Research - Thriller Horrors

Thriller Horrors

Thrillers recently are being influenced dramatically by the horror genre; they have more gore, sadistic violence and brutality.

Thriller horrors usually focus on the suspense and tension in a film. They build excitement until it gets to a climax at the end. The thriller genre is a genre in itself so there are lots of elements to it. They contain violence and usually show the world in a bad light, which supports the convention of dark key lighting with horror films.

Most of the time they have a good ending where the baddie is brought to justice, either through murder, or prison. The films can contain pathological themes, which are more frightening to watch, as they can happen in the real world, such as obsession, stalking, random attacks, depression and so on. All of these themes create a film that builds excitement through tension.

There are various types of thrillers ranging from the common methods in crime thrillers were there is mainly ransoms, captivities, heists, revenge, kidnappings. More common in mystery thrillers are investigations and the whodunit technique. Common elements in psychological thrillers are mind games, psychological themes, stalking, confinement/deathtraps, horror-of-personality, and obsession. Elements such as conspiracy theories, false accusations, paranoia, and sometimes action are common in paranoid thrillers.

A genuine thriller film is a film which provides thrills and keeps the audience cliff-hanging at the ‘edge of their seats’. The tension is created when that main character is put in a impossible escape situation. Life is threatening and the situation the character is in is deadly.

Thrillers mostly take place in ordinary places; suburbs and cities. However, they may also take place in tropical islands or exotic places, such as ‘I know what you did last summer’. The most typical thriller horror movies are when there is normally a pass murderer and the killings which take place are mass murders, terrorism and assassinations.

‘I know what you did last summer’

Although this film is classified as a ‘Slasher’ it has some conventions of a ‘thriller’. The location is in an exotic location and the murders involved are of a mass scale.

‘Phycho’

One of the most popular thriller's is "Phycho," made in 1960. It was a psychological thriller which was directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The psychological theme to a film can be very interesting, and also scary, as people in real life can get psychological issues. This realism can be very effective when making a film, because the audience are more likely to be effected by it. We all know that in a film, if a vampire and werewolf are involved, it won't happen in real life, however good the film it. But if it's something psychological that can happen then it can make a film scarier. Just like with ghost films. "Paranormal Activity," released in to 2009 was classed as one of the scariest films, "Bloody Disgusting," a website that looks at horror films put it 16th in their top 20 scary films.

’28 Days Later’

Another good ‘Thriller Horror’ is ’28 Days Later’ – which is a film that is very gory, but primarily deals with the breakdown of humanity. Several more thriller horrors are becoming increasingly common with films such as ‘The last house on the left’, and ‘I spit on your grave’.  More and more of these thriller horrors are becoming more acceptable as the amount of core and the sadistic violence which occurs in them is being more acceptable in the horror genre.

This genre can be very good when it comes to trying to please an audience. It can mix the blood and the gore that you expect with a horror film, and also add in a great storyline, which then creates action and adventure. They promote excitement and suspense, which is what the audience want when they go to see a good film.

Of course other genres do this as well. Some of the best films in the world have come from genres such as slasher horrors and splatter horrors. Some have been cult successes which have had a great reception.

The teaser trailer movie is in the sub genre of ‘Thriller’ as the conventions of a thriller we have met them. We have used a sadistic killer and a young boy who is in the ‘impossible’ situation where his only fate is death.

Update No.

Today we continued filming for our teaser trailer. We used a different setting to tie in with out story board. We used a classroom as our set, to show the authenticity of the trailer. We used different costumes and make up on this shot, to show it is in an institute. The filming was very time consuming as we wanted to use a varied amount of shots; although we are only creating a teaser trailer, we want as many shots as possible to work with.

To add to the realism of the setting, we wrote the name of the teacher on the board, and rearranged the tables, to show the modernity.

Update No. 7

Our first day filming our teaser trailer was very exciting. A mixture of blood and latex and our costumes was an exciting insight into the further involvement of the making of our trailer. Our first filming session was at Greenhouse studios, where we used fake blood, latex, bruising and a varied amount of make up. The filming was very successful and is now in the process of editing the first shots we filmed.

With the help of the make up artist and costume design, the characters look authentic and realistic. While also filming we have taken some pictures for the final poster design. Due to a technical error the converter that we have to use in order to manipulate the raw images is not functional so we are still in the process of making them.

 

In the up and coming weeks we will be finishing the final filming of the teaser trailer, and producing more images to be used in our magazine front covers and our film posters.

Audience Research- Magazine Covers

Now it was time to focus on the film magazine cover we needed to make. I wanted to think about what would be wanted inside the magazine. I thought about the different things you tend to find in magazines, such as interviews, and information about upcoming movies. What would be wanted more? The audience went for the interviews. This is most likely because you get more of an insight into a film, and it's more intimate. Not only do you get information on the film, you get to hear it from the stars themselves.






It's not conventional to find freebies in movie magazines, but I felt it was a question worth asking. I felt that if freebies were an option, than people would be more likely to buy the magazine, and therefore find out more information on the film that's being advertised in the magazine. As the majority of people said say, it's important to think about what they may want as a freebie, they maybe able to get free film tickets if they scratch a certain code? 3D glasses for 3D films? or free dvd of classic films.





Seeing famous faces on magazines makes them sell more. If you see a picture of someone who you don't know on the front of it your naturally less likely to buy the magazine. If theres the image of the most famous actor, in a film thats in promotion, it can boost sales, and more people find out details about the film.








The audience felt for this question that the masthead should be at the top of the magazine, which is something that I agree with. I personally don't think it looks right when the masthead is in the middle or at the bottom. Conventionally, mastheads are usually at the top (Empire, Film, Motion all have this). Of course, because this is what people see the most, that's probably why they prefer it, that doesn't mean that it's right though. There's nothing wrong in having it placed somewhere else if it looks good. Sometimes there are special edition magazines where the layout is changed slightly to support what the magazine is featuring.


When making a magazine, you want to think about how many magazines people buy, and if yours is likely to be picked. The more magazines that people buy, the more variety they may get, as magazines only come out weekly or monthly. The majority of the audience here buy their magazines once or twice a month, which isn't a huge amount. There can be factors that affect how many magazines people buy such as: cost, interest, popularity and genre.






On a magazine fromt cover, there has to be something that grabs a potential readers attention. Nobody in this question chose the puff or the coverline, but the main imagine was the thing that seemed to interest people in to buying a magazine, and very few people chose the masthead. The main image is very important. It has to look good, and if it's an image of a well known actor or actress then this can be the catalyst of the magazines sales. On the front of most magazine covers, you tend to find a well known star.




50% of people that answered this question preferred one picture on the front page, and 50% preferred more than one on the front page. I personally think that there should be more than one. To keep the potential buyers interest you have to think of variety. There can't just be one picture, that advertises one film, which people may not be interested in. There should be more pictures which advertise an array of films, so the audience will be more varied, it doesn't just have to be about films either, there can be interviews, or competitions which grab attention.

Many people liked the idea of a magazine front cover to be dedicated to one film. Some did not. I think that it works, just having one film advertised, but it shouldn't all be about one film. You can't hide what else is going to be in the magazine, otherwise people are going to walk straight past it. The idea of a set of pictures all based around one film isn't great, unless there are other images that show what else is going to be in the magazine. Keeping the front page dedicated to one film only works if there is something that shows that theres more inside the magazine, such as a puff, or secondary image, otherwise the front cover looks stagnant and boring.

People seemed to like the idea of the colour black being used in magazines. This is good, it's a bold colour that stands out. The second best one that people chose was red; again, another bold colour. A good example of this is Empire magazine, they've used this colour before to make their magazine stand out, it's also interesting to point out that the front cover was dedicated to one film. However, in this magazine front cover, they used the darkness of space (you can see the stars in the background), and Darth Vaders mask, to create a white shine, so there was some brightness to the cover. This worked well, in my eyes. I still personally feel there should be something else on the front page to advertise the rest of the film, it can't just be full of 'Star Wars'.

I took a look at the film magazines that were on the market. I chose the four that I saw the most online. However the audience clearly only knew of two, which is fair enough, the other two aren't hugely recognised. Empire was the favourite, and Total Film was the second favourite. They are the best established movie magazines, and the ones that you are more likely to see being sold in the massive superstores. It's the content, and the way they make their magazines that make them popular. They look good, they contain a variety of films, the also hold information not just on films, but on actors and directors. They don't just focus on the big stars too, they dedicate time to the younger, upcoming stars.

Audience Research-Horror Posters

Not only do our group have to make a trailer, we have to make a poster to go with it as well. So it is important to get some feedback on what makes a good horror poster. This first question focused on font. San Serif and Distorted got the best response. Distorted to me was the better option because it goes more with the horror genre. However, I was surprised that broken up wasn't chosen more, I thought it was quite good with horror films, and gives the audience a better idea of what the film is about. But, sometimes, less is more.






After talking with my group about ideas, and coming up with a storyline, and shooting ideas. I thought about trailers where you see people in distressful situations, like in the Saw trailers. However people weren't so keen on this. Maybe they thought it gave too much of the story away, or they didn't like the idea of children seeing the poster, or that it was just genrally inappropriate. It gave me an idea into what was seen as acceptable in a poster, and a trailer, and that full on torture wouldn't be acceptable.





To come up with ideas, I'd been looking at some posters, and the colour schemes. I personally prefered the darker themes, so thought I'd use it as one of the questions. People agreed, that it was better to use darker colours. It is much more sensible to use in a horror poster. Light colours and High Key lighting and mislead the audience into thinking that it isn't a horror film. Some people did think however that it was good to use lighter colours. Some posters do this, however it has to be made clear by tag lines, and images that the film is of the horror genre.




People seemed to prefer long shots in posters. I predicted that they might like close ups because sometimes the detail can be more attractive, but the audience seemed to prefer the mystery. Using a long shot, with one picture can make people think, why is this person here? why is there something there? etc... I can see why this works. So when creating the poster it's worth me looking at posters to see what has the better effect and looks more interesting. It is important though, to remember that different things, work for different films.





When thinking about making a poster, it's important to think about why someone might keep looking at it. Should there be a massive clear title? Or should it be more subtle? Should there be a tag line? Should there be one or two pictures? At this point I wanted to think about the tag line. It appeared that most people prefered to have tag lines. I could see why as well. It doesn't give you the whole information on the film, but it gives you an idea of what the films about. A lot of the time, the tag line is a question, and you only find the answer out if you go and see the film. This can sometimes be the deciding factor to whether someone goes to see a certain film or not.




When looking at the images on posters, I wondered what was more effective; to have the poster blurry, go create more mystery? Or to keep it clear, so it was easy on the eye. Most people opted for the clear option. Most horror posters are clear, and it's the picture that gives away the genre of the film, so maybe having it blurry wouldn't be so appropritate, unless it fitted in really well with the film. But after thinking of our ideas, it wouldn't be such a good idea.








Many film posters don't have the main character on them. This can to create a mysterious effect, especially if they use an object, for example 'The Last House On The Left' just has a house and no people in the picture. Some films have more than one poster with different characters on each poster. This is an idea that I'm interested in for our film. But the audicence felt it was better to use the main character. So now it was time to talk with my group to come up with ideas that would hopefully please the audience.



I was trying to decide whether the audience would be impressed with full on gore in the poster, or would it give too much away about the film. Most people seemed to prefer the idea of more calm, but sinister posters, which is understandable. Sometimes having lots of blood and guts in a poster is just too much. However some people did like this, but it may not be appropriate in some cases, for example, you don't want a picture on a billboard of someone being tortured with loads of blood because children are going to see it. This is something that has to be taken into account when creating the poster.


Some horror films such as 'Saw' have high key lighting in their posters, and some, such as 'The Haunting in Connecticut' have low key lighting. I thought that low key lighting would be preferred by the audience, as the poster was for the horror genre, but they decided that high key lighting was better. With 'Saw' for example, it's obvious that it's a horror, as you can see the persons head on scales, or the severed fingers, it gives a surgical feel to the poster, and connotes that sharp implements are going to be used in the film. Low key lighting gives a subtler impression of whats going to happen in the film, and can be used in different sub genres. In my opinion, high key lighting only works if it can sum up the story line, and mix the horror side well.


Many posters don't always have their titles at the top. It's not uncommon to find them at the bottom or in the middle. However, the audience seemed to prefer them at the top. Sometimes though, it looks better at the bottom, it's important to think about the compostion, and that the text looks right, in comparison with the image on the poster. Before thinking about where the masthead should go, it's important to think about what the poster will look like with the masthead in different positions.

Audience Research-Horror Film Preferences

When thinking about why someone likes horror films, I wanted to take into account everything in detail. So for this question, I was thinking about the trailer; was there a particular length that people preferred? In this case, 30-40 seconds was more preferable. This is conventionally known to be the typical length of a teaser trailer anyway, the people making the trailer don't want to give away too much about the film, yet they can't make it too short. This gives us a good insight into how long the trailer should be, and why people more likely to watch it.

After taking a look at horror films and looking at typical colours used. I thought about what the audience prefer. Was there a certain colour that grabbed the eye? Was it contrasting colours? Was colour important to the genre of the film? So after having a look at some horror films, I used colours I'd seen to come up with this question and find out when was preferred. It turned out to be the black and or red answer. This was my prediction as this is what I had seen the most. The black representing the darkness of a horror film, and the red connoting blood.

I then thought about generalisation, was there a certain factor that made a film interesting? I looked at the differences between horror films. Some have more blood than others (such as The Descent, which has a lot of blood), some have adventure (also like The Descent), a lot are spooky, with a supernatural theme (such as, The Fourth Kind, Paranormal Activity, and The Exorcist). Many can be jumpy too. They aren't 'in your face' scary, but there are parts that make you jump out of your seat (Prom Night, Amityville Horror). I looked into what people preferred, which was their films to be more jumpy. This gave me something else to take into account when making the trailer.

There have been hundreds of horror films made. Obviously some better than others. I investigated the ones that were favourites though. After some research on the internet, trying to found out some of the better ones. I took the names and put them into this question, clearly 'Halloween' was the winner, but why? Was it the props? The storyline? The suspense? There are many factors to take into account when looking into these things. It is the fourt biggest horror franchise in America, so what ever the film maker did (John Carpenter, Director), they did it really well.

It was time to take an overall look at films. What did people enjoy watching the most? I thought about the biggest genres there were, just to get a general look on things. Action appeared to just top it. It's interesting looking at these results. Thriller, Action and Adventure, got the best responses. All of which can be used in horror films. This is probably the reason why there are a variety of horro films that can get a huge following.

I thought about the trailer we were going to be making, and if there would be loads of people rusing to see it, or was there a certain amount of time that people went to the cinema. I looked back on how many times I go to the cinema, and my answer was that, it depends on what looks good at the cinema. So it could range from once a month, to four times a month. I decided to look at other peoples cinema patterns. Once a month seemed to be the most popular answer. I thought about factors why people don't go more, and came up with these conclusions; One, the film world seems to have phases, there can be a phases where there are a good four or five films out at the cinema; or there can be a phase where there aren't so many good films on and people are less likely to go to the cinema. Two, money. The cinema is getting more and more expensive, and some people just can't afford to go that often, even with the discounts students can get, and the clubcards, it can still be an expensive trip out; which is why it's one of the causes of pirate DVD's being sold.

All films have a storyline. There aren't a huge amount of storylines. Many films use the same one. But it was interesting to find out what people preferred. In this case it was Ghost storylines. A part of me wondered why people thought this, and it occurred to me that this was around the time of 'Paranormal Activity 2' being released. Was this subconsiously on thier minds? At the same time though, Vampire and Warewolf films weren't as popular, but a Twilight film was also big talk around that time, so maybe it wasn't the influence of what was being released around the time of this questionnaire.

A simple question I thought would be sensible to ask people was, do they like creatures in their films. The definitive answer was 'No'. I asked this question bearing in mind what could be used in our teaser trailer. Would using a creater be more influential in getting a better response. Or would it be a total waste of time, time of which could be spent on something else that people may enjoy.

Finally in this section, I asked about the horror sub genres. I took the main ones to find out what was most popular. It turned out to be thriller horror. So this was something to take into account when working on ideas for the trailer. Thriller horrors don't always consist of blood and gore, so my group would have to think of something subtle, to give the trailer the overall horror feeling.

Audience Research Analysis

When creating the audience research I had to think about the three different elements to the coursework. The first was the horror trailer itself, what would be peoples preferences on that? The second was the magazine front cover. Is there a particular style/colour scheme/layout that people prefer? Thirdly I had to consider the poster to the trailer. What would attract people to it? I needed to consider this when writing my questions.

The questions were aimed at any age group. Not only did I send it off to people I know that are my age, it was also send to mums, dads, aunts and uncles. The variation in age I felt would give a better outlook on what people prefer, for example, the older people that took this questionnaire would be able to think back to what films used to be like in contrast to how they are today, and the younger generation completing the survey would most likely be thinking only about modern films.

By creating this survey it gave us more of a chance to use a different variety of things during the project, for example, we could take certain elements that the audience preferred in to the actual trailer, other elements such as colour schemes, into the poster, and things such as fonts in the magazine front cover.