How I'm going to use my Pre-Production research

By looking at all of my research into supernatural horror films, I found that people still like the gore factor. I’ll use this information to make my poster appealing to my target audience. Teenager like to watch 18 rated films more than 15 rated films, which is why I’d like my target audience to be between 16-24. My secondary research told me that they’re the people who go to see those films more often, so my film ideas would be aimed at the people who are able to go see them in the cinema and those who’d watch them at home with friends.

I found from my focus group that people expect supernatural horror films to be about spirits and to be about true events. So I think it would be appropriate to go and find legends or supernatural events that have happened and base my film off it, also using the fears from those who filled out my questionnaire would be good to add. My focus group told me that when a horror film has their fears in the story it had a more personal feel and it was more relatable.

While doing my secondary research I found that the fear of the unknown was one of the biggest fears in mankind, so supernatural horror fits well with that since it’s all about the unknown and people not being in control over something they don’t know about. Mixing my focus group and secondary research I know now that people enjoy the conventions of supernatural horror and without them they think that the film isn’t as good, so with my own ideas I should keep those clique themes to make the film conform to its genre.

When doing my content analysis I found that most supernatural horror film posers like to be cleaver with their typography and use props that are to do with the film, which is something that was said in my focus group and was liked by the audience. I also found that binary opposites are common in them as well, so I should take that into consideration. Religion and the Devil also play a big part in supernatural horror and throughout my secondary research it kept coming up and I think it would be a good idea to incorporate it into my ideas since it’s a very common theme with the supernatural sub-genre. If I use some of the conventions that I found that people enjoy a lot my poster campaign will be clear that it’s a supernatural horror.

Distribution companies and advertisement

Audience Profile

Focus Group

Audience research

Questionnaire results

Psychographic question answers

Have you experienced any supernatural event?

Over half of the people who I asked to fill out my questionnaire have said that they had either experienced or hear about supernatural events happens to their friends or family. A majority of the encounters are to do with hearing footsteps, doors slamming or things being knocked over; some of them are to do with children. Only one person claimed to have seen their deceased uncle.

Someone talked about how they visited Bodmin Gool and her son started to scream hysterically when they entered one room and then calmed down instantly when they left the room. Three of them talk about how either them or siblings used to say strange things when they were children. She said that she used to have an “imaginary friend” who would tell her facts about World War 2 and she’d then recite them and they’d be correct. She also said that at the age of 3 her “imaginary friend” would tell her complex words that she’d use when she spoke and she understood what they meant. The 3^rd story about children was a woman who said that her younger sister would come out with weird statements. She walked into the room and said “aunt Lucy’s dead” and they thought nothing of it, since she wasn’t, then the next day they got a phone call saying that she had passed away. She said that when she was a child her mum was driving and nearly hit a car at a junction. A few weeks later, at the same junction, she was in the car with her mum and said “What out for the car mummy!” and there weren’t any other cars there.

Another story was that this woman’s sister couldn’t sleep so she came into bed with her and her younger sister kept saying “who’s the lady in the pink dress” and pointing at the end of the bed.

Most of these are about things happening in their own homes, a few of them being them now living in a house where the previous owner had died and now doors slam, things fall, lights flicker, and they can hear footsteps.

What are you biggest fears?

Some people had some odd fears e.g. Polystyrene, windows on upper floors, different textures, things with holes in. A couple were about ghosts and Ouija boards. A few fears where more emotional fears; one being someone not wanting to outlive their own children, loosing control, saying goodbye. There were the common fears that a lot of people had: clowns, the unknown, spiders, and cockroaches.

I think that the people who had fears linked to their emotions had more a more genuine fear because they went in depth about them, rather than those who just wrote down “spiders.” Those who did I think that there fears are more about being disgusted by something rather than having a fear of it. Seeing something that has a usual texture is more about them being shocked by it rather than being fearful of it. I can take the general fears and use them in my poster campaign ideas, but the ones that are emotional I can base the idea of the film around them.

What makes a horror film poster effective? (Other box selected and discussed)

People who had selected the other box wanted to see something that’s based on real life events/ new threats/ not over doing the jumps scare factor. A couple of people want posters to have a sense of mystery to them and seeing the monster emerging or seeing something surreal.

When you watch a supernatural horror film what do you expect?

Lots of people liked the conventions of supernatural horror films; gore, playing on the real world, jump scares, plot twists, and some people said that they enjoy them having bad endings, one person said that they liked the archetype of a blond bimbo in horror films. Suspense was the biggest expectation for supernatural horror films and seeing disturbing images. I think this is because, from my secondary research, people want to see and experience the things that they don’t have/ try to avoid in their own persona lives.

Analysis of demographic questions

Lots of people fell into the age grouping of 16-18 and they were the people who most commonly watch horror films, in my focus group I will ask them if they tend to watch 15 rated horror or 18 rated; because I think that teenagers have a fascination of graphic horror films and I’d like to hear about it in more depth. My questionnaire was more female dominant and most of the males who answered it didn’t watch horror films as much. Which I find interesting because stereotypically you’d think that males would want to watch horror films more. For my focus group I will chose people who are between the ages 16-18 because I feel that it's a more appropriate age group for horror films.  

The most favoured sub-genres of horror films were gore and supernatural. I believe this could be because they’re the two that are very far from reality, yet the two genres play on real life events.

A majority of people used to tell ghost stories when they were teenagers. The ones they told were mostly about real life events and the most common one heard was Bloody Mary and he disappearing Hitchhiker. These two ghost stories are based in the real world and are to do with seeing a ghost. Rather than the stories that were about a human being the antagonist, e.g Humans can lick too and the clown statue. From my secondary research and this questionnaire people like to hear stories about real life events and most supernatural horror films are about true events that have happened.  

People said that the poster does make an impact on whether they’d see the film or not, and the most common thing they thought made it effective was low lighting. Everything else was about level. Lots of people liked to see a bit of gore or the monster. Out of the two posters I showed them, Poltergeist and Sinister, people said that they would rather see Sinister. Which shows that people do like to see a bit of gore in the poster, maybe this is because it’s clearer that it’s a horror film and they know what they’re going to see. I chose two posters that were opposites to see if people would go for the classic gore poster for a horror film or the one that suggested horror and had a child in it.

Secondary Research

Finalised Questionnaire

When I re-wrote my questionnaire I made the questions in bold and highlighted the most important parts of the introduction in red because it makes certain parts stand out and the entire thing isn't all blended together. The ghost pictures are for aesthetic purposes because they're more likely to answer a questionnaire that looks more exciting. I also took out the more personal questions about peoples beliefs about demonic beings and spirits as I can use them in my focus group. So I swapped them for questions about urban legends since most people will be able to relate to them. I feel like the new questions and the ones I have about the posters will allow me to get research that's very close to my sub-genre of supernatural genre.

Finished Questionnaire

I re-wrote some of my questionnaire to get more of an understanding of what people would want to see in a supernatural horror film, to know what I should include in my poster. After looking over this questionnaire I realised that some of these questions were too deep and personal for someone to answer in a couple of minutes. I still want some of the answers to still be personally, e.g. the question about their fears and own experiences, because it means I can use this research to create a film that plays on people's personal fears and real life experiences.

 

Questionnaire

My first attempt at creating a questionnaire about supernatural horror films is very basic and there were too many personal questions. Although I think I managed to get some decent questions that just need to be developed and worded more professionally. I think asking slightly personal questions means that my results will be much more helpful and I'll be able to get a very clear idea on what I should base my film poster about. I chosen a variety of open and closed questions which allow me to get more specific results for certain questions, while the open questions will give me broader answers that I can use to build my ideas.

Personal plan

Supernatural sub-genre poster analysis

From my primary research into supernatural horror films, I've learnt that a lot of these films are based of true events, which evokes fear into the audience because it makes it more believable. Also the films are more like ghost stories when they're based of true events. I've also noticed that these films like to include religion and use good and evil. The binary opposites are very common in supernatural horror films.

Religion is a big part of these demon based supernatural horror films and I think this is because religion is something people rely on to feel safe and protected from demons and spirits. Using religion and it failing to help the protagonists can be fearful and it brakes that barrier of safety. Although I do think it's also to cross over into the audiences lives because religion is a personal thing that a lot of people can relate to.   

Supernatural horror films are usual about possession, spirits, or demons, even though werewolves, vampires, shapeshifters are all supernatural creatures and fall into the same sub-genre. I think the sub-genre of supernatural horror then brakes down into two, supernatural creatures and then spirits and demons. When i create my own poster campaign, I'll go towards the spirit side of supernatural horror, I think you can be more creative and can base the film of peoples personal fears. 

By reading the synopsis of these films, I've learnt the the spirit is someone who had a troubled past and that's why the haunt. In reality, people who have told their own ghost stories, there is normally a much deeper meaning to it and why that spirit haunts. 

Short film workshop evaluation

When creating our storyboard we didn’t encounter many problems to begin with, as a group we instantly put down ideas and very shortly we had half a story. We found dotting down notes underneath the images was easier than writing out full sentences. I realised that when creating a storyboard its more note taking so when you film you don’t get lost or make a mess when it comes to editing. Our idea was very simple and straight forward; we wanted to create a parallel of two going to a meeting point and then sitting down to have a conversation. The only issue we had was deciding on the conversation the characters would have.  With this idea we were able to use various shot types to create a narrative, which worked quite well since for half of it there is not speaking and when watching it back you can see it clearly tells a story. We followed the 180^o rule when filming the dialogue so when it came to editing the actors would be facing each other. Although the problem we had with the conversation scene was that we didn’t plan out much of a script because we thought that it wouldn’t sound fluent enough, so during the 3 different shots of the conversation what we say is slightly different than each other, which caused some issues when it came to editing.  

It was time to edit and we quickly realised that our short film was longer than we expected. While planning we thought the meeting scene wouldn’t take that long but we realised that wasn’t the case.  When editing the meeting scene they were very easier to cut up and put in order and I think we did a good job at mixing up the shot types to create some anticipation to what the characters are meeting for. But when it came to the conversation it didn’t go so well since we had to mix sentences together that originally didn’t follow. Swapping from the various shots and trying to line up what the actors were saying was rather difficult and in the end when you watch it through some of it is very choppy. Despite that little hiccup with the conversation part, as a group we worked really well together considering we had a few issues with the tripod being slightly broken and using the elevator for a scene when other people in the college were trying to use it.  

Evaluation on Pixlr workshop

To recreate the Guinness advert we used a program called Pixlr. I found it easy to use and most of it was very straight forward to pieces the various images together. I’m happy with my finished product because I feel that I have replicated the advert well. I used the blur tool to make it seem like the horses and surfers were coming out of the water, the horse furthest away looks the best in my opinion; although I could have made it a little smaller to give it more perspective. When cutting out the horse from the background I used the magic want tool to erase unwanted areas and then the eraser and select tool to get rid of the closer unwanted background. I found this way easier and more precise than cutting around the horse and then cutting it out from the background; only because if I was to make a mistake while using the select tool and then press undo it goes all the way back to when you started selecting.  I think the surfer crouching down looks the best out of the two since I used the blur tool more and I found an image that looked better than the other one. I’ve learnt that when using images various images it’s best to pick ones that are simple and not covered in detail, since the surfer in the original image was covered in water and now in my one he has all these white speckles over him.

When creating the advert I found it difficult to pick out images that would fit with each other, so when it’s time for me to take my images for my course work I’ll make sure they’re in similar conditions to make the editing much easier. I did try using the sharpen tool to make the horses face less blurry but it made it too grainy and it just didn’t look right. I could have used different horse pictures to make it look a little more genuine since all of them are identical. I didn’t encounter many problems from using the software, but some of the images like the surfer did make it a little more difficult. Removing the unwanted background was tricky when it was very close to the subject since I’d accidentally rub out part of the surfers hand or the horses face, but by using the eraser with the blurred effect it becomes a lot easier and if I did end up erasing more than what I wanted it won’t look as bad; that and I was able to use the blurred eraser to blend the horses into the water.