Next steps analysis

Next steps analysis

For my Zombie film theatrical trailer, I am going to include vast amount of action scenes within the trailer as our target audience enjoys action scenes which is evident as it suggests this from the questionnaire results in which 50% of the respondents answered that as the most important aspect within a zombie theatrical trailer in which from my initial ideas, I was not going to put as much action scenes within the trailer as I was planning to include more of the narrative within the trailer. The type of narrative i am going to use is advertising and abstract, not linear as i do not want to show the story or give away major details as it may spoil the film too much.

Also I am going to include less sustained fear as the questionnaire results for this response was quite relatively low as 5% answered the question of what aspects within a zombie film that they find most appealing to themselves and only 5% of the respondents said ‘sustained fear’ but instead I am going to include more gore and death as that was a popular response from the respondents as these responses was the highest for the question ‘What aspects within a zombie film you find most appealing to you?’

I am also going to keep my plans for the font style for my title for my zombie horror theatrical trailer as the conventions will be similar to those of the Shaun of the dead’s trailer title in which within the questionnaire, the majority of the respondents said that the title was the most professional title and fit in with the theme/genre of the film in which attracts them to the trailer and film, thus I want my trailer to be as successful as it can possibly be. The reason why I want to include these changes to my planning is that I want my zombie horror film theatrical trailer to be successful as possible in which these changes to my plans and them being implemented within my trailer will be popular to the target audience as that is what they want to see within a zombie horror theatrical trailer as it advertises the product well and entices them to want to watch the film.

My next steps for planning are that I am going to create the storyboard for my zombie horror theatrical trailer, create the synopsis for my theatrical trailer and research some locations for my theatrical trailer as I am also the director as well. 

lifematrix (our audience)

lifematrix

The three lifematrix audience profiles for my genre is Fun/atics, Rugged traditionalists and Tribe wired. 

Fun/atics - fun/atics like watching films that are include action, humour and like watching films that possess aspiration in which the genre of zombie contains some elements of these conventions as zombie films contain action in which the protagonists fight the antagonists whom are zombies and there are the convention of team leadership in which creates aspirational moments within the film, therefore the audience who are fun/atics will receive semantic pleasure as they watch aspirational moments when the group of survivalists work together to achieve their goal of survival.

Rugged traditionalists - rugged traditionalists love the outdoors in which they like a sense of adventure and freedom, which because of this they like the theme of survival in which they will be a fan of zombie films as of which they have the conventions of isolation and survival in which rugged traditionalists love. They will receive semantic meanings of excitement and feel exhilarated when watching these action scenes similar to fun/atics who also feel these semantic feels when watching these particular scenes.

Tribe wired - tribe wired are young free spirited singles in which live in the digital age. tribe wired people will enjoy watching zombie films due to the fact that most zombie films contain the conventions of isolation team leadership, freedom (in which the protagonists can do what they like as the rest of society within the film is almost extinct where rules have no bounds and also the sense that the protagonists within the film can explore and go where they like in an attempt to find peace and safety.

Zombie horror trailer questionnaire results

Zombie horror trailer questionnaire results

Me and my group gave questionnaires to the general public in regards to zombie horror trailers, as we want our zombie trailer (that we are going to produce) to be as successful as it can towards our target audience. Some of the main questions that we gave to our target audience is 'what aspects within a zombie film would for find most appealing to you ?' ,'What do you think is the most important aspect within a zombie trailer?' and 'What do you consider to be a professional font with a zombie film trailer?'.

What aspects within a zombie film you find most appealing to you?

For the responses for this question suggests that our target audience finds that gore/blood, death and occasional humour are the most appealing with the audience finding adventure, meaningful violence and sustained fear the least appealing.These responses are what me and my group expected due to the responses matching the profiles of the life matrix audience as they are fun/atics, rugged traditionalists and  tribe-wired. For fun/atics, we hypothesised that they would mostly like occasional humour as the audience that comes under this profile likes to have fun and enjoy to laugh in which the respondents said that occasional humour would most likely to appeal to them. For rugged traditionalists, me and my group hypothesised that they would like meaningless violence and adventure due to rugged traditionalists' 'love of the outdoors' in which the respondents did not find adventure that appealing but this may be due to the factor of the target audience at that time not having as much rugged traditionalists that we gave the questionnaires to.



What do you think is the most important aspect within a zombie trailer?

















For the responses for this question, the highest response was action scenes in which me and my group predicted as our target audience's life matrix profile is rugged traditionalists in which they love the outdoors in which they tend to love action scenes as it shows elements of survival in which relates to the outdoors as rugged traditionalists like survival as it tests their strengths in which they can experience a simulated pleasure of survival by watching action scenes which creates the semantic experience of visceral pleasure of survival and action.


What do you consider to be a professional font with a zombie film trailer?

Shaun of the Dead







Virus 








World War Z








For the responses for this question, the highest response was the shaun of the dead trailer font title which may be due to that it has most of the conventions of a zombie film as the title is white which can symbolise innocence where the colour black for the background can suggest that the darkness is enveloping around the innocence and life in which can reinforce isolation in which isolation is a convention of zombie apocalyptic films. the word 'DEAD' is much bigger than the rest of the title in which reinforces vulnerability for the protagonists which is another convention for a zombie film, plus the word 'DEAD' has a silhouette  of a zombie for the letter 'A' in which tells the audience that the title is a zombie film just by the audience glancing at the title. The zombie title 'VIRUS' was the second highest response as it had most of the zombie conventions similar to Shaun Of The Dead but the presentation was not as good as Shaun Of The Dead as the title 'VIRUS' is bland as the letters within the title does not have much clarity within the appearance as further away the audience views the title will ale it harder to see the letters clearly due to the colour red and black does not stand out as much as the title Shaun Of The Dead. The title World War Z received the lowest responses as it does not indicate to the audience that it is a zombie film due to lack of ombre conventions as the title looks more like a action film involving swords and blades in which the only indication to the audience that they could perceive it as a zombie film is that it displays the letter Z in a big font size in which the audience can associate the letter with zombies as that is one of the only words that begin with the letter z.

Audience profiling methods

Audience profiling methods

Advertisers of film trailers define their target audience carefully as they can establish and identify the right ideologies to make their target audience desire their product as they have an idea where they can concentrate on the advertisement of their film.

Demographic profiling is the most simplest method of identifying the target audience which this method collates an audience and categorises them into age, class, economic status (working class, middle class, and upper class), geographical area, gender and religion and beliefs. This method surmises everyone in broad groups that has the same attitudes.  

Psychographic profiling is categorising audiences in terms of motivation and needs instead of simplistic demographic factors in order to move away from very broad groups of audiences that are difficult to target.  This method allows the audience to be targeted through their needs and wants.  The advertisers of film trailers aim to link the film’s ideologies to the consumer which as a result generates a better bond and empathy between the product’s band and the audience. The audience possesses an emotional attachment/loyalty with the product’s brand which is creating importance for advertisers of film trailers as they have a wide range of undifferentiated products.

Another method of profiling audiences is cross-cultural consumer characteristics which groups the audience in terms of aspirations that are personal to the individual and does not profile the audience by simplistic demographics but in profiles them in terms of needs and desires.

There are five groups that comes under the category of this profiling method of cross-cultural consumer characteristics which are aspirer, individual, mainstreamers, reformers, and succeeders

Aspirers seek to improve themselves which they often define themselves by the status of brand names which they consume, which they absorb the ideologies of the product they have consumed as their own ideologies as consumers believe that their own status is established by their consumption of products.

The individual has an understanding of media and expects high production of advertisement and purchases and consumes the image of the product but not the product itself.

Mainstreamers are usually concerned with security and stability which they often buy popular brands and consume mainstream texts.   

Reformers are idealists who consume environmentally friendly products actively and purchase and consume brands that have a positive image in terms of supporting the environment in a positive manner (buying products that establish this responsible and caring ideology).

Succeeders are a group of people that internally feel in control and are secure of themselves. They are usually in situations where they have control, dominance, and power. Succeeders buy and consume products (brands) that reinforce and reflect their control, power and dominance.   

Another audience profiling method is lifestyle marketing, which organisations of media occasionally nickname themselves as it makes it easy to identify their target audience.  The latest analysis done by these media organisations is done by using the LifeMatrix (psychographic market research tool). The LifeMatrix identifies ten categories which are centered around attitudes, beliefs and values.

These categories are dynamic duos – good work ethic, hard-driving, high-involvement couples, free birds – active altruistic seniors, fun- active young people, aspirational, fun seeking, home soldiers- family orientated, home-centric, and materially ambitious , priority parents- activities, family values, strongly dominate in terms of media, renaissance women- active, affluent, caring and influential mums, rugged traditionalists- love of outdoors and traditional male values, settled elders- are devout, older and have sedentary lifestyles. Tribe wired- creative young singles, digital and free spirited.

The purpose of audience profiling is use to profile an audience in as much detail, to create a certain ideology for the product, relating to the attitudes directly and beliefs and values of that target audience.    

Aspects to consider when making a film trailer

Aspects to consider when making a film trailer

When making a film trailer, the aspect of the storyline should be considered to instantly engage the audience to the visual text whether it is a great piece of dialogue between characters, a jolt of a kind of particular music. Then the storyline of the trailer needs to escalate in which for my genre of a zombie horror it needs to get progressively creepier and creepier as the trailer goes on keeping the audience engaged with the text throughout, then you have a great way to finish the trailer. The way, in which people’s (audience) brains are wired, they have short and long term memories in which they will mostly remember the beginning o f the trailer and the end of the trailer which gives them an overall impression of the film through the first few seconds of the trailer and the last few seconds of the trailer which is vital and has to be good.

When making a film trailer, think non-linear, in which a segment of a scene or film can be taken and be reconstructed through other micro-elements such as editing which almost creates a different perspective of the narrative to the audience when watching the film trailer to watching the actual film itself and recreate that scene in a suspenseful way in terms of a zombie horror trailer as this conforms to the conventions of a zombie horror which shouts out to the viewer that “this is a zombie horror “. The reason why this is done as the makers of the film want to target their correct audience and this technique allows their target audience to easily identify the genre of the product. This technique also creates and a different story direction in which the audience guesses where the story is going but at the same time the actual film will not go the same direction the audience is predicting thus giving away no surprises of the film which this creates hype for the audience through syntactic meaning and therefore the audience experiences visceral pleasure and the pleasure of intellectual puzzles (Altman) as they are curious of the narrative of the film and will want to watch more.  One of the aims of the trailer is for the audience to experience visceral pleasures and intellectual puzzles whilst informing the audience about the product they are advertising.

A trailer usually highlights particular scenes and tends to cram maximal value from particular moments from the film onto minimal on-screen time.

Another asset to be considered is originality within trailers which are the defining moment of trailers which make them standout from the other trailers. Most unique ideas of trailers usually have spin-offs from that particular idea of that trailer which the audience will see numerous trailers with the similar convention made where an original idea separates a particular trailer from the rest which will have the most interest from the audience as it is something that the audience has not seen before.

When designing a film trailer, professional designers recommend that trailers should not be over sold and use interesting dialogue and music to exaggerate the product but not to over exaggerate the product as viewers/audience may lose interest of the product.

Another asset of a trailer that should be considered is to not over complicate but one should make the trailer in the way in which make them as an audience want to go see the film and should not make too many changes as the quality of the trailer may decline. Overall the designer of the trailer should do what their instinct tells them to do as it is normally right. 

Conventions of a Horror Zombie film poster

Conventions of a Horror Zombie film poster

Conventions of a zombie horror magazine cover

Conventions of a zombie horror magazine cover

For my magazine cover, I will include conventions of the central image containing gore to instantly enable the audience to identify the genre of zombie apocalyptic horror as it will appeal to them as they enjoy this genre which will persuade them to stop and analyse and engage them into the text. I will include conventions of the four colour rule and use colours that fits in with the genre but stands out to the audience which will engage the audience within the text. I will also include conventions of the slogan to help engage the audience even further into the text as the slogan will sustain within the target audience's head and also include the convention of the masthead being big and standing out to the audience which will engage the audience within the text. 

Representation

Representation

The man at the beginning of the trailer is represented as a strong authority as within the mise-en-scene of his costume is a smart suit and the setting is of an office environment surrounded by others wearing suits. This can suggest he has a high class and status through wealth and professionalism being expressed through his costume which is a stereotype of the average man in which the male audience can relate to through culture of tertiary industry through office work, which is very common in USA. Overall this character is represented in a positive way through having high class and status, superiority and strong authority but this is counted through the performance of the other character clashing into him, him spilling coffee on his smart clothes, which shows lack of respect and this being supported by a long shot, making him look small and inferior.

The main female protagonist Alice (Mila Jovovich) is represented by having high class and status through the micro-element of Mise-en-scene of her costume which is a red dress with a black jacket which shows class and power through the colour red representing danger and power, which the colour red makes her stand out more than the rest of the characters, which creates dominance by her having the most attention from the audience, even though her frame duration on screen is small but she is shown numerous amount of times. Her costume shows more skin than most of the other characters which can suggest the theory of the male gaze which objectifies the character to keep the male audience engaged within the trailer which can create a negative representation through her being objectified and can be shown as inferior through some low angle shots (0.48 minutes) and her duration in scenes and frames. Although this representation could be counted by being positive by her being strong, dominant and have superiority as mentioned earlier, she may be shown in small duration but shown numerous times, the reason being is that the editors and directors want to keep the audience engaged within the visual text by showing small doses of this character at a time, making the male audience want to see more.  Close up shots of the protagonist, making her more dominant as the character is taking up the most of the frame, therefore having the most attention and her costume also supports this as the colour red stands out the most and symbolises danger, also her performance (Mise-en-scene) of her performing action stunts and combat making her seen as strong and engages the audience even more through seeing action on screen as it creates excitement for the audience.

The male protagonist One (Colin Salmon) is represented as strong, high class and status and superior through the micro-elements of camera and mise-en-scene, editing and sound. The camera shots of him are mostly close-up shots, his positioning on screen is within the centre of the frame, and some high angled shots can be identified, which these shots make him seen as strong and superior through the illusion of making him look bigger and have the most attention from the audience within the scenes he is in. For the micro-element sound, his sound of his dialogue is deep and bold which creates a strong sense of authority and dominance which is supported by the micro-element Mise-en-scene of performance as his facial expressions are strong, confident and gives eye contact towards characters and the camera which makes him look dominant as it shows that he takes all situations as seriously and shows no fear.

The protagonist carries a prop (mise-en-scene) which is a gun (0.56 minutes), which a gun symbolises power and danger which is in his hands. This protagonist is represented in positive way as he is represented as strong, high class and status (his authority) and dominant/superiority. Though his race representation of him being of African descent applies to Lenny Henry’s theory of “the lack of number of black, Asian and minority ethnic people working in the television industry ....” which this applies to the trailer has Colin salmon is the only ethnic minority within the trailer, but positively represents his race by being represented as strong, dominant and superior. 

This apocalyptic film subverts the usual conventions identified within this genre as the main protagonist is a female in which most apocalyptic films tend to be quite sexist where the main protagonist tends to be male whereas the female will not form a large influence within the narrative due to the common stereotypes associated with both genders,which is negative towards women.


Resident Evil (2002) trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8AQlUdTFxA


For my theatrical trailer, I will use similar conventions that are identified within the trailer of Resident Evil (2002) such as the main protagonist holding a weapon (prop) to reinforce the convention of survival as the target audience are tribe wired and love the outdoors and the concept of the theme of survival. The prop will represent the character for being more stronger at times when confronted by the antagonists which will make the audience feel more adrenalised and exhilarated as there is an equal match between the antagonist and the protagonist which any one can prevail. 

Genre (Zombie Horror)

Genre (Zombie Horror)

The defining features of the text are the antagonists being dead but alive hence zombies, they have decaying bodies.  There are conventions of gore, isolation, group of people fighting for survival, usually the survivors prevail, people turning into zombies, side characters dying and a solution to the problem i.e. antidote or cure for virus outbreak.

There are some hybridity within this genre as within ‘Shaun of the Dead’; it has the genre of comedy amalgamated with a zombie horror genre. The zombie genre also is hybridised with the genre of thriller and also science fiction. 

Texts of the zombie horror genre are culturally influenced through their target audience and their distributors. Examples of this are 28 days later in which is set in Great Britain in London in which is well established throughout the world in which engages the audience to the film as they have a connection to the setting which intrigues and interests the audience. This is culturally influenced through zombie horror texts being made in and set in the modern era, also being set in first world countries such as USA, UK, Japan and Spain. Characters constructed within these texts are culturally influenced as they base characters on stereotypes that the audience sees in everyday life, the reasons for this are to engage the audience within the text, as they can reflect on their past experiences and connections of stereotypical people they have interacted with. Costumes of characters have been culturally influenced through them representing to the stereotypes of people within the country the film is set in. Technology has been culturally influenced within modern texts as some narrative are driven by technology whereas in the historical texts it was more with the culture of black magic of African culture whereas in the modern texts, technology is used within the text such as technology of cloning i.e. Resident Evil extinction. Also technology is used within texts to create cures for the zombie outbreak which is set in high tech science facilities.

The ideologies of the genre contains the typical characters that would be identified in the zombie horror genre in which is the protagonists ( the strong hero ) usually male, the final girl, children are sometimes identified within this small group of survivors , the vulnerable victims that have the following traits such as disabilities, physically weak, not intelligent or just clumsy. There is also the false hero in which betrays the protagonist(s) and the character in which is bitten by the zombie but stays with the group due to their attachment for the character/person but some characters are in disagreement through the infected victim staying with them (usually the false hero). These characters are ideologies of the types of people that will be identified within the zombie horror genre.  Another ideology within the zombie horror genre is the narrative will be similar in which a group of survivors will form together and fight for survival and try to resolve the situation by either finding the cure for the zombie outbreak or travelling somewhere safe that is unaffected by the zombie outbreak in which the survivors slowly get picked off one by one leaving a few survivors. These ideologies of the zombie horror genre are expected by the audience as these ideologies/conventions are constructed in the zombie horror texts in which the narrative and conventions are expected to be slightly differentiated in a new zombie horror text. 

CGI can be used to create more terrifying zombies/creatures which will scare the audience whereas films such as the night of the living dead, the zombies did not look terrifying compared to the zombies in the later films such as REC franchise in which creates more fear for the audience through the detail of the antagonists.

The use of colour cameras, which was not introduced for zombie films until after the release of the night of the living dead, which makes films for the audience look more aesthetically pleasing and makes the film more detailed in which the conventions of zombie horrors contains gore in which makes the gore more visible by using a colour camera, thus making the audience more frightened and experience a sustained unease feeling.

The use of sound effects in which can be used to create sounds for zombies in which will scare and frighten the audience through the zombies being expressed through the sounds them make through the sound effects being included within the visual text, an example being an aggressive zombie roar in which would be hard to create without the technology of sound effects which this effect will scare and unease the audience through them hearing the zombie making a disturbing sound.

For my theatrical trailer, I will include the main usual conventions of the zombie apocalyptic horror genre as the target audience like and expect to see these conventions within the film in which these conventions will be shown within the theatrical trailer to engage the audience within the text and they will want to watch the film when released. These conventions include: isolation, protagonists fighting for survival, antagonists being zombies and the survivors prevailing. 

I will also include fast pace editing supported by fast paced sinister music within my theatrical trailer to reinforce the visceral pleasure of adrenaline and exhilaration for the audience as the target audience are tribe wired and fun-atics which enjoy feeling exhilarated when watching texts of this genre.