Screen Test- Location Shots

Prior to our production, we visited our chosen location to see whether it was appropriate and also took a few images to see how we were going to film it. Although the images were taken in the morning, and our horror will be filmed later on in the day, we can still use these images to see what our film might look like. On our journey through the woods, we found an abandoned house which looked perfect for a horror! After seeing it and taking a few shots of it, we were thinking of how we can incorporate it into our clip. Overall we decided that the location was perfect for what we wanted to achieve and we were very happy with the pictures taken.

Initial Ideas

After conducting our research and target audience interviews, we needed to start planning our clip. We produced several mind maps to help display our ideas and inspiration that we developed after the research stage.

Our intention is not to copy the plot of 'blair witch' completely, rather take some of the key themes and conventions of the film e.g. apology scene and subvert them in a comical way.

Our ideas of 'blair witch project' elements that we wanted to use is displayed above.

After brainstorming our ideas, we created a very rough plot outline. Obviously we will go into much more detail at a later stage, but we created this just to give us an idea of what the plot will be like and character roles. I am very happy with how the planning stage is going so far and we will hopefully finish the other planning aspects soon so we can create our film opening!

Target Audience/Focus Group Questions

We decided that as well as our survey, we needed to ask our target audience personally about what horror films they like and why, what they expect from an opening, what they think about spoof films etc.

By asking our desired audience (16-25yr olds) it would help us to see what they really want to see from our clip, therefore giving us the information we need to create a successful film opening.

Below is a compilation of their feedback:

After watching this video, we gathered some helpful points that were made by our target audience regardin their opnions on horror films that we can use to make our film better such as:

• Music plays a key role, and needs to be tense to create suspense
• The more realistic it is, the scarier
• Needs to be unpredictable
• Jumpy or gory stops people from watching it 
• They expect to see death, they want the scene to be set and want a backstory
• Also has to keep their attention
• They think that most horror films lack realism