Research Rationale for Posters

This sound-cloud highlights aspects of my focus groups favourite posters. Below is an image of the range of posters they chose from.

Audience Research into Magazine Covers

Here is an audio clip with my focus group discussing the types of horror magazine covers they enjoy and why.  

Which was the best trailer and why?

This video from my focus group highlights all the most useful elements from their favorite trailer which was MAMA. 

Trailer Research Rationale

The following videos highlight reactions from the horror film trailers Insidious, Mama and Sinister 2 with a focus group ranging from ages of 16-17.

This trailer was for Insidious : Chapter 3. My focus group begin to watch the trailer in a state of equilibrium and seem engaged but do not react to initial elements of the trailer. Further into the trailer, they are shocked and annoyed by the antagonists naivety towards the evident paranormal occurrences as this is typical of horror films and lacks realism. They also remarked on the basic nature of horror soundtrack and found it too generic and widely used within the horror genre. The group generally didn't enjoy the video as they felt it was too typical of horror conventions and lacked depth in terms of intrigue gained from the story line.

  

This trailer was for MAMA. This trailer seemed to engage the group from very initial stages with use of shocking images and clips. One girl remarked that "this seems like a trailer that's based on a true story"; it's evident that realism and moral panics are a real scare within teens.Similarly to the Insidious trailer, the group didn't react to much however for very different reasons, They said that the trailer was very "intense" and focused on a new concept and structure in terms of horror trailers, The trailer didn't give away much which was unique of horror trailers, the group liked this feature. they also felt as thought the acting and general plot was better in this film.

This trailer was for Sinister 2. The group had similar reactions to the soundtrack used for the Insidious movie and said it was quite predictable, However, the group were a lot more reactive to this clip as it features more jump scares and shocking images. Also, the group found that the enhanced element of realism was especially evident when the TV or "imaginary world" was turned off and we as viewer were introduced into the real world. The relatability was also a frightening concept of moral panic picked on by the group. 

The next two clips summerise my thoughts on the reactions from the group and highlight what I would take from this experience when making my own trailer.

Research Rationale

Here is a video exemplifying what I will do to carry out my research for my final project.

Horror Preliminary Construction

When we were constructing our preliminary piece we found it very useful to refer back the original clip in order to make our clip flow better with the narrative, Below I have taken comparative screen-shots from the original clip and our preliminary clip.

We found that the film "Scream" uses the element of foreshadowing frequently to highlight future events and the fate of the protagonists. This is highlighted below with the knife shot in the original film and the knife scene in our clip.

Below is a gif from the final part of the original scream clip against our remake clip.

In terms of mise-en-scene we put our makeup skills (which were previously practiced during our planning stages), to good use. We tried our best to follow a similar layout in terms of setting to the original clip - Kitchen, Dining area, Patio and Hallway.

Horror Preliminary Task Planning

In terms of planning, our groups came together to discuss the movie clip we were going to recreate and how we going to conduct this. We made a group chat on Whatsapp in order to set meeting times for shooting and discuss other aspects of filming whilst we were away from each other. 

Below is a scan of the scene shot list of how we intended certain shots to appear.

Below are images showing us practising post-attack makeup for our preliminary clip.