Mood Board

Here is my mood board for our story and subgenre.

Everything featured on it represents things and ideas we want to include in our coursework.

• BBC News/ the news report - because we'd like to recreate a similar scene to that of the news report scene in Shaun of the Dead.
• Zombies - because our storyline will centre around zombies. We also want to experiment with zombie make-up and special effects
• Blood - because it's a common convention of the Comedy Horror genre. It's also something we are definitely going to include in our short film.
• Prosthetic limbs - because we'd like to include a shot where the zombie's arm falls off.
• The drinks bottles - for the character to become a zombie they must drink this toxic drink.
• The bus - we will experiment with some filming on a bus. Also, a bus it representative of London which is where it is going to be set.
• Film posters - horror comedy films which have inspired me.
• The short man and the tall woman - there's going to be a big height difference between the male and female characters.

Target Audience

After research into my subgenre, I came to realise that the majority of Comedy Horror films are rated between 12 and 15.

The requirements for a 15 movie are:

• strong violence
• frequent strong language
• portrayals of sexual activity
• strong verbal references to sex
• sexual nudity
• brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence
• discrimintory language or behaviour
• drug taking

The requirements for an 18 movie are:

• very strong violence
• frequent strong language
• strong portrayals of sexual activity
• scenes of sexual violence
• strong horror
• strong gore and blood
• real sex (in some circumstances)
• discrimitory language and behaviour

My target audience will be....

Gender: Male and Female

Age: 15-18 years old (and will be rated a 15)

Interests and hobbies: people who enjoy watching and reading horror related texts, but also like to laugh at comedy

Social group: peers who show an interest in the same genre of film

Professions: anyone! Students, teachers, doctors etc...

Sexuality: any sexuality. Comedy Horror is for everyone.

Zombie Personalities Research

• I found this video very useful in finding out more about how zombies act and why they are like this.
• They linked it to real life situations which makes it easier to understand.
• The scientific approach was very informative

Zombie Article

This article discusses how zombies work and act, drawing upon their conventions.

Many of the concepts which are spoken about in this article were created by Romero and then widely used by many other directors including Edgar Wright for 'Shaun of the Dead'.

However, some zombie films actually challenge these conventions such as '28 Days Later' where some of the zombies are seen to be intelligent and fast moving.

After I had read this article, I had a wider knowledge of what to include in a zombie related trailer. I have decided that in my trailer I want to mainly stick to the traditional conventions of zombies, however, include a bit of a twist as well.

I don't necessarily want our zombie to look like the typical 'bad guy' and villain. I also think an intelligent zombie would be interesting.

Zombie Research

Plan For Our Trailer

Our back-story In 10 Bullet Points:

1. There's a toxic drink which has very bad side effects on people.
2. The worst possible side effects happen to a boy who is addicted to the drink - he becomes something inhuman/ Zombie-like.
3. He attempts to continue his ordinary life, despite being a zombie now.
4. His girlfriend decides to stay away from him for a while as she's a bit freaked out.
5. He then tries to win her back in numerous ways which all fail.
6. He finally gives up which makes the girl feel bad and guilty about her actions.
7. The girl decides she is going to make it up to the boy by surprising him.
8. She drinks excessive amounts of the toxic drink so she can become just like him.
9. The girl heads to the boys house to wait for him and her plan is that they will be in love again.
10. The boy sees her and doesn't even fancy her any more because she's a zombie now and isn't pretty.

Initial Ideas

• These brainstorms are our initial ideas which would make the basis of our story.
• We came up with different things we could include to make the story funny such as 
• the actions of the characters
• the music
• awkward scenes
• funny dialogue

Research: Audience Expectations

I asked whether they were male or female so I could get a better understanding of who my target audience were.

Analysis: 75% of the respondents were male, while 25% were female.

Age is an important question to ask as the age of my audience will determine what sort of content I will include in the trailer.

Analysis: The majority of people were aged 14-15, but there was no one under this age.

I asked the audience what they thought the most important part about a trailer is

Analysis: The most important part about a trailer for my audience is that they are left with questions which makes them want to go and see the full movie. They don't want to know the full story straight away.

I also asked them what part of the Comedy Horror genre do they prefer.

Analysis: Nobody preferred Horror the most, but there was an equal split between people preferring Comedy and both.

Finally I asked what they expect to see in a Comedy Horror movie.

Analysis: I provided many options for this question, but people have decided that gore, interesting storylines, enigma and funny characters are what they expect to see from a Comedy Horror film.

Research into our subgenre: Comedy Horror

Comedy Horror

The sub-genre I would like to focus on is Comedy Horror.

I would like to do this because both genres really contrast each other so putting them together is going to be an exciting challenge for me.

The well known films, Shaun Of The Dead and Zombieland have inspired me to try working with this sub-genre.  These films are so entertaining but you can also see the amount of effort and precision there must have been in making them.

Due to the contrast of the two genres coming together I will also have the opportunity to experiment with different paces and different music types. I especially look forward to trying out new ways of producing sound for this trailer.