Film Regulations and Certifications

My film will most likely be rated a 15 on the BBFC rating system due to drug use with the pills and scenes of violence and terror. Most Horror films are rated 18 but as mine will be on a low budget so will not have such extreme scenes of violence and gore, or any scenes of sexuality due to the limits of my short cast.

I have to also consider where a short film in general would be played. Often short films have a very niche audience, being played at short film festivals all around the world. Despite this the general public will usually watch a short film on the popular video website YouTube, which could be shared onto popular social networking sites Facebook and Twitter. Occasionally, short films can be shown on Channel 4 and other similarly diverse and indie channels. I would like my short film to be a teaser short for a much larger film starring the villain from the short.

Extra Advertisement for my Film: Facebook Page

I have been considering how films like mine can be advertised on the market. The most obvious ways of advertising a short film is to have advertisements in Film magazines and Posters (Both of which I will be creating for my Ancillary tasks) Or trailers on TV and at the Cinema. But as we now live in a more multimedia age there are more useful places to put advertisements when attracting a younger audience. Often, with bigger budget films, the film maker will pay the video playing website YouTube, so there film will appear as a recommended video on similar pages and have the trailer appear as advertisements on videos. The trailer and video can be shared on popular social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, where it can trend and appear on more peoples feeds on Facebook and #discovery trending videos on Twitter. This increases the chances of it being seen by the larger audience. As I do not have the budget to pay for advertising or trending, I instead decided to make a Facebook page for my film, which can be done for free and can be shared amongst mutual friends. As Facebook is the most popular social networking site it is more likely to be seen by more people and thus the film will have a larger spread. I will include the Facebook address on my film poster

The page can be seen here- http://www.facebook.com/whenwillitend2013

Edited Poster: Ancillary

I have taken any comments and advice from when I put my initial poster on Facebook and have tried to incorporate them into this edited poster. I edited on using Photoshop fog to give more mystery to the image and to make the background look less clean. I have also made the text blend into the background more.

Youtube Advertisements

I have experimented with what my video would look like advertised onYoutube, so I quickly created a quick advert, with link to the video:

Characters in my Film

I have two characters in my film at the moment. Because of the small cast it will be easier to set up rehearsal and filming schedules. Most of the time there is only one character in the scene, the at the moment unnamed protagonist, with the villain making occasional appearances throughout, particularly at the climax. Here I hope to write a short character profile for my characters, so I will have a better understanding of how they should look and act within the context of a Horror film, and do they conform to the genre.

Protagonist: My unnamed protagonist for my film should be an Everyman style character. He must appear just ordinary, with an ordinary office job and living in an ordinary house. This helps the audience relate more to his character, and then it makes it hit back home more when he the horror unfolds.
Despite his appearance as an Everyman character, he is exasperated with the constant annoyances and tediousness of his work and life, which will be shown in a frantic montage of images and sounds in his office. It will be shown that he has to take pills for something, which could be the MacGuffin plot devise or the  mystery that is left unresolved in the film; the audience never discover what pills the character has to take so perhaps all the horror is really his own hallucination? or it could be something as tame and simple as Paracetamol.
The character must hold the films narrative with his genuine feelings of terror at the situation, which is as much a mystery to him as it is to his audience. He must convey feelings of exasperation and annoyance at first, then confusion, then genuine fear and finally intense terror. He will wear a shirt and tie, just regular office clothes, which will contrast with the villains costume.

Villain: The villain must be the image to the film, the iconic character that could perhaps appear in the sequels and become the image of the series. Because of the villains need to be iconic on a competitive market, so I have given it an easily recognizable mask which shrouds its personality, identity and sex. The true nature of the villain is shrouded in mystery; we are never sure on his motive for torturing the protagonist and whether or not it is even real. the fact the protagonist runs out of pills shortly before the haunting from the villain. The psychological torture the villain administers is particularly dark and pessimistic, juxtaposing happy music with its sadistic murders. I want my villain to be named Jokerface, linking it to similar named characters Ghostface and Leatherface, and also because of the Jester style on the mask.

Initial Film Poster: Ancillary Task

Here is my first rough idea of a poster for my short Horror film, initially called When Will It End. I have tried to stick to a monochrome colour scheme with added red which connotes blood, violence and murder, and have included a sneaky look at my villain. The typography is stereotypical to the genre, looking like splattered blood. There is only one section with light so it adds mystery to the image, and remains faithful to the genre having a setting at night. The mask still has colour on it adding to the iconography of the character and so the eye is drawn to it. Conventional features of film posters that I have included is the film title (the largest piece of text on the page), a tagline relating to the major themes of the film ("Be careful what you wish for"), production info that is small and unreadable and bold text explaining when it will be released. I also included a Facebook widget that will help advertise the film multimedially and to spread it to Facebook users, the majority of whom will be the intended teenage audience. I have included both my original drawing and a roughly photo-shopped image. I put the photo on the popular social networking site Facebook, and I have included some of the most helpful comments from this, which I hope to incorporate on my finished poster.

I also have created a second film poster, as most films have two posters on release. This is far more simplistic than my first poster, showing a distorted image of the text with nothing but the title on the poster. Whilst this is effective, I have decided to use my first poster, as whilst the second is more minimalistic and interesting, the first design contains all the necessary information needed for an effective poster

Review of Work 2: Film Plot Idea

I have tried to develop my initial plan of wanting to create a Horror Film blended with a Psychological Thriller. I have decided to name my film When Will It End? It starts off with the protagonist, a stressed, over worked office worker alone at a desk. there is a focus on every irritable noise; the ticking clock, the fan, him tapping a pen, buzzing of lights, fan in computer etc. The images and noises become for frantic and volatile as there is a focus on his eyes, showing a gateway into his mind and his current feelings of manic despair. He goes back to his work, and types on his computer "When Will It End?" which the camera will focus on, setting the scene for the film. All of this first scene happens in a small, minimilistic office, with the purpose of portraying the unnamed protagonist as an Everyman character; this could be any man in any office, which brings the horror back home as the audience relates themselves to the character.

After the typing on the computer, there is a medium shot of the man, he carries on typing for a few seconds then suddenly a gloved hand will appear on his shoulder, he'll then turn around and there will be a long shot from the opposite side of the room, and the owner of the hand will disappear. He will jump up and shout who's there but no one will appear. This will make the audience question what the nature of the horror will be. Is it all set in his head or is it something more? It will then cut to the inside of an industrial bathroom. It will focus on the door, and then track the protagonist to the sink. he fills a plastic cup with water and reaches to his pocket for a bottle of pills. An insert shot of the bottle will appear now, revealing that the pills are empty. A close up of the protagonists distressed face and the empty bottle appears in front but not in focus. What the pills are for is not explained, hinting at perhaps the protagonists need for medication due to his growing insanity.

The next scene is the protagonist walking home. It tracks along side him all the way, as he walks down the dark streets, past various shops and houses. He walks down several alleys, and this walking lasts around twenty seconds. In one of the alleys the villain will stand, looking at the camera and not move  No focus will be put on this, and he will carry on walking normally. He will stop after a few seconds, as him and the audience realize they saw something, and will step backwards to look for it, but now it will be gone. there will be a low angle shot from the floor as he looks around confused, he then looks directly to the camera, and extends his hand down. This will have been a P.O.V shot from the mask. the next shot will be an over the shoulder shot of the mask in his hands. Then a long shot as he throws it down and runs away from the alley.

An establishing shot of the house (The scene of the penultimate action) appears here, as the protagonist runs into the scene towards the house. there is a medium shot here of him opening the door to his house and rushing in, and then it focuses on the villain, half hidden in the shadows. He sits down in the living room and pours himself a glass of whiskey  muttering "its not real, you're just tired, its not real, its not, its not". He turns to turn the TV on and sits down, with a focus on the back of his head, and the action on the TV. It is the scene from Friday the 13th, where Kevin Bacon's character gets stabbed in the throat by the mysterious killer. he turns the TV off, sobbing, still focusing on the back of his head. Suddenly all the lights go out, and Mary Hopkins cover of Those Were The Days would play at an intense volume. The happy song will contrast with the horrible and terrifying situation. He screams, and stumbles towards the window, tracking him as he walks. it focuses on the garden, as he sees the villain walking slowly from behind a tree towards the house. He then starts screaming, scrambling around to find the torch. there is then a voice over  saying "You wanted it to end, so here is your end". The protagonist starts screaming "No" over and over again, trying to turn the torch on. as it flickers from his P.O.V, the villain appears on camera with a knife, runs towards the camera, and then a cut to black, with screaming over the titles.

Tagline for my Film

I am still considering what Tagline would be best to use on my film. For every popular film a punchy and original tagline is needed, both to advertise the film but also showing the meaning that is wanted to be portrayed through the film. I will list some of the more popular horror films and some of the taglines from these;

Nightmare on Elm Street- Sleep Kills
A simplistic and punchy tagline, linking to the theme of sleeping and nightmares, and containing stereotypical horror language like "Kills"

The Shining- The Horror is driving him crazy
Again matches the craziness shown in the film, and Jacks mental disintegration. The use of the word horror explicitly links it to the genre

Scream- Someone has taken their love of scary movies one step too far. Solving this mystery is going to be murder.
Links to the main theme of the film, a scary movie inspired murderer. The use of a pun ending sentence makes it seem like a Scooby Doo cartoon, links it to the stereotypes of the genre and also shows the murder that will appear in the film

Friday the 13th- They were warned... They are doomed... And on Friday the 13th, nothing will save them.
The idea of Friday the 13th being unlucky, referring to them as doomed and nothing will save them shows they will most likely die, and thus there will be more expectation of gore and death

The Exorcist- Nobody expected it, nobody believed it, and nobody could stop it. The one hope, the only hope: THE EXORCIST
Religious ideas of needing hope, and no one believing it, and repeating the film title for effect

Halloween- The Night HE Came Home!
The emphasis on HE creates mystery as to what he is. Home is usually a positive image, but in the context of a horror film this is turned into a terrifying prospect

Saw- How much blood would you shed to stay alive?
The rhetorical question puts the audience in the place of the people put into the games by Jigsaw, and the word blood is often associated with the Horror genre and aesthetic.

From all of these existing taglines it is apparent that my tagline must link to the major theme of my film, which will be insanity and wishing to get away from the stress and hardships of work, only to be stalked by a benevolent and mysterious villain. Here are some possible Taglines;

Be Careful what you wish for...
Beware Jesterface
Your slack may doom you...
Look behind you, who knows who'll be stalking you
This Year, Look Left and Look Right, Look Behind and Everywhere for Jesterface

Typography of Poster

For my poster I needed to select a suitable typography for the Horror Genre. I considered various fonts, but as with all Horror films, there is a certain stereotypical and conventional font type, usually showing a gory, blood soaked lettering that reflect the horror that will appear in the film. I could find no such lettering on the standard Word document fonts, so I decided to look to the website, particularly the website 1001 Free Fonts, which had a whole section on Horror Fonts. Here are a few that I found:

I have decided to go with the "You Murderer" Font as it better matches the Thriller aspects of my film, whilst also conforming to the gory Horror typography.

My Villain- Decision

I have decided that my villain should wear a masquerade mask, as its archaic and old fashioned and colourful style contrasts with the sinister and dark character. It is also an original yet marketable style, in the vain of iconic Horror villains like Freddy Krueger and Jason Vorhees. It could easily be distinguished compared to similar villains from other horror films.

My Villain

I have been considering what look I want my villain in my Horror film to have, taking into account the classic style of popular villains like Freddy Krueger and Leatherface. I decided that my villain should wear a mask, as this will reduce the need for makeup and can be often more sinister than an elaborate look, as any psycho could wear a mask and murder someone, but it is much harder to imagine an alien or mutant attacking you. Masks are often used in Horrors as they cover up the identity and personality of the wearer, taking away the humanity and identity from the wearer and also adds mystery as to who the mask wearer is (Especially in films like Scream).

I have decided (and included on my survey) several choices I have on what mask my villain should wear. I have considered a mirror mask, a sack mask, a masquerade mask, a trestle mask, a clown mask and a zombie mask. I have tried to findout which of the three would be most popular. Out of all these, the most popular were the Pumpkin, Sack and the most popular was The Masquerade mask. I took a few initial photos of what I would like my villain to look like, including the costume and weapon along with the mask.

Extra Elements Needed for my Film

There are some extra elements that will be needed to make my film seem more realistic that I may not consider during the busy production stages. For example, I will have to design a logo for my fictional Production and distribution companies. If my film was to be made really these films logo would appear at the start before the film starts, to both advertise the company and act as a signature to their involvement in the film. I will have to create something that looks original, yet also looks professional or like something that would appear before a film. Another element I must consider for my ancillary task is where would the film review appear? It would most likely appear in a Empire or Total Film style magazine, and so I must create a name for my magazine as well.

Questionnairre on Horror

To help my research into what my target audience would want to see in my Horror film, I have created a short survey on the website Survey Monkey. I have shared this Questionairre on the social networking site Facebook (so the responses would be from people of my own age group, who would be the target audience to my film) and then also shared it amongst the people at my 6th form, all of whom are aged 16-18. From these responses I will discover what I will need to include in my film to create elements of Horror

The Survey in its entirety can be found here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MD2LG2L

The questions I have included in my Questionnaire are;

1.) What is your favourite Horror Film from this list?
Halloween
Paranormal Activity
Insidious
The Exorcist
Frankenstein
Friday the 13th
Nightmare on Elm Street
Scream
Sinister
Resident Evil
Silence of the Lambs
The Ring
The Grudge
The Omen
Psycho
Jaws
Alien
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Dawn of the Dead
Saw
Other

2.) What is your main reason for watching a Horror Film?
To be scared
For social reasons (going with friends)
You like the storylines
Escapism
Because of the films infamy (e.g. The Exorcist)
Watching others Misfortune (Schaudenfreude)
I don't like horror films
Other

3.) What is your favourite stock character in a Horror Film?
The Anti-Hero (e.g. Freddy Krueger)
The Villain/ Antagonist
The Virgin
The Clown
The Jock
The Scholar
The Whore
Other

4.) Who is your favourite villain?
Freddy Krueger ( Nightmare on Elm Street)
Hannibal Lecter (Silence of the Lambs)
Jason Vorhees (Friday the 13th)
Leatherface (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre)
Ghostface (Scream)
Jigsaw (Saw)
Generic Zombie Hordes
Count Dracula
The Shark (Jaws)
Norman Bates (Psycho)
Frankensteins Moster
Chuckie (Childs Play)
Pinhead (Hellraiser)
Michael Myers (Halloween)
Damien (The Omen)
Other

5.) Out of these choices of Horror Villain Masks, what do you think would be the scariest?
Sack Mask
Trestle Mask
Masquerade Mask
Mirror Mask
Clown Mask
Zombie Mask

6.) Final Question, what would you like to see more of in Horror Films?
Violence
Blood
Gore
One Liners
Sex
Better Acting
Better Villains
Bigger Budget
More Unconventional Settings
Other 

Equipment List

This is a list of all the equipment I will be using for my film, and some of the potential problems that may happen during production. I have also included what I will use to prevent these problems;

Video Cameras: I will have to book out from the media department from school, and will be the main piece of equpiment I use in my coursework, as I will use it to film the bare footage of my film in the production stage. Potential problems I may have using the video cameras include if the equipment is booked out for the day I would like to film on, meaning I will have to book out early and secure my use of the camera. Also I need to know the various shots and angles that will get me the higher grades that I will include in my film. As I haven't used the video cameras proffesionally, I will have to have a refresher course on what I will have to include and how to operate the camera efficiently and professionally. Natural disturbances may occur when wanting to film outisde, but I will have to get past this problem and reschedule filming.

Photoshop/ Quark: I will have to use one of the editing software to create my film poster and magazine article for my ancillary tasks. Problems I will have will mostly revolve around trying to making my work look professional, like a real film poster. I will have to take inspiration from similar film posters and as I have had experience with Photoshop programs in previous work and should be able to edit them effectively.

SLR Camera: I will have to use an SLR camera to take photos of my set, characters, and the images needed for my interview and poster. Like all the equipment for this, I will need to book it out from Media. Problems that may occur may be natural disturbances, such as rain when wanting to do an outdoor shoot, but in this circumstance I will have to rechedule the photos for another day, or attempt to take the photos inside.

Boom Mic: I may need to book out the Boom Mic for any shots that rely heavily on diegetic sound used for dramatic effectiveness. Problems I may have in using the boom mic include having to hire someone to operate it whilst I film and requiring them to know how to operate the equipment (I will have to teach them before filming). Also we must require the wind protector on the mic to stop wind noise appearing in my film and to give it a more natural sound

Final Cut: I will have to use Final Cut in order to edit my raw footage and sequence it to make it look like a real film. As I have never used this program before so I will have to have an insight and a play around with the editing so I will have a go before it comes to the main film. Problems I could have are the same with any program; if it will save, will it look professional when finished etc.

Review of Work 1

So far I have found out various information over the traditional conventions and stereotypes of Horror Texts. If I am to create a popular Horror Film for the public I must follow these conventions whilst also being original with the content. For Example, elements I will have to consider over the coming weeks include;

 > The Look for my Horror Villain- all successful slashers have an iconic looking villain (Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees etc.) so I need to consider what mine will look like. As I have a small budget to work with for costumes I need to get I will not be able to create such complex makeup that would be used creating Freddy's burnt face for example so I will have to use a cheaper outfit, like Ghostface from Scream.
 > The Setting- To create a Horror atmosphere, the majority of Horror Films have similar settings. These settings are imprinted into the mind of the audience and are intertwined conventions of the genre. Typical settings include Gothic Castles (Dracula), Mental Hospitals (Shutter Island), Forests (Friday the 13th) and Mansions (Woman in Black). But in more recent Horror films the setting has shifted to just being in a regular house, this makes it more horrifying in the fact it could be any house, even the person who is watching the film. This will make it seem more real and create more feelings of real Horror within the film. Also filming in a normal house will be more affordable and easy for my film.
> The Storyline- My story for my film must be original but must also fit the conventional storyline for a horror film. For example, it must have a macabre atmosphere and must not be treated as comnical, but can have some hidden humour. Deaths are also common in most Horror Films.

All of these I will have to consider as I move on into the planning stage.

Key Directors- Wes Craven

Wes Craven is perhaps the most iconic horror director the world has ever known. Born Wesley Earl Craven in Cleveland, Ohio on August 2 1939 to a strictly Baptist upbringing, Craven got an undergraduate degree in English and Psychology from Wheaton College, Illinois, and a masters degree in Philosophy and Writing from Johns Hopkins University. Despite promise for an academic teaching career, he left it all to pursue film making. His first taste of directing came with jobs as an X-Rated Porn director, which surprisingly helped him develop his unique directing abilities. In 1972 Craven directed his first feature film, The Last House on the Left. This film was famed for its exploitive nature and sadistic portrayal of violence and sex, so much so that in 1974 the BBFC refused a certificate for cinema release, in much the same way the infamous Human Centipede film was banned recently. Surprisingly the film garnered positive critical acclaim from reviewers, even so English film critic Mark Kermode has been quoted as saying, despite the film is “horrible, grim and nasty” that it does stand as a "very, very important work in the evolution of American horror cinema". It garnered a cult following shortly after its release and cemented Wes Cravens name in the new wave of daring and exploitive horror films made at that time.

After a few more Horrors, all of which didn’t get the same recognition as Last House on the Left did, Craven created one of the most enduring pieces of horror cinema and one of the most iconic characters of all time; A Nightmare on Elm Street and the dream altering villain Freddy Krueger. This revolutionized the original slashers from the 1970’s, but stooped them in dark humour and science fiction. The film was well received by critics and the public, and is still one of the most enduring Horror films of all time, with Krueger becoming one of the most recognizable villains. This film spawned a string of sequels, only one of which had Cravens involvement; Wes Cravens New Nightmare, which had the actors from the original film being haunted by Freddy. More recently Freddy has been pitched against similar villain from the Friday the 13th series Jason Voorhees in Freddy vs. Jason, and the original was remade without Cravens involvement in 2010. Freddy’s image is now highly marketable, with outfits and memorabilia sold, particularly around Halloween.

Definitely one of Cravens biggest films will be his 1997 hit Scream. The self-deprecating humour within the film, which parodies the genre that Craven himself helped to create, was revolutionary. There is a knowing usage of conventional settings and characters and that the murderer kills using horror clichés and bases his murders on whether or not they can answer horror trivia questions. This revolutionized the slasher genre, which had become more and more of a joke from the late 80’s. This also marks one of the last iconic slasher villains with Ghostface.

Some of the stylistic features of Cravens film include a strong female lead (Such as Sidney from The Scream films) and protagonists are often ordinary people who have been dragged into horrific and extraordinary circumstances, occasionally an unglamorous depictions of graphic violence, a deformed villain and usually deal with strong social issues. Cravens lasting legacy on the Horror genre is apparent in most modern Horrors and his films will go down as pinnacle moments in Horror History.

Existing Horror Film Posters: Ancillary

Along with my film I must create a film poster. If I am to create a conventional yet unique poster I mus follow the stylistic trends of similar posters, and follow what is similar in each one. I have annotated a few of the more iconic horror posters to understand this better.

Existing Horror Film Posters from sev06lt1

Complete Audience Research

For my film to be effective, I need to know who I will be aiming it at. For this I need to think of effective ways to categorize my audience, and which will be the most effective. In this powerpoint, I have explored various ways I could categorize my audience.

Audience Research from sev06lt1

The Evolution and Conventions of Horror

In this power-point I will explore the history of the Horror Genre in film, from the 1920s to now. In understanding the genre, I will also be able to understand the conventions and iconography needed in my film.
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Slashers from sev06lt1

Case Study on Institutions- Hammer Horror

Hammer is one of the biggest institutions involved with Horrors in Britain. The company was founded in 1934, and whilst having moderate amounts of fame for various Comedy and Sci-Fi films, the company is better known for their iconic series of Gothic Horrors, labelled as “Hammer Horror”, from the mid-1950’s to the early 70’s. The first significant Horror made by the company was The Quatermass Xperiment in 1955, which was an adaptation of Nigel Kneale’s BBC Television science fiction serial The Quatermass Experiment, the change in title coming to cash in on the new X certification in films, which gave the connotations of an increase of violence, gore or sex that were rare for the 1950s. The film was surprisingly popular, and got a 1957 sequel Quatermass 2.

As production began on this film, developments were being made for an American style horror film, which came about in the form of an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s seminal gothic novel Frankenstein, and as the book had long been in the public domain for years the makers were allowed as much artistic freedom as they wanted. Despite some problems during production, which included one of the heads of Hammer stating, "The script is badly presented. The sets are not marked clearly on the shot headings, neither is DAY or NIGHT specified in a number of cases. The number of set-ups scripted is quite out of proportion to the length of the screenplay, and we suggest that your rewrites are done in master scene form" the film,named The Curse of Frankenstein, after several revisions of the script, did well and like The Quatermass Xperiment before it became immensely popular with the public. This was the official start to the Gothic series of Hammer Horrors and like Universal before it, started doing Monster Horror but now with increases in technology (Particularly the introduction of colour) there were now more chances to create gore and therefore fear. Whilst tame now, for a contextual audience it would have been the most terrifying pieces of cinema that had ever existed. Other popular film series made by the company include the Dracula series (The Count played by the now iconic Christopher Lee) which ran for 9 films, the Frankenstein series ran for 7 films, The Mummy films ran for 4 films. There were also several other films based on iconic “monsters” including The Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Wolfman films.

By the early 70s audiences were becoming more sophisticated as to what they would view as scary. Subtle Horror like Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968) or more explicit gore from films like Night of the Living Dead (1968) gradually desensitized the general audience and made the scares from the early Hammer Horrors seem outdated and unfashionable, and they found it harder to compete on the market. Whilst they couldn’t compete with the violence or gore due to the smaller budget of their films, but followed the European trend at the time and fill their films with more sexual content. Throughout the early 70s less and less films were made by the company, mainly due to the increase in slasher horror films coming from America, such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 1974. There were a few attempts to move away from the increasingly unpopular gothic horrors, such as the film The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, which tried to combine horror with martial arts, and To the Devil a Daughter, an adaptation of a famous horror novel. Both of these films were successful with the public but never as well received as the earlier films. The final film made in this series was a remake of The Lady Vanishes in 1979, which was a failure at the box office and finally bankrupted the studio. 

Hammer Horrors have made a small resurgence recently, despite being in hibernation for nearly 40 years. On 10 May 2007, it was announced that Dutch producer John De Mol had purchased the Hammer Films rights. In addition to holding the rights to over 300 Hammer films, De Mol's company made plans to restart the studio. In collaborations with other companies, Hammer have recently made some popular horror films, including Let Me In in 2010 and an adaptation of Woman in Black in 2012.

The campy and exploitive Hammer has been parodied over time, particularly in the cult film Rocky Horror Picture Show, and has influenced several key directors, particularly Tim Burton, who has incorporated similar gothic themes into most of his films, and has made collaborations with staple Hammer actors Christopher Lee and Michael Gough. The legacy that Hammer has left within Horror is substantial, despite the company never really getting any artistic or critical praise. Despite them not being as scary to a modern audience, they really helped horror evolve into what we watch today.

What the Audience Expects from Watching a Horror Film

For my first piece of research, I decided to look up what the audience will want from watching a Horror Film, in a way to further understand and categorise my audience. I think the paramount reason for any of the audience to watch a horror film will be to have feelings of shock and terror, and often can be seen as a social genre to watch with friends. This research has helped me to understand the genre more and what I will have to feature in my film to help stick to my target audiences wants and expectations, that would stop my film becoming a financial and critical disaster.

Initial Ideas for Short Film

My initial ideas for my film that I will be making is that I would like to do a film that conforms to the Horror Genre. I am myself a fan of Horror films, particularly Psychological Horrors that truly get into the mind of the viewer, and the older classic Slasher horror films. I would like to create a film that is a blend of both of these styles, containing the shock elements and clear, completely evil antagonist from the slashers, whilst containing the ambiguity and mystery of the Psychological Horror. To start off my research I will have to look into the conventional features of Horror and how it has evolved over time, and also research into my audience and why they will want to watch a Horror Film. Here are some of my notes for what my Horror film could be.

Coursework Brief

At the start of the year we got a choice on which brief we would like to do for our A2 media course. I chose the Short Film Brief, which would entail me making a 5 minute long film in fitting with a certain genre (E.g. Comedy, romantic, action). Along with this we would submit a Movie Poster (Meaning research into existing Film Posters and using photography) and create a Magazine Review of the film that would be featured in a film magazine like Empire or Total Film. From this brief I will have to create my own unique film and research deeply into the genres, conventions and audience that my film would attract.