Ideal Audience Member Profile

During a discussion, within our Media group ‘Slasher Inc’, we all came up with an idea on what our ideal audience member profile would be. A audience member profile is the type of person that would be likely to view our film, e.g. a stereotype of the sort of person that’d go out of the way to watch our movie.

Now we all had our own rough ideas, on the person that would likely see our film. But once we’d sat down, rallied together we soon form idea’s on what this person would be like, how old they’d be, what social groups they would be part of. So from this we put the right words and phrases together to give ourselves a clear outline on this ideal audience member. This is the idea, in which we came up with;

• Be called Dave
• Be 18
• Studying in College, at the moment, but will go on and further his education in University
• Studies technological subjects, such as ICT, Media
• In his spare time ‘Dave’ loves playing video games on the ‘PlayStation 3’, with his favorite games being violent games such as ‘Manhunt’ and/or ‘Call of Duty’
• Aside from playing videos, in his spare time, he also likes to listen to music of the genre ‘Heavy Metal’ and attend music gigs, to do with that genre
• He is also apart of many groups such as ‘The Cannabis Club’, where he likes to bond and make new friends

To go along with our written down views on what ‘Dave’ would be like, act like we also had a fair idea on what he’d look like as a person. To help illustrate our ideas/views, we scowled the internet in hope of finding images that would fit our idea of ‘Dave’. These are a few images, which show the picture we have in our head of ‘Dave.

 Notice how, the person pictured, is young-looking, wears converse, rock t-shirts and is smoking to show an almost rebel-side to him. This image shows the look of the person, in which we imagine 'Dave' to look like.

Video

October Minutes

Setting up a tripod

 

This video shows our team member Jouvan setting up a tripod step by step.  A tripod is an important tool when using a camera as it is adjustable and it helps you support the camera.

Examples of horror films

Psycho

Psycho is a horror film made in 1960 by Alfred Hitchcock. Psycho is a highly respected horror film which made $32 million from a $806 thousand budget.Psycho is about a women called Marion who steals a certain amount of money from her office and escapes to a motel after being followed by a police man. Marion is later killed by Norman who is the owner of the motel. Later on in the film the audience find out that Norman isn't  psychological stable as he dresses up as his dead mother as a way of keeping her alive and as a way of guidance for him. Norman was later caught in the film by Marions sister who found Normans dead mums corpse in the basement, and he went to jail.

Insidious

Insidious was made in 2010 and had a budget of just over $1 million and made $91 million. Insidious was written by Leigh Whannell and directed by James Wan who produced Saw.

Insidious is about a family who are in a haunted house and their son gets possessed by the demons and goes into a coma. Later on in the film the parents find out that the house is possessed and that there are demons there after they asked for spiritual help form a lady. The spiritual stated that their son is out of his physical and his dad would be able to bring him back which he does however at the end of the movie the audience find out that he has been possessed too.

Halloween

Halloween is a 1978 movie directed by John Carpenter and produced by Debra Hill, Halloween had a $325 thousand budget and made $47 million.Halloween is a film about a character called Michael who escapes from a mental institution to go back to Haddonfield to find his younger sister and kills anybody in his way. Michael was institutionalised at a young age after killing his older sister and main goal is to kill.

Horror film director

James Wan is a 34 year old horror film director who was born in Malaysia. James Wan has graduated from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and has won many awards such as the Pegasus Audience Award, Special Jury prize, Youth Jury Grand Prize and the Audience Award.

James Wan is mostly known for directing the famous horror films Saw 1, Dead Silence and Insidious. James Wan’s directed films are recognised globally and have generated large amounts of gross at the box office with Saw 1 grossing $103 million, Dead silence grossing $22 million and Insidious grossing $91 million. James Wan is also known for creating the iconic and famous villain characters Billy the puppet and Jigsaw from Saw 1. The characters James Wan created were liked so much by the audience that character bags, toys, pencil cases etc were made which raised more money and awareness for the film. James Wan is also known for producing and being a screenwriter for horror films for example he produced Saw 3 and was the screenwriter for Dead silence.

Elizabeth's textual analysis of a horror film poster

Scream 4 (stylized as SCRE4M)

Director: Wes Craven

Writer: Kevin Williamson

The ‘Scream 4’ horror film poster is one that is very plain and simple. Recognizably, the (only) main image that is in the centre of the poster is the infamous villain.

Even if you are not familiar with the Scream franchise from this poster you can immediately tell that it’s a horror movie. There are a number of horror related conventions this poster follows, i.e. the colour scheme. Red, white and black are all colours that are commonly used in horror movie related media. Secondly, the simplicity and use of just one main image on the poster is frequently used on horror movie posters, for instance the ‘Insidious’ and ‘One Missed Call’ posters.

One Missed Call official movie poster

Insidious official movie poster

                                                  

As the entire Scream movies are all slasher horror films, it is clever how the poster has only a bit of red on it as slashers are full of bloody scenes. This was probably done so too much was not given away. It is also really good the way that the ghost face is shown from the side and the chin is made to look like a blade/knife. As this horror film is of the slasher genre, this is a smart strategy as various sharp, dangerous objects are used as weapons in this genre.

The cover line ‘New Decade. New Rules’ is in red and so is the part of the film coming out (part 4) and the films release date. The red stands out and it draws attention to those specific important details. Even though the title of the film is called ‘SCREAM’ it is stylized and therefore written as ‘SCRE4M’ which is appropriate as the target audience of the Scream franchise are mainly teenagers and young adults who would be familiar with this code-like/texting way of writing.

Last but not the least, there is a correlation between the name of the film and the ghost face as the ghost face looks like it is actually screaming. The pitch black background behind the ghost like face makes the poster look very menacing and we are left in suspense as nothing is really given away through this poster.

Elizabeth's textual analysis of a horror film trailer

‘Insidious’ is a supernatural horror film that was released in the UK earlier this year. It was written by Leigh Whannell the mastermind behind the Saw franchise and it was directed by James Wan, the director of Saw. The main plot of the movie is the possession of a young child which causes evil, disturbing events in the house.

The trailer starts with the title of the film in a science digital looking font, ‘INSIDIOUS’ then ‘IS’ ‘INSIDIOUS’ this is a clever strategy as it gets the audience thinking. There is a cut to a man sitting in a chair looking very scared and uncomfortable. To add to his discomfort, an unseen voice asks ‘Are you ready?’ of which he answers a feeble ‘yeah’. The inquisitive voice almost sounded like it was talking to the audience as well, preparing us for what is to come.

As the audience, we are aware that something must be wrong as the man’s chest heaves as he breathes heavily. We see a hand start a timer and the way it ticks mirrors the heartbeat of the unidentified man in the chair. Informative text comes up on screen that informs us that the film was made by the makers of ‘Paranormal Activity’ and ‘Saw’ thus telling us that this is going to be a similar type of film if not better. When there is a cut back to the film scene, we see that the man has his eyes closed and as the camera zooms into his face the audience prepares for the worse. As the man closes his eyes we wait for an insight into previous or possibly future events. There is a sharp cut to an establishing shot of a house that looks grey and glum thus affirming our prediction of bad things to come. We then get into smooth cuts of the man, a woman (who’s his partner) and two children who seem like a happy enough family but we know that this is not the case for long.