My Target Audience

My Horror Movie would be aimed at Teenagers. Teenagers have a desire to face their fears and so playing on this, I would use lots of gore and horror and violence. I chose to aim this primarily at teenagers as I know they are in High School and this could happen to any teenagers. I also chose to add in the thought of little children as they are often quite scary. I also think this will reach out to adults because of the complex story line, the blood and gore and the fact they have gone through education as well.

My Audience

Below is how I reached my final target audience.

As my trailer features teenagers, it's only fair to aim my piece at teenagers. The location of a school will scare teenage audiences and children who watch it before the alloted age.  The trailer will feature light lighting and so the fear that it could happen during the day will scare anyone. Also, I plan to aim my trailer at adults who have been through the school system.

Audience Research and Reviews

Below I have reseached audience and their potential.






I feel that this trailer is aimed at teenagers as the main characters are teenagers. As these films are part of a franchise, I also feel that this trailer is aimed at fans of the series. According to STAR THEORY, the actors will draw their own fanbase to the film and given that the majority of the actors are relatively unknown, this will mean that this is crucial to the films success.  Male Gaze Thoery also syas that men will be attracted to this film as the girls are wearing short skirts, tight tops and are very pretty.  The fact that the trailer features parts of gore will also attract people who are scared of gore and horror as they like to face their fears.

The Review The  cast may be comelier, the edits may be sharper, the gory effects may be nastier, but this remake has nothing like the impact of Sam Raimi's 1981 The Evil Dead.

There's plenty that money can buy in Hollywood, but ingenuity on a shoestring ain't one of them. The set-up has since become a formula: a group of unsuspecting youths trip off to a backwoods cabin and regret it for the remainder of their short lives.
The sort-of comic twist here is that Mia (Jane Levy) is in withdrawal from a drug habit, so that when she's in full devil-possessed mode her friends can't tell the difference. Misgivings arise once they discover a basement hung with feline corpses (eew) and one of them stupidly recites an incantation from a book so evil it's bound in human hide and barbed wire – could it be the original Satanic Verses?
The director, Fede Alvarez, puts his cast through make-up hell at any rate, with nail-guns, shotguns and buzz-saws regularly to hand for all the lopping, skewering and peppering which the Evil One seems to prefer. The reality is, of course, that anyone who did turn up at such an unprepossessing, not to say uncomfortable, retreat would immediately turn around and find somewhere (anywhere) else to stay. And that's even before you smell the dead cats.

This trailer begins quite innocently and so it is not as extreme as evil dead. It features a little girl and an actor that people will know. I think this film is mainly indicative of psychological horror as opposed to extreme gore and horror. This kindoff ilm will attract parents, fans of the actors and people who can relate the subplot of losing a mother. The film will scare audiences are likely to get freaked out by things that happen in the head and the action isn't gory or scary.

Review: Hide and Seek is a very middle of the road thriller put together using spare plot parts from others of its most worn out genre fellows. It isn’t a particularly new idea, nor is it a bad one. Hide and Seek simply is. I’m willing to give it a pass simply for giving the underrated Elisabeth Shue something to do, even if it’s something inconsequential. There are a lot of really terrible horror/thrillers out there, and though Hide and Seek resembles every one of them, it is marginally their superior. The handful of pleasant, throwaway scares it offers are enough to satisfy people who enjoy seeing rich white folks get the shit scared out of them.
In Hide and Seek those forces aren’t leaving the slightly frumpy David Callaway (Robert De Niro) alone.His life takes a turn for the worse one night when his wife cheerfully tucks their daughter Emily (Dakota Fanning) in, kisses her on the forehead, and takes a blood soaked bath. While David sleeps, she kills herself in the tub, surrounded by lots of aromatic candles. Emily and David find her there, which for a little kid is quite a mindfuck. Concerned for Emily’s future sanity, David buys a lavish house in rural, upstate New York where he plans to play full time father (when you’re poor that’s called unemployed). He drags Emily there against the advice of family friend and personal therapist Katherine (Famke Janssen), which to me seems like a bad idea since Famke, having played the psychic Jean Grey, is generally pretty trustworthy when it comes to matters of mental health. Who’d have thought being in X-Men would leave her permanently typecast as a psychiatrist



This Horror Movie Trailer is likely to attract people who know the stories of the Warrens. People are fascinated by the fact it could be a true story and how it could happen to anyone, anywhere. The fact it suses the line "so disturbing" is an atempt to scare the people who intend to watch it. The actor Patrick Wilson, is famous for starring in lots of horror movies including Insidious. This will attract an audiencewho not only enjoy scary films but eant to see their favourite actor in films. I think this film will attract people who remmeber the warrens, people who like ghost films and people who like a good plot line.

Review:
Conjuring conjures up real-life “Demonologists” Ed and Lorraine Warren. These guys were the Lebron James of paranormal investigation back in the 70s. If you were like, “Yo Karen, I just saw a ghost in my closet.” It’s very likely the response would be, “Guess we better call the Warrens!” But the Warrens are getting tired of what they do. They’ve checked out thousands of these “hauntings” and they typically turn out to be someone stepping on a loose floor board while snacking on Fro Yo in the middle of the night. They want to start spending more time with their daughter, so they plan on exiting the paranormal business.
That is until they hear about the Perrons. The Perrons (Roger, Carolyn, and FIVE daughters), besides not being active participants of birth control, aren’t too happy with the new house they’ve purchased. One of their daughters is getting pulled by her feet while she sleeps. Another has an imaginary friend named ‘Rory.’ Another sees a creepy looking chick sitting on top of the armoire all the time. Oh, and when they play “Hide and Clap,” a game that’s not nearly as disgusting as it sounds, the spirits in the house end up playing too. That’s what really pisses them off. Haunting is fine. But when you start participating in games uninvited, that’s when we draw the line!!
So they bring the Warrens in (who strangely forget all that talk about retiring), who immediately agree there’s some bad shit going on in the house. But in order to get the house “officially” exorcised, they’re going to need approval from the Vatican. And the Vatican doesn’t do that shit unless you’ve got proof. Now they didn’t have fancy-schmancy video cameras back then, so they set up a bunch of bells on doors and still cameras.
What they learn is not good. They find out that the first owner of the house was a woman who was a witch condemned in the Salem Witch trials. But she was, like, a real one! She killed her child, saying the Devil wanted her to do it or something. This is why the spirit in the house is so powerful. She’s a damn witch! The Warrens, who once again, are used to dealing with loud plumbing as the source of people’s haunting, aren’t really prepared to deal with this, and soon find themselves, along with the Perrons, fighting for their lives.

CHANGE OF PLAN+ How to make a successful Horror movie trailer?

Originally, it was my plan to make a music video but after some careful thought, I have decided to film a Horror Movie Trailer.
My reasons for doing so are

• I am easily scared and so I have good idea of how to make things scary.
• I feel that I can put more in to how to make something scary and how to build tension within a scene.
• A Horror Movie will be more of a challenge for me and therefore my editing skills will be used in more depth, the filming will be harder and I will have lots to evaluate at the end of the project.
• I often watch Horror Movies in the cinema which means that I have a good idea of the kind of genres and the kinds of things that will scare people.
• I feel that I am creative enough to tell a story.
• I can expand my technical skills in the sense that I will have to use a boom, recording equipment and editing skills.
• Finding locations, planning filming days and assembling a crew will allow me to explore my talents as a director as its something I would like to pursue.

In order to gain a better understanding of the Horror Industry, I Have conducted some research from wider forms of media. I researched advice from film-makers, film critics and film buffs to gain a clear idea of how to make a successful movie trailer.

Below is a video from eHow who are known for providing good advice.

How to Make a Horror Movie -- powered by ehow


Below is an article from WikiHow about making films.

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Movie

Up to point 14 is relevant and it offers some good tips below at the bottom.

This is a list of films that are considered to be the scariest of all time, its from Wikipedia.

• The Thing (1982) ranks #1 on The Boston Globe's list of the 50 scariest movies of all time.
• The Shining (1980) ranks #1 on The Moving Arts Film Journal's list of the 25 greatest horror films.
• The Exorcist (1973) was voted scariest movie of all time by Entertainment Weekly and Movies.com, and by viewers of AMC in 2006. It was also chosen as the best horror film for Best in Film: The Greatest Movies of Our Time.
• Psycho (1960), the Alfred Hitchcock classic, tops AFI's list of the 100 most thrilling American films, and the top rated horror titles at the Internet Movie Database.
• King Kong (1933) is currently #1 on the Rotten Tomatoes list of the best horror movies, and topped the Rotten Tomatoes list of the 50 best horror movies of all time.
• Jaws (1975) was #1 in the Bravo network's five-hour miniseries The 100 Scariest Movie Moments in 2004.It was also ranked second on AFI's list for thrillers, 100 Years... 100 Thrills. It holds a rare 100% "Fresh" rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes.
• The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) ranks #1 on Total Film's list of the greatest horror films.
• The Silence of the Lambs (1991) was chosen as the best suspense/thriller for Best in Film: The Greatest Movies of Our Time.

After doing some further research, I have found that Horror Movies can be divided in to a number of different categories. I want to create a horror movie trailer that scares me and therefore will scare other people too.

Slasher horror- Scream

Stalker horror (often overlaps with Slasher horror) - Prom Night

Psychological horror/Suspense- Silence of The Lambs

Paranormal horror - Paranormal Activity

Torture horror- Saw

Science Fiction- Prometheus

Aliens (part of the larger Sci-Fi category)- Aliens

Monster movies (Cryptid/Creature horror)- The Thing

Vampire horror-Dracula



Below are some Horror Movies I have watched and their trailers and reviews of them. I feel this is helpful in my coursework because it will be easy to see how they are deconstructed and therefore will show me how to reconstruct them.


What’s it all about?Directed by Mark Tonderai, House at the End of the Street stars Jennifer Lawrence as Elissa, a young girl who moves to a new town with her newly divorced mother, Sarah (Elisabeth Shue). After moving in, the pair soon discover that their dream home sits next door to where Carrie Ann (Eva Link), a troubled young girl, killed her parents four years ago. With gossiping neighbours speculating over the whereabouts of Carrie Ann and the nature of Ryan (Max Thieriot), the family’s sole surviving son, things soon turn chilling and tension mounts when Ryan suspiciously befriends Elissa.

The Good
Jennifer Lawrence lends a star performance to her girl-next-door role in this genuinely thrilling and spine-tingling horror, confirming her role as Hollywood’s ultimate rising star and breathing life and charisma into each of her scenes. Elisabeth Shue as the troubled mother trying her best to atone for her past mistakes is also notably strong, and together with Lawrence the pair share compelling chemistry as mother and daughter.

In terms of plot, House at the End of the Street tries exceptionally hard at producing an original, twist-packed horror and its efforts are rewarded with some effective twists that sometimes steer the film into unforeseen territory. Finally, the rotating and lurking camerawork does well at lending suspense and anxiety to certain scenes and the script and score are perfectly adequate.

The Bad
Despite some heart-pumping scares, House at the End of the Street struggles to achieve true originality by its failure to avoid some frustrating horror clichés (sending its leading girl into the woods alone, when it’s heavily rumoured to be haunted, for example). Lastly, the film’s final build up is rivetingly terrifying, but its conclusive climax is a thorough and rushed disappointment, spoiling its hard-won former efforts and failing to answer some lingering questions about the neighbourhood’s perception of Carrie Ann’s whereabouts.




There is not much more in Jonathan Demme's The Silence Of the Lambs than meets the eye. But that is to praise the film rather than belittle it, since what meets the eye is an exceptionally good film, perhaps this fine director's best, in which the horror genre is elevated into the kind of cinema that can at least be argued about as a treatise for its unsettling times.
Thomas Harris' novel could also be talked about on that level. But Demme and his screenwriter, Ted Tally, take a view of the book that doesn't preclude some grisly humour, ending the whole thing on a black joke and constructing it around the premise that the relief of laughter is often as essential as the creation of tension and fear. In other words, you can take The Silence Of The Lambs as you like. There is little pretension in it, and a lot of mind-boggling entertainment. What has been heaped upon it by way of intellectual argument is not, one feels, its chief concern. Most film-goers have fixed, quite rightly, upon the extraordinary performance of Anthony Hopkins as Dr Hannibal Lecter, the profoundly mad yet seemingly sane psychiatrist to whom Jodie Foster's ingenue FBI agent is sent in order to prise clues about another serial murderer who skins rather than eats his victims. She is sent by Scott Glenn's senior agency official precisely because she is vulnerable, in order that Lecter can think that he will, metaphorically at least, eat her for breakfast. But, though forced to confront her own childhood fears and to play along with the monster's charm and intelligence as well, she hangs on like a terrier until he imparts a vital clue. Hopkins' steely-eyed psychopath, who wears even his prison uniform as if it were a suit that binds him, is both Dracula and the most civilised of men - a giant among the curiously weasel-faced non-entities who guard him. This is a performance it is impossible not to watch, carefully graded to push the audience this way and that between admiration, fear and loathing. But performance it is for all that, and you can almost sense the actor relishing it. When Lecter disappears from the film, after a daring (and none too believable) escape, something substantial goes with it, and even Foster's gutsy, obstinately credible acting and Demme's clever orchestration of the discovery of the skin tailor can't find a substitute. In a real sense, he is the film. Otherwise, what we have is a completely different kind of adaptation to Michael Mann's possibly exploitative but certainly underrated Manhunter, also based on Thomas Harris, but occupying totally contrasting territory. It is jokey, thrilling and almost obsessively detailed as the screw turns and the puzzle of the second serial killer is slowly unravelled. It is not the film's fault that so many commentators have filleted it for portentous meaning in the attempt to elevate it beyond its proper place. True, its central idea that an innocent, and an innocent woman at that, can be sent out to trap the masculine reincarnation of evil is a fetching concept. And few could fail to notice that it is a psychiatrist rather than a diabolical priest who is the personification of evil in the film. It is also true that, just by being there, the movie has something to say about our curiously decaying sense of ideals and the violence that underlies that decay. But its importance lies much more in Demme's persistent sense of almost Gothic and occasionally Grand Guignol absurdity, and his eye-catching brilliance as a film-maker, than in its themes and sub-texts. When we get films as well done as this, with a central performance as spectacular as that of Hopkins, the cinema can be said to be far from done with yet. The Silence Of The Lambs has an edge to it that's quite exceptional, but its central core is more memorable not for what it says but for how it says it. And here Demme's almost spiteful humour is at least as important as Harris' balefully brilliant seriousness.

Plot
A teenage girl is slashed to pieces after receiving a phoncall in which her killer taunts her with references to other slasher movies. Her peers have a party in which they discuss survival tactics a la horror convention, and get picked off one by one…

Review
Now this might all sound a tad familiar: a teenage girl home alone; a telephone call that moves from sexy banter to psychotically violent threat; a Steadicam that never seems to stop peering edgily around corners; and a disembowelled boyfriend oozing offal onto the patio.

For a generation who grew up with Michael Myers and who would list Camp Crystal Lake as a favoured holiday spot there would seem to be no surprises in the crimson tidal-wave of torn nubile flesh that an opening sequence like that promises. But what distinguishes Scream from the rest of the slew of teen-slashers that still haunt the lower reaches of Blockbuster's shelving is that it's bloody. Bloody funny, that is.

The plot is pure horror hokum. A quiet town with a Mainstreet, USA feel is battered by a series of brutal murders, mostly of teenagers, which seem to be linked to some unsolved murderous malarkey a decade or more ago. The local adolescent population respond by having a party and are knocked off one by one.

But what director Craven, creator of possibly the most distinguished kiddie mangler of shock-flick history, Freddy Krueger, does with the twitching corpse of the genre is to turn it into a kind of chaotic post-modern pyjama party, with the imperilled teens constantly remarking on the similarities of what's going on to every slasher ever made - "it's like we're in one of those Wes Carpenter movies" one remarks - and even outlining the rules of such movies while slavishly following them.

In one inspired sequence a gaggle of partygoers watches a video of Halloween while one of them delivers a survival speech: "You can never, ever, have sex," he says. "Sex equals death." (Upstairs a couple of latter-day bobbysoxers are performing the opening steps of the dance of first love) "And no one should ever say, 'I'll be right back'." (Someone goes out to get more beer uttering said phrase.)

In less talented hands this could have been a lumpen disaster. The slasher movie has attracted the attention of humorists before. April Fools Day, Saturday The 14th and one with Kenny Everett in it that no one can remember are among the failed spoofs of what would appear to be an eminently piss-takeable genre.

Craven succeeds not only because of an intimate knowledge of the type of movie he created - along with the other two Cs: Carpenter and Cunningham - but because of a capacity to leap with balletic deftness from exuberant in-jokery (Ulrich as monikered Billy Loomis and watch for who plays the school principal) to ball- retracting moments of terror which are all the more unnerving for the guffaws that have preceded them.

Assisted by a young and pretty cast - Ulrich and Barrymore are standouts while Hackers' Matthew Lillard puts in a fine turn as the grinning Stu - and a pacy, intelligent script by newcomer Kevin Williamson which only flounders a little when he tries the same gag just once too often, Craven has delivered a ferocious workout that'll leave you breathless. And, a word to the wise; stay seated until the ride has come to a complete standstill...

The acting was pretty weak. I despised the opening scene. If you can’t at least come a little closer to the basis of this whole stupid remake then do it another way. Not that the series is known for it’s great writing and acting, but the way this was diced up would’ve actually made the Jason I grew up with proud. Padalecki and Panabaker weren’t bad and I did like seeing the familiar face of Travis Davis, but that really wasn’t enough.
So onto what the series is known for, the kills. They didn’t skimp on them, but some of them lacked the creativity that I always liked in the movies. I’m not saying they were all just small cuts and beheadings, but they just seemed to miss this obvious way to keep me interested. I did enjoy a sleeping bag scene, but not as well as THE sleeping bag scene. Plenty of blood and impalements, but nothing too out of the box.

n the end it is really hard for me to like this movie. I mean it was hard for me to work up the nerve to just put aside my biases and sit through the movie and try to enjoy it, but when I don’t care about Jason in a Friday the 13th movie, something is seriously wrong. This Jason was not the Jason I grew up with and this was far from the Crystal Lake I dreamed of one day finding. There were moments were it seemed like I was getting cliff notes of the originals, a red barn here, a guy telling the Jason legend there, even an arrow scene right after finding the hockey mask (another poor excuse for creativity), plenty of examples of how sex only leads to death, but that wasn’t enough for me to want to forgive this movie for ever being made. Is it a good horror movie? It is decent. Is it a good retelling of my favorite series? Not even close.

Checklists Of Shots

I will edit this shot list to see what else I need to include in my video. This will help me to chart my progress and help to me understand what I need to do to achieve a higher grade.

This is the table for the 4th December. As of Yet, I haven't done any filming for the video as I have spent most of my time doing the research for the video.

Preliminary Task, Complete!

After a long and troubling time attempting to upload, Im proud to present JKC's first ever short film. Its called THE SUSPECT. Thanks to Greg Weller and Carly Marsh for acting and congrats to Jesse, Carly and I for editing!

Hope you enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5AfeJxyMFc&feature=share&list=ULL5AfeJxyMFc

Also here is the technical skills video we made to show off what kinds of footage we could shoot and use!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6Cb6VQv3xQ&feature=BFa&list=ULlHRAImsN4OY

Music Video Conventions

Here is my powerpoint in to research on Conventions of Music Videos.



Below are some examples of the videos mentioned.


Pop-





Hip Hop -




Rock-

Music Video Directors and Producers 2

Colin Tilley (born June 27, 1988 in Berkeley, California) is an award winning music video director who has written and directed music videos for artists including Chris Brown, Justin Bieber, Justin Timberlake,Nicki Minaj, 50 Cent, Lil Wayne, Diddy, Usher, Melanie Fiona, Keri Hilson, Wiz Khalifa and UK rappers Chipmunk and Dappy among others. His most notable and frequent collaborator is Chris Brown for whom he has directed 19 video projects. The two have worked on more than a dozen videos together in the last two years including every single off of Chris Brown's gold-certified album F.A.M.E. except for "Beautiful People". Colin Tilley has won several awards including video of the year at the 2011 BET Awards for Chris Brown's "Look at Me Now" video and Best Male video at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards for Justin Bieber "You Smile

Below is my analysis of a video he made by Tulisa.

Videos for the songs I might choose

Song– Hall of Fame by The Script and Will.I.Am The song would be about a male dancer who gets bullied and beat up on a regular basis but then finds comfort in a girl who is bullied for being a lesbian. The video would centre on these two characters but feature clips of other people who have been bullied and disadvantaged. Song-Gives you Hell by The All American Rejects The video would show a breakup between a girl and a boy and how much they seem to hate each other and how they’ve moved on with their lives . By the end of the video, they realise they still have feelings for each other.
Song– Uprising by Muse A video about the uprising of two gang/armies. The video would show the difference between the two sides and what they stand for.
Song– Lightning by Alex Goot A video that would be about a guy who has a crush on a girl that already has a boyfriend however the two come together and end up being stuck together. The video would show how much fun they are having. It would then turn out that they she has feelings for him. Song– Iris by The Goo Goo Dolls The song would feature a typical love story between a girl and a boy from different social backgrounds. The story would show them meeting each other and spending some time together but then having to go back to their separate worlds. Song: Jai Ho by The Pussycat Dolls The video would show an indian themed location where there is a big chase between a girl and a curious boy. Between the clips of the action, there would be clips of dancing and singing. Song– Find Me by Boyce Avenue A video where it shows the relationship between a young couple in which one is terminally ill. The song is happy but it features some sad lines such as “Blindly, I came to you knowing you breathe new life from within” We felt this line describes how passionate a relationship could be.

Music Video Directors and Producers

In order to get higher marks, I have chosen to study and emulate styles of music videos that other producers and directors have decided to do.

 Below are some examples of music vdideos by famous Spike Jonze is an American director, producer and actor, whose work includes music videos, commercials, film and television. As he works on films and television shows, he often uses the entertainment factor for his videos to make them watchable.  He often works with independent bands and creates music videos that put them on the map.

Here is the video for the single if you want to watch it. I will keep this on my blog so I can refer to the good and bad points of it.

Coursework Mind Map

Here is a mind map showing the ideas that I had for Brief One. I chose Brief One because it will allow to me to experiment with collective identity. Many of my ideas are centred around relationships and people and therefore this would allow me to show my ideas in relation to those of other music video makers.