Target Audience: Teenagers

Audience research is important to show who you can appeal your film to, allowing you to make and advertise your film accordingly.

A large portion of horror film audiences are teenagers, as they are the main target audience of a large amount of modern horror films. Many modern horror films feature a group of dim witted teens falling victim to a murdering maniac, or the kid they bullied at school posing as a monster, so he can scare and then butcher them for revenge. This kind of horror is referred to as teen horror, or slasher horror. The young cast means teenagers can relate to the characters, and the plot of a person or creature killing them off is easy to follow, making slashers and teen horror films perfect for teenagers looking for an easy film to watch in the cinema or at a movie night with friends. Examples of these films include: Friday the 13th, Sorority Row, the more recent Texas Chainsaw Massacre films. Evidence these films are aimed at teenagers and young adults can be found on IMDB, where 29240 of the 57952 of the people who voted, are aged 18-29.

However, I will be avoiding this type of horror, opting for something more tense and suspenseful. I will be taking elements from this genre though, as it is popular with young audience, and so the borrowed elements may attract viewers from that audience. The main element I will be borrowing is the presence of a killer. However, the killer will be unseen throughout, leaving it's appearance and motives to the audience to interpret.

Halloween Opening

The following video is the opening sequence to John Carpenters horror classic Halloween, released in 1978. 

The fact it is filmed in point of view (pov), makes it more suspenseful, as you cannot see the killer, but you can see what he sees. This is tense, as you can witness the killers progress through the dark house as he slowly moves in for the kill. The tense pov is effective, and pov is something I wish to utilize in my own opening sequence, keeping the killing force a mystery, whilst also letting the audience know the killer is present. The constant synth in the background further adds to the suspense of the sequence, however, i believe silence or relying on natural sounds will be far scarier, creating an unsettling mood of silence with the occasional snap of a twig.

What makes the pov further effective, is it allows for the big reveal at the end of the sequence, whilst also allowing you to see the brutal murder. Pov helps to further add to the brutality, as seen in the recent film Maniac, which is completely filmed in pov. All in all I will draw from Carpenters effective use of pov to create tense shots from the view of the killer.

Preliminary Task

This is my groups preliminary task, in which we had to display three different filming techniques.

The first technique is shot reverse shot. This is seen at the end of the clip during the conversation, in which the camera switches between the two people speaking. This is a useful technique to use in conversation as it allows the speaker to be tracked, it is also useful for building suspense, showing a character in horror, then showing the viewer what they are looking at, and then returning to the character for the final reaction.

The next rule is match on action. This can be seen when the first person walks through the door. The camera shows the person opening the door  from one side, and then coming through on the other. This rule is good for keeping a film consistent, and avoiding mistakes.

The final rule is the 180 degree rule, which is seen most clearly at the end during the conversation. The 180 degree rule keeps the action within a 180 degree view of the camera, and the view is only changed with pan or follow shots, and not quick cuts. This also helps to keep a film consistent, maintaing a natural view for the audience, and avoiding confusing them.