Research and Planning - Quennan's Guide to Horror Film Cliches

Last year in our media class, we decided to look through an article on horror cliches that we thought may come in use within our own trailer, that we can use to look back on for typical horror cliches, as we gain our audiences attention to the genre and narrative of our trailer. As my group and I are doing a similar genre this year we thought this would be appropriate to put on our blogs so we can relate back to it whilst Planning our teaser trailer. Here below I have highlighted and quoted some of the key points which I feel that we should use.

• They are split into differnt catergories: slasher, zombie, vampire, mainstream horror, Asian horror and revolting Eli Roth films. ' I think that the catergory that we are thinking about doing will be the mainstream horror as we will be looking at some religious elements that have been taken to the extreme, with maybe a slasher element thrown in with the knifes and blood in some of the shots.
• 'All of these subgenres rely on worthy, battle-tested cliches that appear again and again. Indeed, horror is the one genre in which the absence of cliches would ruin everything.'
• 'Small children are often evil in horror movies.' We have decided to go with young teenage girls instead as they posess the same innocence as children but also keeps the target audience young and interested.
• 'Teenage in horror movies are usually spoiled brats who deserve to die.'
• 'Horror films work best in rural settings.' We will be setting our trailer in the rural areas like the isolated solitary house and the woods where there is no one to know what is happening there, creating lonley, isolated and eerie setings.
• 'Horror movies almost always contain a scene in which a woman washes her face in a sink, and when she straightens up and looks in the mirror, a girl missing half her face is staring directly back at her.' I think this would be a good scene for our trailer, however im not to sure as to how we could fit it into the narrative prehaps when we are filming we could try out some shots and see how they look.
• 'Horror movies also contain lots of scenes in which the living dead or the living undead zip past an open door or window, but nobody sees them.' I think again this would be an effective scene to do so if we can pull it off and this could cause alot of tense atmosphere if right.
• 'The more gruesome films in the genre require captives to sacrifice one section of their bodies in order to preserve others.'
• 'It is always a bad idea to go to sleep in horror films, or accept a ride from strangers, or resepond to personal ad. It is an even worse idea to get in an elevator, a popular hideout of the promiscuously dead.'
• 'Never purchase a dirt-cheap house or apartment.'
• 'Never have any kind of medical operation in a horror film.'
• 'Never go into a dark room alone.'
• 'Never answer the phone in a horror movie.

Research and Planning - Key Points To Get Across In A Trailer

In order to attract your target audience you need to get them to know certain things about the upcoming film.

• Title - Though not all teaser trailers do this
• Release Date - Depending on how close to the films release, the date could be very specific (20.08.11), vague (Summer 2011) or merely say "Coming Soon"
• Genre i.e Horror, Romance
• Cast - more important in romances/commedies than others
• Plot Info - usually not a lot is revealed, especially in teasers
• Unique Selling Point - very important as this will attract audiences to the film.

Research and Planning - Audience Profiling - Breaking Dawn

• This is the audience profile found for the film 'Breaking Dawn'. I have chosen to analyse this films audience profile because I thought it is a similar genre 'romance, drame' and target audience as to what my group and I are wanting to produce. I found the audience profile on the same website 'Pearl and Dean' as I have done for the other audience profiles that  I have analysed such as 'Halloween'.

• From looking at this audience profile, I can see, that the main age group of the highest percent, that viewed this film was 15-24 (the film itself was rated 12A). I can also see that the percentage of men and women who came to see the film, was more popular with a female audience, I can assume this is because the film is a 'romance' inwhich relates to more a female audience as opposed to a male audience. Women like to have an attachment to one strong, male architype of a rescuer, that will wisk the lady away from all the bad in the world and will protect her forever. Many of the Disney classics for example, 'Snow White', 'Cinderella' are based around evil over good and many 'romance horros' these days follow a similar structure.

•  This audience profile shows that the Romance genre (or this film inparticular) was popular with adolescent teens through to young adults. I think this is because romance films give a fantasy sense of love and relationships to a young female audience, this will appeal to a mixed female audience.

• The narrative of the film itself, may also appeal to this female audience as the characters in the film 'Breaking Dawn' are infact young of the older end of this age group. This may give a relatable side to the film and therefore make this female age group more attracted to the film. However, this may appeal more to the younger end of this age group as they will be able to relate to the characters.

• This particular age group would be attracted to the film 'Breaking Dawn', to see for themselves if they found the film to be romantic, as it was said to have been and see if it deserves it's popularity. The fact that the majority of audience members are female, maybe also show a feminine view of this genre. It is fairly obvious that females find the romance/fantasy of this genre more appealing than men do.

• I will need to consider this target audience when creating my teaser trailer. By considering this I will make sure that my trailer will appeal to a similar target audience, also taking into consideration the horror genre, as my group and I have chosen to do a 'romance, horror' and I have now analysed a 'romance' audience profile and a 'horror' audience profile. To make sure that are film is targeted to the right audience, we will make sure we add references throughout to topics or phrases. My group and I are popular within this audience group, and we are especially knowledgeable in this area. 

Below I have attached the Breaking Dawn trailer;

Research and Planning - Audience Profiling - Conclusion

Overall from looking at 'Breaking Dawn' and 'Halloween' audience profiles, my group and I have decided on putting the two together and creating a 'romance, horror'. We have come to the conclusion as to which type of audience would be the targeting audience for our teaser trailer, after looking at both film genres (romance and horror) and both films having a different audience to one another. 'Breaking Dawn' having a higher female percentage of 66% and 'Halloween' having a higher male percentage of 59%.
Age

• It is clear that the age range my group and I will be targeting is 15-24, as out of all of the films we have researched into, this was always the highest age range for this specific genre.

Gender

• The target audience that my group and I have chosen, bearing in mind gender does not have one in particular, as for each film, the percentages for gender were close to one another however, having a higher percentage from the male audience on the film 'Halloween' and a higher percentage from the female audience on the film 'Breaking Dawn' . However as we have chosen to do 'romance horror', the narrative will be around romance and this is usually targeted towards the more female audience however, this means that anyone will watch this type of film and will therefore be targeted to both the male and female audience.