Research

This is the research we did before producing our texts, we carried out audience research to help us build an audience profile and understand help us to produce our texts in a way that represents our audience's tastes.

We also carried out research of existing media products, this helped us to get a further understanding of the horror genre and how the texts we produced can conform to the typical convention of this genre.

Website Research Conclusion

Overall through my research of existing horror movie websites, I have discovered that there are several different trends appear in almost all of them, I feel I can use these with the production of our horror movie promotional website.

For example I feel that having the trailer as the centre-piece for the website is a very powerful way of connecting with the target audience because it allows the film to speak for itself, this in itself is very powerful, by watching the trailer combined with the content of the website it will leave the audience wanting more, this in theory will lead to them going to see the entire film.

Also I feel that having a home page and around 4 other pages will be suitable as this is a common number for most of the websites I have seen, I also feel this gives us a chance to leave the audience with a very good impression of the film but keeps them wanting more as it doesn't give away too much about the plot of the film.

Colour scheme will be an important factor in the creation of the website because there are a set few colours that we have seen consistently come up in the research for the website, with our website I feel the most appropriate colour scheme would be of black and dark green, this would symbolise the location as a dark and mysterious forest, or black and dark red, the black is used once again to symbolise dark and mysterious and the dark red will symbolise blood, this will give the audience the impression that the film contains some kind of murder/killing conspiracy plot.

Website Research: 1408

This is the promotional website for the film 1408, this once again is a horror genre movie.

Here as the main attraction to the movie they have used the strength of the actors names to attract the audience to the film, these actors already have a strong reputation and fan base and are to an extent a guarantee to the audience that this will be a film they will enjoy.

In terms of the website design its fairly simple, there's a menu with around 5 pages, this is the standard for almost all film promotional websites not just ones of the horror genre and the title of the movie is centre-piece of the website, this clearly shows the audience the title of the film and almost gives the film a brand name.

Also the central image here is of the location of the film, this is a powerful statement to the audience that shows them where the story of this film takes place and gives an indication toward the genre, combined with the actors names this will catch the eye of the target audience.

Website Research: 'Wolfman' and 'Drag Me To Hell'

http://www.thewolfmanmovie.com/

This website contains many stereotypical aspects of the horror genre, it has a dark black colour scheme with the moon in the background, we can use these conventions in our production for the website of the trailer.

As well as this the centre peice for this homepage is the trailer, this is definately something we should think about encoporating into our final production for our website.


http://www.dragmetohell.co.uk/

This website has an excellent design with a central image of the central protagonist who is involved in the main horror plot of the film, it also has a review of the movie and very clear navigation buttons for different pages of the website, these are all things we could encorporate into our website.

Here we can see a convention that has recently emerged with film websites, it has links at the bottom of the page to facebook and twitter pages for the film, we could include this in our production of the website.

Website Research: Blair Witch Project

Here is the website for the blair witch project, as you can see it's a fairly minimalistic website, but this adds to the effect of the film being 'independent' the black colour and strange symbols are iconography of the horror genre.

This webpage has round 5 pages in total, this is a typical number of pages for any film promotion website, however I feel with our website i will include the trailer for our movie in the centre of the page, this will allow the trailer to speak for itself.

The simplistic design doesn't give too much away to the audience here which encourages them to go further into the site and discover more.

Here is the promotional website for the film "The Strangers".

The layout of this website is becoming more and more common with film promotional websites at the moment.

It is a simple homepage design with a trailer and minimal information about the film, this allows the trailer to speak for itself and I believe is a highly powerful and effective way of advertising and marketing a film, especially of this genre.

The company "ROGUE" has their logo on the bottom corner of the page, this is a common convention of most film

The Genre

My partner and I have chosen the genre of horror for our trailer. The reason being that the horror genre is an easy one to work with, and to convey. It's easy for us to produce a trailer with horror elements, such as over-dramatsied actors, enclosed or open settings (such as a forset or house) and there is more focus on camera angles and shots than there would be in different genres. Things like this can be easily conveyed, than if we were to a different genre say Action or Sci-Fi which would require things such as special effects and props, where as with Horro there is a lot more emphasis on the atmopshere and the actors, which is something that me and my partner can easily do.

The Horror genre is something that is easy to produce. The number one goal in this genre is to produce fear within the audience. The basic concept is the same: the hero(es) must fight against horrific forces in life. Unlike drama, where the goal is to get the audience to experience a range of emotions, horro has a much simpler goal: to exeprience fear. There are sub-genres such as Sci-Fi Horror, Fantasy Horror, Comedy Horror etc. We have gone with a documentary style horror, using a shaky camera techniqure in order to increase the fear factor. A realistic apparoach will make the whole concept work that much better.

Horror is a genre that is there to frighten, panic and invoke our fears often in an eqaully fightening finale which is captivating and enetertaining at the same time in an experience. The earliest horror films were a gothic style, starting with monsters (Frankenstien) vampires (Dracula) and Ghosts. Going through the years the ideas were re-worked examples being The Shining which incorporated Ghosts and 30 days of Night which was a modern day Vampire film. You can see how modern day horror films try to incorporate different ideas, but the basis of it still remains the same.

Website Research / Inspiration: REC

This is the Website for the film REC. As you can see the layout is very simplistic with a menu toward the bottom with minimum options to navigate. But this add's to the idea that the film is Independent and Niche. There is a predominate use of black, I'm thinking in order to give the film more of a mysterious feeling, with the website encouraging viewers to go and see it through the use of little information and colours / images, making it more believable. Also something else worth mentioning is when you use the cursor to navigate round the website, it acts as a torch, lighting up the dark parts of the website. It gives the idea that the audience can explore information beyond the film itself. Definitely a very immersive technique. Something that might be able to be incorporated into our own film website.

http://movies.filmax.com/rec/website/website.html

Further Poster Research / Analysis

Further looking into poster research comes this film poster. "The Haunting In Connecticut" Looking very stereotypical, with the focus on the central image(s) to try and present to our audience what the film is going to be about. Conventions such as dark and washed out colours give the poster an appropriate mood and tone that reflects the film itself. The only colours present throughout the whole poster are black and yellow.

The slogan is suggesting plot saying "What if the only explanation for what you saw, was unbelievable?" I like the idea of simple and central images and / or iconography which will prove to be easy to produce. The image of the person in the middle is almost Representative of a struggle that will be seen in the film.

The poster uses iconography to try and position the audience into the time period in which the film is set this is done through the use of outfits. Because the film is set in present day, this will also position the audience into thinking the film may have some connection to ghosts, because of the of the conflicting time periods, illustrated in the poster. The iconography also tells us about the genre. The character who is in a Christ like pose, stuck to the ceiling, could show the audience there could be an underlying theme of religion, or some sort of religious imagery connected to the film. Possibly making it seem more interesting to our audience because of a cross of genres.

Next is this poster for Paranormal Activity. Very basic but very effective. The audience will be drawn to the grainy image centralised in the middle. Another thing worth noting is the amount of critical acclaim that the poster gives. Our audience are predominantly young aged. In modern day society there can be films that will take the Internet by storm this could be through word of mouth (Twitter, Facebook) and since our audience are avid technology users, a website and posters are great ways of presenting our film to people.

Presenting the fact a film has great reviews will gradually make people build interest. The central image makes a good use of lighting with it being natural, and giving off a serious tone, very realistic. Colourless and grainy, looking very low budget, and niche. It looks as if it is supposed to be a location shot Moving onto the presentation of the endorsements. The iconic golden palm is shown around one of the endorsements, and is recognised in the film industry as a high achievement among film makers. This will heighten our audience expectations once again. The colour of gold represents a sort of feeling to the audience of the film being number 1, as the colour gold is associated with the idea of winning. The choice of words is effective, "Screamfest" Appropriate for the film genre that is horror, again positoning the audience into thinking that it will be a scary film.

Finally the use of the website at the bottom in a white font shows us that the audience are enocuraged to and see what the film is about, and it acts as an active reading, where the audience has the choice to either go and look further into the film or not bother.

Poster Research / Analysis: The Blair Witch Project

Included in our promotional package will be a poster.

The reason for this choice, is because along with the Website and the Trailer, all three are a very diverse range of promotional activities. I plan to take several conventions from this poster shown above. I like the concept that has been used of an almost Mini Synopsis used on the poster. This creates an image and small understanding of the film to the audience and adds to audience expectations.

Also the use of a photo of a forest with a reverse effect of dark trees and a light background. It has very little use of colour with the majority of it being white, with only a symbol being red, and the font being black on top. Maybe using an ironic approach, where white is a colour based upon purity and peace and from the information that has been given, the film is anything but a peaceful film. As well as the noticeable use of white, behind the highlighted trees it is pitch black, symbolising some sort of dark presence within the woods, and giving a clue to where the antagonist may be situated.

This version has an extended Synopsis which is able to draw our audience in, and also unlike the poster above, this one utilises a very realistic approach showing the actors and it saying "MISSING" above. A great approach, not a usual convention of a horror film to make it feel like a real believable event. I want to use something similar to this in the development of my poster. I thinks its effective, at how first glance it looks like a real police certified missing poster, but on close inspection you realise it is a film advert.

This can be noticed based on the films logo below. You also get an idea for the cast, there are three people shown on the poster, but this may not necessarily mean that's all there is to film, as stated in the poster when it says "MISSING" this will then suggest some sort of binary opposition that the characters will face.

Trailer Research: Cloverfield

The final trailer I'm looking at is for the film Cloverfield which again utilised the handheld technique. However unlike the others, this had more of a big budget and gives off more of a Hollywood style feel. Very noticeable from the amount of special effects that you can see within the trailer.

This is what we don't want to achieve with out trailer. We want to distance ourselves from the Hollywood concepts, without special effects, plot giveaways and voice overs. We will utilise the same idea for our poster and website. Very minimalistic and requiring the audience to look further into our media text. Such an example is the recent film Paranormal Activity which gained huge hype over the Internet, and required the interest of the audience in order for the film to be shown in different countries. We want to give our film the same type of feel, where they are not given an immediate taster, they have to go and see it to find out. Hence why our trailer will be a teaser, rather than a fully featured trailer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvNkGm8mxiM

Trailer Research: REC

REC is another example of a film that uses the hand-held camera technique to great effect. A film that based itself from The Blair Witch Project, REC's trailer again uses just the right amount of footage to captivate audiences.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQUkX_XowqI

However in this trailer, the audience is thrown straight into what appears to be the middle of the film, where the characters are going into a building where the threat appears to be. After this several clips are shown using the shaky camera technique, that incorporate actions sequences e,g, characters running away. All of the sound is diegetic apart from the background music which is played over the top in a non-diegetic form.

Several ideas from this trailer I would like to take would be:

- The idea of the trailer starting off in the middle of the plot

- Several action clips thrown together

- Non-diegetic sound played over the top

- The length of the trailer (about a minute 30 seconds)

Trailer Research: The Blair Witch Project

For me and my partners trailer, we are drawing inspiration from a number of Trailers. First is a 1999 film called The Blair Witch Project, a film which utilised the hand-held camera for its filming.

The trailer and promotional campaign for the film was credited for having a realistic and believable approach. We aim to do the same thing, with a teaser trailer that will incorporate various hand-held clips in order to give our trailer both a confusing quality and a mysterious quality to it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfnXbXKi2-s

The Trailer shows various small clips put together with an overdubbed sound, both to give off mystery in order to heighten audience expectation. All the clips shown in the trailer appear to be done with a hand-held camera which adds a realistic quality to it. It's also worth noting that the Trailer is just a minute long. We aim to do the same. At the end very end of the trailer they display the website, which was a large part in the promotion of this film. Along with a poster we are also producing a homepage to go with the promotional package. We plan to closely link the website, trailer and poster very closely together. I like this idea as it encourages audiences to look further than just the trailer, and go deeper. Using less leaks in the trailer about the film itself, will always spur interest with audiences.

Question Eleven: Result Analysis

Finally our film package is going to incorporate: A Trailer, Website and Poster. From this it seems a Trailer and a Website will be a good choice, however none of our audience chose posters as a source of Horror Films. This is probably because of how easy it is to access film information electronically.

Question Ten: Result Analysis

From this it seems as if the majority of the audience enjoys a trailer around the 1:30 mark, giving us a good idea for how long our trailer should be, and how long it shouldn't be (e.g. 3:00, below 30 seconds)

Question Nine: Result Analysis

From our selection that we provided for our audience to choose. The one that came out on top, was The Blair Witch Project, most likely due to it's realistic nature (utilising shaky camera style) with psychological horror The Shining just behind, and finally REC last: a Spanish niche film that is synonymous with Blair Witch for using the hand-held camera technique.

Question Eight: Result Analysis

This shows that our audience is into the normal codes and conventions of a horror film: where it makes you jump, with the second generic choice being gore. From this it shows that our audience still wants a traditional horror film, that scares and provokes a reaction.

Question Seven: Result Analysis

Interestingly from this set of results it seems the audience are split. This shows how important the internet is in terms of promotion for a film. The reason for the split between Yes & No could possibly by access the internet / computer, but it gives us a basis for how the internet contributes to the promotion of a film to the audience.

Question Six: Result Analysis

This shows the majority of our audience purchase the DVD after viewing in the cinema. Showing that they enjoyed the film and wanted to buy it, this shows that if a film is of a good enough quality people will go and purchase it.

Question Five: Result Analysis

From my results it seems on average the majority of people buy around 5 - 15 films per year. This suggests the audience buy the majority of new films they see in the market and subsequently in the film charts, and this increase the chances of our film appealing to our audience.

Question Four: Result Analysis

From this we can see that the majority of our audience frequently watch films throughout the year, this is great as we want to be able to give our target audience something different with the concept for our trailer, and with people going to see films frequently, our trailer will have more chance of getting viewed.

Question Three: Result Analysis

From here it shows the vast majority of my audience do watch trailers before viewing a film, with a minority choosing otherwise. This show's that a Trailer is an affective way of getting our audience interested in our product.

Question Two: Result Analysis

From the results it seems that the audience still prefer to watch films in a cinema, along with viewing at home, with few people wanting to view films on their home computer. Something that we can take into account when making our Trailer, for example should it have a cinematic feel or more of a realistic feel in order to be more effective in a household.

Question One: Result Analysis

From my results from my first question, it shows that Horror & Action were the two most popular choices, with Romance & Romantic comedy being the two least popular, and the majority choosing the first two.

My Questionnaire

Q1
What is your favourite film genre?

- Horror

- Action

- Romance

- Comedy

- Romantic Comedy

Q2
Where do you prefer to watch films?

- Cinema

- Home

- Computer

Q3
Do you watch trailers before seeing a film?

- Yes

- No

Q4
How many films do you see each year?

- Less than 5

- 5 - 10

- 10 - 15

- 15- 20

- 20 +

Q5
How many films do you buy per year?

- Less than 5

- 5 - 10

- 10 - 15

- 15- 20

- 20 +

Q6
Do you buy a film on DVD if you like it in the cinema?

- Yes

- No

Q7

Do you visit the website for a film before seeing it?

- Yes

- No

Q8
What do you look for in a good horror movie?

- Plot Twists

- Parts that make you jump

- Gore

- Special Effects

- Scary / Intelligent story

Q9

What is your favourite horror movie (from the selection?)

- The Blair Witch Project

- The Shining

- REC

Q10
How long do you expect a film trailer to be?

- 0 - 30 secs

- 30 secs - 1 min

- 1 min - 1:30

- 1:30 - 2:00

- 2:00 - 2:30

- 2:30 - 3:00

- 3:00 +

Q11
Where / how do you find out about the latest horror films?

- Trailers

- T.V.

- Internet

- Posters

- Magazines

Research Method

My choice of research I chosen was a questionnaire. The reason being I find them to be easy to produce and to use, It can be done quickly with minimum fuss. The question's that you can ask are all in correlation with each other, and the questions can be specific or as vague as you like.

Pros of Questionnaires:

- Can be taken with you and complete it anywhere and anytime

- Information is obtained immediately

- Questions can be asked as they arise

- Quick and Easy

- Cheap

Cons:

- People need to be motivated or willing to complete it

- Can require supervision in order for it to be completed

- Answers can be biased

- Can prove to be useless, if loads are sent out and none are returned