Deconstruction: Target Audiences

Deconstruction: Target Audiences of Existing Horror Films

To ensure that our film opening appeals to our target market, we can use reviews from existing horror movies to get an idea of which films are successful. I looked at the reviews on popular critic websites on popular supernatural/possession horror movies.

Insidious (2010)

Insidious is a popular film series, it is a supernatural possession horror film, so therefore related to the same sub-genre as our film opening.
The first film grossed $97,009,150 internationally, making it the most successful film in 2010.

 

From the IMDb website, 162,486 users voted their rating of the film. The average is 6.8, slightly over half, this is further supported by Metascore rating the film 52/100.

We will take some common codes and conventions from the Insidious film series for example keeping enigma around the supernatural figure, but to be successful another concept may have to be chosen.

 

 

Annabelle (2014)

Annabelle is a prequel to The Conjuring, again, it is a supernatural possession horror film so the critic will relate to our film opening.

It grossed over $255 million so is one of the highest grossing horror films ever.

 

 

 

From the IMDb website, the users rated Annabelle as 5.5 out of 10. This is lower than Insidious but is done by less viewers which makes it less reliable. Again, we can take small bits of inspiration from Annabelle to use in the film opening but the overall film has a low rating.

 

In conclusion, instead of relying on a film for all of the ideas for our film opening, we should look at lots so that we do not copying an existing film. It is also important as the films above did not achieve high ratings on the IMDb website but still grossed large amounts. Although, we will not have the production funds of the films above so are unlikely to produce similar quality material.

 



Representation of age in Oculus (2013)

• The girl is between the ages of 12 and 14
• She is playing a game with war connotations when she should be helping her family move in. This represents her as childish, irresponsible and naive. She also shows traditionally masculine behaviours.
• She is dressed in practical, plain clothing which suggests she isn't bothered by appearances and that she prioritises comfort over fashion. This is reflected in her hairstyle which is a no fuss ponytail
• She is presented as physically strong due to the war iconography which contrasts the audiences expectations of a young girl

• The boy is between the ages of 9 and 12
• He is also playing the game with his sister however this is more suitable for his age range and suggests that he is masculine in his behaviours.
• He is dressed in plain, practical clothing which is suitable for his environment, presenting him as sensible, which subverts the common representation of pre-teen boys being hasty and irresponsibly.
• The audience is lead to believe that he is physically strong due to the war iconography as well as intelligent as he has been clever enough to not get "killed"

• When threatened, the older girl protects her younger brother. This conforms to common representations of older children being physically and mentally stronger than their younger siblings and acting protectively however it subverts the representations of males being protective of females
• The girls clothes are dark coloured and of a feminine style, suggesting that she is trying to be mature and responsible, a behaviour commonly associated with teenagers who wish to be viewed as assertive and confident,

Deconstruction: Answers to Questionnaire

In order to create a successful film idea, I realised that we should start by asking what our audience wanted to see in a horror movie. By finding out what sub-genre of horror was most popular, we could look at the forms and conventions of that sub-genre and work with what is most effective for us to replicate.
34% of our audience said that supernatural was their favourite, closely followed by 20% who chose possession horrors.

Conventions of supernatural horrors (we incorporated the underlined ones):

• Set in the home of the protagonist
• The spirit is associated with the setting
• The spirit is associated with something the person has done/ is doing/ will do
• The antagonist being murdered and seeking revenge
• The identity of the paranormal presence is kept anonymous until the end 
• It is a historical setting
• The main character participates in a seance in order to remove the evil presence

Conventions of possession horrors (we incorporated the underlined ones)

• Evil spirit/s takes control over a persons body
• Nighttime setting
• The possessed figure moves in inhuman ways (e.g. extreme bending)
• Deep, slow music
• Lots of jump scares
• Suburban setting

Blog HTML Coding

I edited the layout, style and HTML coding type of our blog in order to make it more suitable for our genre than the default Blogger blue. Outlines below are the steps I took in order to edit our blog into what it currently is. This process took a long time and involved me learning many new skills about photo editing, however I think the final outcome is similar to what we discussed creating in class.

Initially, I changed the default colour scheme from blue to green as I thought a green tinted forest picture would be a suitable background. After having done this however, I found that it was hard to read white writing on a green background and our blog was less aesthetically pleasing when the font was black. For this reason, I changed the colour scheme to grey and decided to edit one of my own images to match that.

Beginning with a simple forest picture I took in the autumn of last year, I added a blue-grey colour filter on a photo editing website and reduced the saturation and contrast levels. I also cropped the image to make it the right dimensions for our background and made the image less sharp.

I also set the image so it did not scroll with the page and was always fixed in a particular position on screen, this meant that the image did not have to be tiled, which looked better.

By making the blog width wider in comparison to the page, the font automatically became much larger so it was easier to read. The tags section also became wider so the tags which has less items (and were much smaller that the others) were much more readable which makes our blog very simple and easy to use.

 Because the rest of our colourscheme was grey, I changed the shade of grey that was our header to a darker tone, this worked better with the dark background and made our title more obvious. 

To go with the header, I also changed the colour our links would be when clicked / unclicked from shades of pink to shades of grey. This is more suitable for te rest of the blog colour scheme.

Practical: Editing Flash Forwards

Practical: Editing Experiment - Flash Forwards

As we want a restricted narrative, I edited the story to include flash forwards to lead up to the final scenes. This increases the tension and forebodes future events, creating a good cinematic effect and fulfilling what our audience wants.

I had edited this part of the film opening before screen grabbing. But I have explained each step the exact way that I did it.

1. I layered two similar clips over each other by dragging one lower than the other on the storyboard. To then be able to see both at the same time I reduced their opacity so that the two clips overlap and are both seen, one over the other in the same timeframe.
 

2. To improve the transition of the clips I added a default transition. It was an replica of a ending tape. I made it shorter than the default setting as it made it less obvious and therefore made it flow better, and the flash forward scene worked better.

 

This technique of flash forward scenes means that the scenes fit in well and the whole scene fits in even if it is from a different time period.

 

Deconstruction: Answers to Questionnaire

Deconstruction: Answers to Questionnaire

To ensure that our target audience would enjoy our film opening we had to research who our target audience were and what they wanted.
We decided on having a target audience at a similar age to us (Late teens - 16 and 17). We did this by having actors at a similar age to our target audience.

All of the questions we asked on our questionnaire were multiple choice.

 

The main response to this question was supernatural - the sub-genre of horror that we chose to base our film opening on. As our character is possessed by a supernatural force, we incorporated the second highest want of our target audience - the possession sub-genre. Although some of our target audience wanted the other sub-genres we decided to use the most wanted option due to wanting to be successful with the majority of the target market.

 



 

The largest response to this question was having a supernatural villain in our film opening, which links to the sub-genre previously chosen. We decided to use this as an inspiration rather than a definite character as we do not have the programmes to be able to produce a believable ghost figure. Instead, we decided to use an undead girl. This conforms to common depictions in possession horror films. We are not planning to include large scenes of the girl as this will reduce the tension and enigma around the character, which again, is a common convention around villains in horror films.

 



 
To ensure that we knew how to address our target market we had to ask what they enjoyed seeing. This would allow us to include the most popular answers in our film opening. The largest want of our target audience is suspense and tension, we will ensure that we have this as it is also a common convention of horror film openings. We will do this through fast editing and a restricted narrative. Having a restricted narrative will also utilise unanswered questions and flashbacks, appealing to most of our target audience.

From these questions and answers we are able to get a good idea of what we need to include to be able to appeal to our target audience. We used a sample of 50 people in our target audience age which gives us a good representation of answers that the whole sample will want.

Actors: Victims in Supernatural Horror - Bailey May

Actors:victims 

Victims in films ,especially horror films, are essential to making the film scary and maximising the films effect on the audience due to portraying their and the audiences insecurities and fears.

Throughout history the victims have mostly being female due to this idea that they are more vulnerable and unable to defend themselves while man are portrayed as the heroes protecting and saving the female victims.  

Victims in supernatural horror have evolved over time such as demonstrated by The Exorcist in which the girl becomes the victim to the demonic spirits.

This conforms to the age old stereotypes of girls being vulnerable and weak which was the common convention in the 1970s. This was further instated in this film through the girl having to be saved by a male Priest further conforming to the common gender conventions contemporary to the time.

Also the fact her mother was unable to help or save her daughter conforms that females are vulnerable and need help in dangerous and scary occasions. 

However, in more recent times, the gender roles have switched and become more equal as the boy in the film Insidious (Dalton) is the victim of paranormal entities. He is the victim of the paranormal, demonic spirit which subverts the common representation the males are the heroes and not immune to being victims.

Moreover, the evil spirit is deranged from an evil possessed woman so it is continuing in subverting from common expectations in regards to gender roles and challenging societies instantaneous perceptions of victims in films and gender roles.

Continuing, the only person able to save Dalton was an elderly woman which subverts not only the gender conventions but also the conceptions of age which only emphasises how vulnerable the male victim is. 

Although the victims in the contemporary film The Conjuring are all female, conforming back to the stereotypes of women being the victims in film.

The victims act as helpless and vulnerable in search for masculine help in the form of their father who is commonly portrayed by the media the savour. 

Also their mother becomes possessed and exploiting the stereotype of woman being victims and conforming to the audiences expectations of the narrative of the film.

Evaluation

Having compared victims in supernatural horror from the past and the present it is evident that the common media presentations of victims has changed over the years. There is now a more balanced number of male and female characters who act as the victims which subverts original prejudices in society and they now represent a more equal society

In regards ti our product, the victim can either be a male or female actor due to the shift in ideologies in gender roles. However, it is still embedded that males are the 'heroes' in these films saving the conventional female victim. 

Therefore, I think it would be creative by having a male victim to subvert the common conventions to add out own originality to our product while also making the audience uncomfortable due to illustrating that no matter which gender everyone is vulnerable.