Prop list

Scripting for trailer

Final Company Logo

My personal favorite element is the jump cut between open and shut eyes; it adds to the jump scare element and feels more horrific. Overall, it took us longer than it probably should have but I'm happy with the results.

Shot lists

Story boarding and Conventions

I am the best in the group at drawing at short notice, I'm also studying A-level art which also helps, so I took on the task of creating the storyboard sticking as closely to the narrative bullet points as possible.

Group Narrative (Synopsis)

Production Screenshots

Logo Production

We started by throwing around different ideas for a company name then we came up with Nefarious Productions, we fact checked and Nefarious Productions isn't a real company. The we started putting out heads together to come up with a logo for our pseudo company.
This was our original idea for a logo: consisting of fake blood dripping over a ball of some kind which continued to drip onto the name of the company.
After some deliberation and rethinking (and finding out our logo couldn't be static) we decided to scrap our original idea for a pair of eyes.

This is the model we used for our logo. She's signed the appropriate forms as is shown. She was incredibly fun to work with considering we were constantly asking her to shine a ludicrously bright light in her face.

We filmed in the media studio in order to have a crisp back ground and consistency in lighting. We used a powerful torch in an almost pitch black room in order to get the desired lighting effect.

Group Discussion

In this video our group discusses how we came up with the production company name and discuss potential inspirational horror movies to take from.

Survey Analysis

These are the results that I have overall:

Which shows a general trend of agreement overall, most of the answers on this graph lean towards agree.

These are the pie charts for the individual question results:

Barthes Enigma Code

The concept behind Barthes Enigma code is that every piece of text, be it a a book, a film or a video game, has an element of mystery to it, where there is a problem that needs to be solved. The most obvious example in the horror genre is 'The Woman in Black'; not only do you need to find out how our main character survived but also how the main antagonist came to haunt the mansion and why.

Assigned Audience Theory

Research rationale results so far

	Strongly disagree	Disagree	Undetermined	Agree	Strongly agree
The rating of a movie falls on the number of graphic scenes and blood shown through the film.	8		4	10
Male Gaze (women appearing solely as sex objects) in movies should be toned down to a minimum.	1	1	1	8	9
A horror movie consists mainly of jump scares and anticipation.		4	1	13	1
A good horror movie preys on primal fears, activating survival instincts.		1	8	9	2
The trailer completely ruins the movie for me.	5	10	3	2
A horror movie should focus more on the scares and less on the story.	5	14	1
Horror could overlap into other genres like comedy.			3	14	3
Horror should have a lasting effect on the audience.			1	3	15
Horror should always be fictional so you know it's not real.	6	3	3		7
Music and sound in horror is just as effective as lighting.				11	8
Praised horror from the early days are a letdown to the modern audience.		8	7	4	1

 The trend seems to that most people are agreeing with the statements in my survey; the reason for this could be one of two things: either my statements are leading or my statements are relatable.

Psycho and TCM (Texas Chainsaw Massacre)

Psycho and TCM have something in common; that is that they both subvert the conventions of the horror genre.

Psycho was released in 1960, by this time color television was widespread and used pretty much all over television. Despite the popularity of color tv Hitchcock decided his latest flick would be in good old black and white. This led to many difficulties of color tv being averted, for example it's said that Hitchcock used chocolate syrup for the blood in the shower scene, not only was it cheap and effective in terms of props but it was cheaper to produce because black and white films were cheaper than color.

The way that TCM goes against the convention grain is that when it was released, in 1998, most horror movies were slasher films and though they were a thrill none were based on real events. Texas Chainsaw Massacre was filmed as a mix of both a slasher and documentary film. It was advertised as a horror movie despite being based on real events. The movie was so scarring that it was banned until 1999 when it was resurfaced and given an 18 rating. Personally I think it should still be banned, I could hardly sit through two minutes of it.

Horror Marketing Techniques - Rings (2017)

Marketing Campaign

The film I chose was Rings (2017) which was released in February and the main reason why I chose it is because I saw the public stunt they pulled and thought it was hilarious.
The trailer is released prior to the movie and serves as a hype starter leading up to the main release.

The trailer is used to reveal the main plot and the starring roles. The trailer for rings was released on 24th of August 2016 whereas the official release was 1st Feb 2017 which means roughly seven months of waiting, over half a year. Most trailers nowadays are released at least a year in advance to start the hype and do any final touch ups.

The poster serves as a form of merch as well as an ad. The poster would also reveal the actors, producers and directors involved in making of the film.

The celebrity interview is a form of synergy; the chat show, or magazine working with the actor will promote both parties.

Nowadays people hardly talk, they tweet and movie marketers can use this to their advantage. by using social media it allows the movie to reach a wider audience.

A public stunt can be used in order to make a creative ad. The reaction of the public could be used illustrate how effective the movie is in comparison. In other words a public stunt is a commercial prank funded by film producers.

Horror Marketing Principles

Top 10 tips for successful marketing: 

1. The best marketing should be able to resonate globally and isn't tied to any country in specific.
2. Comedy and humour can be used in unexpected places.
3. Marketing should be authentic.
4. The film in question might not be recognised immediately.
5. Refer to the audience as 'us' not 'them'.
6. Real life truth connections could work.
7. Props and effects don't need to be ludicrously expensive.
8. Word of mouth works incredibly well.
9. Real life connections are effective; the main plot device could be a cell phone.
10. Update and bring old characters to life.

Scream and Blair Witch

The reason why Scream and Blair Witch are so popular among die hard fans is because they are considered firsts.

By that I mean they are the first movies in the horror genre to use a certain technique or satire.
In Scream the main nerd character is constantly referring to the rules of a horror movie therefore satirizing the entire movie. Which is why most people who watch the original Scream released in 1996 say it's more comedy than horror.

In the Blair Witch Project they were the first, and probably the only, horror movie to shoot the entire thing like a vlog using a handheld camera. Because of the praise it gets for being the first too use this style modern horror fans are slightly let down because the story is lacking; I personally found Crackanory scarier than this. However Blair Witch was the first to use missing posters as advertisements which led to genuine concern and lots of confused phone callers being told that there's nothing to worry about.

Research Rationale

There are two types of data; qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative data is in depth analysis and written like case studies. Quantitative data consists of numbers and statistics.
My research will focus more on quantitative data however will alas be speckled with opinions and feedback from peers.
I'll most likely be using the likert scale in order to convert opinions into numerical data which I find easier to manage.
My target audience is undoubtedly teens ranging from 15 to 18 as I'm surrounded by,and have access to, them in the school.
I intend to use the following surveys on both survey-monkey and around the school to gather opinions, from the modern generation, on the horror genre.