Week One 1/2

Week One Postings

This marks the first official AICE Media Studies Portfolio Project post. This is where I will be keeping track of all my research, planning, production, and personal reflections. Everything has to be supported by evidence, so for this first post, I’m going to be focusing mainly on researching my genre, which is Horror. 

To kick it off, let’s talk about horror. Most typical horror movies are a mix of fiction with nonfiction whose purpose is to frighten, scare, or startle its viewers. Knowing this, most adults don’t like the feeling of terror, which is why horror films are most common among 15-25 year-olds. Additionally, 42% of horror audiences are women, and 58% being men. 


In a similar fashion to many other types of genres, horror is also marketed through social media, and even with billboards. But the most common way is through movie trailers. The horror movie trailers include jump scares, creepy sound effects and most of the time, they show just a few characters to catch the attention of the viewer and build a connection with them. Horror movies have a tendency of making good movie trailers because the trailers are short and straight to the point, which helps in leaving the viewer with the feeling of wanting more. Furthermore, a well-made movie trailer does not reveal everything to its viewer but still show enough content to keep its viewers interested in what will happen next. Apart from the trailers, horror films also use social media to market their movies. For example, the company SonyPictrures uses multiple different social media platforms to promote their upcoming movies by publishing behind the scenes videos, sneak pics, and of course trailers. Additionally, horror films use social media to expand their content to a larger audience. Moreover, another marketing technique used by horror films are movie posters. The posters are critical in marketing the movie because they are the main design element that captures a persons’ interest.

Just like marketing a movie, distributing a movie is crucial in a successful final product. The number one way that horror movies get distributed is digitally. For instance, most horror movies end up being available for digital download or instant play on places like Hulu, amazon prime, IMDB, and Netflix. On the other hand, in rare cases, some movies are available on Blu-Ray and DVD. The lack of physical copies is due to the fact most horror fans are in the age range of 15-25. Since these viewers belong to generation Z they are very familiar with technology which is why they get most of their entertainment from digital sources. Overall, movies are mainly distributed through digital forms but sometimes also through physical copies.

Tune in tomorrow for the next post ;)