Title of film

The title of a film is very important, it has to resemble the film narrative well and attract the audience. My film is about a boy whose soul has been captured by the devil and the boys name is Lucifer, therefore I decided to name my film 'Lucifer'. Lucifer is also an synonym for the devil.
I am considering adapting this symbol into the title. This symbol is the cross of St. Peter (inverted Latin cross), it is widely used as an Anti-Christian symbol and has become associated with Satanic attitudes. Some films that display inverted crosses to represent Satan are, The Omen, The Devil inside, Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcism or Emily Rose.

Below are some of the fonts (www.dafont.com) that I am considering using and why I am considering using them. I didn't want my font to be too fussy as I it would make it look unprofessional and too distracting. I would prefer my font to be more simple and I could adapt it too make it innovative and original. My font must be easy to read as it can be annoying if you are unable to read the title of the film and marketing would be poor.

I like that this font isn't too messy and I like how the 'L' is smudged a bit as it drags the viewers attention towards the title.

I like the style of this font, especially the scribbles that over cross the lettering as it represents in my film plot he devil taking over the child.

I was inspired by this font because of the ambulance sign on the 'R', I could adapt the sign into St.Peters symbol. I also like the grungy look on the letters as they look damaged.

I like how the font is quite abnormal and different to most horror film font titles so it could be memorable. The letters are square and bold which makes them stand out and draw attention towards them.

This font I like as the letters are bold and standout therefore drawing the attention towards the title. I like how the hand is on the letter 'R' as it looks as if the hand is trying to grab something/ someone, for example, the devil trying to grab the little boy (relating to my plot).

I'm not so fond on the style of the letters on this font as to me they don't relate to horror, however I like the eyes below the 'U' and 'C' as it looks as if something is watching them, also relating to the plot of the film that the devil is spying on the child.

This title is a bit messier and has a lot more going on compared to the fonts above. The lettering is less consistent which could portray that the film has a lot of ups and downs. I like how the splatters represent blood, this relates to my theme of horror.

My final idea

I have decided to go with the font "Skin & Bones" but add the St Peters cross into the R, inspired by the font "Ambulance Shotgun". The Title should look like this.

 

Mind map for trailer

I have created two mind maps for the horror genre and also my trailer ideas. I decided to create a mind map because it would help me generate ideas for my trailer and allowed me to organise information.

This is the mind map for the horror genre

This is the mind map for my trailer

 

My own Ident

An Ident in the film industry is a big part of brand identity.
My Ident is called Mute Pictures, the reason I chose 'Mute' was to symbolise silence which is a horror convention used to build up tension.
The company logo for my ident is a simple mute icon, I didn't want my icon to be too fussy but straightforward, it also supports the word "Mute".
My ident is only short as it is only to be used in my trailer, I have noticed that idents are cut down in trailers to only a few seconds while the company's full ident is usually a lot longer, this is because the whole ident doesn't need to be shown but only the name of the company or it's significant logo as that is all that is needed to show who is involved in the film, it also helps advertise the company.
I created my own ident to help promote my company in my trailer, treating my company as a real company.
I used Adobe Fireworks to create my ident, I uploaded my chosen background, which is black with a lighter grey center to draw attention towards the center of the page where my text will be placed. I then added the text and the chosen icon. After that I used motion blur to make it seem like the text and icon are being whispered away, supporting my theme of silence.

Start of Ident

Half way through the ident

 

 

Ident in motion

 

Synergy

Synergy is the promotion and sales of a product, the product will be sold in many different versions such as films, games and soundtracks but each version will have similar characteristics so that one helps market the other. Synergy plays a big part in advertising a product, the more the product spreads, the wider the audience.

An example of synergy in media is:

Saw DVD

Synergy between these products includes the Films title, The font is the same throughout all products as well as the colour allowing the audience to be familiar with the film name and instantly know that because of the synergy, there is a connection between the products.
Jigsaws face is also seen in the game cover and ride poster, for those who have seen the film, they will know that this is the villain in the film, even those who haven't seen the film will know that this character is significant to the Saw franchise as he is the only character on the product. The colours used a very dark and dingy representing the theme of horror well as it creates an eerie and mysterious atmosphere. The use of sharp objects on the film poster and ride poster also represent synergy and symbolise horror conventions/ codes.




Saw Ride                                                                         Saw Game

Plot

When writing my plot. I need to consider my target audience to make sure that the plot is suitable for them, the majority of my target audience are aged between 15 and 20 years old, therefore the films content cannot be too mature for 15 year olds but still interesting for 20 years olds to watch.

 Plot:
After the disappearance of a young boy named Lucifer, the small town start to discover that these disappearances are happening regularly and only to children, but they have no idea why. While Sam, the mother of missing boy Lucifer, looks after a friends son for a few days, she starts to notice strange things happening around her house. After some research into a box she discovered in her house attic, she and her friends son soon discover that the reason for the strange disappearance of her son is that the devil wanted the soul of her son to keep himself connected with earth, and the only way the devil can stay on earth is to capture the souls of children. The messages in the house help to believe that her son is still alive but the mother has to find him to save him.

My plot would be structured in the same way of Todorov's Theory:

• A state of equilibrium at the outset
• A disruption of equilibrium by some action
• A recognition that there has been some disruption
• An attempt to repair the disruption
• A reinstatement of the equilibrium  

A reinstatement of the equilibrium would possibly imply to the viewers that a sequel will be made.

Primary Research- Trailers (Questionnaire)

I created a questionnaire as primary research into horror trailers to find out how people consume media. This is quantitative research as it about the number of feedback over the quality of the feedback. I sent out a total of 20 questionnaires however only received 17 back. Creating this questionnaire will give me credible results from my target audience.

I ask my target audience what there age is,  8 people are aged between 15 and 20, 3 between 21-25, 1 between 26 and 30 and 5 were 31 years or older. This shows that the majority of my target audience fall into the 15-20 year old category.

I also ask for their gender, more are female with 10 females and 7 males, from the feedback received it shows that the majority of my target audience are females however a small amount of questionnaires were given out so this data may not be reliable.

Question 1 asks how often they watch horror films, 8 people ticked occasionally, 5 people ticked regularly, 3 people put rarely and only one person said they never watched horror films.

Question 2 says "how often do you visit the cinema to watch horror films?",  7 people ticked rarely which was the most popular box, this could be because going to the cinema is quite expensive. 5 people ticked occasionally, 2 said they visited regularly and 3 said never. The 3 people that said never may either not enjoy the Cinema or could possibly be too young to watch the horror films at the cinema.

Question 3 I asked where they see the majority of film trailers promoted, the most popular was TV advertisements with a total of 7 ticks followed by the internet with 4 ticks for YouTube and 1 tick for Demand TV. 3 people ticked the Cinema and 2 people ticked DVD/ Blu-ray. No one ticked other.

For Question 4 the most popular horror sub-genre was Psychological with 9 people out of 17 ticking it. 6 people chose Monster, 4 people chose Comedy horror and Natural and Zombie both had 3 ticks. Slasher had 2 ticks and the least popular sub-genre was splatter. I could image not many people would know the difference between Slasher and Splatter so if I were to improve this questionnaire i could add a definition to each sub-genre. 0 people ticked Other.

Question 5 asks people whether they think death needs to be included in a horror film, 11 people said yes wit their answers being:

It's expected to be in a horror fil as nearly every horror film has death.

Having death in a horror film makes the film more realistic.

I think death would make a horror film more scary because death overall is a scary thing.

5 people answered no to having death in a horror triailer, some of the answers were:

A film can still be scary if death isn't included.

I'd prefer it if death wasn't included in a horror film as I believe it is to common.

Question 6 tells me that the majority of people would like the trailer to be short and snappy to leave them wondering about the film, 13 out of 17 people ticked this box however there is a minimum and maximum limit to the amount of time a trailer can be so I will have to consider the amount of information I reveal about the film rather than the length of trailer. 4 people said they would prefer it if the trailer was longer containing more information about the film.

Question 7 I ask "What features of the film would you like to see in the trailer?" here I asked people to tick more than one as I knew there would be more than one feature of the film people would be interested in. The Title of the film had 17 ticks being the most popular, the release date was second with 16 ticks. The cast had 8 ticks in total and the director only 3. No one write in 'Other'.

For Question 8 I wanted to know what was other peoples most scariest movie and why it had this effect on them:

The Exorcist (3 people)- "Based on a true story". "Costume and make-up was realistic".

The Woman in Black (1 person)- "The jumpy parts".

The strangers (2 people)- "Sense of reality, like it can happen to anyone". "I have a fear of masks".

The uninvited (1 person)- "I don't like the idea of children being murdered".

Paranormal activity 1/2/3 (4 people)- "ghost films scare me the most over any other type of horror".

Insidious (1 person)- "the loud noises and scary props/ costumes is scary for me".

Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2 people)- "I'm not a big fan or gore". "I saw it when i was younger and it still scares me, I'm not sure why".

The Thing (1 person)- " I don't like the sense of loss of control".

There is a mixture of sub-genres here so it would be hard to determine which is the most scariest for my target audience.

Question 9 asks whether people prefer the villain to be revealed in the trailer, 9 people said yes and 8 people said no. This is hard to determine which side to go for so I would have to ask a bigger sample from my target market to get clearer results.

finally Question 10 asks "What makes a Horror trailer effective?" suspense was the most common with 5 ticks, I would have to agree as I feel suspense adds tension and a build up to a scary scene. Silence was ticked 4 times, possibly because silence has become a convention for when something bad is about to happen. Dark mise-en-scene was ticked 3 times such as dark lighting, screams and fast camera movements were ticked twice and other was ticked once with the answer being "successful narrative", having a successful narrative in a trailer is important as it draws the viewers into the story line making them want to see the whole film to know what happens.

problems from handing out questionnaires are that you may not get all questionnaires back so feedback is unreliable, unable to get detailed answers as most questions are closed requiring a one worded answer.