Eros international

About Eros International
In Indian media and Bollywood Eros is one the strongest institution which is growing at over 13% CAGR and slated to cross US$ 23 billion by 2014 (source: KPMG). It is a diversified institution which does no only finance but also distributes and includes distribution through cinemas, digital media and others.
Eros has been in business since 1977 like a leader and have shown growth in a massive way in all terms. Distribution network of Eros is in 50 countries and over 27 dubbed foreign languages and has offices in India, UK, USA, Dubai, Australia, Fiji, Isle of Man and Singapore.

http://erosentertainment.com/erosplc/hlinks/aboutus.asp

Eros International and UNDEAD!

All the information given above indicates clearly that Eros is a big finance and distribution house. Apart from that I have some major reasons for choosing it as finance and distribution house of my film. Firstly it is a known institute which not only features films inside India but also outside India and recent history tells us that it has supported Pakistani films such as BOL which was a big hit in India too with the support of the distribution of Eros. This is one of the reason because of which I took this institute as it supports products from other countries and also has an strong hold in the distribution of films internationally which is evident from the above information.

Now one reason which I think because of which Eros would be interested in my product because it will be very much Bollywood oriented and all the conventions which will be used will fulfill the need of the mentality of “paisa vasool” or *money returned* in the audience in India. One strongest reason which I think is that this house has a history of supporting all types of genres of films and in my product there is a little aspect of romance included according to the liking of the audience and horror is a genre which keeps all the type of audience attracted and takes them to a new imaginative world which I think my product would be doing.

Target Audience

Target audiences are the people who are targeted or expected to watch your media product. My product is a horror film and according to the research I did I discovered that the target audience for the horror film is between the ages of 15-25. Some horror films have violence too and because of that the target audience in that perspective is 19-25. The reasoning I got from the research I did is that normally this age group of people are there in the film to depict the quality of curiosity in the characters and the target audience is just the same to watch that behavior which they also have same in them. Apart from that this age group is very much imaginative, free from tensions and responsibilities of life and enjoys watching films which are not real but are shown in a way that inspires them and horror is one of them. These films are mostly watched by the males and mostly the women go to watch such films with their boyfriends not usually on the first date but in the later ones. Friends usually watch these films hanging out with friends as they enjoy this type of thrill and horror stuff when they are with people like them.

When it comes to the income group, so the elite class and the upper-middle class is targeted. The reasons which I got for this were that these are the people who can afford such entertainment and all types of genres target this audience normally. When it comes to the horror genre specifically so the reason which I got from research was that these people are easy believer of unreal stuff and normally they are groomed in a way that they are far from the real world and they enjoy watching such unreal and especially the superstitious element in the films especially in Bollywood which is the industry I selected for my film.

Genre Analysis

The horror genre has two main streams or origins. One is ‘expressionism’ which has its roots in German theatre. In this type of horror it is evident from the word itself that all depends upon the expressions. For ordinary person expressions means the facial ones but expressions for a film maker means not just the expressions of the actors but also the expressions delivered through the environment. The Iconography and setting are the main elements of horror genre without which the creation of the screaming horror cannot be successfully done. This type of horror was introduced by Universal Studios in the film industry and the main elements used were low camera angles, shadows and high ceiling sets. The other branch of horror was named as ‘Surrealism’; this was basically an art movement. It always had a monster in it, with disturbing imagery and sometimes representation of dreams of a person.

Haunting and demonic possessions is a very important convention. Under these elements of superstition, evil forces and unknown fear are some commonly used conventions. Haunted house and the concept of taking revenge from the people coming to that house is also a very important and prominent element which is also there in Bollywood. The victims are corrupt in this type of films and the evil thing get control over the victim with their powers. Apart from this the projection of fight between good and evil is the most commonly used element in Bollywood also.

There is one more case where there is a human monster in the film. This person has a horror of personality and is usually a psychopath and sometimes a serial killer. The character is a complete representation of what we say an antagonist in the film with no sense of morality and seems that is born with his evil nature and usually targets children.

Now the major branch of genre elements named as ‘Iconography’. Haunted house, Symbols of death such as skull bone, disfigured face or mask and screaming victim which is locally termed as the ‘final girl’. There is always a use of a phallic weapon such as knife, stake or chainsaw along with strong binary opposition between evil and good. Lastly the use of dark and isolated places with candles and use of blood and body parts are some elements of iconography without which a horror film is incomplete.

Change of industry practices gave many influential film makers in the horror film market. Number of audience and their different high expectations from films increased and with time the industry now have two parts ‘Classic horror film’ and ‘Modern American horror’.

Classic horror films are the ones who are studio produced and have medium budgets. They have the concept of a ‘foreign monster’ coming in the film which can be a supernatural being sometimes. In these types of films the society which includes religion, science and family is always portrait as ‘good’. These films usually have off-screen horror, classical mise-en-scene and continuity editing. The classic horror films are very close to the concept of expressionism used before with the same style of lighting and shadows.

Modern American horror films are filmed on locations and are independent productions with low budgets leading to the casting of unknown actors. There is an indigenous monster that is projected as a psychopath. In these films there is never ending horror with a blame on society in which especially family is the main instrument of repression. These films have graphical on-screen horror scenes unlike the classic horror films. The style of these types of films is called as documentary realism which means flat lighting and location sounds taken into film. Post French new wave camera work and editing are also the main tools used in such films.

So the horror genre has two main streams and in the Bollywood both streams are mixed and films with the combination of genre element from both are made. This is the main reason because of which I will be making a horror Bollywood film so that I can easily mix up elements from both streams and can produce a quality work with creative ideas and innovative execution in my film.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horror_film

www.slideshare.net/jontowlson/the-horror-genre-an-overview

Institution Analysis

BOLLYWOOD

The name Bollywood is made from two word Bombay and Hollywood. The golden age for this Hindi film industry started in 2000s. Throughout this age the industry improved in almost all the fields such as cinematography, story lines and also in technological advancement like animation and after effects. There are two secrets of the success of this industry that is the diversification of its target audience geographically and also in terms of demographics. If we talk about present time so the films which are made in this industry are divided in two main audience group which includes rural areas people and urban areas people and this group also have abroad audiences.

Bollywood is influenced by number of things around it. Firstly some stories are influenced by their ancient stories of Ramayana and Mahabharata. Secondly the influence of Sanskrit dramas including the rasa culture is also common. Ramlila in Uttar Pradesh which is a folk theater is a strong influence. Humor, music and stagecraft of Parsi theater were a great influence also which we can see in Bollywood films. Last but not the least the Bollywood films in 2000s and after that were with great influence from western music television MTV which was visibly evident in the music, dance and camera work of these films. It is not only Bollywood which is influenced but at some points Hollywood is also being influenced by Bollywood especially the music and some concepts such as reincarnation.

GENRE CONVENTIONS

In Bollywood the films with most promising success are called as Masala films and this is a film that has a mixture of all genres like action, comedy, Romance and so on and so forth. The films in Bollywood should have a mandatory song which is an item number or dance number which is appreciated by the local audience and to satisfy them and attract the locals it is essential to put these. Although today on the path Bollywood is walking on is towards a change which includes art films also who normally targets the international market which Bollywood have and the Urban areas public and are also becoming successful but in these films also the concepts and conventions of typical Bollywood exists and will always exist in the coming years too no matter how much modernization and globalization influences it.

FINANCE

From 1990s Bollywood started to flourish at a great pace and if we see in the present time so it has great institutions with massive improvements in their budget and money making has increased a lot with time. Previously and still nowadays Bollywood films get a tough competition with Hollywood films coming in the audience and this competition demands great improvement in action and animation from the industry to cope up with this tough competition. The industry has improved a lot throughout the years in science fiction and other genres as well with films made all around the world in different diversified abroad locations which have given a lot more attraction in the films. The markets have also gone abroad and now Bollywood has been recognized around the globe and migration of Indians around the world could be a reason for this overseas markets but the improvement in professional skills, techniques and quality of recent productions cannot be ignored.      

  

Distribution Houses

Eros is big huge distributing house although it does not belong to the history from its background. But nowadays Eros is making and distributing films of almost all the genres which include art films, romantic films, science-fiction, comedy and many more. It also recently launched the Pakistani film BOL in India and internationally which gives a hint of the diversification of Eros.

Yash raj films is always been known as the biggest and the oldest production and distribution house made by Yash Chopra who had great name and fame in Bollywood because of his contributions. The genre which is normally linked to the productions of this house is romance and love stories which gives us the hint of its audience demographics that mainly they target the youths and uses many different techniques to do so. As it is a big house so it is not at all restricted to Romance genre and have made films of other genres as well but the fact is that the proportion of romance genre and love stories is more than any other in the history of this house.

This house is of Karan Johar the son of Yash johar. He was also tagged as a film maker of films with romance genre but after hits like Dostana, Wake-up Sid and Kurbaan this tag has been removed. Now Dharma is also considered as one of the diversified production and distribution house in Bollywood making huge amounts of money on box office.

This one is also a wide, huge and diversified institute making films like THANKYOU which belongs to comedy genre and films like Dhobi ghat which is an art film. This house makes small budget films also giving chance to new artists but is also involve in large productions with experience they also make hit films and carry out the thought of Indian audience of money’s worth films.

       

Codes and Conventions

In the last week my teacher told me and my peers about the final film we have to make. She told us many codes and conventions and I have now decided that I will be making a horror films' opening for my final project. Over the weekend I bought and watched many opening credits and opening scenes of different movies such as Tears, The Infant Dead, The Unborn, The Orphanage, Paranormal Activity, Nine Dead, Chat room and also two Bollywood horror movies 1920 and Haunted 3D. The most common conventions which I noticed were that in the start after the names of the institution and production unit there is a scene which gives some hint about the evil, weather it is a evil soul, a evil house or a evil person. One more thing which I noticed is that in some movies the opening titles were with the opening scene and in some others once the opening credits are finished than the scene starts. In the opening the impact is created of the entire film on audience which we say that first impression is the last impression. To create this impact the way shots are taken is extremely important so that the representation of characters is done in a proper way. Along with the shots the music/sound behind the scenes should match and I believe that if we see a horror movie on a mute mode so it will have no impact at all and we might end up making fun of scenes if we are with our friends for a movie. I also noticed one more thing which was that the leading role in a horror film is a character designed by the writer/director who always needs to find out things and walks towards the evil itself. In a horror movie also there are many types like in Bollywood ones there are always stories attached to the evil spirit on which the whole story is built upon. In some extremely slow horror movies the starting or opening 2 minutes are just to create suspense and the audience never gets a clue what is happening which can be projected by a scene which has happened long ago or is happened right now but in the whole movie there is all stories behind it. So over all what I observed is that in a horror genre there are no fixed restrictions upon the people making the film and they can do and show whatever they want and in any style they want and that I believe is the most big advantage which attracted me towards this genre of movies where I can easily project my creative thoughts into a great movie and I hope I do that in an impressive way.