Target Audience & How We Will Engage Them

Our AS Level Production Coursework is a horror movie opening. As a result, we are aiming for content which the BBFC would classify at 18. This falls in line with similar releases such as Halloween, Saw and Stanley Kubrick's highly controversial epic, Clockwork Orange.

BBFC classifies 18 as:

Suitable only for adults

No-one younger than 18 may see an ‘18’ film in a cinema. No-one younger than 18 may rent or buy an ‘18’ rated video.

As a result, the production as a whole wold feature adult themes and content wholly inappropriate for children. Therefore, our entire target audience is above the age of 18, as any lower would be illegal and socially irresponsible.

More specifically, we are aiming our production at traditional fans of the horror genre, dating back as far as 50 years: young adults. Young adults have by far the most leberal views and tend to be more interested in the visceral thrills of horror movies than their elders, who are typically more conservative and inclined to watch things like dramas and unoffensive comedies.

In order to appeal to our target audience, we will make extensive use of the conventions of the horror genre, particularly the splatter flicks which have been amongst their favourites since the 80s.

To that end, our production features a central villain whose face is hidden by a distinctive mask. The villain is murdering an attractive teenage girl as is common for the genre, which also adds a certain level of sex appeal for young men. This is a plus as even among young adults, the genre is mainly popular amongst males.

The production will also make use of dark lighting and appropriate mise en scene (Such as the untidy workshop discussed below, full of terrifying torture devices and the dark, eery wood through which the villain pursues his victim).

The use of horror convention to appeal to the target audience will be carried over into promotional materials. The poster, for instance, will make use of the blacks and dark reds which evoke the genre and feature a distinctive image of the villain and/or subtle hints at his mis-deeds, similar to other horror productions as seen below.


We intend to gain a greater understanding of what our target audience would like to see in our production by conducting a survey, some time in the next two weeks at most (A Pilot Study will be conducted in advance of the final survey). In the meantime, we are encouraging anyone in our primary target of roughly 18-34 year olds to post any suggestions in the comments section below.

Filming location

As our film goes into the use of torture devices we needed a location that would be believable and would help to bring fear to the audience like the torture device. The idea of "no escape" comes from the location making it more chilling.



Objects inside the room would help to make it seem smaller for a claustrophobic feel. In the image to the right there is many messy items that are scattered around that could suggest that the killer is a mess too.





The objects inside the room are very important too all of the objects are made to bring fear to the audience, following the opening many sharp killer objects will be placed into the room and many shots will emphasise how important they are in the opening . In this next picture is an example of objects to be found in the room, the large saw is very suggestive to the plot or torture that may occur later in the film, the blade is close to the camera making it seem more threatening. Behind it is a lot of rusty nails now telling the audience more about the setting, the rusty nails suggest decay in the location.






Finally another important feature for the horror location is the lighting, the setting needs to be dark to appear scary, the only natural light used in our setting will be the strip light, it will be covered more to lower the lighting. Also seen in this picture is the cobwebs that make the light darker n the scene creepier.

We chose to go up to the forest above the village as it is quite close by and as it gets dark the forest would appear to be quite scary.

We will be going deep into the forest so that all there is shown in the background is more trees, this will give a trapped and lost feeling for the character and the audience, also it is suggesting that there is someone or something hiding behind any of the trees.. Because of the season the trees are still at a stage where they are not blossoming. The bare trees create sinister shapes and form dark twisted shadows again creating a scary setting.

We will be making sure that there are no man-made objects in the shot (paths, wooden structures) this will show the audience that the victim is alone with no one around to help her.

Saul Bass

Saul Bass was born in 1920 and died in 1996.He was best known as a graphic designer, designing posters for movies such as Vertigo, Bunny Lake is Missing and The Man with the Golden Arm because of his relationships with the directors Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger and Martin Scorsese. He worked for these filmmakers along with Stanley Kubrick and other great Hollywood directors of the 20th Century. He also made title sequences for The Man with the Golden Arm, Psycho and North by Northwest.
Bass produced memorable title sequences for Hitchcock using kinetic typography (for North by Northwest, Vertigo and Psycho) He moved away from this technique, in favor of computerized titles, when working with Martin Scorsese- which is how he produced the title sequence for Casino.
For 40 years he designed a wide variety of different-genre title sequences such as Spartacus (1960), The Victors (1963), Casino (1995), Goodfella’s (1990), Doc Hollywood (1991) and Cape Fear (1991). Some of these movies feature new methods of production and graphic design.
There was a controversial issue over a scene from the film Psycho, directed by Hitchcock, where Bass claimed that he helped direct the scene. ‘Direct’ was taken as two different meanings: literally directed and ‘directing’ in the way that he influenced the scene with his graphic contribution.
To the left is an example of his work
· The film poster for ‘The Man With the Golden Arm’(1955, directed by Otto Preminger)

This is a classic example of his work because of the bold colours and block shapes used. The design is eye-catching and hints at what the movie is about using the image of a broken arm. The block shapes can be interpreted as just the design or a room/building. The image of the arm may also look different to different people.

Torture Porn

Torture porn is a recently developed horror sub-genre in which a central villain murders his victims in gruesome and horrifying ways. They depict nudity, extreme levels of gore, mutilation and extensive sadism.

The movie which sparked the sub-genre, Saw, has spawned a number of sequels. Lionsgate, who produced Saw, have also launched other franchises into the torture porn sub-genre, such as the Hostel series.

Their interest is not just creative, movies in the torture porn sub-genre are significant commercial successes, often earning tens of millions of US Dollars in gross, on budgets of only a few million dollars. Their low budgets allow them to be produced quickly, ensuring studios like Lionsgate always have a cash cow in theatres.

Despite their commercial success, releases in the torture porn sub-genre have drawn wide criticism from movie reviewers and directors of more traditional horror films. Noted director of the Dead series, George A. Romero, dislikes them, saying they "lack metaphor".

This reflects the wider criticism of torture porn, that the genre is shallow and lacking in complexity, appealing purely to basic human instincts. It is from this criticism that the half-derisive term for the sub-genre ("Torture Porn") was derived - the sub-genre is likened to porn, which serves only to serve basic human sexual desire.

We do not fully agree with this criticism and will be incorporating certain aspects of the torture porn sub-genre into our production coursework. We feel that the problem lies mainly in previous releases and their lacking interest in plot - likely the result of their low budgets and short production times.

Our coursework will use elements of the sub-genre, such as use of extreme gore to provoke fear in the audience, but we intend to provide greater context and story, even in the opening scene we are producing. We will do this by having greater than normal character development, particularly with regards to the villain, who often goes through the entirety of the movie without having his motivation explained.

Torture devices

For our A level horror opening we will be constructing our own torture device to use in the film. We have studied old devices that have been used in the past as punishment to put together a suitable torture device that would provoke an appropriate response in the audience - fear.

Here are some examples we have looked at:

First is the cat's paw, the victim would be hung up to a board and, using an instrument, would have their flesh torn from their bodies - from top to bottom.

The Judas cradle is a device where the victim is hoisted up above a pyramid and then slowly lowered onto its sharpened pinnacle crotch first, depending on the weight of the prisoner would depend on the pain given to them.

A standard form of punishment in the middle ages was impalement, they would have a long, sharp pole inserted into their anus and out of their mouth and left there to die, which could take more than a day.

We decided to use a different torture device but modernise it. The saw is a device where the victim is strapped upside down so the blood will go to their head, so when the sawing begins the victim will not pass out and would feel the pain. The saw would then start at the crotch and get to the navel before the victim would lose consciousness.

For our opening we will be using the saw idea but slightly changing the setup, firstly we will be using a chainsaw rather than a more conventional saw. Secondly, we will be lying the victim on her back so the saw will gradually move horizontally towards the crotch.

Alexandre Aja

Alexandre Aja was born August 7th 1978 in Paris, France.
He Directed films such as:
Haute Tension (2003)
The Hills Have Eyes (2006)
Mirrors (2008)
Silent Night, Deadly Night (2008, remake)

The movies The Hills Have Eyes and Mirrors are very blood-thirsty and gruesome. The Hills Have Eyes is a remake of the 1972 original, directed by Wes Craven. Critics have said that it is a poor reproduction, having the more bone-chilling scenes too early in the film, leaving the rest to fail living up to the movies reputation.
Mirrors is more supernatural, using the reflections as means of including blood and gore, but is described by Timeout as ‘the dumbest horror movie of recent years’. The narrative comes from the Korean movie ‘Into the Mirror’.

M. Night Shyamalan

Manoj Nelliyattu was born 6th August 1970. He is known as M. Night Shyamalan, known for making movies with supernatural plots with twisted endings and filming around the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area.
He directed movies such as:
· Praying with Anger (1992)
· Wide Awake (1995, released 1998)
· The Sixth Sense (1999)
· Unbreakable (2000)
· Signs (2002)
· The Village (2004)
· Lady in the Water (2006)
· The Happening (2008)

Sixth Sense and Signs were among the only few films that received financial success and good/ mixed reviews. Most of his films did not become popular and were categorized as failures financially. Critics label Shyamalan as a ‘one-trick’ pony, always having the ‘twist’ element in his screenplays. He is also seen as a better director than he is a screenwriter, being told to perhaps hire a screenwriter to translate his ideas to be better suited as a film.
His excuse for creating twists and having horror elements within his movies is that he wants to have a spiritual and emotional perspective.
His parents were the associate producers for the film Wide Awake and it was filmed in Shyamalan’s old school. It was nominated for Best Drama and for Cross Best Performance in the 1999 Young Artist Award.

Shyamalan is known for directing thriller movies- something that our group is not doing. We are specifically looking at horror films and conventions but some of Shyamalan's ideas could be used to influence our ideas (twists etc.) for our opening because the horror and thriller genres are closely related. Our film opening differs from the thriller genre because it involves more gore- not hints of it- and the movie doesn't particularly focus on 'playing with the mind' as typical thrillers do.