Target Audience + Genre Conventions research

Before we even started to plan our film opening in any detail, we had to decide on a target audience. As we decided to make a horror film, it was almost impossible to have the age rating as under 15 because horror films are almost always scarier and more intense than any other genre. As well as this, we looked at our sub-genre, supernatural horror and took inspiration from their age rating certificates.

Some of the big supernatural horrors at the moment and their minimum age ratings are:

• The Possession - 15
• The Conjuring - 15
• The Exorcism of Emily Rose - 15
• Paranormal Activity - 15

Clearly, a common age minimum is set at 15. This means our target audience ranges from 15-25, teenagers to young adults as this would seem most appropriate for our film genre. 

So what kind of content can we show and what can we do to attract the target audience? 

• As we have quite a young age group (15) it would be more appropriate for there not to be as much gore as a slasher film and also this would not be conventional for our genre
• We also have no swearing or foul language as this would make it age appropriate and allow the 15 rating.
• We also decided to use a little girl as the main character as this is conventional and would attract the intended audience. Another convention we stuck to is the use of a 'jump' at the end of a long sequence, to thrill and shock the audience, which is something the audience expects.
• We also decided to name our piece 'The Possessed' as this is clear and conventional, the article 'the' is a conventional word to use in the title for a supernatural horror and so it is clear to the audience the genre of the film.

How can we represent the social group (age)?

• We are using a young girl in our piece and so we wanted to think of ways to represent her. One commonly accepted view of little girls is that they are vulnerable and so need protection. 
• Clearly, a possessed girl shows huge signs of vulnerability and perhaps the audience will feel sympathy at first.
• But during our sequence we wanted to make it seem like she was no longer a little girl on the inside, so we used non-diegetic growling noises, non-diegetic bone clicking noises. This all helps the audience see the little girl as a threat and as dangerous instead

Research Into Un-copyrighted Sounds For Opening

After my initial research into existing sounds used for Supernatural Horror openings, I had to find un-copyrighted music, which would potentially be used for our opening. In order to ensure the music I found did not have copyright, I searched for "royalty free" music. Below are possible theme music choices which could be used.

This soundscape would be effective between the transitions of our existing title production companies. The sound has dark connotations, which would match the graphology in terms of the gloomy colours in our existing title production companies. The non-diegetic sound gradually increases in volume, creating suspense. This suspense effectively places audience in a position of fright.

The music box tends to be a convention commonly used in supernatural horror films e.g. "The Conjuring". The sound could be a signifier of a young age group, which would be appropriate for our opening, as we have a young girl as the victim of possession.



This sound clip uses the music box again but this one however, sounds more sinister. The sound at 0.22 seconds sounds rather eerie and would therefore be appropriate for our opening. 

 The following is an exorcist theme sound.







Evaluation:

• After carrying out my secondary research, I found it was quite hard to actually find un-copyrighted music.
• After compromising with my group, we agreed that we needed a sound more eerie. Now I shall go and find a website specialising in sounds.

Titles | Research and Practical

Our task for this week was to improve our titles and begin to implement them into our opening. We started by researching different ways in which we could make movements within the titles and took inspiration from the following (Whitechapel):

We liked the way the editors manipulated the text so it would flip, suddenly flash up, become larger and smaller etc. We wanted to recreate this type of text for our own opening.

We found this tutorial whilst searching for different effects we could use and we was interested in trying to replicate some of the movements, however we discovered you have to pay to get this software included in Final Cut Pro and so decided against it, instead we decided to use it as inspiration for our own movements:



We began by using a simple text box in Final Cut Pro, which was basic and plain, starting with the text in the bottom corner. We then put on the effect 'Bad TV' as we use this frequently throughout our opening and we wanted to keep a constant theme throughout, we changed the amount so it was a bit more noticable.

We changed the font to 'Trajan Pro' as felt this looked similar to real horror film titles. E.g. The Conjuring. As you can see below in the screenshot, we put in the actors name and applied the effect. We then manipulated the text in a different way.

 We copied the exact same text but as two different strips of video. Then we put one tiny short clip of text, which appeared for a fraction of a second (saying the same thing) in between.

 In the inbetween one we moved the position of the text to the opposite corner and applied the effect 'Bad TV' for a very short period of time but as a much higher amount, so it looks like it flashes up and goes very jolty and shakey.

Following this, in the longer 3rd clip we applied an effect which looks like a film burning out called '...' which can be seen in the video.

Here is what we made:

Evaluation
We are very happy with this style of title as it looks professional and very similar to the 'Whitechapel' title that we were trying to recreate. To improve we would like to make the text jolt backwards and larger and smaller like in the Whitechapel opening sequence. We also want to try adding in more quick flashes up or in slightly different places just to make it look even more impressive. However, this would require more professional skills and we'd have to download or install other software which could be costly. For now, we are happy with the results.



Opening Credits

As part of our initial research we looked at opening credits, how they were displayed throughout the opening scene of a film, I looked at the film 'Skyfall' to get an idea of how many are used and at what times.

MHJG Survey

As further research towards our supernatural horror film opening we created a survey for members of the public to fill out about what type of opening they'd like to watch and what they would expect to see from a professional one in the cinema. We made 8 questions for them to answer and after tweeting it several times from our personal twitters and also posting it on Facebook, we managed to recieve 76 responses so we could get a clear idea from a large variety of people about what they would expect to see. These are the results we collected:

The results showed that the prefferred location for our opening would be an abandoned building, this means when considering locations we will try and find some abandoned buildings to look at and consider using them once we know what plot we want to use.

The results showed that the majority of people would prefer there to be no dialogue in our film opening. We were already considering not using dialogue as we want to make it look as professional as possible without proper actors.

The results showed that most people would want our villain to be a little girl, this means we will do more research on possession as this was an approach we were also thinking about.

The results show that most people want a build up to be used in our film opening, this means we will have to think about our plot carefully, as well as certain sounds we use and special effects to create a scary atmosphere for the audience.

The majority of people said they wanted sound and music to be a main factor featured in our film opening, this ties in with wanting our plot to be a build up. We can use the sounds we put in to our advantage to make it as scary as possible to fit the supernatural horror genre.

The results showed that the majority of people wanted one of our props to be a religious object for example a bible, we can use this in many different ways and we can now do research about different props used in supernatural horrors to see which ones are most conventional and are the most effective.

We asked people what their favourite supernatural film is, out of the options we gave the most popular one was 'The Conjuring' we also gave people the option to write a film down that wasn't featured in our options, we received 14 comments suggesting films such as 'Insidious' 'The Entity' 'The Exorcist' and a few others not related to genre.

Finally we asked whether religious elements should feature in our opening and more people said no than yes although it was quite close. This contradicts the prop question as most people said they wanted the prop to be a religious object, we are still going to be looking into religious elements going into our opening and will carry out research shown in other films to do with that.