When creating a film you must decide on a target audience to ensure you fulfil the goal of entertaining viewers successfully. For example Rom-Coms normally have a target audience of teenage girls aged 13-18 who enjoy funny romance stories.
With this in mind we took our own decision of a Zombie story as a signal that those interested will be in a similar age group to us, roughly 15-25 year olds who enjoy the idea of surprise, this is also fitting with the age certificate of the film meaning the film is viewable for the whole audience.
In addition to this we also decided to investigate other possible audiences for our film. We discovered that men with a wide range of age keep interest in the horror genre as they find it thrilling and exciting. However women tend to enjoy lighter entertainment such as comedy. In addition to this fans of comics and games which also involve Zombies or horror like features will also take interest in our film therefore making them an ideal target audience. This can be proven through The Walking Dead franchise which began as a comic book series, fans of the comic then gained interest in the television show which is now successful with a very wide, diverse target audience.
Finally, we have noted that in recent years there has been a rise in the amount of Zombie films release, all of which have been very successful such as:
Life After Beth
Warm Bodies
World War Z
World War Z was exceptionally successful earning $66,411,834 in its opening week. This is thanks to it's wide target audience. We aim to create a successful film like this which is why we are following a popular trend and creating a Zombie film.
seen as we are doing a zombie film it would be a good assumption that we can research into the small details in our film such as how the outbreak would spread or how the outbreak was started. films such as zombie land,I am legend, Resident evil and 28 Days Later. The storyline to these films all contain a different theory on how the protagonist survives, who the antagonists are (humans fighting humans or humans surviving against an unstoppable horde of zombies) and how the infection spreads through the populace. ZombieLand:
the protagonist is Jessie Eisenberg (columbus), he was a student at a college that was far away from the comforts of his family and hometown(columbus). he try's to make his way back to the town and finds himself in the company of Woody Harrelson (tallahassee) a professional redneck who has had his fair share of heartache (the loss of his son) and only wants one thing ... Redemption ... oh and a Twinkie. During a conversation in the car we are informed that the outbreak spread due to patient zero eating an infected sandwich that contained a mutated strand of mad cow disease in a gas station, he then started to infect the rest of america slowly turning the place into a zombie ridden wasteland. They then encounter the two sisters Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin (wichita and Little rock), they then endeavour to survive as they all end up in pacific play-land fighting off a horde of zombies.
Resident Evil Extinction:
As alice (Milla Jovovich) regroups with old friends after hiding from umbrella corp in a vegas nevada safe house, she endeavours to make umbrella corp pay for their crimes against humanity whilst battling against the zombie hordes unleashed by the villainous corporation. In this story the outbreak spread by a disease called the T-virus, it affects not only any humans that come into contact with it but animals and plants too. this essentially means alice and her team have to race across the mojave to escape the ensuing terror and destruction.
28 Days Later:
When a group of activists break into a research lab in cambridge to free chimpanzees from animal testing, little do they know that the chimpanzees are host to a brand new biological weapon known as rage that could completely wipe out the human race. The activists are warned about the consequences of their actions but they still proceed to set the chimpanzees free, the chimpanzees then bite one of the activists before fleeing the facility. The activist becomes infected and turns into a zombie, infecting the other activists and staff at the testing site. 28 days later the main character jim (cillian murphy) a bicycle courier, awakens in St.Thomas hospital in london. only to find that his country and most of the rest of the world is a desolate wasteland with close to no survivors, he then struggles to survive as he gets rescued and pursued by hordes of rage infested corpses. Jim and his friends are then captured he is to be executed and his friends are to be sold into sexual slavery, during a quarrel over who gets to kill him jim escapes the guards and formulates a plan to come back and kill them all. this is a good example of a zombie film where the zombies aren't the only things trying to kills the protagonist.
I Am Legend:
In this movie adaptation of the book the pandemic was caused by scientists reverse engineering the measles on a genetic level so that it would be good instead of bad whereas in the book it was caused by war which lead to high mosquito population to carry the virus and dust storms to take them to foreign places. The main character (will smith) plays a seemingly lone survivor of a pandemic that has swept through america and left a barren wasteland devoid of lie in its wake, he then tries not go mad by creating scenarios with manikins to give him something to do during the day. he is isolated save for his dog, and is trying to reverse engineer a cure for the virus that has turned the human populace into vampiric like zombies that are burned by sunlight and thus leave him be during the day. He returns to his safe place which is boarded up mansion with steel shutters to keep the infected out, this works quite well until one day one of the traps he set for himself knocks him out. he then awakes several hours later with the sun setting and nowhere to go, his dog gets bitten and he has to take him home and put him out of his misery (saddest scene in the whole film, works well because as soon as he kills his dog he finds a woman and her son.) they are then chased back to the house by the infected and he chooses to make the ultimate sacrifice allowing those he loves to escape, he also gives them the cure for the virus while he stays back to fend them off. this involves him setting off a grenade that wipes out quite a few of the infected. The mother and son then make it to a settlement filled with survivors
Our target audience is mostly teenagers and people in their early to mid 20's .
They will have a strong interest in horror films, especially the zombie sub genre.
They will be able to relate to our chosen characters in many ways such as; school life, social life and home life.
Zombie films are currently very popular in todays movie industry, gaining a wide audience from teenagers to adults. The current craze dominates our cinema screens with many movies, similar to our idea such as:
World War Z (2013): United Nations employee Gerry Lane traverses the world in a race against time to stop the Zombie pandemic that is toppling armies and governments, and threatening to destroy humanity itself.
(World War Z trailer)
One review featured on IMDb by a viewer of the film stated:
"They're not scary, no creative and the lack of gore shouldn't be bashed because you don't need gore to be scary but at the same time when you have the violence off-screen it just makes the film seem rather childish."
To avoid disappointment we will feature the violence and fight scenes on-screen as this will make the film more tense and interesting for our viewers.
Warm Bodies (2013): After a highly unusual zombie saves a still-living girl from an attack, the two form a relationship that sets in motion events that might transform the entire lifeless world.
(Warm Bodies trailer)
Shaun of the Dead (2004): A man decides to turn his life around by winning back his ex-girlfriend, reconciling his relationship with his mother, and dealing with an entire community that has returned from the dead to eat the living.
(Shaun Of The Dead trailer)
We have taken inspiration from the Shaun Of The Dead film by including a 'News Scene' into the first few minutes of our film.
(Shaun Of The Dead TV scene)
However, due to the fact our film is a horror it will not hold the same ironic, comedic effect. Instead our film will feature a simple news report. As the clip will feature in the first 2 minutes of the film it will act as a great introduction, explaining the virus which has spread and demonstrating the key theme to the audience.
Shaun of the dead- A man fights for his ex-girlfriend back amidst a zombie apocalypse, filled with minor horror and gore. Renown for it's comedy.
World war z- A man travels the world attempting to stop the zombie pandemic.
Warm bodies- A zombie and a human girl fall in love.
Zombieland- Zombie apocalypse survivors make pilgrimage to an amusement park across the country.
Dawn of the dead- A group of survivors take a final stand in a massive American shopping mall.
28 days later- 4 weeks after a virus spreads through the UK a group of survivors find sanctuary.
Resident evil- A military unit attempts to end the zombie apocalypse created by scientists.
I am legend- After NY is wiped out by a plague a man and his dog search for a cure.
All of these films involve zombies or a sort of weird monster like I am ledgend, a few of these films attempt humour and manage to pull it off quite well and comes across quite crudely in Zombieland with most of the laughs come from crude but well done humour that self references throughout the film.
We have drawn inspiration from particular films such as Shaun of the dead's new scene which we hope to have something similar to that and hope to pull off realistic looking gore like Zombieland.
All films are wrote with a specific audience in mind, and our's does not differ from that train of thought.When thinking of an idea, we found the notion of a zombie horror really engaged us.This brought to my attention that we have an initial audience of teenagers like us, who enjoy the feeling of being immersed in scary/thrilling plots with unthinkable circumstances.
With this in mind we explored other potential audiences we could reach with this type of film.Having already established that teens would enjoy this film we thought about an older audience and came to the conclusion that if seeking an older audience it would be largely male, as they tend to show a interest in this genre irrespective of age.In contrast to women who often grow out of this genre as there taste's mature and become more specific.
Finally there is a niche market for this film found in zombie enthusiasts.This doesn't rely on gender or age, just a interest in zombies and anything concerning this topic.Therefore making them the ideal audience for our film.Despite this genre being considered a niche market, we are seeing it become more mainstream and commercial as a result of such franchises as the walking dead series,world war z and warm bodies.We have taken this rise in interest into account when choosing a genre, as we understand that recognizing trends and movements within popular culture and harnessing them helps create a successful film.
In the UK, it is compulsory through various laws that any film shown must have a film certificate/age rating.Theses ratings indicate to the audience what type of content will be in the film e.g violence and allows people to gauge whether that type of film is what they want to see.Film certificates also aid parents in knowing if the film is suitable for there children to consume, without having to watch it before hand; therefore it is a efficient way for parents to protect there children from unsuitable content.
There are 5 different certificates to rate the films;
U
PG
12A
15
18
These ratings are based on specific features of the film. For example whether or not the film includes scenes of a violent/sexual nature,if there are particularly upsetting scenes or if there is excessive swearing in the dialogue.Films rated as U's or PG's are often targeted at children and do not entail any of the features spoken about previously.A great example of these types of films would be anything created by the Disney franchise.Where as a film rated as a 18 is likely to include one or more of these elements and are aimed at a adult audience specifically.A example of these types of films would be Quentin Tarantino films.
Considering this information I have concluded that out zombie horror film would be a 15.This is due to the violent/gory nature of some scenes.Our film does not highlight any of the other features in order to be a 15 e.g ;sexual activity,drug taking etc, but as the film dwells on violent and gory scenes and are quite detailed it was not appropriate to class the film as a 12/12A.
