Finished horror trailer - "Obsession"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvw_7XJ5vbs

History of Horror

Analysis of a movie trailer - 'The Shining'

Analysis of a movie trailer - 'Room 1408'

Analysis of a horror movie trailer - 'Sinister'

Evaluation question three

Evaluation question one

Recce report

Evaluation question four.

Evaluation question two.

Full film idea

Full film idea As a group, we sat down and discussed possible film ideas in which we could create an appropriate film trailer for. We knew that we needed to have in mind the whole film idea in order to make the trailer because a film trailer contains clips from different points throughout a movie. After a lot of deliberating we came to the conclusion that we wanted a film based on obsessive stalking. The film is based around one main character; a typical looking college student who stalks female victims, often to the point of killing them. The film would see this character becoming gradually obsessed with one girl who has a small group of female friends. He slowly kills off the two friends and finishes with harassing the main girl. If our film was to be produced and filmed in full length, it would see some gory deaths with the main girl being the typical ‘final girl’. Final girl theory was compromised by theorist Carol Clover and basically states that the surviving girl in horror movies is more often than not the girl who doesn’t challenge the conservative ideology. Though it might not be expressed through our brief horror trailer, if we were to compile a movie together, the girl who lasts longest would be the girl who carries these more innocent traits. Claude Levi-Strauss looks at how binary oppositions determine media texts. In our movie, there are demonstrations of good vs. evil. The ‘good’ is the people who fall victim to the obsessive killer. Although they’re the majority and outnumber him in every way, the killer and his psychedelic power is the ‘winner’ in the end. The killer is definitely the ‘evil’ in our movie. If we’re looking further into more complex binary oppositions, we have a sort of ‘normal’ mental state vs. a ‘psychotic’ mental state. By this I mean that the victims have the mind set of any usual human being. They don’t suspect they’re being stalked and they have a casual optimism that nothing drastic is going to go wrong in their day to day life. On the other hand, the killer has a ‘psychotic’ mental state in the sense that he’s always thinking outside the box with how to approach his next victim subtlety. It is obvious that his mind isn’t in the right place and we can tell this through his obsessive ways. Binary oppositions are a big part of our film as the film is literally the killer vs. the victims throughout. Roland Barthes claims that media texts are polysemic and it’s up to the audience member’s perception of the text depending on their own life experiences. With our film being psychological, we wanted it to get deep into the audience’s mind, making them think about their own safety. This is what scares people; knowing it could happen to them. ‘Obsession’ is about an obsessive stalker who discreetly gets into the lives and minds of innocent female victims. If any audience members have been stalked or are being stalked, they could relate to the film and it would inject fear into them. However, even audience members that haven’t been stalked or aren’t being stalked can experience the fear. They may develop a fear or a self-consciousness that makes them paranoid that they could be being stalked. With the drastic outcomes (deaths) shown in our movie, they should end up fear stricken, which is our aim. Our film also touches on the theories of people such as Todorov. He suggests that media texts start with a state of equilibrium, a disruption to that state of equilibrium leading to a chain of events, the events being solved and then a new state of equilibrium is formed. This applies to our film. Everything starts off pretty swimmingly in a typical school setting. The audience then become aware that something isn’t quite right about the ‘schoolboy’ (killer) and start to question his way of life. The characters within the movie then start to notice something’s up but they brush it off thinking he’s just another one of those ‘weird’ kids that every school has. He then makes his first prominent killing and everyone’s suspicions rise into a genuine concern. A chain of events happen with the killings and deaths of students. This is where horror movies don’t always stick to Todorov’s theory. Our film idea ends with all of his victims dead and a deserted school with just the killer lurking about. The events aren’t solved and there isn’t a newly formed equilibrium. All in all, our full film idea follows a lot of the theories, just as I’d expect. These theories, especially the ‘final girl’ theory, helped us to come up with a fetching horror film idea that we could branch our thoughts from.

Storyboard/shot list

This was the original shot list compiled by my group and I to give us a structure to stick to when filming our trailer. We changed a few of our shots and our finished trailer is slightly different to this shot list. We adapted our trailer to make it better as we went along. This shows our ways of improvement.

My film poster draft

My film poster

Filming Schedule

Film magazine draft

Props/Costume list

Props/costume list Props used in our trailer: • Fake knife • Fake blood • Sweet wrapper • Fake foot • iPhone We decided to stick to the main generic props you would see in a typical horror movie trailer. This was so we could demonstrate the conventions of a horror trailer through our prop(s) use. Costumes used in our trailer: • White shirt covered in fake blood • Hooded top • Day time clothes We used casual day time clothes for the girls as they were just ordinary looking people in the trailer who happened to fall victim of the killer. For our main character (the killer), we decided a hooded top for some shots would represent secrecy and mystery. The fake blood filled shirt reinforced the horror elements.

Audience research (Independent)

My film magazine cover

Film magazine analysis - Empire

History of a horror character

Distribution Companies

Distribution companies are responsible for the marketing of a film. The film distribution companies used will determine to which extent a film will be distributed. Larger distribution companies that are well known and successful are more likely to get the film to cinemas and to have it more widely advertised and broadcast. Distribution companies are usually responsible for the release date, where it’s released etc. Larger distribution companies are likely to have the film advertised and broadcast in cinemas across various countries whereas smaller distribution companies are likely to only have few products such as DVD’s that are only sold in a particular country. 20th Century Fox Film Co. Ltd. and Warner Bros. Pictures are two well-known distribution companies that are seen in trailers and at the beginning of many big hit films. This tells the viewer straight away that it’s most probably going to be a good movie. The distribution companies shown at the beginning of films say a lot about a film before we watch it. This is because, as audience members, we judge it depending on if we’ve heard of it before or not.

Film magazine analysis - Empire

Film magazine analysis - Total Film

Audience research (general)

Audience for Horror films A variety of films are released in the cinema constantly throughout the year. The main percentage of cinema goers are aged 15-24 holding 29% of the viewing. People aged 7 – 44 have 84% of the viewing when it comes to going to the cinema. Horror films are designed to startle the viewer. It’s a genre of film that specific types of people enjoy. Not everyone likes horrors and therefore won’t attend a horror movie at the cinema. After researching statistics on Horror film audiences, I found that the majority of horror film viewers are males between the ages of 15-24 (the majority age range). Men seek action, thrill and gore from movies and find amusement in going to see a horror with their mates. Another reason men may enjoy watching horrors is because of the way women are portrayed. Women are objectified and used for sexual enjoyment. This leads into men being voyeuristic by getting pleasure from seeing women brutally attacked or murdered just because they’re in minimal clothes. Women tend to prefer comedies or romances because they’re a lot lighter to view. Men may choose to take women on dates to see horrors as it means they can cuddle up and get close to them… or just laugh at their expense! However, recent figures have shown that females are attending the cinema to see horror films a lot more than they used too. Older people don’t tend to watch horror movies as it’s not their cup of tea. They don’t often go to the cinema. People who live in cities or towns are more likely to attend the cinema as it’s more accessible for them. Living in rural areas don’t live near cinemas so don’t bother to make the effort to go to them often.

Representation of women in horror films

Representation of women in horror films In general, women are seen as the weaker sex; the sex that are in need of protection from men. Though not everyone will agree with this, we all know that it’s just how society is. Laura Mulvey brings up an interesting theory she called ‘Male Gaze Theory’. This theory was a feminist theory that came about around 1971, the time that feminism was a big part of society. She basically said that the world is ‘male’ and that men dominate pretty much everything. Mulvey said that in horror films, women are objectified by men. The camera in horror movies is through a male’s eye point, hence the name ‘Male Gaze’. I put this theory to test whilst watching the remake of ‘House of Wax’ and I found the theory applied to Paris Hilton’s character. In this movie, Paris Hilton was seen as the ‘sexy’ girl who had a ‘hunky’ boyfriend who looked after her. A lot of close ups and focuses from the camera were on Paris and her body. The scene in which Paris dies, we get a dramatized, detailed death in which close ups on her body were present. She died in just her underwear, making the death a lot more appealing to men. This is a fine example of women being objectified to be aesthetically pleasing to men and to lure them into watching and enjoying the movie. I’m sure a lot of men will remember that part the most, and probably even say it was the ‘best bit’! 'Cabin in the woods' is a horror film which sees a bunch of young adults go on a mini holiday to a cabin in the woods. They all like to explore the cabin, of course, it's a horror! They come across some peculiar objects in the attic, and end up choosing one to examine. As expected, the characters die off one by one according to their looks and personalities. The 'bad' girls are quick to go followed by the muscly men. The final two characters, one guy who smokes marijuana which I think is unfair. It's going against the 'final girl theory', but it's allowed because he's male. The other final character is the typical 'final girl' who, in the end, ends up saving the final guy. It's reversed expectations. We would expect, from hearing that situation, that the guy would end up being the 'hero' who saves the girl and maybe even falls in love with her. But no, the girl saves the guys arse. A bit of girl power! This leads in to Carol Clover’s theory. Her theory was called ‘Final Girl Theory’. This theory was applied to horror movies in that she believed the final surviving girl within the movie was always the virginal, innocent, intelligent cutesy girl. This girl wouldn't do anything that would challenge the conservative ideology. However, this girl would also carry quite masculine attributes. In my opinion, the ‘final girl’ has aspects of a traditional woman from back in the days where women respected themselves a lot more than women do these days. A lot of women these days seem to have no self-respect; whereas a few years back women didn't revolve their lives around sex and drugs. I watched ‘Cabin in the Woods’ and noticed that the surviving girl within the movie followed the theme of Clover’s theory. The first girls to die in this movie were the girls that smoked the marijuana and had sex with the guys and were bitchy towards the ‘innocent’ girl. The surviving woman in this movie was, of course, the woman that stayed away from all of that and had her head in the right place. Feminists would argue that women in horror movies aren't given enough credit. They're objectified and made to look tediously vulnerable. A horror that would challenges these common conventions would, in my opinion, be a lot more interesting in terms of the unexpected. Women carrying power would more likely terrify an audience because it's something we're not used too and wouldn't expect. Any film that manages to challenge the common conventions, but still meet the target of that genre, is a good film to me. Maybe horror movies are trying to create an underlying moral to their stories? That if you stay innocent and intelligent and focus on things in life other than sex and drugs that it will get you further? Then again, the opposing argument would be that if you stayed well away from all of ‘the good shit’ then you won’t enjoy your life as much. In these stories, the woman who lasts until the end is the woman that is placed in society as boring and unpopular. I think these films are trying to tell us that even people of this type can be seen as a hero in the end. These theories don’t apply to every horror film. They also don’t apply to the thoughts of every man. Some men will argue that they have a lot more respect for women and they wouldn't ever ‘objectify’ them. Not all men would look at a women dying in a sexualised way, they would see it as grotesque. This is when the general rule of Clover’s ‘final girl’ and Mulvey’s ‘male gaze’ is challenged by audience members forming a sense of a moral panic. They worry that they’ll be labelled as viewers of the film in certain ways and that in enjoying these movies, they would be encouraging these structures of films to be carried on in future film making. Most of these theories relate to feminism and interestingly enough, these theories are constructed by women. These look at the negative depiction of women in horror films without touching on any positive portrayals. In my opinion, I can see the logic behind these theories and I can also see why a sense of moral panic could come about, especially seeing as these theories were about in a time when society was a lot more fragile with these topics of issue. Again, it's all about what topics are of an issue at that time and how society sees them.