Our narrative - based on a true life event

Part of our narrative is based on a true life story that is shown below. Combing my audience research with other members within our group, we found that people are most provoked when watching a horror film that’s based on a true life event or inspired by one.



Case study

The character named Annabelle in our narrative plays the role of the young suicide victim. We adapted this case study to fit into our narrative, which explains why Annabelle committed suicide (“...Annabelle commit suicide; from a drug overdose, due to the constant hassle of people calling her ‘crazy’ and the continuous terrorizing from Guinevere”).

Our narrative

This week we were put into our groups to start working towards our 3 production tasks consisting of the horror film poster, front magazine cover and trailer. As a group we decided on different themes that we would like to include in our trailer to begin with, and chose to base it on a real life event of that we carried out research into and found a case study of an 11 year old girl that committed suicide. From this and relating to the paranormal, we came up with our narrative:


The narrative of our film features a young girl named Annabelle, aged 15, who lived with her mother, father and younger brother. She loved to write, especially poems. Every day she would write in her diary; a new poem and a chapter about her day concerning her emotions and feelings especially about how she was tormented and labelled about having mental health issues as she would hear voices and see ghosts. She believed that she haunted by a ghost who she named ‘Guinevere’ (around the age of 5, but no one knows) or otherwise known as ‘The ghost that lives at 134 Queens Road’, who manipulated and antagonized her constantly because all she wanted was someone to play with her and love her, like her mother never did. This eventually made Annabelle commit suicide; from a drug overdose, due to the constant hassle of people calling her ‘crazy’ and the continuous terrorizing from Guinevere. All she wanted was to be left alone. Guinevere was finally at peace when Annabelle died, as she finally got the friend she always wanted, now that Annabelle is in a spirit form. Leaving her at 134 Queens Road. When Annabelle died, all she left was her diary, and the mystery of her death unsolved. Until now. 17 years later, a family of four moves into the house that Annabelle committed suicide in. The family consists of single mother thirty six year old ‘Sandra’, her two brothers ‘Anthony’ (11 years old) and ‘Matthew’ (5 years old) and finally are main character ‘Tara’ who is 17 years of age. Tara finds a diary in her room and it happens to be the diary of Annabelle. She tells her mother about the diary and its contents and Sandra insists that she stops reading it and throws it out. Tara disregards what her mother says and still continues to read it and gradually creepy and abnormal things start to happen for example the noise of a young teenage girl crying. Sandra asks around the neighbourhood if anybody has ever heard of anything on the history of the house, one neighbour expresses that they heard of a teenage girl committing suicide, with this information Sandra goes on to the internet to research the house and finds an article on a blog website form ex neighbours about the ghost of Annabelle that they believe exists in 134 Queens Road. Sandra goes through Tara’s room and tries to throw away the diary believing that this would put a stop to all the unusual activity, but it does not. Tara believes that something is watching and haunting her and a series of events occur that makes it apparent that the ghost of Annabelle does actually exist. This results in Tara becoming mad and she leaves her house. To this day she has been missing. Without a signal warning or sign to know where she has gone. Leaving her family to believe that she may be missing forever, and even the possibility of her being dead. Now all they can do is wait for a knock on the door, a phone call, or a spiritual sign, just something that would tell them that she is still with us.

General update

We have been looking at how to write narratives during lesson, and as a class came up with a list of fears in contemporary society which will help us as a starting point in creating and developing our narratives.

Fears in contemporary society

As a group we then decided to brainstorm ideas that we found most interesting and which we wanted to explore within our narrative. Below is the brainstorm I wrote with the different ideas we came up with as a group.

Brainstorming ideas

After carrying our the brainstorm we all liked the idea of our horror movie being based off of a true story and having elements of the supernatural in it. We chose to look for a real life suicidal victim who had died from an overdose of pills and from depression. The bases of our narrative would go along the lines of a new family moving into the house where a girl committed suicide. Another member of the family would find a diary in the house and as she reads it, paranormal things start to happen, leading to the death of some family members.

In the next few days we will be writing the full narrative up and I will be looking for a case study of a suicidal victim.

The Blair Witch Project Parody

As part of our first group task, our challenge was to create a scene inspired by a horror movie that we had all seen. We were only given a short space of time of two days to get this production done, which included filming, editing, and finding a suitable location. We created a parody of The Blair Witch Project by emphasis on the appearance of the actual Blair Witch at the end. The reason why we chose the Blair Witch was simply because we wanted to give a good production with the limited resources and time we had. By the scenes consisting of only handheld shots, we were able to blend different re-enacted scenes together and create a mini extract similar to what you'd find in the Blair Witch Project movie, except with the appearance of the witch at the end.

                      

My group!

Earlier this week were given the groups that we are going to be in for the production of our new horror film promotional package. I will be in a group with 3 other people who are, Beth, Asha and Ellesha. Things to remember through the production will be teamwork and our communication skills, so that we are completing tasks that are set on time, and work efficiently towards the deadlines for each of the different products we will be creating.

 Asking around the group I found out that Beth's strength was using Premiere Pro and that Ellesha know's how to create music through different programs on the Apple mac computers. When it comes to the production of our trailer, this will work towards our advantage as we have two group members that are familiar with different things. As for myself and Asha, we will probably be taking charge of the poster and magazine, although these things may change towards the start of production. 

Audience Reseach - experimentation booth

The soundtrack we used is here below to listen to:

Audience Research - focus group results

Results that we got back from our focus group were:

-When there’s soft talking, barely any background music, and suddenly a loud outbreak of suspense type music is played it jumps the audience - "...Big loud noise and you didn't expect it!"

-When things are thrown at the screen, such as in paranormal activity when man comes flying towards the camera, it makes the audience jump – this may be because they fear the fact that the person/object is up so close, almost as if they're trying to get out of the screen and come into contract with the audience

- A comment made that I found significant was "I think filming it documentary style makes it more real". We came to a concluded that this would be effective because when the characters are talking to the camera, like a documentary presenter, it engages with the audience directly, and they feel as if they are a part of whats taking place on screen.  

Audience Reseach - Questionaire results

From carrying out our questionnaire research to the two target audience of

·         Teenagers: 17-18

·         Adults: 19-30

Results show that horror appeals to adults more so than teenagers.

The most popular favorite movie genres were: were SciFi and comedy from the options given to choose from. But many also wrote down hybrids of genres including horror, romance, and action.

Most teenagers for the second questions “do you like the movie genre horror?” said no, with just a couple with an interest in it. Many of the adults on the other hand said yes, with a few in the middle, depending on the horror movie.

The third question asked what they were most afraid of, many circled “the unknown” along with zombies and ghosts. This indicates the fear factor of not being aware of what surrounds you being the most threatening aspect for both target audiences. 

The forth question, “What would you look for in a horror movie?” the most popular circled answer was the sound such as screaming or tension building music followed by the second most popular answer being the way in which the camera is used e.g. close up of the killer. This is something that we will be closely considering during the production of our horror trailers as its something important that two target audiences look out for in horror movies.

The last question asked “What would make you want to watch a horror movie?” we asked this question to find out what the most important aspect of new film promotional package would be. From the results, most circled the trailer and word of mouth. From this we have concluded that the horror trailer should be good enough to have people talking about it and encouraging them to go watch it!

Conventions of a trailer?

Throughout watching various different trailers, I have been able to come up with the key trailer conventions which should I will consider when it come to the production of our horror trailers.

Movie names - Part of marketing

Whilst looking at what makes an effective marketing campaign for a movie, I looked at different movie names and deconstructed ideas that came to mind just by knowing the name of the movie.

Chariot of Fire: 
- Action
- Historical
- Gladiators

The Amazing Spiderman: 
- Comic book hero - well known
- Thriller/action

The Borne Legacy:
- Action
- About a legacy, reputation that's left behind
- Powerful

Frankenweenee: 
- Playing on the name 'Frankenstein'
- Comedy
- Children's movie

The Monk:
- Having a moral ending
- Passing a message
- Religion/religious view points created or conveyed

Audience Reseach - Focus groups

In addition to the questionnaires, a focus group will also be conducted to gain a more informal approach to the two target audiences and explore their views on horror films too.
Here is how the focus group will be set up for both target audience groups:

- Introduction to what the focus group is about

- Series of questions:
Whats your favorite movie genre?
Have anyone considered the genre horror? If not, why not?
What are reasons you wouldn't watch a horror movie?
Overall, what do you look out for whilst watching a movie?

- A horror trailer will then be shown to them, Paranormal activity but the group won't be told this:



- Discussion about the trailer, conversation leading questions:
What made the trailer scary/frightening?
What do you think was the most important part of the trailer?

Audience Research - Questionaire

To find an ideal target audience that the genre horror appeals to the most I have broken it down into two age groups which research will be taken place with
-Teenagers: 17-18
-Adults: 19-30

To gain a better understand of the views from these two target audience I will be conducted another questionnaire, but concentrating more on the genre of the movie and what types of things makes people go watch movies.

What makes an effective film tralier?

What makes an affective film trailer?

A film trailer is a powerful weapon when it comes to marketing campaigns. Film trailers are the first point of interaction with its target audience as it shows real extracts from the film. Posters are an important element of marketing campaigning, as they capture the initial interest of the audience and draw them into the cinema to watch the film. With both moving imagery and sound film trailers create excitement and a lively atmosphere for the audience viewing it.

Although the film, Last Passenger (2013), directed by Omid Nooshin is a hybrid between action and horror, it demonstrates how you can make an effective film trailer without even making the movie before hand.

Marketing and campaigning

Marketing and Campaigning

A key element when it comes to the production of our horror trailers, posters and magazine front covers is the way its marketed to its target audience.

The film producers are the distributors, as they sell their films to various different cinemas which they make money off of through the amount of tickets sold. Before identifying the different elements that make a successful marketing campaigning I looked at different types of marketing campaigning already done in some films:

·         The Blair Witch Project (1999) – there marketing campaign play along the movie being in a form of a mockumentory. The posters from The Blair Witch Project was created to look like an actual “missing people” poster, which went up all around America and people are questioning the truth behind this, engaging the audience into going to the cinema to watch it.

·         Psycho 1960 – Director Alfred Hitchcock chose to close the doors as soon as the film began to ensure no disturbance would occur, but also as a smart marketing campaign as people would wonder what the opening of the film would be like, and in general what the film would be about.

·         Halloween (1978) – this film was released on Halloween. Taken by the concept of the film, it “hyped up” the fear of Halloween, as people wondered what would happen on the day, and there was a true murderer as much out on the loose.

Through this I was able to identify the major elements of a film marketing campaign:

·         Having an iconic theme tune/song e.g. Psycho strings

·         Film trailer – not reveal all aspects of the film

·         Posters

·         Merchandise – E.g. having signed actors mugs, or posters of them

·         Social media – E.g. having a movie trailer shown before a YouTube video

·         Having the movie displayed on front covers of magazines

Why do people go to watch movies?

Just by doing a quick ask around the class we came up with a few ideas as to why people may go out to cinema to watch films:

·         Squeals

·         Peer to peer sharing on films E.g. if a really famous/favourite actor was in a particular movie

·         Games turned into films – A form of Synergy used here

·         A favourite genre

Cabin In The Woods (2012)

Cabin In The Woods (2012) written and directed by Drew Goddard, is an iconic film in horror as it not only plays on convnetions of horror films, but also has a deeper meaning behind it.

         

Reading an article from the Media Magazine, it explores the significance of the film and what conventions are featured in it. A key convention that the article highlights is the opening sequence; where there is an introduction of the 5 college 'types': "Whore, Athlete, Fool, Scholar and Virgin". These are the main 5 characters in the movie that go off stay in the cabin. As of all horrors, you have the mixture of characteristics, where we expect a final girl or boy to survive (possible the virgin as she hasn't caused any sins).

References to films such as Evil Dead and Wrong Turn are made in the film through dark wild backwoods holding the twofold,'push and pull' of primal evil vs wild abandon. Although there's a twist in Cabin In The Woods, as the 5 campers are under surveillance by a sinister corporation.

The film identifies the different 'archetypes' that humans have told stories about since the beginning of time. Archetypes are constantly repeating characters that occur in dreams of all people and the myths of all cultures. The article states the different evil characters that are listed in the film "Zombies, clowns and the Hell Lords, sexy witches, dismemberment goblins, wraiths, twins, vampires and an Appalachian reneck torture family".

Something that I found most interest from the article was this:

The three layers of The Corporation's base in the film could represent the three levels of filmmaking. I found this relationship between these two quite interesting as the viewers (the audience) are aware of whats happening with the actors in the different scenario; similarly in the audience in the film are aware of the threats opposed to the actors too, but to them it's 'real life' since it all in the movie.   

The article also points out that the moive "actively draws attention to the scopohilia of film". Scopohilia refers to the concept of being obsessed with 'looking' in a voyeuristic way, throughout the film we see this demonstates. E.g. the sex scene, where Jules and Curt go off into the wood, we see the audience in the coporation watch them in a voyeuristic way.

What does my survey reseach show?

By asking 17-22 year olds about horror movies and what words comes to their mind, the most popular were: Darkness, Blood, Loneliness and Killing. This could suggest that these are the first few things that they notice whilst watching a horror movie. All 4 of these words link together, and almost create a convention of horror films; Being left alone and in the darkness creates the atmosphere and fear of the unknown, where potential killing of an victim could take place, with little blood shown on screen.

The second question explored the elements from a horror film that is important to their viewers. Most popular were, the narrative, the location and the killer/murderer. I believe that the narrative is the most important one out of the other two, as it is what people go out to watch and with a bad storyline, the movie wouldn't succeed in its location choice, or what the killer/murderer is like or does.

Lastly, the third question asks what the viewers think makes a successful horror movie. The two most popular answers were: The narrative and the main killer/murderer. From this, I can draw the conclusion that the narrative is something of importance when it comes to the production and storyboarding of the movie trailer. The narrative will have to include a good concept of the killer, or have to present the killer in a sinister/evil manner to draw the audience in; furthermore will have to be conveyed through darkness and loneliness.