Main brief responsibilities

To begin our planning for our main brief, we have given each member of the group a responsibility in order to complete this task in time and successfully.

Joe's role in the group is to ensure that the storyboard is completed to a high quality and to also write the screenplay and script for our opening. Callum is responsible for the out-takes and removing any shots we decide not to use as they will not be needed. He is also sharing responsibility over the script with Joe. Harriett's responsibility is to create a list of characters in our opening with an analysis of each one. She will also be sharing the role with myself and Callum, on making sure the production schedule is continuously being updated. My role in this group is to make a list of props and costumes which we will be using in our sequence. I will also be taking pictures of the recce as we plan on using my house as the setting. 

As a group, we will all take part in the overall narrative planning, sound research and any required re-filming if needed. These responsibilities require group discussions and decisions in order to create a successful opening to our horror film.

Focus group: Favourite horror film

To find out more about our target audience, we put together two groups, a female group and a male group both ages 16-17. In our groups, we discussed what films were our favourite and least favourite with a explantation as to why they think this. This can be beneficial to my own opening as this additional information would help us greatly when creating the narrative which audiences our age would thoroughly enjoy as this age group watch horrors the most.

YouGov - The Horror Channel

From using YouGov, I have carried out some secondary research which presents the type of audiences that enjoy 'The Horror Channel'. This British television channel presents horror films and series of all genres ranging from slasher to paranormal.
This research led me to gain an insight on the target audiences for horror films. The average age range for people who enjoy this channel are ages around 18-25 year olds. I am also able to see that mostly males watch horrors on this channel. This may be due to male interests being used in horrors such as violence. Whereas women come across and being less intrigued with the male interests. Lastly, I was able to see the films that these audiences enjoy to watch. From this, I am able to identify that these films are either horror or action-adventure films which also have a high chance of containing violent and graphic scenes.
For example, the horror 'Dawn of the Dead' is about a zombie apocalypse which included many violent and gory scenes. In another film genre, the action-adventure film, 'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey' also contains violence as fight scenes and deaths are included.
Therefore, from observing this table, horror audiences seem to be largely interested by the horror conventions, such as gore and jumpscares, more than any other genre. Furthermore, this will help me with my own horror opening as I can include many horror conventions to ensure that I target the correct audience.

YouGov profiles

Purge Anarchy

Scream

People who enjoy going to the cinema

These target audience YouGov profiles for both, 'The Purge' and 'Scream' help me realise that male and female genders can like one horror film more than the opposite sex. It also informed me that the age bracket for people who enjoy these films are 25-39 years olds. However, the age group of people who enjoy going to the cinema is 18-25 year olds. Therefore, our target audience also targets 18 years olds as we feel as though from these profiles that they would watch and distribute our film most. Also by carrying out this research, we gained the idea of distributing our film to many different cinemas. Both film profiles I have researched also have hobbies based around the media, therefore, this is beneficial when we would be in need of young adults to distribute our film.

Pitch questions and answers

As a group, we created a pitch with included the plot, character information, who we wish to work in synergy with, recce pictures, target audience and certification.  

After sharing our work with the class, we then had to answer a few questions our classmates wanted us to answer. We used an element of google slides in order of them to be able to ask the questions online and anonymously.




Questions 

1. If your demographic age group is 15-18 your cutting out the 19-25 year old's, wouldn't you rather have a wider age range to attract more people ?
2. In synergy to produce or to distribute the film?
3. This sounds like a scene from a film maybe half way through, how are you going to make it clear it is an opening?

Answers

1. Yes, we wish to have a wide range of viewers enjoying this film, however, we chose 15-18 age range to base an age certification on it. From having this certification, it shows that only 15 year olds and over can watch this film. As it is a 15, we are able to show violence and gore but not in great detail.
2. Miramax have experience producing and distributing films therefore, if we work with this company, we are able to do both. By working with this institution, we are able to create good advertising as well and producing as they have more experience.
3. In order to ensure the audience is aware that it is an opening, we decided to make it appear as though the scene was just a bad dream. However, when she walks to the bathroom to rinse her face, the audience can see a red balloon floating past. This then gives the audience the idea that the horror is only just beginning.

Pitch

Ages of people who go to the cinema

This graph contains secondary data which shows information on the percentage of different age groups that go to the cinema during an 11 year period. From this line graph, it shows ages 15-24 have the highest perentage from 2003 to 2014, therefore go to the cinema the most. However, this percentage varies due this period. For exampe, in 2003 it was arund 30% but fell in 2004 to around 26.5%. It continued to vary with a peak of around 35% in 2011.


In contrast ages 7-14 had a lower percentage. For example, in 2003 12.4% of children went to the cinema, however, the percentage increased to 17.8% in 2004. The percentage had continued to vary but up to 2011, it was 14.6%.


These variations could depend on the type of films that were released that year. There is evidence for this due to the percentage of 7-14 year olds increasing at the same time the percentage for 15-24 years olds is decreasing from 2003-4.


Due to the largest audience being teenagers and young adults, this shows us that they have the biggest interests within media. We are able to agree with this data due to this age group being known as being at their most sociable with friends and going on dates, therefore they could go to the cinema.


This secondary information has helped me with my own opening as it has ensyred me to target my film for this age range. I could do this by making them feel as though they can relate to this film through different ways such as making using teenage characters in the film.