1. As research we had looked at many horror movies to ensure we knew all the codes and conventions of the horror movie industry. We looked at different film companies and saw what type of movies they made. For example Twisted Pictures are most famous for the making of the Saw sequels. They also only make horror and thrillers, so they stick to one or two genres. Their main audience would be 15 year olds and older.
We also watched out for the different identities of the villains in the movies we watched and analysed. In some movies you never even see the villain which leaves a huge suspense to the audience and a definite dark feel to what you are watching. Most Villains have two identities, they will be a normal working person in the day but when they are going to commit murders they are most likely to have some type of make to hide their true identity, but as soon as you see the mask you can tell that they will be the villain. Also the way they kill their victims is very important and shows their character and what goes through their head.
In our movie our murderer is a classic masked killer that always wore a hood as well, he also stalks his victim before he murders them which is very twisted, he stalks them like a predator would stalk their prey. Before he kills the victim he is always hiding in the shadows making sure he is undetectable to the people around him. The first thing you notice on him is his mask.
2. In our film we have the social group of a teenage/youth who like to party and get drunk and mainly have a good time with everyone they know. In the start the victim is hosting a party for her whole year, also the character is an attractive teenage girl with blonde hair, which is quite stereotypical.
The party is going well until she finds out her boyfriend has cheated on her at her own party because of the alcohol that he had previously consumed. This then leads to the victim being upset and in a vulnerable position she had enough of him misbehaving and leaves her party and walks through town and through some dark alleyways which is very open and then starts to get thinner down the other end which makes you feel nervous for her and makes you feel like something is going to happen but you don't know when and what. The victim gets very nervous as she gets into darker places and she gets paranoid and looks behind her continuously. She stay very close to the walls which gives her a clingy feel. In front of her friends she is confident, she is so confident to throw a big party for everyone but then when she is by herself she shows to be vulnerable in some situations.
3. For our movie i think it would be more of a thriller company that would invest in our movie, even though it does have a horror feel to it i still think it is more of a thriller, it is a mix of the two genres though.
I have found a production company that will probably be the best one to help with the movie, they are called 'Hammer Film Productions' it produces some of the most famous horror/thriller movies of all time, like Dracula, Frankenstein and The Mummy. It has also done the recent movie, The Woman in Black which is rated one of the scariest movies of the year. I think Hammer Productions will be perfect our movie, and as it has produced some of the most famous movies, maybe ours would be next.
4. For our movie i think that our audience will be an audience of around 18 year olds and over. But with horror movies you always get a younger audience wanting to see the latest scary movie, for example a lot of younger people will watch the saw movies even when they are 13 to 17 this is to show that they want to be older and the media has affected many things like this. hey can easily get hold of a copy of the DVD from their parents or older friends or siblings. Im not saying that we will aim for that particular audience but we will get younger people watching our movie. I think the gender of our audience we are attracting is males, this is the focus but females will also want to watch this. Maybe young couples could be a target too.
5. We will attract our audience by having a well edited trailer of the movie, and have parts that will make the viewer want to come and see the full movie. It will have to have happy and upbeat parts at the start, like the part at the party to suggest the people involved in the movie, then have flashes of the victim walking and getting faster, and then a scream, then a close up of the killer in his mask. This will defiantly make people want to watch the movie.
Advertising is very important, having a spot on the TV will boost the viewers so much. Also it will stand out a lot more rather than on the radio or posters. We will go down the viral route to advertise our movie. Ideally having it on YouTube will be the best site to get on, but this will cost a lot of money.
6. I think that software we used was not very good compared to other editing software out there. The fact that it looked so complicated all over it could have been so much more simple. But we had to use what we could, after getting a bit more used to it, it got slightly easier to use. But there was a limit to somethings you could do, also when you had to render the clips it took quite a long time which was frustrating. Using 'Final Cut' was hard but we made the most of what we had and it got the job done.
The Camera we used where very good. They were simple to use because of the layout. Connecting them to the computer is also very easy, as was getting the videos from the Flip camera to the Mac. They filmed in full HD and had up to 2 hours of film time on them which is enough time for each day we filmed.
7. Seeing as my prelim is nothing to do with my final piece, because I filmed it by myself using my own ideas. The main progress i feel I've made is my camera work and how I film things, in my prelim i didn't use a tripod or any other equipment apart from just the camera. And in my final piece we used more equipment like a tripod and we used a couple of them which were different so we got to know which was better or worse.
