Photos from Filming

These photos give an impression of how our filming was organised and also the teamwork that went on.

Research into target audience

Horror Genre

Horror is a film genre that aims to create a sense of fear, panic, alarm, and dread for the audience. Horror films often tend to attack people’s nightmare, hidden fears revulsions and terror of the unknown. The typical horror films include mythical creatures such as vampires, ghosts, zombies, ghosts, aliens, vampires, werewolves, curses, Satanism, demons, gore, torture, vicious animals, monsters, zombies, cannibals, and serial killers.The traditional horror films incorporate a large amount of violence and slaughter in the plot. 

Horror is the main genre but seeing as our film revolves around zombies, it fits specifically with a sub-genre of horror, Zombie-Horror. Zombie film is a sub-genre of horror film that portrays humans turning to mindless beings that feed of flesh of others. Most of these films include a back story of the zombie invasion or an infectious disease breaking out. The usual plot of a zombie film is to have survivors of the disease battling it out the zombies in order to survive.

Some examples of zombie-horror: Night of the Living Dead, Shaun of the Dead, 28 Days Later.

Target audience for horror films

Horror films have been more popular with the teen culture and the younger adults. Because there are more films that involve violence and gore, they have somehow managed as a 15 from the BBFC or even a 12a in some cases, the horror genre becomes easily introduced to teen culture. Video gaming has helped the target audience for horror films move more towards the teen culture. There are some horror movies that have casted younger actors and actresses which help attracts the younger generation. This is because the younger audience can relate to the characters on screen.

Due to the fact the target audience for horror movies is similar to the target audience for horror video games; it is likely the dominant gender for the both genres will be male.

Traditional horror films need an element of entertainment and excitement; audiences watch horror movies because they enjoy the thrill that usually comes with horror films. They enjoy watching supernatural creatures such as vampires and zombies as they do not exist in real life and would like to see what happen if they did.
 

As there are many types of horror films and sub-genres people visit the cinema to enjoy different experiences, for example; a paranormal film is designed for the purpose of creating mystery and suspense. My research shows that the there is a specific gender that watches horror films more frequently. This is the male gender and is usually within the age range of 15 to 24. One of the reasons for this is because males have a habit of liking to see thrill and action within films whereas females favour genres that are more romantic with good humour in it.

 In order to find the right target audience for our movie, it is necessary to evaluate movies with the same genre. This is needed so I can identify what parts of the movie I would classify for a specific age rating.

 

Shaun of the Dead

My research took me to a movie review of Shaun of the Dead. In this particular website it gives parents advice about whether Shaun of the dead is an appropriate film to let their children watch. 
 

http://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/shaun-of-the-dead

 

This website evaluated that Shaun of the Dead is not an appropriate film for kids to watch. The movie contains blood, guts and gore that would be enough to make a child sick. It contains violent scenes which include biting, shooting, stabbing and many more violent acts. Foul language is often heard and crude humour is included. Smoking and drinking is also included and also a few drug references. There are scenes where the main character Simon Pegg is forced to kill his zombie mother and other characters consider suicide. Taking in all of these acts and scenes in the movie, I had no choice but to agree with the certified age it was given which was a 15.

According to the British Board of Film Classification website, certified 15 movies could includes: 

• strong violence
•  Frequent strong language (e.g. 'f***').
• portrayals of sexual activity
•  strong verbal references to sex
• sexual nudity
• brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence
• discriminatory language or behaviour
• drug taking

I think 15 is the perfect age rating for zombie based films. This is because zombie films are a sub-genre of horror and true horror movies need violence and gore otherwise it would not be categorised as horror. Our film would not include too much violence nor will it include strong language (curse words).  It will also have no references to sex or drugs. Our group will try to take on board on what is allowed for certified 15 films in order to fully capitalize on it.   

The first answer to this article shows why zombie fils have an appeal:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=521008

The poll only really asks if you like zombie films, not why, but this poster has explained really well why they are popular - they represent some of the biggest fears we have. We need to tap into this in our film.

This review of "The Walking Dead" is by a female critic who seems to be asking for even darker, more upsetting viewing and saying that this has become more important to a mass audience. This suggests that although zombie films are mainly targeted to men, if they have s serious emotional content, they will also appeal to women.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maureen-ryan/the-walking-dead-lori_b_2076558.html

Script

Script

Conor gets ball

David: Oi Conor, pass the ball

Conor: Okay

David scores

David: Yeah

Starts shaking Rafi

David: Stop working, come play football

 Rafi: Later *shakes head and puts on glasses* for god sake

Conor kicks ball over fence

David: You idiot go get the ball

Conor goes into forest and David gets new ball out

Conor CF: hey have you heard about the rumours about the zombie apocalypse

Rafi: don’t be stupid, science proves that they can’t be real

David exits shed

David: Round two

Ellipsis/ game is over

Rafi: Where’s Conor gone

Conor CF: he’s been gone like an hour

David: ugh lets go find him *shakes head*

In forest

Boys: Conor, Conor stop trying to scare us

Conor CF points at ball

Conor CF: Hey look, it’s our ball

David: what’s that?

Rafi:…. It’s Conor

Michael walks in

Conor CF: What are we going to do?

More Props

Here is a few items that can aid us in doing the Zombie make up.

Blood capsules

Target audience

Target audience

Zombie horror films are a type of genre that is designed to startle and unnerve the audience. People who watch our genre of film try to make themselves comparable to the characters so they are able to establish how long they would last if a ‘zombie apocalypse’ was to occur.

Demographics of the target audience

Zombie horror films tend to use relatively unknown actors. One example of this is ‘Shaun of the Dead’; Simon Pegg had appeared in only three small films before he was chosen to play the main actor in this zombie horror apocalypse. The benefit of using unknown actors is that the viewer can easily relate themselves to the actor, especially if they are of similar age to the targeted audience, because they do not assoicate them with other well known characters.

Our genre of film tends to contain a large amount of blood, gore and violence. Stereotypically, this appeal more to men then it does to women as it comes across as masculine not to be affect by this gory violence. 

This female critic here criticises "The Walking Dead" for being sexist (and racist) and prioritising white males over everone:

http://www.salon.com/2012/11/11/the_walking_dead_has_become_a_white_patriarchy/

This might explaion why the zombie genre is more popular with men but personally I don;t think most people look into it so deeply and it is having generally more male characters that appeals to the male audience as they are given different stereotypes to relate to.

As mentioned above, zombie apocalypse films contain gruesome scenes; therefore they tend to be targeted at the more mature members of society. The age range of 15 to 40 are more inclined to watch this genre of film as common topics in everyday convocations are about such circumstances as a zombie apocalypse. People then become intrigued to find out how long they would survive if something was to occur. 

This critic seems to want newer zombie horror to be as violent and disturbing as possible:

www.huffingtonpost.com/.../the-walking-dead-lori_b_2076558.html

She suggests that in our culture now, we are drawn towards much darker content and enjoy quite bleak dramas. I would say that starting our film by a zombie eating a little boy works quite well with this.

Analysing our genre

Horror films typically contain a lot of gruesome scenes. The audience enjoys this and they also expect it to be contained in the film as it is labelled with the horror genre. Here are some examples of sub-genre horror films that tend to be quite popular:

Action Horror – Combines stereotypically feature of a horror film. (Evil force, event, or supernatural personage) with the gunfights and chases of the action genre. Examples include ‘Dawn of the Dead’

Comedy horror – Combines the elements of comedy and horror fiction. Examples include ‘Shaun of the Dead’ and ‘Evil Dead II’

Gothic horror – Type of story that contains elements of Goth and horror. Usually full of suspense and jumpy scenes. Examples include ‘The Women in Black’

Natural horror – This includes natural beast that turn into killers. ‘Examples include ‘Jaws’ and ‘Snakes on a Plane’

Splatter film – These films contain graphic images of gore and graphic violence. Examples include ‘Saw’ and ‘Piranha 3D’

Zombie film – Zombie are portrayed as either reanimated corpses or mindless humans. Examples include ‘I Am Legend’ and ‘Dead Snow’

There is a wide range of horror films available. There is no specific type of sub-genre that is more common than another.

Film name	Year	Amount made	Actors/Actresses
The Sixth Sense	1999	$293.5 million	Bruce Willis and 11-year-old Haley Joel Osment
Jaws	1975	$260 million	Roy Scheider and Robert Shaw
The Exorcist	1973	$232.9 million	Ellen Burstyn Max von Sydow
What Lies Beneath	2000	$155.5 million	Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer
The Blair Witch Project	1999	$140.5 million	Heather Donahue Michael C. Williams Joshua Leonard

This shows the popularity of the horror genre in general and that there is a target audience. It is also easy to catch an audience when there are other successful products of a similar nature about, so this ias a particularly good time for zombie films with the success of e.g. "Contagion" and "The Walking Dead".

Researching the Target Audience

Researching the Target Audience

A zombie-horror film with a 15
 age certificate 

Horror films are made to  scare the audience, create tension and to play with their emotions and often leaves them unsettled by the end.  A zombie horror is a sub-genre which aims to provoke fear through the use of zombies.  It also makes the audience curious as to what it would be like if this was reality as many films are based in familiar locations, e.g. I Am Legend and Shaun of the Dead also, the film wants the audience to think about what they would do if they were in a familiar situation and how long they would survive. This is backed up in the article below:

http://voices.yahoo.com/the-appeal-zombie-films-1463533.html?cat=40
 

The biggest film watching age group is 18-34 (the golden category with both money and leisure time); however, people in their late teens and twenties are the biggest viewers of horror films. The producers use this to their advantage when they are handed with a film script; they choose main characters that are within this age group and it will enable the audience to relate with the characters and have an emotional connection as they have similarities. As well as this age group, the sub genre Zombie-horror appeals to both genders and it has become an increasingly popular genre for females.

 

The site below gives advice for defining a target audience:

http://www.filmmakingstuff.com/define-your-movies-target-audience/

Following this format I would say:

Make a list of 5 ideal movie fan categories for your title
- fans of magazines such as SFX - could get info about the dempgraphic from this
- SFX relies heavily on e.g. Twitter and Facebook so younger media literate fans
- Mostly males but also dedicated female fans
- Fans of other related products and films
- Fans of horror genre generally
Figure out why these fans should watch your movie.
- enjoy watching chaos
- how would I cope?
- enjoyable violence
- high drama and tension
- good special effects

From looking at the British Board of Film Classification (bbfc)’s website, I feel that our film should be a 15 as it would have scenes of violence, gore and scenes that may be unsettling or disturbing for those under 15. I feel as though the age rating 18, would be too high as it won’t have large amounts of gore and foul language won’t be overused.  Also from looking at my research into zombie-horror films, I have seen that many of these films, for instance I Am Legend and Shaun of the Dead, were awarded with the age rating certificate of 15 meaning that it can be viewed by people aged 15 and older. The photo below shows the British Board of Film Classification’s (bbfc) description of what is a ‘15’ film and what sort of things can be included.

A screen shot from the bbfc's website briefly showing what a  '15' film can include

The majority of this age group will either still in education, whether that’s high school, college, sixth form or university that’s why many of the films tend to contain people in this age group as it’ll make the film appear more attractive the this age group as they can wonder what they’d be like in a similar situation. Also, a lot of teenagers talk about films when they are with their colleagues so when they hear others talking about a film, they may want to see it themselves.

From looking around online, I feel as though I agree with what I have read as I know a lot of teenagers who go out and regularly watch zombie-horror films. So we will cater for this age group by including several of the points listed in the above screen shot, e.g. swearing and violence.

However, this article shows that horror has an unexpected audience of academics out there:

http://www.socraticmethod.net/essays/zombies/page2.htm

Horror is a really widely studied genre, mostly because it always deals with death and a lot of philosophy is based around the idea of us handling the idea that we will die.

Researching the Target Audience

Target Audience - Zombie Horror Films

Zombie horror films are the type of film genre that tends to make the target audience feel frightened and to surprise them; yet scaring the audience. 

People who watch our chosen film genre try to make themselves comparable to the characters, so that  they are able to establish how long they would be able to last if a ‘zombie apocalypse’ was to occur. 

The target audience for zombie films is 15 and 35. This is the chosen age range of audience because most people of an age of 18 or over are less likely to be interested in seeing a Zombie horror film in the cinema. Whereas people of 12 years and over are unlikely to be allowed by their parent or guardians to see a film of this genre.

A film example that fits with our chosen film genre is "Shaun Of The Dead". 

Shaun of the Dead (Rated 15)

Shaun of the Dead is a British horror comedy directed by Edgar Wright in 2004, starring Nick Frost and Simon Pegg, who also helped to write it with Wright. Simon Pegg plays Shaun, a man attempting to get some kind of focus in his life as he deals with his girlfriend, his mother and stepfather. At the same time he has to cope with an apocalyptic uprising of zombies.

The film was rated 15 in Britain and R (Restricted – Under 17 Requires Accompanying Parent Or Adult Guardian) in the US. 

Our genre of film tends to contain a large amount of blood, gore and violence. Stereotypically, this appeal more to men then it does to women as it comes across as masculine not to be affect by this gory violence. 
 

As mentioned above, zombie apocalypse films contain gruesome scenes; therefore they tend to be targeted at the more mature members of society. The age range of 15 to 35 are more inclined to watch this genre of film as common topics in everyday convocations are about such circumstances as a zombie apocalypse. People then become intrigued to find out how long they would survive if something was to occur. 
 

Apart from this, there is no specific target relating to social class or financial status. 

 

In the opening two minutes of our film, we are going to introduce a group of boys who are completely innocent and vulnerable to the zombie attack they are going to face. This will draw the audience as they don't expect an usually attack which keeps them drawn in, making them watch the film to the end.

 

In conclusion we believe that the main target audience will be older teenagers and above. The theme will attract both sexes but more directed to the members of the male audience.  From looking around online, I feel as though I agree with what I have read as I know a lot of teenagers who go out and regularly watch zombie-horror films, whereas I don’t know many older people that watch similar things. This poll is clearly related to younger people and males in particular. What I found interesting was that there were many films added as good choices in the comments - this shows you how many popular zombie films there are so there is an established target audience.

http://www.horror-movies.ca/2011/10/you-voted-15-best-zombie-movies/

Zombie Make Up Ideas

Here is a rough idea of what the zombie make up will look like when Conor turns into a zombie. It will be done using a variety of equipment, such as latex and face paint. I feel that the 'zombie' make-up is an important aspect as we need to make it look believable to the audience, otherwise it wont be clear what I have become and it won't be scary and from looking at my prior research into horror films, I found that people go to watch horror movies to be frightened. I think this does look as if my face has been bitten.

Film Industry Presentation