Horror Film Target Audience

Age

The average age of people who watch horror films is around 15-25 years old. People of this age tend to be more open to trying and experiencing new things, and therefore are more likely to enjoy the thrills of watching a horror film. Younger people are less offended by violence and gore, as horror films have become more accepted and less outrageous in the past few years, so older generations may still not approve of them.

Gender

Stereotypically, men watch more horror films than women. This is because generally men tend to enjoy (and engage in) violence more than women.

Horror Film Production Techniques

 I researched some production techniques that are typically used in Horror films, such as lighting styles and sound effects used.

Conventions of a Horror Film

We have chosen Horror as our film genre as we think that this will be the most fun to film. After researching, we learned that there is lots of variety within the genre, including sub genres such as Gothic Horror. It will be interesting to see what we can do with our film to make it unique.

Evaluation of Preliminary Task

I think that, overall, our preliminary task video demonstrated the specific shots that we had to use well. Our finished product ran smoothly and looked effective. The plot was clear, and the camera shots included really helped to get the tense atmosphere across.  I think that if we were to change anything, we would add music in the background to increase the drama in the scene and to make it seem more professional and put together.

I am happy with the actors, dialogue and shots we chose, as I think they all worked well together to make the finished video good. Our actors (Caoimhe and Rainbow) did a great job, and played their parts convincingly which helped to make our scene seem more realistic. We wrote our own dialogue, which I think helped to make our video more original, however, I think it would have been good to have chosen a more individual and unique storyline. Overall, the shots we used looked professional and were clear. However, there were people in the background who weren’t supposed to be in a couple of shots, so I think next time we need to check this before editing our video together.

The planning of our project took longer than it did to actually make the video. It took us a while to write a script, and to find people who wanted to act in the video. Once we’d filmed everything, it didn’t take Ellie very long to edit it into something we were all happy with.

We did not complete a risk assessment as our filming took place in a classroom and a hallway, and none of our actors were doing anything that would put them at risk.

I think that the techniques we used were adequate and I would not use a different range. We used the compulsory techniques (180-degree rule, shot reverse shot, and match on action) and I think that if we had included any more, the editing of our video would have been unnecessarily difficult.

We showed the video to our friends (since our audience was mainly teenagers) and they enjoyed it. I think this is because they found it easy to relate to as the actors were also teenagers. The video was also quite realistic, which I think made the viewers engage with it well.

Overall, there are no significant changes that I would make to our video, other than the points I have mentioned already. One change we had to make was adding the logo at the start of the video, which we initially forgot to do.

  

Preliminary Task- Choosing a Logo

There are three people in my group, myself, Bailey, and Ellie. We all made a logo for our company, so in order to decide which one to use, we all put across our opinions on each others (and our own) logos. Our final decision was based on this discussion.

Bailey's Logo

 



Ellie's Logo

 



 

My Logo

 

 

In the end, we decided to use my logo for our production company. We all said that as my logo has a plain black background, it would be easier to transition from this to the film, as it would look more clean cut fading into black. We also decided that my logo was the most professional, and would appeal to a wider audience, as well as being able to be used in a wide variety of genres of film. 

Preliminary Task- Planning

Setting Details-

When we were planning our preliminary task, we thought of several possible locations for the setting of our video. In the end we narrowed it down to an outdoor picnic bench, a hallway and an empty classroom. We chose to film in an empty classroom as it had the best sound quality, and the least chance of being interrupted. It also enabled us to use the space in and around the classroom, including the corridor, the door to the classroom and the desks.

Character List-                   

There were only two characters in our video. Caoimhe played the bully, who aggressively collects money from Rainbow. Rainbow played the innocent victim of Caoimhe’s cruel ways. While there were no other on camera roles, we all were involved in the film making process somehow.

Equipment List-

The only equipment we used to create our video was a camcorder and an SD card. Originally, we were going to use Bailey’s camera because it has High Definition recording, however, we decided it was more convenient to just use a school camcorder. The quality was a lot better than we’d thought it would be, and our videos turned out really well. The camcorder didn’t have an SD card, so we used the one Bailey had for her camera.

We only used one prop for our video, which was the money. We printed out £240 worth of notes, which helped to make our scene look more realistic and effective.

 

 

Preliminary Task- Duologue