Blog 5 Evidence of wider reading

Horror films are unsettling movies that strive to elicit the emotions of fear, disgust and horror from viewers. They usually feature frequent jump scenes that make the viewers jump and startled through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres. Horrors also frequently overlap with the thriller genre.
Horror films deal with the viewer's nightmares, hidden worst fears, revolutions and terror of the unknown. Although a good deal of it is about the supernatural, if some films contain a plot about morbidity, serial killers, a disease/virus outbreak and surrealism, they may be termed "horror".
Its plots often involve the intrusion of an evil force, event, or personage, mainly of supernatural origin, into the everyday world. Some of the most common elements of horror films are ghosts, torture, gore, werewolves, ancient curses, satanism, demons, vicious animals, vampires, cannibals, haunted houses, zombies and masked serial killers. Conversely, many stories of the supernatural do not have to be, and are not, horror.
What's considered to be a horror film has varied from decade to decade. These days, the term "horror" is applied to films which display more explicit gore, jump scenes/scares or supernatural content (Wes Cravens New Nightmare, A Tale of Two Sisters, Saw films, The Strangers, The Ring, Session 9).
Early horror movies are largely based on classic literature of the horror genre, such as Dracula, Frankenstein, The Phantom of the Opera, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. More recent horror films continue to exploit the monsters of literature.    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horror_film

Teen horror movies are meant to park butts in seats and sell popcorn. Girls should scream and want to hug their boyfriends. You should be able to make out and miss half the movie and not miss anything because you already know what's going to happen.

How to write a teen horror script

Create a menace, the scarier the better. The best kind of danger is the kind of trouble only kids would get into or that their parents would never understand. The possibilities are endless: zombie classmates, teachers or parents; aliens impersonating classmates, teachers or parents; toxic sludge, radioactive meteors, killer clowns or mass murderers in hockey masks. What's most important is that any teen can die horribly and/or comically at any moment.

2

Find a theme or moral. Teen movies make at least a pretense of social redemption: the values of family or love, teen responsibility, the triumph of good over evil. The characters themselves are almost always in jeopardy because they did something stupid, irresponsible or wrong (broke curfew, smoked pot, used their parents' car without permission, explored the old mine shaft with warning signs posted, had sex).

3

Write your concept as a single sentence synopsis: "Masked mass murderer kills teens in while they dream of sex," "high school experiment mutates science nerd into T-Rex," "teen surfers wrangle with mutant sharks." A synopsis focuses your thinking during the screenwriting stage and becomes your pitch when its time to sell the script.

4

Develop your characters. They don't have to be consistent or complex, teen movies are about action and thrills, but you should give them more than a passing thought. Typical characters include the misfit, the jock and his girl, the science nerd, the party animals and the stoner. The hero or heroine is nearly always a misfit who everyone else ignores, usually to their peril.

5

Find a setting that makes the ordinary truly scary. Teen horror movies tend to focus on the everyday places teens hang out and relish turning safe havens into places of danger: the high school locker room, the soda shop, prom night, camp, lover's lane.

6

Outline your movie. Teen horror movies have three acts: act one establishes setting and character and ends with the first attack; in act two the characters realize they are under attack but can't find a way to escape or warn others; in the final act the few survivors finally overcome. In the last scene the threat reappears to set up the sequel. Don't forget to throw in some plot twists to keep your audience guessing (the boyfriend we thought was dead isn't, the monster laid eggs, the sidekick was infected when we weren't looking).

7

Write your script. Feel free to make changes to your outline. Write in screenplay format, which is about one minute of screen time per play. Keep the script under 90 pages; teen horror movies should never run more than 90 minutes with credits.

http://www.ehow.com/how_2316611_write-teen-horror-screenplay.html


When writing my script i will try to follow these conventions to make my film as appealing to my target audience as much as possible increasing the amount of people that come to watch the film.

Blog 4 Analysis of opening sequences

Sorority row, in the opening sequence the setting is a house party in the middle of the night giving it a sense of something horrific is going to happen, another setting is a building site were the main characters carry on the prank and were we see the first death early on in the film to keep the audience engaged. This setting is particularly used as it is deserted and anything/someone could be hiding round one of many corners. The costume in the opening sequence is very little exposing the bodies of both genders appealing to all of the audience, language used is typical teenage slang used in America, lighting in the sequence is low key as its a house party and its the middle of the night but also its typical of the horror conventions.
          In Jennifer's body the opening sequence starts out with the setting the same as sorority row a house in a remote location in the middle of the night but moves to another location where we are introduced into another character in a mental hospital two contrasting settings, costume in the sequence is Jennifer wears typical trendy teenage clothing and needy in the mental institution is wearing pyjamas but changes into her inmate overalls, lighting used is high key as its day time in the mental institution.This opening sequence appeals to the audience of teen horror as the main characters are teenagers making it easier to relate and they are all mostly female appealing to the gender that mainly watches teen horror as you can see in the table in blog 2.

Blog 3 Institutional contexts

Jennifers body was created by Fox atomic US this is because they are a big company with a lot of money behind them to make films, an estimated $16,000,000 was spent making the film and the gross was $16,195,523 by the 15th november 2009. Sorority row was created by Karz entertainment and Summit entertainment who are small less powerful media companies, the film also costed an estimated $16,000,000,000 and made a gross of  $11,915,856 by the 25th october 2009 in the US.
Taking these factors into account I will try to use the same approach as Fox took with jennifers body having big name actors and actresses, aswell as them being the same sort of age as the target audience so that they can relate to the characters and this will  make the audience want to come and watch the film.

Blog 2 Target audience

In the film Jennifer's body the main audience was 18-19 year old 19,044 male went to watch it and only 4,141 female showing the film appealed more to a male audience, However the female audience enjoyed the film the most and gave the highest average marks. These results show that the target audience is most likely to have been 18-29 year old males maybe females as well.

In the film Sorority row the main audience again was 18-29 year old and the majority of them were male with 3,639 viewers out of the 4,445 showing the film appealed to the male audience. the highest average marks came from 45+ year old females showing this age group enjoyed the film the most, these findings show that the target audience was most probably the teenage market both male and female but mainly focusing on male, however it may have also been targeted at 45+ as they may have watched the original.

The main target audiences for teen horrors which these film are would be 18-29 year old mainly because they are classed as teenagers and young adults, but also because they have the most disposable income as most don't have many bills or rent to pay. The main psychographics are aspirers who have more money or status and want to stand out with the latest product and keep up to date with current affairs, and also succeeders who are people who have disposable income to spend but don't feel the need to show it.

This is the target audience i will try to appeal to.

Blog 1 Introduction - Pre-production

For my pre-production i will be creating a script for the opening scene of a teen horror film.