Film Narrative

Two friends are involved in a tragic accident. One is killed almost instantly. The other sustains serious injuries and is left in a coma for eight and a half months. When, against all odds, she awakens from the coma, she cannot remember anything about the accident, but feels both grief and guilt in response to finding out her friend has died. Before long, however, she starts to experience flashbacks, recalling the more tragic parts of the accident. Something doesn’t seem right as certain elements of her flashbacks do not seem to make sense or do not seem to tie in with the version of events the hospital filled her in with. The situation becomes worse, when supernatural occurrences begin to haunt the girl, as she witnesses ghostly apparitions and is visited on a regular basis by visions of her dead friend that are terrifying. The girl is convinced that her friend is enacting revenge on her because she has survived and not suffered death like the friend herself. The audience think the same thing. It soon turns out that the friend is trying to communicate the truth about how she died. It was not an accident that they were involved in. Someone was out to kill them. The girl is given clues by her dead friend and must then seek justice for her friend’s death, so that she can rest in peace.

Target Audience Profile

Horror films are unsettling movies that strive to being out the emotions of fear, disgust and horror in their audience. I have decided to create a film within the sub-genre of supernatural horror. Horror films usually appeal to male audience; however the sub-genre supernatural is predominantly aimed at females, as they are more intrigue by sensitive and spiritual subjects.

Although the film will be classified as a ’15,’ the trailer will specifically be aimed 18-35 ABC1 class demographic females. The younger target audience 18-25 are more likely to be attending college or university to achieve a professional status however, the older target audience 26-35 have a high disposable income job, ash her career requires, responsibility imagination, and creativity. The target audiences martial status as ‘in a relationship’ which they have a strong bond with their partner and are more likely to have a long-term relationship. They use the film to escape everyday life, relax and spend time with their boyfriends. However, those which are ‘single’ are happily single and enjoying the freedom of single life.

The target audience are thrill seekers and they enjoy the suspense, fear, and mystery of a good supernatural horror. They are open-minded to spiritual beings such as ghosts, spirits and extra terrestrials. The target audience has a close circle of friends who share the same interest as them, such as; watching movies, going to a local wine bar, respecting their bodies by being healthy and attending the gym.

The target audience’s favourite supernatural horrors would be, ‘Sixth Senses,’ ‘The Others,’ ‘The Unborn.’ They would also enjoy watching psychological horrors such as ‘The Orphanages,’ ‘The Strangers,’ and ‘Hide and Seek.’ I believe that they target audience would watch these specific films as they can relate to the central female character, as they are around the same age bracket as the main female character.

The target audience prefers supernatural horror as they like the challenge of figuring out the mystery plot and watching the unrevealing story, slowing unravelling throughout the film.

The target audience will enjoy watching television series such as; ‘True blood,’ ‘The Mentalist’ and ‘Supernatural,’ which all have supernatural elements to them. Although ‘The Mentalist’ is mainly psychology however, psychological and supernatural have similar codes and conventions and often the two sub-genres interlink in horror films.

The target audience listens to a variety of music genres such as; indie, pop, folk and alternative bands and artists such as ‘Take That,’ 'Adele' ‘David Bowie,’ ‘Ellie Goulding,’ ‘Florence and the Machine,’ ‘Kings of Leon,’ ‘Queen,’ ‘Mumford and Sons,’ and ‘The Script.’

The target audience is intelligent and would enjoy reading historical and political books as well as novels as they have a vivid imagination. For Example: ‘The Grapes of Wrath,’ ‘East of Eden,’ ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ ‘On the road’ and ‘The Da Vinci Code.

Pitch

Pre-Production Questionnaire

Choosing a Genre

From watching horror film over last few week to get myself more familiar with the genre, we now have to choose a horror sub genre for our trailer. The main sub genre is slather, Gothic, supernatural and psychological. I have evaluated the advantages and disadvantages of sub genres to help make the made the right decision in which genre to use.

Gothic Horror

Gothic horror combines elements of both horror and romance. Women are represented as weak and vulnerable, they are seen as damsels in distress. While men are represented as brave and strong and will enter the dark world to save the day.  The villain are normally not from reality, such as monsters, werewolves and vampires The settings and location include A castle, Ruined buildings, graveyards, woodland. Extreme landscapes, like rugged mountains, thick forests, and extreme weather. An advantage of Gothic horror is like the idea of combing horror with romance, making a scary love story. However I would be able to find the good believable locations to shoot in such a for a Gothic horror due to limited resources a castles. The villains are usually are normally not from reality meaning to create my villain I would have to use a lot of make up which I would find difficult to make it look professional.

Slasher Horror

Slasher’s typically involving a psychopathic killer stalking and killing a sequence of victims in a graphically violent manner. The weaponry used to kill the victims are usually cutting tool such as a knife, chainsaws or axe. Many slasher films are set in isolated locations such as on islands, deep in forests, small towns, abandoned buildings. The Victims tend to be young, attractive, secondary school, college or university. The victim to die is usually a young, attractive, promiscuous blonde women  who is weak and therefore dies by the killer. The Killer in the slasher film is usually male. His identity is always, unknown or concealed either by a mask or by dark lighting. He is usually very strong making him nearly impossible to die. His background is often troubled, such as childhood trauma that explains his choice of victim, weapon and location.  The Final Girl who is smart bout not as attractive as her victims only have a single survivor and defeats or gets away from the killer. Many slasher films have sequels. An advantage of a slasher usually have simple storyline which I think would be easy to create a storyline. However due to limited resources I think it would be very difficult to create graphic killing a sequence of victims without it looking amateur.

Psychological  Horror  

Psychological relies on character's fears, guilt, beliefs, characters' fears, guilt, beliefs, creepy sound effects, relevant music, to build tension and scare the audience. Unlike Slasher’s the psychological have use minimal blood and has very few deaths. The storyline are complex, keeping the audience on the edge of their seats wondering who the killer is, their horrific identity is often not revealed until end of the film. The locations are set in normal surroundings such as a suburban house. The Killer,  The 'psycho' will usually look like a 'normal' human being, who fits in to society. But as the plot develop and audience starts to see the killers disturbed behaviour. An advantage of Psychological horror is uses less blood to scare the audience and is set in normal surrounding which I could produce for my trailer. However a disadvantage would be challenging to develop a complex storyline that would keep the audience guessing.

Supernatural Horror  

Supernatural horror narrative focuses on folklore and religious traditions, focusing on death, the afterlife, evil, the devil, ghosts and spirits. Locations used within supernatural horrors tend to churches in relation to religious themes in supernatural horror, suburban houses and abandon/haunted houses. The narrative usually includes the ghost or spirit or ghost trying to give the protagonist main character a message. I feel supernatural are the scariest sub genre I have look as we hears stories of people speaking to spirits and seeing ghost and it difficult to know if are real or not.

In conclusion we have choose to sub genre of Supernatural Horror for our trailer. The fear of the unknown makes a good horror film can make audience feel like they are experiencing our worst nightmare. I feel by choosing supernatural we will be able create an original narrative as well as being  inspired by films such as The Others and The Unborn.

Orginal Brief

As part of A2 Media Studies, I have been set to create a promotion pack for a film. This includes a 2-3 minute film trailer, a film magazine front cover and a film poster. The sub-genre I have selected Supernatural. I will also complete the planning for the project via blogger.com. This blog with guide you through all my research for the film promotion pack. In my promotion pack I will follow the codes and conventions of a supernatural horror while also challenging them; as I want to make it original and imaginative.