Audience Research Focus Group

The Horror Genre

This extract is from a book entitled 'The Horror Genre' which defines what a horror should include to make it successful. It describes what fear actually is and how to adapt to it to make a product fit in with the horror genre. This links with the research about horrors and how horror trailers and campaigns are filmed and made as they use the conventions explained here. It explains about Stephen King, one of the most famous horror writers, and how he created fear through his writing. It shows different ways in which fear can be used such as when something fearful may occur or what could occur. This helps to show how to make a trailer fit with the conventions of horror and how to manioulate situations to make them more fearful.

Fonts.

These are some font examples that could be used for my magazine cover and poster to fit the atmosphere of a horror. They could also be used for my title pages in my trailer. I showed my target audience these four fonts and asked their opinion on which they though best suited a horror campaign. I have only chosen four as I feel these are the main fonts that show off a possible horror genre.
It was interesting to see my audiences reactions, as there answers didn't match what I was expecting. My particular favourite font was the second font as I felt it represented wood and looked sinister, however my target audience preferred the first font. This is why I have chosen this as my main font for titles on my products.

Treatment.

Sinister Campaign.

This is the sinister campaign of which the film is advertised by its trailer and poster. It shares links within colour, mise-en-scene, lighting and formatting.  The lighting in the products vary as in the trailer the lighting is dominated with dark eerie colours with little natural light. Whereas in the poster, the lighting is unusually bright but the colours used are dark. The poster is brightly lit which differs from the lighting used in the trailer, but this is used so the face in the blood is clearly seen. If dark colours were used here, the face could be lost and the poster wouldn't be as successful. This is why the lighting is unusually bright in a horror film poster. However, the colours used in the poster are dark as the blood is a dark red to add fear into the trailer, and the title of the film is completely black. This is a typical convention of horror films as black connotates fear and evil. Also, the top of the poster is dark with cracks within it to show the wall is breaking and connotate breaks in the film. The girl in the poster is wearing white and is blonde which is usually a pure colour, and this shows innocence. However due to the blood coming from her, we know she is not as innocence as she looks and could be deceiving. To connect with the trailer, dark colours are used in nearly every shot to show evil in the house. The small sections of light used are when the house is shown through an establishing shot and looks like an everyday house through the bright lights of outside. In nearly every shot in the house the lighting is eerie is dark coming from small lamps to dimly light the room. The other sections of light are seen on the videos the main character is watching when the family are acting normal. The only natural light seen is when situations are normal. This clearly connotates that the house is haunted and evil shown through the dark light used.

The Story Of Film.

The Story of Film

This is 'The Styory Of Film' by Mark Cousins who is a film critic. He has many different episodes and they show the films he has critiqued.

180degree rule.

Its one of the main media rules that means two characters should always have the same left and rigfht relationship to each other. This allows spacial awareness to seem realistic, and not distort it to an audience. The imaginary line in a shot is called the 'axis' and a camera must not cross this as this is called 'crossing the line'. The new shot shwoing the other character is called the reverse angle.

Scream 4 Campaign

These three products come together to make a campaign to advertise the film Scream 4, and they all link together through light, mise-en-scene and formatting. For all three products, light is used to convey a dark mood for the genre of horror. With the poster, the entire background is completely black to connotate the night and create fear within the audience. The plain background emphasis the iconic mask more on the poster to make it stand out. This helps the audiences eye draw to the mask first to make it obvious what film the poster was advertising. To continue with this, the magazine has dark colours such as his robe to connect to the magazine and keep within the dark mood. It shows that he is the dark character within the film with bad intentions. Black connotates evil so this shows he is the main villain in the film. However the magazine uses light colours behind 'Ghostface' to symbolise fire. Even though these light colours are used, terror is still induced as fire connotates pain and suffereing to advertise what the film is about. This still connects with the poster as they both show fear and connect with the horror genre. They both advertise the horror of the film well with colour and connect with each other.  The trailer also connects with the poster and magazine in the way of light as the whole trailer uses dark colours and a dark setting as most of the trailer is set at night time. The nightime ties in with the dark colours of the magazine and poster as they heavily use black to stay within the setting of the trailer. Having mostly all of the trailer at nightime, shows fear as it is the unknown and creates mystery. It again, shows evil and shows that evil is happening at night; therefore throughout the whole trailer. This gives a clear suggestion of what the film is going to be about.