However, now a lot of films are being released with dolls as being the main demons and antagonists in the film, for example Annabelle, which is a more well known and successful film. 

This wouldn't be the unique selling point for this film if it were to be released in 2017 or 2018 or in the future.

Review: Case 39

Review: Case 39.

Director: Christian Alvart
Writer: Ray Wright

Case 39 is a psychological thriller in the horror genre and it was released in March 2009, although it was originally created 4 years before its release date. This movie is based on a social worker – Emily whose boss gives her the case (39) to work on. This case was about a girl being abused by her parents; they continue attempting to kill her. Little did Emily know, Lily was some sort of devil incarnate. 


Most if not all horror films include death. This movie follows most conventions of the horror genre, such as the use of blood, darkness, it’s based in houses and people of course, die.  It also follows the conventions of a psychological horror movie as it includes flashbacks, the killer looks like a normal human being, the setting creates verisimilitude, and it includes contrapuntal sounds. An example would be when Lily is laughing when her parents are about to get killed.  The scene which got me hooked the most was when her parents were trying to burn her in the oven and Emily came and rescued her. This created a climax and we as the audience wanted to know why her parents hate an innocent girl so much. This allows us to be an active audience, which I presume was the director’s and illustrator’s intention.

The movie closely looks at how a person's everyday and normal life can be disrupted by something, in this case it is a child. Maybe it was trying to show that all children are somewhat a type of devil; this could mean that they are hard to look after and naughty. But this view is contradicted in the film as Lily makes it look like the other children in her counselling class are being naughty but is then caught out whispering devilish thoughts to another girl and boy who ends up in the hospital possessed, just like her mother.

The movie also represents a lot of stereotypes, such as indirectly saying that people who have blonde hair are dumb, as when the parents were trying to tell Emily that Lily is not really who she seems she is, Emily didn't listen and instead took on their wrath, as the devil was feeding off her love. Another stereotype is of men being 'macho' and strong. This is connoted when both of Emily's male friends plotted to kill Lily, but she ended up killing them before anyway which also conforms to the stereotype that men are more stupid than women, as they should have known that Lily would try and kill them.

Overall, I would rate this film 3.8 out of 5 as it followed the basic narrative of a devil possessing other people.

Interview with Film Practitioner on Set

Fortunately, the ITV programme 'Marcella' was being filmed in front of our school and we were able to grab a few minutes to talk to the line producer.

What I learnt from this:

To produce a low budget film, there are many free sources we can use. For example, using YouTube to publish the film for free and free editing apps like Final Cut Pro Trail version or Final Cut Pro X. We should ask for "favours" from others to help us and to plan well for our final product.Communication and networking is key.
The role of a line producer includes controlling that the right amount of money is  spent in the right places and that everything should be set in place - in summary, he has to ensure that everything is perfect, even for the director.
To film in public, we should put signs up or just let people know that we are filming so they do not disturb or walk through the production.


How will I implement this into my production process?

We can use YouTube to publish our final horror film or preliminary task. We can also use the idea of asking people for favours, for example, as we are on a low budget, we can ask the school if they will allow us to borrow some equipment to record our products, such as a tripod and mic.
I can ensure that I can play the role of the line producer as I will have to make sure everything is in place and ready for us to film.
If we have to filming a public location for our horror movie, we must make sure that the public are aware of this. This is crucial especially for the type of genre we are producing the film in, which is horror. So if for example we film someone being stabbed, we have to make sure that there are no children around and that people of the public know that it is not real.

Visual:
 

Audio:

Survey for Radio Trailer + Evaluation

I created and conducted a survey for our radio trailer for our horror movie. I used SurveyMonkey because it isn't time-consuming and is efficient in gathering information for our target audience. The results show that our target audience want our radio trailer to be the duration of 1 minute and that they should give little teasers about the movie but not spoil it completely, and not give the narrative and plot line away.  
Many people thought that there should be spooky and eerie sounds / music along the trailer which connotes that it is of a horror genre. However, in order to attract the attention of our target audience, I think the trailer should start off with something that will make them carry on listening. For example, a very serious news headline which is followed by 'spooky sounds' and eerie music.

All of the participants said that there should be music in the trailer, therefore in my trailer I will include this for audience satisfaction. Many people also said they would hears trailer in a variety of places, such as the shops or the radio or on television. What the most votes was on was YouTube. Knowing this, I know that if I wanted to create a campaign for my product, I would release a trailer on YouTube as our target audience is more likely to see it on YouTube because they are young. This was useful in seeing where our target audience are most likely to listen to things.

How our target audience how been useful to our input:
They helped in selecting what they like to hear in radio trailers and selected the conventions of radio trailers that they liked and disliked. With the likes, we can include this in our product and try and grab their attention and because they opted for something they like, they are more likely to carry on listening to the actual product. For example, they said eerie music and special FX should be used in a horror movie trailer and so we will include this to also fit it into the horror genre and so that people can recognise it as a horror movie trailer.

Analysis of poster survey

First question’s answers show that the poster does mostly influence people to watch the actual product, the film. This means we as a group should work together to make our poster attractive and one that which can persuade the audience to watch the actual film. For example the poster for orphan was of the picture of the main evil character and didn’t give out much information about the plot/storyline. The second questions answers tells us that the audience expect a variety of things included in posters. The plot of the poster would determine what it looks like, but most people said that the images should be appealing and identified as horror, and that the colours should be of horror genre This swiftly moves me onto the answers of the third question. 
Our target audience identified the colours associated with horror to be mainly black. Thus, we should use black in our horror poster product as it a convention that identifies a poster as a horror movie. Some people said they like the ‘Scream’ poster or ‘The exorcist’ because it looks dark and mysterious. However others said that they don’t have a favourite film poster for horror because they don’t watch horror for several reasons. Our target audience starts from the age of 15, as it is a 15 age rated film. The participants who took on the survey were mostly aged 15 to 18. This shows a younger audience would have more time to watch films as adults stereotypically have work to be doing and are busy. Nevertheless, our target audience still includes these age groups. Because of the age group, it tells us that we should produce an appealing poste and not one with a dull picture that doesn’t attract our target audience. Our target audience said that the poster should not be more revealing than the radio trailer, and so we mustn’t give away as much information through the poster than through the radio trailer. This links to the net question. Our audience think there should be more pictures than writing in the poster.
How has their input helped us?
They have enabled us with the advantage of knowing what they would like to see in the poster and what they wouldn't like to see. For example, the majority of people had selected dark colours and to have the main character at the front of the poster. This will help us when we create our own horror movie poster because we will know that our audience wouldn't like bright colours such as yellow to identify it with the horror genre. The results of this survey also tells us that our target audience themselves know some codes and conventions of a horror movie poster as living in a postmodern world, posters are not only displayed on walls but can also be digitally shared, for example through Facebook and Instagram. This can help us in the future if we wanted to create a campaign for our products.

Focus Group: Horror Movie Posters + Evaluation

What I learned from the focus group:

The people in my focus group mostly preferred the Orphan film poster because it was 'simple'. In our product, we could make it simple too, for example we could just have the eyes of the girl wearing glasses, our slogan and the title. One person said she liked the way the actors names were at the front so perhaps we could include our characters and actors' names as well somewhere. Also they thought that the font for the movie name of Orphan was unique and different. This helps me to understand that our target audience prefers having a simple poster with simple text, that gives away a little detail about the film and not too much, so the  audience can wait for the release of the film eagerly. We should create something that "screams out 'horror'". Our poster should relate to what our plot is and maybe stick to common stereotypical conventions and colours related to a horror film. Therefore this has benefited my research as i know what my target audience would and wouldn't like in our products.

How our target audience has been useful to our input: 
They helped us recognise many things that we should and should not include whilst making our radio trailer. 
What we shouldn't do:
- Give no insight to the plot
- Give too much insight into the plot
- The picture shouldn't be too plain and there should be more detail about the movie
- All the colours shouldn't be the same

Sub-genre: Psychological horror

Common conventions of psychological horror films:

•Flashbacks. This is evident in a variety of psychological horror movies. For example in the film ‘The Uninvited’ where the main character sees flashbacks of dead people. We will use flashbacks in our product to show our main character has experienced something bad in the past, which leads her to be a serial killer with a pseudo identity.

•Killer looks normal. No signs of a bad psychological state. This is evident in the horror film ‘Split’ by Blumhouse Productions. The main character looks normal when he takes the girls into his car but then throughout the movie we can see that he has multiple identities. In our product, our main character will look normal too. For example, I plan to have a scene with her waking up, and eating breakfast like a normal person, whilst reading the newspaper.

·         Close ups to show the emotions on the characters faces. For example in the films ‘Case 39’ and ‘Split’ there are a lot of close ups on the villain’s faces to show that they are the bad characters. We can use this in our film to show our character is not mentally stable.

•Psychological horror focuses on everyday life. This is shown in the movie ‘Case 39’ where the main protagonist is a case worker and when she adopts a devil child she still has t try and carry on with her normal life. This creates verisimilitude, which means our target audience would get more scared easily, especially to those who have a similar life style to our character Spencer. This is the aim of horror films.

·         Editing: Jump cuts and continuity cuts to show everyday life and to connote a complex character (such as in Split). We can use this in our film as we can portray our character to be normal when in fact her other identity is a killer.

•Setting: reality. Again this creates verisimilitude. For example, the two main settings in our horror film is the home and school. An example from a real media text would be from the film ‘Orphan’ where it is based in the home, school and park.

·         Contrapuntal sounds – sounds that don’t match the screen, for example when there is happy music playing when someone is dying. Again an example would be from the ‘Orphan’ trailer, where there is music playing over a murder case.

How media scares us (horror)

I came across this video on YouTube in my spare time and decided to watch it to help me prepare for my product. The video does not belong to me, but the work below does.

What I learned from this video:

The camera angles and movements are depended on.

Horror is a form of art. How? It can be created including many different equipment and resources to make something unreal. For example, using fake blood and tissue to create a scar on one's hand.

Horror is not: a jump scare.

However relying on jump-scares makes the horror genre “worthwhile”.  – it’s what contributes to what makes it a horror film.

Horror needs to be built up through atmosphere, strong imagery and pacing. – enough to make you remember it for a long time.

Anime shows are more ‘beautiful-looking’ and can’t be scary enough.

How will I apply this to my short horror film?

I won’t be using Anime as a source for my horror film. I need to decide on how long we need to spend filming each scene and the perfect camera angles and composition in order to scare the audience right away.

Analysis: Horror movie poster: Emelie

Emile

Release: 2015

Director: Michael Thelin

Writer: Richard Raymond Herbeck 

Certificate: 15

Type of poster: 

This poster looks like a teaser poster instead of the main theoretical poster as it contains basic information and does not contain much information about the plot of the film, From the tagline, we can tell that this film would be about a corrupt and evil babysitter which indicates that the film is based around a devil babysitter in which the parents trust but may end up killing the children.

The genre of the poster looks like a psychological horror poster. The tagline suggesting that it's about a evil babysitter makes it psychological as they may be sick in committing activities that harm the children. The codes and conventions of horror movie posters can be spotted, such as a daunting font for the name and title of the movie and in the colour red. It's also conventional that the tagline is in white. The main character's face is in the centre of the poster like a conventional psychological horror which again connotes that the film is centred around this person.

She is also holding a broken doll which could connote that the doll is significant in the film, and also connotes that there are children involved. The doll is broken on the head which could connote that Emelie's head is also 'broken' like the doll and her mind doesn't work properly. Also, as it is to do with the mind, this reinforces the thought of it being a psychological horror movie.

The facial expression of the babysitter is like an evil yet sadistic and creepy smile. It's like she is crazy. The smirk connotes that she enjoys making people suffer. Although there are dark blooded tears from her eyes which are shadowed, it can connote that maybe she herself had a bad childhood and she doesn't want to be the only one and now wants to make others suffer along with her. This is what some people may assume if they have not watched the film. The scars and scratches on her face connote that she has been in a fight which could connote that the story has a lot of fighting in it.

The lighting in this poster is more brighter towards the left of the poster. This is also the same for her face. This could connote that when she introduces herself as a babysitter, at first she will seem nice  but more towards to future her dark side with be revealed. Also, the only main bright colour of the image is her eyes which is like a a bright blue which looks like she is some type of evil robot. This could hypodermically inject the thought of a demon child killer as her eyes are far from being a normal type of blue. The blue eyes thus makes it look like there is some sci-fi aspects in the film, although this could be interpreted wrong. Furthermore, blue connotes calmness. This could mean that the babysitter is evil to the children to satisfy her needs and keep her calm.

The poster doesn't list a website or anything. This can create an enigma code as people can now use web 2.0 to use search engines like google and type in the name of the film  poster to find out more about what it's about. 

The unique selling point of the film may be the evil babysitter, although there are other films like this.

I think the use of the font is also to connote that the babysitter called Emelie is evil, as the ends of each letter look like devils horns which also connote horror.

More annotations of the poster: (click to enlarge)

Survey: Horror movie posters

Horror movie survey & evaluation

Horror movie survey response analysis from m_xch

Group pitch and feedback

Pitch: Psychological Short Horror Film from Noshin Jahan

Focus group

 I conducted primary research for my audience using a famous form of social networking - Snapchat! As our short film's target audience is aimed at 15 years and older, I have decided to use this app to gain information from people within the target audience of my group.

Evaluation, how our target audience has helped us and what I have learnt:

 I found out that scary music is as major aspect to a the horror genre. Furthermore I was researching how to get these type of non-diegetic sounds and found this music video. We might consider this when planning and making our horror film. 

The focus group benefited my research and overall idea because it allowed me to gain an insight into what my target audience thinks a horror movie and radio trailer consists of. The majority of the focus group said that dramatic and in other words eerie music makes it fit into the horror genre. We could include this to our  products to make it seem like a horror movie; for example there would be eerie music throughout the horror movie and I could build up to a crescendo to a climax in the radio trailer to create suspense.

What the focus group mostly associated with horror was blood, which is a convention in the horror genre. We could use this in our product if we decide to show a murder of someone happening. We could order fake blood online and use this on our characters to make it look realistic and fit to the horror genre. Though this may be suitable for a 15 rated film under the BBFC regulations, but if we decide to film this in a different way (as in the whole process of the murder) we might have to change our regulation to an 18 rated film because of the amount of violence. For example in the movie SAW, it shows the process of the main character cutting his foot free from the chain with saw which made it an 18 rated film.

Since our target audience like hybrid sub-genres, we can try and do this in our film, for example making our short horror film a combined psychological and comedy horror or a psychological and crime horror. This would appeal to our target audience and would have more views on our film.