Preproduction

For my portfolio project, me and my group(Zhanae, Evicka, Ja'Niyah) are creating a horror movie opening scene that will follow all the conventions of the horror genre. Before we started this project, we picked are groups by interviewing our classmates, once we found the people we wanted to be in are groups based on the questions we asked. The next day we were giving a group contract that we had to sign and give back. Right after that, that's when we actually started on the planning process, we made a short story that consist of what our story will pertain followed by the different plot points. Once we turned in our story, we research different things in the horror movie genre to understand what these films consist of, then we did our script and storyboard.

Case study

                                The ring

History/target audience

The director Gore Verbinski created this movie to portray the genre of a supernatural/horror film to the audience of pre-teens and adults(pg-13 rated). It is based off of the supernatural horror novel written by Koji Suzuki published in 1991. 

Production

The ring was produced by Walter F. Parkes. This film was produced by Blumhouse Productions which is mainly known for producing horror films. The ring(2002) had a budget of $48,000which was a large amount for a horror film. Provided that, this is the biggest budget Blumhouse Productions as given in the last 20 years which was 20 million from US(2019).

Distribution

The ring was distributed by DreamWorks Pictures. This film was theatrically released on October 18,2002 and was put onto multiple streaming services. Some of these streaming services consist of paramount plus, Hulu plus, iTunes, amazon instant video, google play, and Vudu. 

Marketing

In order for them to advertise the movie, they created many promotional websites that showed a preview of the character and the places of the film. After that physical VHS copies were distributed outside of the theaters by placing the tapes on windshields of peoples cars. This initial success came from DreamWorks which helped to increase the film into 700 additional theaters. The ring made $8.3million in its first two weeks in Japan and $6.6 millions total box office.

Cross-media convergence and synergy

This film has a introduction that brings interest to the audience when it says based on true events, this has many viewers wondering if the haunted videotape is actually real which helps to increase the sales price.

                            Script Writing

The genre horror is a film genre that is scary for entertainment purposes only. The intended audience for this type of film consists of younger audiences because they are most likely to seek thrill. The purpose of horror movies is to give the viewer an insight on their biggest fears and worst nightmares.

Production, distribution, exhibition

                       Production, distribution, 

                             and exhibition

Production:

• When researching about the production aspect of films I have found that this refers to the making of these films; finding the idea, writing the script, pitching it to a studio, setting a budget, casting stars and employing a crew, filming, and editing.

• In addition to the setting a budget component, production needs its investors in order to get this necessary funding. The global cinema industry box office is a successful company and so these investors try to reduce the risk of losing money by difficult decisions. 90% of these box office takings come from the "big six" these six majors consist of: Paramount pictures, Universal, 20th Centaury fox, Warner bros. pictures, Walt Disney, and Columbia pictures. Some movie studies the create the best horror movies are Blumhouse, platinum dumes, ghost house pictures, Lionsgate films. But a ideal production company that I would do to produce my own film  is Blumhouse.

• When making a production, there is a few potential risks that lead to questions; What level of audience will it attract?, Level of funding necessary?, Is it marketable?, Will the funding make a profitable return?. These questions are needed because if the answer is no to any of these then changes will be made to the details of the film to make sure its a yes but apart from that these investors will take their money somewhere else.
• After the investors make the funding available(greenlit) the director can then start filming. 
• When doing the production portion it is important set budgets for example the horror film Scream, just for production the budget is $31,085,973. But for the most profitable film "Paranormal activity", against its poultry budget of $15,000 it earned $193 million.

Distribution:

• When making a advertising plan, the film distributor must decide how it will present a film to a directed audience. Once they do that they can look for the unique selling point or the unique selling proposition(USP) to see what aspects of their products are better than competitors.
• After they look at the main components of the film and taking them into consideration, then they have to decide what elements to stress in the market place to figure out how they want to put their product onto the market.
• Some ways to market films: poster, trailers, online and mobile content, special screenings/ premieres, interviews/articles, merchandise.

Exhibition:

• Film exhibition is the last stage to the films expedition from the idea to the audience.
• Once the cinema is released, the film will be available on different platforms

Source:

https://www.slideshare.net/robertclackmedia/productiondistributionexhibition-an-intro-final-for-media