Our horror opening sequence has many generic conventions in the film to attract and address our audience.
The
ways we attracted our target audience of both genders aged fifteen and upwards included
the plot storyline. Our plot is based around siblings ‘Lucy’ aged seventeen and
younger brother Josh aged eleven who are playing at a park when Josh is scared
by a masked figure swinging on the swing. So ‘Josh’ then runs off after being
frightened and when Lucy comes to his rescue after hearing a scream she soon
learns he isn’t there. Then Lucy is brutally hit over the head by the figure on
the swing that is the urban legend known as ‘The Child Collector’. The opening
sequence is based around an older version of the brother ‘Josh’s’ flashbacks of
that night when he returns to the park years later with his friends which
ultimately leads up to a voiceover of ‘The Child Collector’ saying it’s time
for round two josh’. The plot of our storyline helped us attract our target
audience as the location of the film is a park setting which is relatable to
our target audience of teenagers as they go there to socialize.
Another way we attracted our target
audience was the credits and titles we used. The three colours of our credits
were white, red and black. These are the common colours associated with horror
films as the red represents the blood and gore aspect, whereas the white can
represent the purity and impurity of the characters involved, as well as the colour
of black representing the darkness and mystery of the film. This attracts our
audience as it helps set the mood of the film as the colours instantly suggest
the genre of horror. Our credits also scroll which is a common feature found
within horror genres. Our title at the start of the horror opening showed the
name of the film ‘The Collection Day’ and blood trickle down the screen as seen
on this image. This effect was another way we attracted our audience as it
gives an indication that this film is a true horror with blood and gore. (This image below is a print screen of our one of our scenes in our horror film that shows the credits)
We attracted our audience to our
horror by using the two victims of a young boy and female older siblings. A majority
of horror films have young children as the villain as it creates fear. We felt
having the victim as a young boy would change the dynamic of our horror
especially as he was more mentally harmed than physically which is why we
included flashbacks to show he is still haunted by the events. This would
attract audiences as it would make it quite difficult to watch as it can be
seen as ethically wrong but that is watch horror films are created for. The
older teenage female is the actual victim and we felt this would attract our
audience of both genders as the female audience would feel pathos toward her,
and the male demographic would feel compelled to help.
The urban legend element of our horror
attracted our audience as a lot of horror has urban myths behind them to create
a physiological element. Horror films that have used this theme include
‘Candyman’ and the thriller ‘Se7en’.
We addressed our target audience of
both genders the ages 15 and above by the actors who played the characters
role. The characters we have
in our opening sequence are a group of three teenagers aged from eleven to
seventeen. The age of these character
also help make the film seem more realistic as this contrasted with the age of
the victims in the film and the age of the audience watching most horrors. An
actual horror film that can be linked to this characterization technique is the
film ‘When A Stranger Calls’ created in 2006 and directed by Simon West. This
films cast is mainly based around younger ages, the victim being a high school
student who is babysitting young children.
We have addressed our audience by the age of the character and the
actors who play them as they are relatable to the teenage audience as they are
of similar ages. This helps the realism of the horror as the actors will seem
more believable to the audience as it creates the common fear that runs
throughout the audience mind while watching horrors that it could have been
them.
We would address and attract our
audience in terms of marketing and advertising our film by using the platform
of social media sites such as “Twitter” and “Facebook”. These sites are a
useful way to advertise information about our film as the updates keep people
interacting with the film. It also helps spread the word about the film as many
users will send information on to others. We could use these media sites to
virally market our film in ways such as the ‘Find Batman’ campaign. We could
use the sites to create an urban mythology hunt to find our urban legend of
‘The Child Collector’ which could unlock spoilers on what would contain
spoilers of what would happen next in the film if we created a full horror
production. 
No comments:
Post a Comment