Audience Research: Profile

 
 (photo image provided by Google search)

Above is Jason. Jason has recently turned 20 and currently studying Media Scriptwriting at Bournemouth University. He's a stereotypical man; loves cars, good food, football and movies. His favourite genre of movie is Horror/Thriller and his preferred sub-genre is psychological. He prefers to watch horror/thrillers in the comfort of his own home with a friend or relative. However he occasionally takes a trip to the local cinema to revel in the cinematic atmosphere. Usually this is done alone as he gets more scared and enjoys the suspense. 

Jason would be an ideal audience member for our film opening/title, The Untold, as it has elements of everything he enjoys. He also fits nicely into the age bracket we have set and understands the film industry. Although these are great advantages his critics would bring in move movie goers like his friends or relatives who aren't as movie based as he to come watch our movie. 

Audience Feedback

A few lessons back we were sent out in our films partnerships to interview random members of the college, asking them questions on our specific genre. Unfortunately our footage was lost and the cameras were all misplaces so we took it upon ourselves to head back out and ask a whole new bunch of people the same questions.

Later the same day we went out of class in search of people to interview and ask questions about horror movies and what their opinion was on our 25 word pitch. We got around to 3 people in the short space of time given and asked them 7 questions:

1. What would you expect in an opening horror sequence?
2. How often do you watch horror movies?
3. Who do you enjoy to watch horror movies with? (Please specify ages)
4. What conventions do you look for in a horror movie?
5. What are your favourite aspects of a horror movie?
6. What's your favourite sub-genre of a horror movie? Comedy? Psychological? Action? Gothic? Zombie? Or slasher?
7. What do you think of our 25 word pitch for our horror movie?

Their answers were very positive and gave us a lot of insight into the type of movie opening sequence/title to create. Feedback   on our 25 word pitch included "That's cool, interesting and not typical. It's different" from one boy also "quite good!" and from the only girl we got round to interviewing she said "Pretty good! Depending on the plot and how it plays out it could be good!"  

Below is our miniature interview of 4 people who kindly answered our questions on horror/thriller conventions, our pitch and other media bitsys. We interviewed people of varied age, college students and a teacher; each person with individual tastes and preferences. We found their feedback really useful and their tips will come in handy when filming. Enjoy! 

Scrap that, here's the plan...

NEW MOOD BOARD: Since partnering up with Farhath I've had to change some of my initial ideas to fit both mine and her thoughts. This process was a little troublesome but none the less fun and coming up with a new mood board to fit out fresh new vision was something I was looking forward to most. As said in a previous post about initial ideas we came up with our high concept idea, also known as the 25 word pitch. In this pitch we decided to grasp the idea of a paranormal element and also the psychological levels most. 

"A man who thinks he's run away from his past, finds himself reunited by an unwelcome presence. Secrets don't always stay hidden."

I think what's important to include in my mood board is these two elements, the hidden secrets and mysteries of the unknown that frighten the audience so much. We also recently have come up with a title for our opening sequence/title and are very happy with it. It's called The Untold. A simple, to the point yet questionable title to hook in the audience. So without further a due, my mood board.

My moodboard concentrates souly on the mind and unknown and hopefully this shows through. The movies that inspired me are Se7en, The Number 23, The exorcism of Emily Rose, Sinister and Macbeth. They all include the sub elements of paranormal, mind tricks and possession of the mind from another unknown or just general insanity. They have been the foundation to our plot, mine especially.

Audience Research Tasks

Today we're research our specific audience for our movie idea, looking into who will watch it, gender, age and status. Our age certificate is 15 as we feel the content of our movie has minimal bad language and actions. It is also an age where anyone can view the movie and gives us a broader market to research and advertise too. I think the certificate appeals to most people, perhaps not the 40-50+ age group because of the fact the certificate is so young they might feel it isn't for them. However we've stuck with this age as the pros outweigh the cons and is most suitable for our genre.

I did a little research on the types of movies that are horror and rated 15 and also how the audience felt about them, whether it is too scary, not scary enough or just the right amount of scary.  From the feedback on our interview we found out that a lot of codes and conventions of a horror/thriller movie are as follows:

• Tension, sketchy events occuring
• Jumpy and scary
• Dark and gloomy setting

We also discovered that for this type of genre the people interviewed didn't watch horror/thriller movies very often. We found this interesting because usually it's people in their 16-18 age group that I would of originally thought to watch that particular genre the most often.

While looking on the BFI (British Film Institution) I came across the age distribution of cinema-goers during the period 1997-2011.

As you can see, the majority of cinema-goers are between the ages of 15 and 24 years. This is our prime target audience as it is the largest and being the most popular will accumulate the better success. This also relates to our own individual research while interviewing people around the college. Although they didn't watch the genre we chosen often they do watch a lot of movies and are between the ages of 16 and 18. 

Some films similar to our chosen story line are 100 Feet.

After Marnie Watson kills her abusive husband in self-defense, she is condemned to house arrest... only to discover that the house is possessed by the enraged and violent spirit of her dead husband.

The Possession:

A young girl buys an antique box at a yard sale, unaware that inside the collectible lives a malicious ancient spirit. The girl's father teams with his ex-wife to find a way to end the curse upon their child.

The Shining:

A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where an evil and spiritual presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from the past and of the future.

Although these aren't the exact story line they both have influences of paranormal and possession of the body which our move also holds. The movie 100 Feet is similar in the way that the protagonist has committed a crime and the victim has come back to haunt her, and our story follows a similar path.

Partners In Crime - New ideas.

The 25 Word Challenge.

We were given the task to come up with a 'high concept' movie description, otherwise known as 25 words. A quick summery describing the events that will occur in the movie without revealing too much information. Previously I was working individually but today decided to partner up with fellow media head, Farhath. My original idea was to create a new psychological thriller although we are sticking to the horror/thriller aspect it won't be a psychologically based. I think the partnership is much better than my individual input as Farhath is very energetic and has lots of great ideas! 

We spent the given time chatting lots about possible opening sequence/titles and jotting them down; however we wasn't able to finalise it into a 25 word description and pitch it to the group. Our chosen genre is horror as we both originally had this in mind and we mutually feel that it's something we can achieve successfully with the resources we have. We decided to mind map a lot of our initial concepts for the opening sequence/title and they are as follows:

• Location(s): The old pier in Weston-s-Mare - Birnbeck Pier, end of the beach leading to Sand bay.
• Shooting duration: For now 2+ days day and night shoots.
• Storyline idea(s): 1) Young girl possessed stranded at the old pier from a unfortunate death. 2) A murder rediscovered through a group of teens/young adults hanging out at the beach. 3) A parody twist, similar to the Scary Movie franchise. 
• Influences: Macbeth end scene (see below), Number 23, Sinister, Se7en and The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

After a long discussion we finally came up with our 25 word pitch, capturing the storyline and hook without revealing too much.

"A man who thinks he's run away from his past, finds himself reunited by an unwelcome presence. Secrets don't always stay hidden."

"What were you thinking?" - Mood board.

The genre I've chosen to do is Psychological Thriller. I've always enjoyed these movies and no matter what they immediately hook me in. I love the plot twists, the stories and the mental journey they take you on while watching to bring you to surprising results. 

A typical psycological thriller movie is combined of several eliments, a hybrid genre, if you will. They usually consist of mystery, drama, horror and/or action. Some of the themes for this genre are as follows:

• Reality: A character seen questioning what is real and what is not.
• Perception: The way in which a character percieves the world around them and often wrongly so.
• Mind: Characters of this genre are often seen 'battling' with their own minds, to reach a new level of understanding.
• Existence/Purpose: The characters are found usually trying to find their purpose in life, the reason for being there, doing what they do ect. We see this through the narrative's conflict and the character's lives.
• Identity: The characters in psycological thrillers are often doubting who they 'really' are and then go upon a psycological journey to find out.
• And finally, Death: Sometimes character's in this genre have a fear or a fascination for death, resulting in bad conciquences.

I want my opening sequence/titles to be mysterious and pose lots of questions. Like in Jared Hess's Napoleon Dynamite, I want to have a title that doesn't show the persons face only objects and order minor body parts (hands, feet. Because I've decided to do a Psychological Thriller it needs to be appealing and hook into the audience quickly. It can't be boring or give away any answers.

David Fincher's Se7en title sequence is almost spot on to what I've envisioned for my own. It holds all the elements that I like but more darker. Below is the title:

Below is my moodboard. I collected several images relating to my desired genre as well as movies that inspired me. They're all stereotypical codes and conventions of a pyscological thriller movie which I also feel reflect my idea for the opening sequence/title.

My initial ideas before pairing up with Farhath for location and story line we're some what different yet had aspects of similarity to them. In the beginning I wanted to shoot a scene with a group of young adults/teenagers exploring the rural woodland area in the hope to find the mysterious creature known as The Herne; a human form with a deer head that haunts the forests of Wales. This story was told to me by some friends who I know up in Wales and it captured my attention. Initially I wanted to have something along the lines of this but getting to the locations and the expenses would be our of reach. 

Art of the Title - Frame by frame analysis.

In class we we're given the task to find a title sequence from the website 'Art of the Title' and to write up on our blogs about it. The title sequence for movies nowadays play a major part in the whole creation and final product of making a film. Whether that being a simple white on black sequence with interesting animation, a complete editing frenzy full of quirkiness and graphic input or even the art folks, who choose to create titles from everyday objects and use their imagination to come up with something unique.

(You can view the opening credits HERE via Art of the Title.)

 The title sequence I have chosen to analyse is from the movie Napoleon Dynamite (2004), as it's one of my favourite films and I think the title is very creative and unique. 

  

Above is the frame by frame title sequence for Napoleon Dynamite.

Although this doesn't have similarities to my chosen genre of Psychological Thriller it has the same idea that I want to achieve just with a twist. 

What I find really interesting(and no doubt the reasoning for it being on Art of the Title)is the amount of creativity and uniqueness this title sequence upholds. I think the use of food to create titles and names is very symbolic to the film. And the items such as school I.D and library book slips all fit in with the theme of the movie. No matter how 'cheesy' and 'cringe worthy' the opening title is it can't help but put a smile on your face at it's 'vintage' vibe helps with bringing back nostalgic memories. Napoleon Dynamite is a movie based in 2004 with the qualities and simplicity of the 80's and 90's. The director of the movie, Jared Hess had mentioned in his interview on the title sequence that he wanted it to feel "organic". Because the movie was already low budget ($400,000) they wanted to keep the title just so, matching the flow of the movie. So they filmed the sequence in a basement with old carpets. I love the fact they decided to do this as it all adds to it's rare, rural feel that makes me adore the movie so much. 

Jared Hess goes on to explain the reasoning behind some of the 'old school' objects in the sequence and that in one shot there;

"There is one title shot with a trapper keeper with the micro machines, and in grade school me and my buddies would hide stuff in there. Those were some of the initial ideas, to have the credits be these embedded objects that were a part of Napoleon's life."

The quirky ideas for the title sequence reflect on the movie and Napoleon's personality. The camera use for the titles was fun also. It's shot as if the person holding the objects is viewing it and we're seeing it through their eyes.(Point of view shot) 

Timeline

From my timeline of "Napoleon Dynamite" I noticed that everything was pretty slow paced, the start began with a soothing, quiet ambience, with the sounds of birds chirping as if waking up on a sunny spring morning (like being back at school). The main music then began to play by The White Stripes - "We're Going To Be Friends." The music fits the title sequence perfectly as it's a medium tempo and sounds nostalgic. It's often saying "I can tell that we are going to be friends" which brings back the theme of the film, a teenage boy in high school. Throughout the titles we seen someone handling the food but we can't see their face, only their hands; planting the image of Napoleon in our minds.

The first of the titles to come through are the production companies  and subsidiary companies. 20th Century Fox's subsidiary company Fox Searchlight Pictures was mentioned in the title who are owned by News Corporation, one of the big 6. It then follows on with 'Paramount Pictures' who are another company owned by VIACOM (another member of the big 6) then last of the productions titles was MTV Films who are associated with Paramount and also owned by VIACOM.

Following on from the production titles is all the above the line talent such as main actors (Jon Heder) and secondary characters (Jon Gries, Aaron Ruell, Efren Rameriez, Tina Majorino and Diedrich Bader). Then minor roles such as casting (Joiy Weitz)and Music (John Swiharts). Finishing with the more important roles such as Editor (Jeremy Coon), Production Designer (Cory Lorenzen), Director of Photography (Munn Powell) and Writers (Jared Hess and Jerusha Hess). Finally and most importantly the Director is last (Jared Hess.)

In total the title sequence lasted 2 minutes and 41 seconds.