Wednesday, 22 September 2010

Blog 4 - Analysis of Opening Sequences

I watched an opening clip of Jennifer's Body and Sorority Row.

Jennifer's Body
The protagonist is the character Needy Lesnicky. She is presented as a agressive teenage girl in a prison. It then flashes back to before this when she is a quiet timid teenage girl who follows her best friend Jennifer Check. Jennifer is the opposite character to Needy, she is very confident. Although they have nothing in common, they are like sisters. The language they use is informal as they play typical american teenagers. The opening scene is of a house in the distance. It is dark windy night which sets a spooky atmosphere. The music over the top creates suspense, certain sounds e.g wind are emphasised by increasing the volume over other sounds like the television. When it flashes back to high school, the clothes the characters are wearing reflect their personalities. Throughout the film Jennifer wears clothes that show off her figure, e.g. tight jeans, short tight t-shirt and tight zip up jacket. Needy wears a different look, baggy loose fitting clothes e.g loose fitting jeans, t-shirt and baggy cardigan. The audience gets drawn into the film because of it starting when Needy is in prison, you question why she is there and how she got there, so carry on watching to find out. At the beginning of the film there is no real horror element to it as nothing terrifying happens, it makes you want to know why Jennifer becomes evil and what she does.




Sorority Row
The protagonist isn't clear in the opening of this film but my guess would be the character Cassidy Tappan because she seems the sensible one out of the group of girls. The group of girls all seem to play a main role in the film, all having different personalities but all close friends. The clothes they wear also reflect their personality like in Jennifer's Body. For example,       The film starts set in a chaotic, busy, typical teenage graduation house party. But the opening scene starts from outside the party, zooming in on to the house, it is very dark and you can hear the sounds of crashing building up the tension.. Then you hear a girl scream, which you then realise is only a girl having fun at the party. I think this is clever because it is unexpected to the audience. You then hear the music played at the party and the sounds of people chatting and enjoying themselves which sets the scene. Five of the group of friends are toasting each other in a bedroom and then the ring leader, Jessica Pierson, reveals the prank they are playing. The prank goes terribly wrong and one of the girls is murdered.


Blog 3 - Institutional Contexts

Jennifer's Body

The estimated budget for this film was $16,000,000. On the opening weekend in the USA they made $6,868,397 (2,707 Screens) and in the UK £736,535 (314 Screens). Must be a popular well known film because of the amount of screens it was shown at and the amount of money they made in the opening weekend.
The film was made by production companies Fox Atomic (a well known film company), Dune Entertainment and Hard C.

Sorority Row

The estimated budget for this film was also $16,000,00 the same as Jennifer's Body. On the opening weekend in the USA they made $5,059,802 (2,665 Screens) and in the UK £782,693 (345 Screens). Sorority Row showed in less Screens in the USA than Jennifer's Body and made less money there. Sorority Row showed in more Screens in the UK than Jennifer's Body and made more money there. This shows that both films were successful, Jennifer's Body more in the USA and Sorority Row more in the UK.
The film was made by production companies Karz Entertainment and Summit Entertainment.

From researching, I can imagine I have a $16,000,00 budget for my film because both teenage horror films I have looked at (Jennifer's Body and Sorority Row) have this same budget and have been successful. This means I can be quite adventurous with my ideas.

Blog 2 - Target Audience

Jennifer's Body

From looking at the graph I can see that males give the most votes, majority who are 18-29. My guess to the reason for this is that the film is aimed at older teenagers, the rating for it is 15. And the reason for males giving most votes is that there is Megan Fox an attractive young actress staring in it. Aged under 18, females under 18 and females aged 18-19 have the highest average rating "5.8". The reason for under 18 people rate it higher could be because they find the film more terrifying as they are younger. And the reason for females rating it high could be because in the film a female is slaying males, a woman over powering men.
On the opening weekend that the film was released, in the USA they made $6,868,397 (2,707 Screens) and in the UK £736,535 (314 Screens). This shows the film is quite mainstream because of the amount of screens it was shown at.




Sorority Row

From looking at the graph I can observe that males have also made the most votes, majority aged 18-29. (Same as Jennifer's Body.) Strangely females aged 45+ have the highest average rating "6.2". But I think this is not very reliable because there has only been 35 votes the least amount of votes taken for a category. Therefore males under 18 who on average rated the film at "5.9" is the highest. However there has only been 162 votes taken probably because the rating for the film is 18. The under age men who did see the film obviously enjoyed it the most. For the same reason as Jennifer's Body I think the males went to see it and liked it because of the attractive young actresses in it. The females also probably liked it for similar reason to Jennifer's Body because of the women having the power over the men.

From looking at the rating reports for both these teenage horror films I think I'm going to aim my film at aged 18-29 males because they seem to give the most votes (most viewings). I've observed that young females rate both films high because of the likely reason that in the films the women have the power over the men. I think if I have this element of one gender having power over the other gender it will increase ratings for the particular gender. By aiming my film at the right audience my film would be more likely to be successful.

Tuesday, 21 September 2010

Blog 1 - Introduction - Pre-production

Write a script for the opening of a teen horror film.
Also produce a blog entry outlining the research done into teen horror.