AD: Production and Distribution of Horror Films

Discuss the ways in which horror films are produced and distributed.

Production of horror films

Independent Horror

• Horror films have a common feature: the budget needed for a horror film does not necessarily have to be anywhere near the million mark and can, with the introduction of funding websites such as Kickstarter, be funded completely by the audience, as for example the Kickstarter funded film The Sky Has Fallen (Roos, 2009) did.
• A classic example of a low budget, independent horror film is the film The Blair Witch Project (Myrick, Sánchez, 1999), which had a budget of $22,500 (£13,814) and made $248,639,099 (£152,661,078) at the box office, essentially making it one of the most successful, low budget movies of all time. Filming of The Blair Witch Project took a mere eight days to film, the dialogue was entirely improvised and all of the majority of the events in the film were unknown to the three actors. While this is an old example, it does show that the time required to shoot a horror does not necessarily require months of filming, and that improvisation can pay off.



• Another example of a low budget horror film would be Shrooms (Breathnach, 2007). The film made an approximate worldwide gross of $4,954,621 (£3,042,050). As it is a film distributed by Vertigo films, it can be assumed that the film is of a low budget, with limited visual effects, relying mostly on pro-filmic effects to instill terror into the audience. What is notable in this example is the fact that it was a low budget movie that did not receive high reviews, nor have a long life span in the cinema.
• As it is with most horror films involving gore, the majority of the effects available to the director and crew are pro-filmic effects. The creation of pro-filmic effects are surprisingly cheap and very easy to create. For example, the YouTube channel IndyMogul has an impressive collection of tutorials on creating iconic chestbursters, zombie gore, makeup and props, showcasing the possibilities of using day-to-day items as potential film props. This means that effective on-screen effects are possible to create on a small budget, and as such make up a small part of the overall capital available to the production crew.

         

Industrial Horror

• Larger scale industrial films have, as they are usually produced by the six major studios, have the means of creating visually impressive films, utilising both pro-filmic effects and visual effects to create a visually impressive, high budget movie.
• Not all of the major studio films are necessarily successful. An example of this would be The Apparition (Lincoln, 2012), with a budget of $17 million made a mere $9,627,492 in the box office, essentially making it a massive flop. This example shows that even though the movie contains high budget visual effects and has the means of showing them off, it doesn't make it a good film.
• Another example of an industrial level film with high success would be A Nightmare on Elm Street (Bayer, 2010), distributed by New Line Cinema, a subsiduary to Warner Brothers. While it was not received well by critics, it still scraped in a its opening weekend just over $15 million, with the income from the total box office of just over $117 million, making it the eight highest grossing movie in unadjusted dollars. 
• Franchises that have already been established can, and are, visited by mainstream media, as it draws upon an existing fanbase that will presumably be drawn by the franchise. An example of a franchise would be A Nightmare on Elm Street (Craver, 1984), which has resulted in nine films, a television show, novels and comic books. The films in the franchise have collectively grossed over $455 million in the box office worldwide. 
• Existing media such as books, comics or video games are equally considered by media conglomerates for films, as for example with World War Z (Forster, 2013), which was loosely based on the book of the same name, written by Max Brooks.

Distribution of Horror films

Horror film distributors have in the last decade begun using the Internet to promote their films, making distribution relatively easy to make and is not as costly as large billboards or other synergistic promotional activities, that require massive funds. 

• Viral video campaigns can for example be for the film World War Z (Forster, 2013), known as "Crisis Zero". The Crisis Zero campaign was established to draw potential audiences using social media for people to connect with the film, allowing independent directors and fans of zombie films to add to the story of the film, building up the buzz factor of a film. Example below:









Cinema trailers in connection with other horror films are put in purposefully to attract audiences, as the audience will most likely be male fans of horror between the ages 15 to 29, all of whom will be expecting to see a horror film in the first place, in which case promoting other horror films will attract audiences who are already interested in the genre.
Additionally, large conglomerates use subsidiaries to promote merchandise to for a horror film (and any other film in general), for example collector action figures, keyrings and in some cases bedlinen. An example of a piece of merchandise from a film being distributed by one of the major film studios is the fedora worn by Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street (Craver, 1984), distributed by Warner Brothers on their online shop, WBShop.
For independent distributors, the primary way of gaining an audience is by creating an internet buzz. This can arise from a simple website showcasing the film or, as the filmmakers of The Blair Witch Project did, practically handing out flyers with "Missing" signs around the Cannes Film Festival. Essentially, this is a viral, low budget campaign. This is also known as self-distribution. An advantage of this is that none of the budget goes to the distributors and the filmmaker can decide how to use the budget for distribution themselves.
Moreover, independent films may not have the funding necessary to have their films shown in the cinema, which is a costly business. Therefore, alternatives such as YouTube, Vimeo or similar media websites save that expense.
Additionally, some independent film studios have begun setting up their own webshops, as Warner Brothers have done with WBShop. An example of this would be the independent studio, RocketJump, which sells merchandise from their various webseries.

To conclude, the way in which films are produced and distributed has changed dramatically the last decade, especially when taking into account the technological advances within digital technology. With the introduction of easier and free distribution media such as YouTube and Vimeo, and the falling prices of editing software, with even some software being so simple and cheap that children can use it with ease, examples of these being Vine, Adobe Premier, the recent developments within digital and camera technology has spawned a new generation of low or no budget filmmakers. By calling upon websites such as Kickstarter or Indiegogo, young filmmakers are able to procure the necessary funds to achieve their project. As mentioned earlier, independent studios have begun creating own merchandise to promote their product, just as the industrial studios do. In essence, this could indicate that the gap between industrial and independent has come down to the subsidiaries and assets available to the studios, and not the funding and skill-level of by the filmmakers.