Research and Planning: Top 10 Popular Thriller Films.

Top 10 Popular Thriller Films.

After looking at the IMDB website, we looked at the top rated Thriller films and we can see that the more popular thriller films have a horror elements, such as The Cabin in the Woods and House at the End of the Street so that could be something we could look at and they have similar audiences and age range of characters as we plan to use so we could look into these plots and maybe it could give us and idea of what to look at when finalising our plot. 

Some of the films do have a fantasy element which maybe hard for us to create in our trailer although we could look at reducing the fantasy element and just keep it minimal but still have a small element.

Research and Planning: Target Audience Prezi

Target Audience

Target Audience for Trailer. on Prezi

Research and Planning: Good and Bad Trailers.

Good and Bad Trailers.

Trailers that are good and bad in terms of us being able to recreate the same sort of thing.

   

Blair Witch Project. 

This would be a good trailer because we could easily recreate something similar to this because we have access to the handheld cameras and we could use younger characters like they have in this to appeal to our target audience. If we did want to do this sort of thing it would be simple to recreate for us because we would just need to find the right space and time for the lighting. 

 

Saw II 

This trailer would be more difficult for us to produce because it requires a lot of props for the graphics scenes which would be difficult for us to get hold of and a lot of different locations and complicated make-up, so it would require a bigger budget to get everything needed which we do not have access to. 

Research and Planning: Teaser Trailer Conventions.

Teaser Trailer Conventions.

A teaser trailer is a small trailer which gives the audience a small insight into a film.

What it should consist of:

A Montage
A small set of clips taken from the film, usually some from the beginning (equilibriam) to set the scene for the audience so they get a small introduction and then the rest of the trailer is filled with peaks from the films disruption to create suspense and keep the audience interested by showing them 'highlights' however nothing from the new equilibriam should be shown because that reveals to the audience the solving which defeats the objects of the trailer.

Title of the Film & Release Date
These two usually occur at the end of the trailer so the audience is made to watch the entire trailer to find out what it's called and also when it's released, which are the two most important factors to find uot through the trailer.

Voice-Over or Titles
Different genres use different types, for example horrors or thrillers tend to use more titles because it creates more suspense because the titles usually appear quite slow and they are only short snappy lines which can sometimes be used to identify films with. Voice-Over's are sually used by comedy's or romcoms because it's a lot more of a light atmosphere and you want the audience to relate and like the characters in the trailer.

Production Company
The Production Company is usually shown before the trailer because it can usually give the audience an insight into the type of film for example, if it is an independant company like Warp Films then it may be more likely to be a social realist film whereas conglomerates such as Universal create huge blockbusters so through showing the audience this is helps them to distinguish what type of film it may be.

Research and Planning: Audience Theories

Audience Theories.

The Hypodermic Theory. 

A film sends an intended message through the film and the audience directly receive and accept that message.

Cultivation Theory.

 The more time people spend 'living' in the TV world i.e. watching TV, the more programs they watch, the more enthralled they become and believe the social reality portrayed. 

Desensitation. 

The audience has watched so many of a particular genre i.e. horror/thriller, then they become immune to the content. 

Modelling or Copycat Theory. 

When the audience blames the actions seen in a film or video game, for their actions in the real world. 

Uses and Gratifications Theory. 

The audience take out the messages they need and reject the information they don't need.

Research and Planning: Meeting Post

 Meeting Post.

I met with Luke (who I will be creating my trailer with) and we have discussed job roles, and after discussing what job roles we would like to take on and we have decided that it would be best if we were to work together on all of the job roles so we work together to create mise-en-scene, and the soundtrack and then make joint decisions on cinematography and editing. However, if we need to split up and do different job roles so that we can get things done quicker or because someone has a stronger idea for this certain part then we can, and it will be documented on a blog post if it does change. 

We have also discussed some things in regards to a plot, and we have decided we definitely want to do some sort of thriller, but we want to go into the psychological side however we do want it to have an element of a horror because of the higher ratings we have discussed previously. 

With the plot, we have just been discussing some rough outlines and we do like the idea of a murdering spree but to fit with the psychological horror side, have the actual murderer within the group we are following. And we have also just discussed possible locations where this could be filmed and it would be easy to access.

Research and Planning: Trailer Analysis x2

Trailer Analysis.

 

 

I have chosen the film Distrubia after researching into what my audience likes therefore this can give me ideas and insight into what would attract my audience.
The poor quality video is the only one that would allow me to embed into my blog, however when doing my analysis I watched a higher quality video.

 

Genre.

Disturbia is a thriller film and we can see this through many features within the trailer, through the narrative and mise-en-scene used and also the editing of the trailer. Within the trailer we get a lot of jump cuts in the editing which creates suspense for the audience and also have the 'jump' factor that some audiences do enjoy within a film and the lighting is very much low key throughout the trailer, the only time it is not is at the beginning as we are slowly introduced to the story.

One theory we can apply to this trailer is Carol Glover's theory that "the final girl will be terrorised throughout the film" and from this trailer, we see one main female character as well as small snippets of others which appear to be murdered however we get more clips that show the main female being 'terrorised' sort of, for example when he appears at the end of the car, we get the impression from the trailer that he won't back down then because of just the small amounts of information given to us in the short trailer so we could make the assumption she will be the typical female character that will get terrorised throughout the film.

 

 

Representation.

The main representation in this trailer is that of young people, we have three main characters all of a late teenage age which would definitely appeal to the target audience as films like this with younger characters and the idea of the film being considered 'jumpy' will be more targeted and appeal more to the younger audience. However, we do see some stereotypes being used early on in the trailer, as the main male character has a tag on his foot which links to the idea of teenagers always getting into trouble. Laura Mulvey has a theory that many films are filmed from what is called 'the male gaze', and I think that this could apply to this film in a small part as at the beginning we have the two males gazing at the women outside, objectifying them as a sexual object which is how they get into the situation so this could possibly impact on whether the film will appeal to females because they may not like the sexualisation of all the female characters.

 

 

Narrative.

From the trailer, we can gather that the story is about a male who has been put on house arrest and to pass the time has deciding to start spying on women and finding out what is going on in his little street, however it all takes a dark turn when he spots what he thinks is his neighbour murdering women so he decides to investigate with two other characters into the murders but the neighbour knows what they are up too and seems to try and intervene. The trailer is structured typical to the genre and this type of thriller as the idea of younger characters investigating a murderer is not a new idea and has been done before, we have the characters starting off as innocent fun however then a 'disruption' comes along in the form of murders and then we see a series of the peaks within the film in the trailer which only hint at some of the events which will lead up to the resolution which we do not see in the trailer, so this structure is inkeeping with Todorov's theory of a film being structured in a certain way; equilibriam (beginning, calm) disruption (problems, peaks and troughs, climax) and a equilibriam resolved (a new calm, different to the start). Another theory which applies to this trailer is Levi Strauss and Roland Barthes' theory of there being binary opposites in a film (good vs. bad) at first we see the younger character with the tag and automatically assume he must be the 'bad' character as he has already done something wrong however this all changes and it becomes clear throughout the trailer that the younger characters are actually the 'good' and the murderer is obviously the 'bad'.

 

 

Audience.

The audience for this film is obviously a younger audience due to the use of younger characters and the mixture of gender used in the casting, the fact we have a female character as well as male is more appealing to a female audience. The audience will most likely already have an interest in films such as thrillers, because this trailer makes it clear that the film maybe a little graphic i.e. the murders and also the dramatic editing in the trailer creates suspense therefore somebody that only likes romantic films will probably not be interested in this film, therefore they don't try to appeal to them, they attract their existing audience. The theory of an active or passive audience could definitely apply here because we have some much content to the film and also the film is based on an investigation of some sort, so the audience will have to be active within the film so they can follow any developments to understand the film and fully understand what is going on.

 

 

 

Media Language.

Cinematography.

• The first shot we see is a close-up of the tag and it then zooms out so we can see the younger character, this clip is used to create an image of the younger characters at first which links to the negative stereotypes of the younger characters. So we already have made an impression of this character.
• As we are 'watching out of the window' we are placed in the characters POV so we see a lot of pans so that we can see the whole image e.g. when we are watching the affair between the neighbour and maid. We placed in the same POV in the trailer when we see the first splatters of blood and small cut zooms are used so that we are directly focused on what we are looking at.
• This POV through the binoculars is used a few times to observe the neighbour, by using this we become more involved with the younger characters and although the first clip created a negative view this obviously changes through these developments.
• We see a close-up of the neighbours face when the young boy is arrested and then a close-up of his face, then it cuts to a close-up of a newspaper with a missing headline, by having all this close-up images placed together it creates links between the characters and events and also the 'close-up' creates this idea of the events being so close to the character.
• We see some scenes filmed through a handheld camera which is from the younger characters POV again making the relationship between us and the characters closer.

 

Editing.

• This trailer has a typical structure of many other thriller trailers I have watched, so the beginning of the trailer begins with clips dissolving into one another to introduce the story slowly but then as the sinister side of the thriller starts to come through the editing gets a lot more sharper and jump cuts and straight cuts are being used.
• In particular we see a lot of jump cuts when it jumps to a shot of the neighbour, for example when it jumps to the clip of him at the window and then another when he is seen at the end of the car. These jump cuts are used to create suspense in the trailer which draws the audience in.
• We see a shot-reverse-shot being used between the nieghbour then the male character and then to the newspaper and then back to the male character, this editing links all the characters and events together in a close capacity and again creates the tension between them.

 

Sound.

• Mainly within this trailer, it's all based on the dialogue given however there is music underlying the majority of the trailer at the beginning of the trailer and it seems quite upbeat and young which obviously reflects the young characters and the lifestyle which draws the attention of the audience.
• However that does change, then in the trailer what seems to be used more is emphasised sound effects, for example part of the trailer when we have a character sneaking into the garage there is a heavy beat in the background which does almost sound like a heartbeat  but not a literal one, so this again is a tactic used to scare the audience and draw them in.

 

 

Mise-en-scene.

• The main set-up is the male-characters house, where we have 'the window' which is the ultimate part to the story as this is where the story unfolds, the window is also covered with vertical blinds which adds to the mystery of the characters and also how we percieve them through the lines and small spaces such as through the windows across the road because it's all very compact only giving us small pieces of information.
• Another siginificant prop is the binoculars because that is how we see many of the events unfold, through the eyes of the character who looks through the binoculars, again making our vision of the film narrowed creating suspense and the idea of wanting more.
• We see small parts of the neighbours house which gives us insight into his life, but only a small insight, so we get glimmers of a knife under the lighting and see strange rooms and splatter of blood, only letting us in on brief amounts of the story, keeping the audience interested.
• As typical of a thriller, there is a lot of low-key lighting used, when looking across the road through the binoculars it seems to have a blue tinge to it which blurs the audiences vision and within the house of the male character, it seems to have more of a orange tinge so we have two contrasting colour images there of the binary opposites.

 

 

 

Research and Planning: Trailer Analysis Audience Research

 

 

Trailer Analysis Audience Research.

 

 

I asked some of my target audience what their favourite thriller films/trailers were so I could find one for my trailer analysis and also it gives me an idea of what they actually like.

Research and Planning: Audience Poll.

Research and Planning: Trailer Analysis.

Trailer Analysis: Shutter Island (2010)
 

Genre.

Shutter Island is a psychological thriller, we can tell through different elements within the trailer for example, the use of low key lighting and many jump cuts to create the suspense needed and often associated with thriller films as well as the use of non-diegetic music in the background which adds to the eerie atmosphere and creates the suspense needed in a thriller trailer. As well we can tell through the plot, well what we understand of it through the trailer, there are many aspects associated with thrillers for example, the idea of a secluded island for mental patients which have all killed and we have somebody investigating some sort of event which has happened and we have a small element of blood and suggested violence however it's more to do with the confusion flashbacks that we see Leonardo Di Caprio having within the trailer. One theory that can go with this trailer is Andrew Sarris' theory that "genre is the idea that it has a recognisable style that draws on an existing audience"  so this trailer sticks to many of the aspects and associations used in thriller trailers which helps them to draw on an existing audience that enjoys a film which plays with the mind more than just simple blood and gore of a horror.

Representation.

We have a few different representations and stereotypes just within the trailer, we have the main character (Leonardo Di Caprio) and his colleague which are shown in their uniform and look smart and clean and with the police badge is seems to have a certain degree of intelligence so that is a stereotype that does go hand in hand with the police force but then we have the complete opposite shown, as we see the first mental patient who is actually chained to a nurse and is losing hair with a crazed look on her face and looks to the officer and 'shh' him, so again another stereotype is being played on here, and old stereotype because this film is not set in current type so the old stereotype is that mental patients are completely insane and need to isolated and chained up, they are seen as a danger to society and to create this stereotype they have made her look a certain way  so she fits with the stereotype which is obviously a negative representation and this is carried throughout the trailer as all the 'patients' are kept behind metal bars and we see clips of patients with huge scars on their faces and also them often trying to escape. So this film has used old negative stereotypes of mental illnesses to create the eerie atmosphere and also to make the police look superior to them.

Narrative.

From the story we can see that the story is about a secluded mental island and some officers have been called in to investigate one of the patients disappearing which does seem typical of the thriller genre as it has the suspense created from the eerie island and the 'scary' factor which in this case is the mental hospital and it's patients and 'psychological problems' are something used commonly in thrillers. The trailer seems to have some structure to it, it starts with the equilibrium where the officers are calm and are just coming to investigate and it takes it slowly through parts of the story obviously showing us some of the peaks for example when he gets dragged up the stairs by a patient towards the end of the trailer however, as a thriller does it casts some sort of confusion or twist into the storyline, and in this trailer we keep getting flashes of the main characters holding a woman or walking down a corridor and also flashes of a blood covered woman which have seen in the trailer before in a photograph so true to a thriller, this trailer only hints at the story and then completely throws you off by adding in the confusion. Two theories can fit into this trailer in terms of narrative but they work together to create the relationships of characters, we have two officers one the main character and the other seems like an assistant, the assistant officer seems to take on the character role of a donor (Propp's Theory) as he hands pieces of information to the main character "what if when you were looking into them, they were looking into you, now they have us both, here, now" but the main character seems very much the active character as he does the investigating and he is the one seen with the patients which gives the impression that the other characters are passive characters they just take on the role of donor every so often to help the active character.

 

Audience.

This film will probably appeal to an existing audience, one's which enjoy thrillers that you have to stay active within and have to concentrate on the film to understand all the twists in the storyline.

Audience:

Age- the age of audience could vary although I would say that this film will appeal more to a young adult because it seems that bit strange and in some parts scary, however I think this could definitely appeal to a more mature audience because it isn't set in modern time and it's not an unrealistic film and they may enjoy watching an active film.

Gender- I think this film and many thrillers tend to appeal to both genders, because this film isn't gendered in any specific way even though we have the main character as male we do have other female characters which we don't get much information so the audience may be intrigued to find out what their role is within the film.

Lifestyle/Interests/Psychographics- Because of the context of the storyline, this film may be of particular interest to an audience interested in the psychology part and the workings of the 'mental' island. Definitely, the audience that will be attracted to this film will be an audience that is interested in active films and films that keep the mind going because even from the trailer we can see that there are many twists in the story.

 

Media Language.

Cinematography.

• In this trailer we see a lot of contrasting images such as we see a lot of tight framed mid-shots/close-ups and then a lot of long shots with a much wider frame however both work together to create the secluded and isloated atmosphere because we have to close tight framing to represent the image of being trapped and also the wider shots which show to literal isolation of the island.
• Throughout the trailer we do see a number of low angles on Leonardo Di Caprio which creates the impression that he is the superior character within the film however there is one clip at the end where it shows a birds eye view of him being dragged by a patient so this could show how the patient is now in control therefore he becomes higher than him.
• One thing that is strange in the trailer, is that whenever he is talking to the patients, he is always on eye level with them, when talking to the woman at the table and even the man through the bars, they are always placed on the same level when talking with eachother which suggests to us that he is on the same level as them however we have seen many contrasting images to this, but when watching the film this all becomes clear but to somebody watching the trailer it only adds to the confusion.

 

Editing.

• Editing is heavily used within this trailer as it does with many thriller trailers, at the beginning of the trailer we see the equilibriam where all is calm and we just get a few clips montaged together to give us a small understanding of what is going on, during this each seperate clip dissolves into one another using a black screen inbetween which again adds to the calm start of the trailer however still creates an eerie atmosphere because we have moved on from each scene and it becomes darker as the trailer continues.
• The trailer then dramatically changes and it all becomes straight cuts and jump cuts, it begins with straight cuts which still have a slightly harsh edge but they just move the trailer on slightly and this is used to slowly introduce different characters or aspects for example when we see the woman chained up, it is only a straight cut to her rather than a jump cut to create a scarier image of the woman, this could be to slowly ease the audience in.
• However as the trailer develops and we learn more about the plot it all becomes jump cuts between very short clips and some even back to the same clip but this again is used to create the confusion for the audience to draw them in. For example, when Leonardo Di Caprio is walking towards a corridor, it jumps to another corridor in a house and then back again, each clip is a couple of seconds long but because of the jump cut manages to stick in the audiences head because it's more dramtic therefore more interesting.

 

Sound.

• Throughout the trailer, a soundtrack is playing underneath and it is the same piece of music throughout however it does change the pace and tone/key during more intense parts for example the middle of the trailer is when we are shown all the peaks of the disruption and some sort of story is starting to unfold, the music seems to change slightly it gets quicker and the key/tone seems to change slightly and as the trailer reaches the climax for the audience so does the music however comes back down when the credits/information is running at the end, which signifies that at that particular clip the film reaches some sort of climax maybe.
• The dialogue changes throughout the film as well, at the beginning the dialogue is calm and seems quite 'intelligent' as it's the officers and the doctors speaking so all seems very official, and when Leonardo Di Caprio is talking to one patient at a table, he seems quite patronising again adding to the negative stereotypes of the patients.
• However, when the trailer is reaching it's climax the dialogue becomes a lot more distressed and faster and more questions begin to arise from characters, which makes the audience question even the small clippets they have seen.
• We have simple sound effects used within the trailer to create the suspense and also make it seem a lot more scary and eerie, we have the sounds of patients screams in the background and the sounds of the them pushing against the bars which shocks the audience and also works to create a very eerie atmosphere within the hospital.

 

Mise-en-scene.

• We get many different images within the trailer that create different stereotypes, one significant image is that of the woman with barely any hair, and who is chained to a nurse, this image obviously creates a massive megative stereotype of the patients but it also works in creating more 'sinister' characters for the audience to be aware off.
• But we have different contrasting images of the patients, more negative than anything as we see two more both with cuts on their faces and doing something strange for example writing on the wall in blood or playing with the match, both again create a sinister scary image of the patients. But we have one contrasting patient, the woman at the table, who looks perfectly normal however, we know she must have done something because she is a patient in the hospital but it sends out an underlying message to the audience that the patients don't just have to look crazy to be dangerous.
• We see two different sides to the hospital, we see the classic all white building within and shiny floors with nurses in white uniform walking around and we also see some equipment in a very short clip, but then we have the other side which is dark and uses a lot of low key lighting, some shots only have the match that is lit to seem like the only source and everything is in a gloomy atmosphere, two stark contrasts which can again relate back to the character imagery that it's not always what it appears to be on the outside.

Research and Planning: Audience Interviews

Audience Interviews.

We interviewed some of our target audience using the questions from the previous post (Interview Questions) to find out what they expected and would like to see from the genre we are looking at.   What we took from our audience interviews:  
What do you expect from a thriller?  
What our audience generally expected from a thriller is action and suspense although for the last interview we decided to narrow it a little bit and ask what they expected from a psychological thriller as we decided that we think that we would get more answers to give us wider answers to look at and analyse and they expected confusion and psychological issue/people.    
More inclined to go for a 15 or 18?   
Two of our interviewees said they would prefer an 18 because they had more depth or 'umph' however one said they would prefer a 15 because it would be more tame so we would have to get the right balance between the story having the right depth and suspense but not getting to gory or horror like to put people off.     
Gore factor the same as a horror?   
The main point we got from this question was that rather than it being about the blood and gore, it's more to do with messing with people's mind and having the storyline stand out more than just the gore factor.   
 Realism or Fantasy?   
We had the majority say more realism rather than fantasy so I can only assume that is to do with the other answers for example the story messing with people's heads and it being more suspense and psychological.
 Younger characters?   
We had one interviewee say they would say more middle aged for a thriller, maybe because this is something they find it more scary with older characters. However the other interviewee said that they felt that they could relate more to the younger characters and they were more "suitable" for his age.   
Areas a thriller to be filmed in?
 The area ideas that got suggested were urban city areas but then going into a secluded place such as an island or the woods or a singular house. So this links back to the realism idea and them being placed in familiar surroundings so it relates back to them more.    
Sounds for a thriller film?   
They sounds that were suggested at were all quite eerie such as mood/suspense music and footsteps and screams so some aspects of a horror film e.g. the horror and screams but then the music is more towards the thriller side because it creates a more suspense vibe.

Research and Planning: Interview Questions

Interview Questions.

Here are our interview questions for our target audience:

• What would you expect from a psychological thriller film?
• If a thriller was given a 15 rating and one with and 18 rating, which would you be more inclined to go for? 
• Why?
• Would you expect a thriller's gore factor to be on the same level as a horror?
• Would you prefer a realistic style thriller or a fantasy thriller? 
• Would you be more attracted to a film with younger characters in it? 
• What areas would you expect a thriller to be set?
• What sounds would you expect to be included in a thriller?

Research and Planning: Photoshop Challenge.

Photoshop Challenge.

Our task was to create a film poster for the genre we plan on using in our trailers, using either images from the internet of possibly use our own if we had them, to challenge our knowledge of photoshop. 

I decided I wanted to do a thriller poster and focus on the psychological thriller side, I thought of  a basic plot for my film and worked from there. The first thing I had to do was find my images on the internet because I had no suitable ones of my own, I decided I wanted to use a male as the main focus of the poster so I searched for an appropriate actor and found a suitable image, which was a mid/head shot of him looking quite smug and the image was quite dark but the suit my poster I adjusted the image and changed the brightness and contrast slightly so that it was darker. I then wanted to create the effect of him merging with the dark background so it wasn't such a harsh image on the background so I created a rectangle shape the same colour as the background and then covered the image completely; I then changed to rubber settings so that the opacity was only at 10% and it was a very large brush and then began to press it over his face and uncover certain parts of the image, keeping some areas darker than others. I think that this part of the poster works really well and definitely fits the genre well because it's suggestive and has the dark side to it. I then wanted to fill up the space by adding an extra female character in, so again I searched for the right image and altered the brightnes settings although that did not work as successfully on this image as it was still quite bright and did the same with the rubber and the rectangle shape over the top although it did not work as successfully with this image, I'm not entirely sure why but the only thing I can come up with was maybe the image was to harsh in lighting against the other image which is a softer darkness. I then needed to give it the features of a film poster; the first being a title and slogan and to fit with the main focus of the poster which was the male character I decided to call it the Bachelor but because it's a thriller I needed to add some sort sinister twist so I came up with the slogan 'People aren't always what they seem' which hints at a more sinister twist to the film and ties all the images and dark colours together. I wanted to make the film title stand out more, so I looked for it's own individual font and I found the one I used which was Insomnia, I also made the text red because that is a common colour used in psychological thriller posters. I think that the title font does fit in with the theme and genre of the poster however I think that if I would have spent more time looking through the different fonts I may have found something that fitted a little bit better. I then decided to put the slogan and main actors names in the same font, (Bookman Old Style) and put them in white so that they stand out and also you can distinguish between the two. There was certain features on the poster that had to be included such as the rating and information which had to be in the font Steel Tongs, I like the placement of both the information and the rating because it's all aligned and kept neat underneath the title and doesn't interfere with the image in anyway, however I did forget to include the release date of the film which is quite important. So improvements which I would make to this poster would be to include the release date, and to clean up the female characters image, maybe use a different image which is a darker image so it is easier to blend the two images together to create a clean image. 

Research and Planning: Regulation and Censorship

Regulation and Censorship.

 

I am thinking of doing a psychological thriller, so I have decided to put the trailer at a 15 rating because I want the trailer to still be shown on TV at later prime times (9:00 onwards) and by having it at this rating it will be able to get out to the mass market and appeal to my audience. By making it a 15, I may need to change certain aspects on my trailer and carefully choose the clips I will use as it will have to meet guidelines and be appropriate for the times it will be shown but still keep the thriller and scary aspect to the trailer.

As stated before I am thinking of doing a psychological thriller, so we have decided that the best certificate for the film will be an 18, by giving it an 18 rating it will allow us to push the boundaries with certain clips/scene and the guidelines are a lot easier to work with, within our chosen genre. For example, with an 18 rather than hinting at certain aspects it can be shown and we can use scarier scenes e.g. jump scenes and maybe violence or gore if the film contains that.

Research and Planning: The Pitch

The Pitch: Powerpoint Presentation 

A powerpoint embedded through SlideShare based on two plots and ideas for them and the trailers.

                 

The Pitch from AbbieDuttonG

Research and Planning: Genre Research

Fantasy.

Fantasy films are usually aimed at a younger teenage audience so are often given a 12A rating. Fantasy films are based on the idea of something that isn't real or some sort of myth, although fantasy films can be split into two catagories: the first one being shown above which seems to be a more popular one recently and it is still a fantasy film but it's set in our world with just a fantasy element, for example Twilight which is extremely popular is based on a normal girl falling in love with a vampire and these sorts of storylines seem to be quite successful because the audience can believe it that little bit more but still has an interesting fantasy twist. And the same with the hunger games, it's a film which uses real people and just has the fantasy elements, both of these examples are based on book series which is a common thing in fantasy films but not always the case, depending on the type of film impacts on different things so because vampires are seen as dark, some low key lighting is used and also everything seems a little bit more dull.

The other type of fantasy film is where it's based in a complete fantasy world, the example I have used is Avatar. although this does have some sort of human element it is based on the fantasy world and this film has had massive successful which is difficult because you have to get the fantasy world just right and make the audience believe and want to be involved. These types of films involve a lot of special effects and rely on new technologies such as CGI, so unless you have a massive budget to work with then it's very difficult for someone to make and also make the audience believe. Again these usually have a rating of about a 12A but can appeal to wide audiences because of families wanting to see films like these.

Thriller.

Thriller films are usually rated at a 15/18 and their target audience is usually that of teenagers and young adults, attracting both genders usually. Thrillers can be seperated into different types such as crime thrillers, psychological thrillers etc, but all work on the same concept and use the same features, which are usually creating suspense and tension for the audience and involving unexpected twists within the film, thrillers are often cast into a catagory of 'films that make you think' because they usually have a strong storyline that you need to follow carefully from beginning to end which is a feature both of the examples above have. Thrillers are based on mostly 'real-life' situations or happenings although some thrillers do include some fantasy elements such as The Box above which has all sorts of twists in the film. But the main aim of a thriller to create suspense and tension for the audience, it does have some scare aspect for example scenes that can make the audience jump although the soul purpose isn't to just scare the audience. The tend to use a lot of low key lighting and dark colours to get the gloomy atmosphere across and also another popular colour to use is red, because it can symbolise many things like passion, danger and blood all of which could potentially feature in the film.

Horror.

Horror's are rated at a 15/18 depending on how extreme the content is, their target audience is teenagers and young adults. Horror's are usually quite grusome and bloody so they have to have the higher rating , but they appeal to younger adult/teenage audiences because they use gimmicks such as prom night which is something everybody knows so they are interested in watching it, and a lot of horror films continue and make more in the series such as SAW above which is massive franchise and each film attracts the auidence again because they want to see what gory things are happening in this film and if it's as grusome as the last. Another thing that horror films work with is word of mouth for example people saying how scary the film is which intrigues others to go and watch it, so they try to use suggestive gory images in their campaign to hint at the sort of things to be expected. They use a lot of low key lighting and emphasised sound effects such as footsteps and heavy breathing to create the suspense and scary atmosphere for the audience.

Romance.

Romance films are often rated at a 12A to attract the young female teenage audience and also women in general. Romance films often follow the relationship between two people, and how is blossoms although more often than not they have some sort of obstacle, a common one used is the love is frowned upon or forbidden. Something that has been used in the past is the use of a historical event and a love story has been added to it, an example used above is Titanic which is obviously based on the famous titanic ship sinking but the love story adds to it which makes it easier for people to buy into. A lot of bright colours and high-key lighting are used to create the blissful surroundings and the love although they sometimes make it a little bit darker if the want to represent the struggles in the relationship. More romance hybrids are coming out now for example, romcoms which are romantic comedys and fantasy's often involve a romance story because it makes the story more interesting by adding an extra story aspect.