The document summarizes audience research conducted for a student horror film project. It discusses: - The audience's preference for psychological thriller/horror genres and wooded locations. - Their preference for young male and female victims and antagonists that seem like old men. - Their preference for low key lighting, lack of preference for cliffhangers, and use of young characters. - Plans to incorporate the audience's preferences into the film, including genre, location, victims, antagonist, lighting, and limited dialogue.

1. Pitch
Group 5

2. Audience Research
From our survey we hope to gain some knowledge and advice about what
the audience are interested in regarding horror films
We have used the sight Survey Monkey to produce our questionnaire and
send it out using web 2.0 media and social networking; furthermore it meant
we could get a variety of quantitative and qualitative results.
We had 21 responses

3. Audience Research
Our genre is physiological thriller/horror fitting perfectly
with the audience’s preference.

4. Audience Research
Location was a hard choice for our group so we took
into account the audience’s preference and chose a
wooded location with a shed/shack.

5. Audience Research
Our victims will be a number of young female and male
characters, which is what the audience voted for, but our
main victim will be a young male due availability.

6. Audience Research
Due to audience preference we will make out
antagonist seem like an old man.

7. Audience Research
Our genre will be a psychological horror due to
audience preference.

8. Audience Research

9. Audience Research
Due to a 100% choice in lighting we will have low key
lighting in our title sequence.

10. Audience Research
No clear difference is seen in our results for preference
of cliff hangers.

11. Audience Research
Audience research shows that they like the use of
children in horror films, we will not use children but we
will use young teenage charters as victims in our title
sequence

12. Audience Research
Due to input from audience preference we will have
little dialogue in our tile sequence.

13. Secondary Research
• Our group decided to go with the genre of horror, with a sub genre of psychological thriller.
• This is because from the film research of ;Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Liebesman, 2006); The
Shining (Kubrick, 1980); The Ring (Verbinski, 2002), Se7en (Fincher, 1995) we decided
techniques from each could be replicated. As well as this as a group we decided we all
enjoy horror and could use our a opinion to create a tense title sequence creating climaxes
and thrills for the audience.
• During the discussion we decided that we would use a psychopathic killer to be the main
villain of our feature. One maybe resembling the murderer from 'Se7en'. Therefore our
antagonist will not be a crazed killer yet a disturbed man who kills who victims with strategy in
mind and makes it look like a suicide. The character will be played by a young male, but will
be made to look older.
• We have already decided the location of our title sequence, an abandoned shed in Hever
surrounded by woods. We feel this will be perfect for the genre and would create verisimilitude
in the title sequence as it links effectively to the theme.
• We have decided on the plot, and the establishing shots, they will include shots of the
surrounding area of the location and the abandoned shed. The plot is a murderer who kills
many young people in ways in which he can make it seem like suicide.

14. Mood Board
For our mood board we
looked at films similar to
our genre title opening.
We then took still shots
representing the
common factors we
believe are present in
the genre of horror and
psychological thriller.

15. Treatment
• Beginning of title sequence involves establishing shots of location.
• Tilt up shot of murder victim, from his feet to his head, found hanging from a tree
integrated gradually throughout sequence.
• Murderer’s face not seen throughout clip.
• The murderer is not seen clearly, his hands and body will be briefly seen throughout
the clip creating enigma.
• These shots will be mixed in with the tilt up of the murder victim.
• The murderer will be seen writing a suicide note for the victim like the many he has
before.
• The murderer’s shed will contain his potentially deadly work tools sprawled across the
table accompanied by pictures and newspaper cuttings of his previous victims.
• Throughout the sequence radio broadcast of police reports will be played to
provide the audience with information of the current story line.
• Accompanying the radio reports will be pictures of past victims as well as old
newspaper reports about the dead people that have been found.
• Final shot of radio being turned off.

16. Storyboard

17. Wilderness Woods
After our location reccie to
wilderness woods we decided
upon using a wooded area as our
location for the tile sequence.
The eerie feel created by the
woods was exactly the mood we
wanted for the our title sequence.
We did however want a small
structure or building to feature in
our film.
We then went on a location
reccie to rook birch wood. We
have permission from the land
owner to film on the property.
Pictures on the next page fit with
our preferred location.

18. Location
Rook Birch Wood
How Green lane
Heve
Kent

19. Props
• Abandoned shed
• Metal cage
• Poster board
• Table covered in work
tools
• Table covered in
photos, bottles, pills,
scissors, old pencils
• Chainsaw
• Bandages
• Dirty rags
• Blood Stains

20. Characters
The antagonist in most horrors/psychological
thriller is male and usually middle age or older.
The protagonist in most horrors/psychological
thriller is female, but many films use teenagers
of both genders.
Our title sequence will have one antagonist
who will be unidentified, but shots of the
antagonist's hands and body will reveal a
male figure.
In the title sequence no living antagonist shall
be present, but our murder victim will be a
young teenager.

21. Costume
The clothing worn by the
teenage murder victim will
be bright and stereotypical
costume for a teenager e.g.
jeans, t-shirt.
The clothing worn by the
antagonist will be dull
unfashionable and maybe
dirty.

22. Shot Ideas
This shot from Se7en (Fincher 1995) is a shot very similar to what our group would like to
feature in our title sequence. The extreme close up of the antagonist’s hand does not
reveal his identity but does give the audience the idea of his gender. A small
characteristic of what is to come later in the film.
The character is also writing. We want to show our antagonist writing a suicide note so this
shot is an idea which we would like to use.
The shot has a range of light levels allowing the shot of the hand writing to be very clear
due to the light being good. But also the darker area allowing a title to be seen. Another
idea which we want to take from this shot.

23. Shot Ideas
Another shot that we want to include
in our title sequence is a tilt up shot
of a murder victim hanging.
The shot will begin from their feet
hanging from the ground then slowly
tilt up towards their head.
This shot will have other shots cut
into it so that the shot is slowly
revealed throughout the title
sequence.

24. Titles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suold-07Zik&feature=player_embedded
• The title sequence of Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
(Liebesman 2006) is very similar in how we would like to present
our titles.
• The colour of the titles is white which is what we want.
• Therefore it is situated on a dark background which is what we will
do due to the dark lighting in out title sequence.
• The titles are situated according to the rule of thirds apart from
the main title of the film which will be situated in the centre of the
screen.
• Little animation is used creating a serious mood to the clip.

25. Font
The fonts we have chosen are directly related to our title sequence. In
our title sequence we have the antagonist writing a suicide note. We
therefore would like to use handwritten type front as the titles.
http://www.1001fonts.com/frusciantehand-
font.html
http://www.1001fonts.com/denrito-
font.html
http://www.1001fonts.com/scratch-my-
back-font.html
http://www.1001fonts.com/tommys-first-
alphabet-font.html
http://www.1001fonts.com/may-queen-
font.html

26. Soundtrack
This soundtrack uses disjointed sound effects and
http://youtu.be/Vnxar6WH3sk organ like instruments to create an eerie
atmosphere.
This soundtrack uses whispering sounds layered
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2yRBMJNVvU
upon one another with organ music setting a
spooky mood.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMhVDFtK7_Y This soundtrack is a song you would hear in a
teenage horror, it is sad and slow but does not
create an atmosphere related to our genre
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogMk8u8v-Gw This soundtrack has taken a well know nursery
rhyme and slowed it down and changed the
music this has created a psychopathic mood.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13Rh9c-tUlk This soundtrack starts with a simple piano tune
which is calm but keeps the audience on edge,
the loud bass is added increasing the intensity of
the atmosphere.

27. People Attached
Filmed by:
Robert St.Pierre
Starring:
Jacques Thornton “as the antagonist”
Tom Hanham “as the murder victim”
Edited by:
Robert St.Pierre
Jacques Thornton
Tom Hanham

28. Difficulties
The shot of our victim being hung will be hard to film. We will need a solid tree branch
or platform to hang our victim from without putting them in danger or at any risk. We
can use a harness to hang them safely from the tree or platform and try disguise it so it
is not visible by the audience. Alternatively we could film the victims feet hanging then
when we move further up the body place them on the ground and continue the tilt shot
with the ground and feet out of view.