Research - Short horror films

'Red Balloon' is horror/thriller genre based short film that I uses a variety of different shots and eerie music, all clearly adding to the suspense of the film. 

This mid shot includes both the victim and the murderer in the same shot. We only see part of the complete shot as it is very dark of course adding to the suspense. The mise en scene in this shot includes the killer wearing an animal mask which in any other genre based film would be considered perhaps humorous however, in this short film the mask makes makes the scene even more tense.

Research - Short horror films

Films such as '28 days later' and the hit TV show 'The walking dead' inspired me to create my very own zombie inspired short film. I think it is different idea compared to the obvious horror genre that many people tend to choose.

This short film called '48 hour zombie' is more of a comical short film whereas I aim to make mine a serious film however, some of the shots really appealed to me a long with the make up of the zombies which looks much more realistic compared to some other zombie inspired videos have seen.

Questionnaire results

I chose to conduct my questionnaire in my sixth form however, this limited my results as I go to an all girls school, the gender was limited to mostly females and the age range of 17-21 year old. The results of my questionnaire concluded that :

• 80% of my target audience is female
• 70% were the ages of 17-21 the rest were 29-35
• 80% watched short films occasionally 
• Their preferred length is 2-5 minutes long
• 50% preferred horror. 40% preferred thriller, 10% preferred romance and crime
• 60% of people preferred a plot twist ending leaving 40% preferring a cliff hanger 

 This questionnaire made me realize that my target audience consists of mostly females who are teenagers.The preferred length for a short film is 2-5 minutes and their favorite genres are horror and thriller. They also preferred a plot twist. I will follow these up as best as I can.

Questionnaire

This is the questionnaire I created in order to find my target audience.

Target Audience?

Knowing your target audience is essential, before you can even start to think about filming you should know your target audience. At the moment I am making my questionnaire to distribute all around my school so I know what I'm making and who I'm making it for. I will upload my questionnaire up soon and the results after.

Genre research

I have been researching different genres that I could possibly use for my own short story video, including thriller, horror and romance. From the results of my questionnaire I discovered that thriller and horror tend to be the popular choice of genre, perhaps due to the fact you can use a wide range of scary/spooky sounds in the video which makes it more interesting.  In the genre of thriller and horror, changing the screen to grey, rewinding and fast camera movements also were popular within my search of videos.