LULU- Audience Research

Media Studies

Audience Research

During my research I found out that people who watch horror movies are usually aged between 15 and 25 years old. 
Horror movies are most aimed at men are most likely to interact with the characters on screen as most of the time the protagonist is a man.
Also people would rather go watch a scary movie in groups than on their own.

According to statistics on the internet movie db these are the 8 most popular horror movies of all times (not in order):

1. The Exorcist 1973 William Friedkin

2. Shining 1980 Stanley Kubrick

3. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 1974 Tobe Hooper

4. Psycho 1960 Alfred Hitchcock 

5. The Thing 1982 John Carpenter

6. Rosemary’s Baby 1968 Roman Polanski 

7. Halloween 1978 John Carpenter 

8. Suspiria Dario Argento 1976

LILY- Target Audience Questionnaire and Research

The film industry's prime focus is making money. Therefore a key factor in insuring they do this is knowing your target audience.
That way trailers and other ways of advertising are targeted towards that specific audience, to try get them to watch the film.

As a part of audience research I decided to conduct a survey on who would be our target audience.

Here are the questions asked:

1) What gender are you?
2) What is your age?
3) Do you like horror films?
4) What is your favourite horror film?
5) What is it about that one you like?
6) Would you pay to watch horror films regularly?
7) When you watch horror films who do you usually watch them with?
8)  Do you like gore in horror films?

You can fill out the survey here:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TZF9K9Q

This questionnaire is short and easy for people to fill out, but will equally tell me a lot of information about our target audience.

Based on research I have collected using the internet and the information gathered from the questionnaires I did, I have discovered that:

• Men: according to research I found on the internet, males tend to prefer action films, and are much more likely to watch a movie containing gory scenes.
• Where as females are less likely to enjoy this, on the whole, but would prefer to watch a romantic-comedy or a 'chick-flick.' However they do prefer horror movies without gore.
• Younger people, aged 14-30 are much more likely to enjoy a horror movie compared to people above this age, who would not enjoy the thrill as much.
• Similarly, young couples also appear to watch horror movies, as women prefer to watch with a male figure.

LILY- Institutions That Make Horror Films and Filming Update

It was important to have a good understanding into the institutions that commonly distribute or make horror films. Therefore I did research into the sort of companies that did so.


20th CENTURY FOX:

• 20 Century Fox is a major American production company
• Films produced by it are mainly family focused, or in the genre of comedy
• However it does have some successful horror movies under its name; Jennifer's body, however it is mainly the distributor of horror films as-suposed to the producers.

WARNER BROTHERS:

• Warner Bros is another major American film institution.
• Warnes Bros. produce films often in a wide range of genres, for example Sex and the City, the Dark Night and Slum Dog Millionaire.
• However In comparison to 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros. to have more successful horror films under their belt, for example Friday the 13th, The Orphan, and House of Wax.

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TWISTED PICTURES:

• Despite not being one of the most known film institutions, Twisted Pictures has managed to gross half a billion dollars with horror films
• The most infamous one being the Saw series along with Texas Chainsaw Massacre 
• Twisted Pictures was formed after the success of Saw in 2004, which lead to a nine picture distribution deal with Lionsgate. It then continued to produce 6 sequels to the Saw series as well as other films.

LULU- Film Distribution

Film Distribution

5 stages

Standard release

Standard release is the model of distribution most used of the five.

 This type of distribution consists in:

1. Having the movie’s release first in cinemas 

2. After approx. 16 weeks and a half releasing it on DVD. 

3. After a few months make it available on Pay TV services. 

4. At last after approx. two years after the movie’s theatrical release make it available on free TV.

Simultaneous release

A simultaneous release is when a movie is made available on many different media (cinema, DVD, internet, TV etc.) at the same time or with very little period of time distance one from another.

 This release method has both positive and negative aspects:

POSITIVES

1. The audience can choose the type of media that most suits their needs

2. The production studios only have to run one marketing campaign.

NEGATIVES

1. The product might not get substantial investment or promotion.

Straight-to-video release

A straight to video release is when the distributors don’t consider the “theatrical window” and immediately release it on DVD.

Internet release

This method is still new to the film distribution platform.

Shrinking of the theatrical window

The theatrical window was originally conceived for a six months duration while today been reduced to little more than four months.

This happened in an attempt to make up for the substantial losses in the DVD market they've been suffering from.

Ex. When Disney announced that Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland  would have been made available 14 weeks after the movie's release date (instead of the usual 17) in order to avoid competition from the 2010 World Cup. Theatre owners made threats not to show the movie on their screens,[18] but later reconsidered their position before the movie was released.

LULU- Task 8: Contextual Analysis Part 2

Pulse

The mid shots on some young people from the crowd are used to introduce the theme of the movie: communication devices. All these scene have both diegetic sounds like for example people talking to each other that mix with a motif to create tension.

In this scene we have a mid shot of the guy’s back. Some horror movies tend to start with an happy beginning and slowly get to the scary part, this movie is different the fact that it’s really fast pace makes it introduce what we can define a “creature” in the first two minutes of the movie. By showing the danger behind the protagonist back represent him as vulnerable and unaware of what could happen to him. When the figure is shown in the mirror we can hear a sudden and short motif with a technology theme.

After the guy enters the building and goes through the security we have in the background the diegetic sound of the keys the guy puts in the box. When the security guard looks for the guy’s name on the computer there is a whole shot on the screen and that is how the director of the movie decided to introduce this character to us.

After introducing Josh’s character he sees what is probably the same “creature” as before on the screens behind the guard that are transmitting what the security cameras behind him are recording (here we have a shot on what he sees on the screen) but when he turns around fast (the camera shoots at Josh’s eyes hight) just like if his eyes were recording, he doesn’t see anything. 

We also have the feeling like if something is wrong with the security guard even though nothing it’s going on with him, he was just represented this way by the guy’s anxious subconscious.

After this Josh takes the elevator and we have an extreme close up of him pushing the button to call it this creates almost a dramatic moment and leads the audience to expect something to happen in the elevator.

In the elevator we have again the same situation as the security guard before. In fact there is also an old man in the elevator with Josh, the man isn’t doing anything but the subconscious of Josh makes him feel not safe. Here we have a side close up of Josh nervous expression that also shows us the blurry figure of old man behind him.

As soon as the doors open the old man gets out and Josh finds himself in what looks like a library. Here the lightning already dark of the movies become almost totally black creating tension and the suspect that something might be hiding in the dark. 

LULU- Task 8: Contextual Analysis Part 1

The most important part a good horror film, is having understanding of other horror films, and how they work/are edited to be effective. So before we began planning ours, we did plenty of research into other films.

Here is Lulu's research into a film:

Pulse

                                       Contextual Analysis of a film in the same genre as ours.

Pulse is an American horror movie made in 2006 directed by Jim Sonzero. It stars famous actress Kristen Bell and Ian Somerhalder; the movie is a re-make of the Japanese horror film Kairo. 

This movie is based on modern communicating devices such as: computers, mobile phones etc. and about our use of them.

I analysed the first two minutes and twenty seconds of the movie but before writing about that i also wanted to put in evidence the titles at the beginning that i really liked because of the adherence with the theme of the movie: technology. In this movie, the titles alone took up the first two minutes.

The movie starts with a mid shot of a crowd slowly focusing on one person in particular. 

 As you can see from the screenshots the lightning is quite dark, a mixture of blue and grey. This kind of light defines the horror genre, creating a mysterious ambience.

The first part of the opening is full of mid shots and close ups to highlight the guy’s nervous expression and the context, in fact he doesn’t look relaxed at all, he looks around and stares at the people that surround him in a suspicious way almost if looking for someone or that he had better check if someone is following him.

LILY- 9 KEY SHOTS FROM GOODFELLAS

I decided to go back and do further research into films, but this time in the thriller genre. I did this to broaden my knowledge of films and what makes them successful. 

1: The opening titles for this movie are very clever; they are designed to reflect the genre of the film- action. They move along the screen from right to left with the sound effect of a car moving at high speed. 

2: This is used in films often, when applicable, as it instantly grabs the viewers attention.

3: This long shot of the car from reverse, pans from side to side across the road as the car does to. Also acting as a sort of establishing shot, setting the theme, period and location.

4: Cuts to front of car, showing a mid shot of the three main protagonists.

5: This shot builds suspense.

9: This extreme close up of just his eye, is clever as it continues to show the view he is looking at. It also is the start of his monologue, which plays as it slowly zooms about to show what he is looking at.