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Finished Horror Opening Sequence 2010

Preliminary Exercise 2009

Monday, May 24, 2010

Note to the Moderator

Dear Moderator,

 Thank you for taking the time to look at my blogs, it has taken a lot of time however I am really pleased with what I managed to acheive and I hope you enjoy having a look around.

On my indivdual blog you can find the link to my group blog you can find this link on the right. You can also look at the link to the blogs for the other students in my group and a link back to our teacher’s central blog, called BLK Foundation Blog, which allows you to look at everyones work.

On my individual blog you will find, early ideas for our projects such as my individual research and initial ideas and planning, this was mainly done before we were put into out groups for the task. You can also look at my work on the preliminary task, including the video clip, reflections on the development of the project as it progressed and my answers to the evaluation questions. On my group blog, you can find work that we all did togther such as the planning and the ideas which we progressed throughout the project. I have linked my finished film opening sequence to both blogs at the top of the page.

I've tried to make it as easy as possible for you to navigate around my blogs. Everything is organised in date order from the start of the project in November 2009 until we finished in March 2010. All the labels on the side of this page I have identified as reseacrch, planning, production and evaluation work.On the group blog, we have done the same and the posts I did individually can be found under the label with my name on it.

Thank you for taking the time to look around and I hope you like what you see,
 Ciara Borkowski- 4125

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Closing Post!

This project is now officially finished. I've really enjoyed doing it and have loved working with my group!
All my work can be found through links on the sidebar so have a look around
Goodbye :)
xxx

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

7) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Brief for Preliminary Task

A continuity task involving filming and editing:

• a character opening a door

• crossing a room

• Sitting in front of another character and exchanging a couple of lines of dialogue with them.

This task should demonstrate:

• match on action

• shot/reverse shot

• the 180-degree rule

 
Brief for Opening Sequence

To produce a 2 minute opening sequence for a fiction film.

Your sequence must include:

• Titles throughout

• Some form of copyright-free soundtrack, including sound fx

• Evidence of understanding of continuity editing

• Clear generic signifiers through character, action, mise-en-scene, dialogue etc

Your sequence should be based on:

• A single narrative event or idea

• Only a few characters

• One location ideally
Introduction

It seems like a very long time ago we did are preliminary task however as I thought about this question I realised how much it has really helped me in the actual opening sequence task.. After completing the preliminary task I felt able to approach my main task more open minded and carefully. The preliminary task was very structured compared to how much choice we had with our main task therefore it was vital that I went through each stage carefully making sure I had learnt from the preliminary task and could improve on my work







Evaluation
• Overall without the prelim task I would have felt completely lost it really helped me to think about all stages of the process and made me work as a team again. The main difference between the prelim and main task was the amount of detail and freedom we got. But the prelim really made me think about everything much more carefully. We had to organise a feedback session for our final piece which we did not for the prelim, this gave us a lot more opinions and helped us improve further. The prelim made me work as a team and I have thoroughly enjoyed the whole process!


6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

hen shooting and editing our opening sequence we have used a large amount of equipment and software which overall has helped us a lot. These clips show my group and I with the equipment:


The clip above shows all our hardware we used out on the shoot. When we were out shooting we faced different problems which in future we are able to learn from. The shed scene was extremely hard to get the lighting right in order to create the correct atmosphere and took a number of re-shoots to get it right. We used a pag light and filtered this light and closed the shutters and the front of the light to get a dimmed spotlight on me lit up in the shed. I think this worked really well and was pleased with the outcome. There were a number of things that went well and not so well on shoot:

PRODUCTION

WHAT I’VE LEARNT ABOUT SHOOTING

  • I mainly learnt how much patience I need to get good shots and overall good footage.
  • I also learnt that I need to be flexible with time and dates because re shoots are essential and its made easier if everyone is able to attend without major problems.
  • Health and Safety is also very important while on shoot especially with weather and outside shots.
  • As the shed scene was in a small space we had to learn to work around each other without causing accidents.
  • Finally I think the main thing you had to do on shoot was be creative. When storyboarding it is obviously very different to being on set therefore you must think creatively and use all possible equipment to create high standard shots


  • By doing this project I feel I have learnt a lot more than I knew and I also feel I have progressed and improved lots of skills.
  • There has been a lot to remember, I feel especially when it comes to editing as I find this the hardest skill.
  • However I have overcome a lot and with help from my team members I’ve been able to push forward and enjoy the whole process

5) How did you attract/ address your audience?


From our audience feedback it seemed all our techniques and tactics paid off and we did attract our audience:

Attracting the audience
Adressing the Audience

• By choosing a set target audience at the beginning we then could focus our opening sequence at them by choosing techniques that would draw them

• We chose a horror film because this is best identified with young male adults and we chose to stick to key conventions of a horror film in order to gain their attention.

• We used Levi-Strauss theory of binary opposites quite significantly with the contrast of light and dark in the house and then in the shed. We had good vs. evil with the murderer and the victim and strong vs. weak with the murderer and the victim once again
                                            
(Dark Shed scene vs. Light Kitchen Scene)

• Our plot had a big twist in it. Too start off with normality in a modern house the audience soon realise he has a disorder and perhaps feel pity but then we show the calendar and play the radio clip their emotions of the audience are quickly switched from perhaps pity to anger and hatred and then we move from this to the scary disruption of the shed scene.

• We also used common themes that our audience would expect to see in a horror film e.g. muder, stalking, obsession and violence.

• We had key iconography in our piece e.g., clean modern kitchen where the murderer lives and where it’s suppose to be reality and then this is linked to the dark dingy small shed where the murder and entrapment takes place.
 
• We appealed their pleasures by doing exactly what they expect to see in a horror film we scared them as we slid into the shed, we expected to play on their emotions and for them to be scared for the girl. This leaves them asking questions and wanting to find out what will happen.

• We shot our piece during the day therefore this added to the emotions we wanted our audience to feel. During the day people usually feel much safer however we show the element of fear when in fact a girl is locked in the shed in broad daylight and nobody knows.
• We used narrative twists of showing the calendar with dates circled and the element of four throughout our opening sequence. We also played the radio new announcement in order to build enigma. This also kept the audience guessing and asking questions
• We got the engagement of our audience also through production and post production. By using a variation of shot types e.g. close ups we drew our audience closer to the action making it feel more real life
• We then used LS to pull them back out and see the wider picture

• By using creative editing e.g. the reverse shot we break the seamlessness of our piece leaving them at one point and then tracking all the way back through the house to a completely different story. This would leave our target audience intrigued as they are a clever audience they would want to work out themselves what’s going on.


• Our props in the piece e.g. the pictures with 1 2 3 4 written above them challenges our audience into linking his OCD and the way in which he stalks girls

Audience Feedback
  • Here is a questionaire from the audience feeback we held on the 26th of March in the Media Block. From the turn out of around 65 people I feel we did attract and audience, however the age was a bit younger then we were targeting:

 

From looking through our questionaires I feel we really conveyed the genre and characters and people understood where it would be shown and who it's targeting:

  1. The majority of people recognised that are film was targeted at males.
  2. A lot of people said that are film was for young adults but a lot also said that it was for teenagers. This could potentially be good for us as we can entice an even larger audience
  3. Our rating for our film ranged from 7 out of 10 to 10 out 10
  4. Everyone understood the themes of OCD, stalking and obsession
  5. Are few improvements were to perhaps speed up the first half of our opening and show more of the girl in the shed.
  6. Everyone understood out sequence which was really good feedback and we feel we did reach our target audience

4) Who would be the audience for your media product?



Our core market that we are aiming are film at our young male adults between the ages of 22 to 30 years old. We chose this market mainly due to the state of mind of the main male actor in our piece. We feel that in order to enjoy our piece properly you need to know about OCD and understand the mind of someone with obsessive compulsive disorder. When researching into audiences we felt that more males like horror film rather than females which is why we went for them as core market. We also feel because of the male being the main character this would appeal to more men.



Our secondary market would be females of a similar age as we do have the 4 girls being stalked as our main theme. It would also be something that girls could relate too as when you’re out you must always be careful and know your limits. Again we want the females to be educated as they need to understand the OCD

We believe our audience for the opening sequence would be a niche audience as we have chosen quite a limited age range and have not gone for the mass market which is teenagers.

3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

• Our production company is Green Tree Productions they are a small UK based company that specialise in independent films that are low budget, intellectual, gripping and edgy to target young adults (22-30 year olds )

• The media institution that is distributing ‘FIX4TION’ is DBB they are also are a small UK based company that work with ‘Green Tree Production’ in a partnership. DBB’s main focus is distributing horror films and getting them circulated in the UK.

• This media institution is similar to ‘Dogwoof’ which is commonly known to back small independent films.


If we had made a huge Hollywood blockbuster we would expect to see it shown in mainstream cinema s such as the

• Odeon

• Cineworld

• Vue

In order to reach a mass audience to gain as much profit as possible. However ‘FIX4TION’ was made on a low budget and is an independent film therefore DBB would struggle to get it into major cinema due to budget and sometimes content. Instead it would be shown in:

  • Small independent cinemas

  • Arty cinema

  • Exhibitions

For example ours could be given a screening in The Phoenix in North London.

http://www.phoenixcinema.co.uk/

We could also gain a mass audience via the web. If we were to place our film on sites such as YouTube I believe a student film like ours would gain success. It could also be shown on the independent film channel and shown at many different film festivals such as the Edinburgh film Festival.

A good example of a low budget film is ‘Paranormal Activity’ 2009 Peli. It was shown at scream fest horror film festival in 2007 and got a small release in around 9 cinemas in the US. However after Paramount a major distributor bought the domestic rights to the film off DreamWorks Productions it was only then that ‘Paranormal Activity’ gained worldwide succession and made a massive profit. Both DreamWorks and Paramount work in partnership just like DBB and Green Tree Productions. I believe if we did perhaps make our film with a larger profit a major film distributor like Paramount would get behind it as its unique and would gain a large audience and profit.


(Moodboard of Companys and Cinemas)


2) How does your media product represent particular social groups

Our opening sequence we tried to reflect different social groups in order to appeal to a wide range of audience. Two main ones that we included in our sequence was:


• The state of mind of the male protagonist

• The way in which we represented teenage girls

In our sequence we took a risk by making the main male character in our opening have Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). In order for us to represent this properly we obviously had to do research on it and really get into the mind and character of someone with OCD.


This was the OCD video that we really used for inspiration it really helped us to convey the state of mind representation. This is who we based our character on.

We then chose to represent teenage girls:

Question 2 Female Charc



  • The protagonist in this film inspired us to do the OCD idea the way in which he cares for and obsesses over his victim is what we found very strange. In our sequence if we were to continue it he wants to get the 4th girl and he would look after her.

1) In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

When we began researching into different genres and looking at lots of different opening sequences, we knew pretty much from the start that we wanted to a horror opening. From basic knowledge I knew major conventions that our always included in horror films e.g.: dark lighting, murderer (usually male), victim (usually girl). We began to focus our attention on finding horrors that we were able to draw inspiration on. We found from this that it was quite hard to distinguish between a horror film and a thriller film as they shared common conventions such as the dark lighting, victim, murderer as well as the horror music. Examples of film that really made me familiar with the forms and conventions of horror films were


• ‘Psycho’ (1960- Hitchcock)

• ‘Scream ’ (1996 Craven)





Scribd

Overall we managed to stick to a lot of the horror conventions making it obvious to the audience that it was in fact a horror film; however we used original twists to make the opening more exciting and to make it stand out.
Our opening sequence did useTodorov’s classic narrative Pattern. The beginning of our sequence started with an equilibrium as we had the normality of the house and the normality of his usual routine, however we also added a small disruption in the first 2 miuntes. This is because we wanted to make impact straight away so that the audience were hooked. The small disruption was only to introduce the narrative and we would have the major disruption later on.

In order to make our piece look professional we looked at the conventions of an opening sequence and included some of them for example:



  • Titles (The Ring 2001-Verbinski)

  • Introducing main characters (Legally Blonde 2001- Luketic)

  • Music (Panic Room 2002-Fincher)

  • Introducing a story plot ( Blair Witch Project 1999-Myrick)

  • Themes in the film ( Texas Chainsaw Massacre 1974-Hooper)




 












  

  • I believe we used all of these in our opening sequence as we used blackouts with titles on them.
  • We introduced 2 key characters that will be throughout the film.
  •  We used music to create suspense.
  • We introduced the story and the key themes of OCD, murder and stalking.
  • This made sure that the opening followed a function and looked like a real opening sequence


• The overall style of our piece is quite scary and weird, we only have the small dialogue from the radio and instead we just see the characters actions to telling the story. The pace of our piece begins of slow and then becomes faster to create a build up. We used classic continuity techniques such as match-on-action, cuts, shot-reverse-shot and 30 degree rule. We used binary opposites such as dark vs. light, dirt vs. cleanliness, good vs. evil, murderer vs. victim and calm vs. fear.

Equipment

Equipment Used
On shoot:
Tripod
Sony mini DV Camera
2 batteries
Sound equipment
Microphone (shot gun)
Headphones
Pag Light
Clapper board
Production board
Storyboards
Pen and Cloth
Editing:
Software
Premier  Pro
After Effects
i-movie
Soundtrack control
Capturing
Rendering
Titles (on the Mac)
Timelines
Transitions-fades, dissolves, cuts
Razoring
Contrast
Brightness
Saturation
Sound-digetic and non-digetic
Linking and unlinking
Audio tracks
Speed/duration
Volume-adjusting volume and treble
Re-ordering
Parallel editing
Importing clips
Frames (zoom)

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Plot for the final opening sequence and cast and crew

Introduction


Before I begin my evaluation of my overall opening sequence I thought it will be easier to understand if I give an outline of the film and the cast and crew members.

Opening Sequence

It begins with a close up of a man’s eyes in a deep trance we then see a kettle boiling and the time ticking to eight o’clock. As soon as this happens the man snaps out of his trance and we are left with what he had been staring at ; a shed at the end of a neat garden. He walks over to the cupboard and on his way switches on the radio at exactly the time the news begins. He gets to the cupboard and he opens and closes it 4 times whilst saying 1..2..3..4. He counts the cups in 4’s and there are only 4 mugs in the cupboard. He makes his tea in a similar way while we here on the radio about the disappearance of a third girl. We then see his calendar with 4 dates circled and these all match up with the dates the newsreader is saying. Immediately the audience know this man isn’t what we first thought. He then walks back through the tidy kitchen over to the window to look at the shed, drinks his tea and walks out. Then we rewind through the house back through the kitchen down to the end of the garden to the foot of the shed. We snake in and see feet tied up we then see hands tied up. It then becomes clear it’s a girl tied up to a chair in the shed and we slowly see her waking up. She begins to scream as we then see all round the shed 4 photos of 4 different girls lined up and she is the 3 rd girl. We are left with her screaming and crying in desperation to get out of the shed.

The Rest of the Plot

In the rest of the story, the third girl who we see manages to escape we then see her trying to find and hunt down the fourth girl to protect her and warn her. We also see the murderer trying to hunt her down and following her and we also get to see the police tracking down the murderer however he kills one of the police officers. The victim finds the fourth girl however the murderer has hunted them both down and he now has both of them trapped. The police are soon onto the case, he kills the third girl but never gets to the fourth.

Cast and Crew


                                   Alex Thomas- Murderer


                                 Ciara Borkowski-‘Hayley Summers’-Victim


Producer, director, editor, script, music-Spencer Wilkinson, James Hammett-Burke, India Downes and Ciara Borkowski

Location-James Hammett-Burke’s House

Date- Final Shoot -7th March 2010

Signed Off!

We've been signed off and it's all over. Im so happy with our final opening sequence and ive learnt so much along the way:

  • I've learnt how to edit and add effects and titles
  • Ive learnt how to use the camera properly and get good shots
  • I've learnt how to be patient on shoot and while waiting to act
  • I've learnt to work in team
  • How important timing and planning is
  • I've learnt how to properrly storyboard and get shots logs and shooting schedules compleleted
Overall I've really enjoyed this project and I couldn't have done it without my team who have been really good. However at least i won't be spending my life editing and stuck in the media block. I'm now excited for next years shooting and editing and hopefully my skills that i have improved from this project can be used again.

(the team)


Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Goodbye For Now

I am going on a geography fieldtrip this week which is also taking away India and James leaving Spencer to finish of our piece and make final ajustments. This week everyone will be getting signed off so hopefully Spencer will be ok and sort everything out.

I am really nervous we won't meet the deadline but we have had a group meeting and have sorted out all the jobs to do and we have made sure we know exactly what is happening so that Spencer won't have to make any crucial decisions.

Reshoot

We did a re shoot for my shed scene because our teacher didn't like some of the shots, and she felt we gave to much away of me in the shed. We used different lighting then last time so i don't know if our teacher will like it or not. We worked well however and got it done in a couple of hours. We lost the rope however so had to use tape so again have to see what our teacher thinks

Second Re Shoot

We did another re shoot of the shed scene, I guess 3rd time lucky! We changed the lighting back to dark and used a pag light. I again had to act and was so cold! But i actually really enjoyed todays shoot more then the others because we had a really good time and got on well. I hope this will be the end seeing James India and I are going on a geography field trip next week

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Main Shoot

Today we had our main shoot 27th Of February at James's House we worked from 9 am to 7 pm getting all the shots we needed and using Alex Thomas our new actor and I

Actor

  • Today we used our new main actor and I was very pleased with what we achieved
  • He listened well to instructions and did what we asked him too
  • We made sure we shot the inside shots first to allow him to act straight away and not have to wait for my shed scene to be shot
  • We all got on really well and took regular breaks and provided him with food etc
  • I shot some of the house scenes and tried out different shots
  • My favourite shot was the pan I did from the kitchen to to the hall and followed him out
  • I helped Alex by acting out different parts first so that he really uderstood what we mean't
  • I looked at new shots that we could take of Alex so that our piece was more creative
The Shoot
  • Im really happy with our work today we all worked together helping eachother and most importantly had fun at the same time
  • I think we've made major improvements in the kitchen scene
  • I recorded a radio announcement to play over our piece
  • I heled with shooting, shot list and making sure everyone was doing the right thing and there were no problems
My acting
  • I liked the way we did the lighting in the shed today, we used a pag light and covered up the windows to create a eerie effect
  • I was so cold though! and i had to be patient while everything got set up so I wasn't very happy at some points.
  • As soon as we could film though I really worked to get it done really quickly and get everything we needed
Overall today went well and I enjoyed it, now to see what our teachers think...!

Friday, February 26, 2010

Planning For the Main Shoot

I've been helping my group with the planning for the main shoot. There has been lots of paperwork to do and since our practise shoot we've noticed lots that need to be changed. We haev decided to change our main actor to Alex Thomas and i will stilll be acting for the 2nd part in the shed

Here is some of the paperwork we have been doing this week:


I really want this shoot to go well because I do not want to do shooting next weekend ( its my birthday weekend!) However if necessary then we will have too.

What I personally want to do on the shoot

  • Again I will be acting, which I'm looking forward to a bit more but I hate how cold it is in the shed.

  • I want to do lots of shots in the kitchen and perhaps try some new shots that we may include

  • I want to do lots of takes so that we have as many as possible

  • I am going to do the voiceover for our kitchen radio

  • I want to try and keep to schedule this time and finish on time.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Practise Editing Week

This week has been crazy and my social life is now over! We have all been in the edit suite each lunchtime and in lessons in order to complete our first edit in order to see what works well and what doesn't.

I've really been trying to get involved with editing and familarising myself with all the tools again.

  • I've been using the razor tool to cut down our shots and get precise clips.
  •  Ive been using different timelines as they make all the clips clear and so I can experiment little parts of the sequence in different timelines then choose to add them to the main sequence or not
  • I learnt how to capture footage and put it onto the timeline.
The editing side of this whole process is my weakest side as im not as confident as i am with planning and shooting part. Therefore this week has really helped me because all my other team members have let me expereiment and have taught me short cuts. I hoop when were editing the main shoot I will be able to progress with my editing skills and really become confident



This is our first edit, there are a lot of continuity errors in it and we have issues with sound. Saying that we have learnt a lot about the filming process so we just need to plan again and improve our sequence for the main shoot in a couple of weeks.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Practise Shooting Day

I think the shooting day went ok but I think it could haev gone a lot better. We were easily distracted and didn't stick to out schedule therfore ended up missing out vital shots.

Acting

  • I wasn't looking forward to acting because i was scared I wouldn't be good at it. However i am quite pleased with the outcome of the shots we got.

  • My costume looked really good and i think the make up worked well. The fake blood looked really relistic so i hope to achieve this look again in the next shoot

  • Some shots were really good and we could use some of them. I think the CU of the eyes wasn't that good and I need to get better shots at the next shoot

  • The location worked well however we need to get polaroids done to make it look really good. We could also get some new props for the shed to add to the weirdness of the guy.

  • Overall I was happy with the part I played and by doing the practise shoot i can now work to improve on it to get really good and realistic shots for the final shoot
Numbers sprayed on in the shed where I acted
We emptied the whole shed out and just left a chair
This was the view that we shot
The shot that linked my part to james'
Pictures and numbers on the wall i was the third girl

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Signing Out Equpiment

Yesterday me and India took charge of looking after the equipment. I took the tripod and camera bag and India made sure we had paperwork and lighting. I'm really looking forward to the shoot I hoping it all goes well but I'm a bit nervous but i hope all our planning pays off. However this is only a practise so we can learn from the mistakes

For the Shoot

  • I really want to be involded in a lot of the shooting as this is the best bit, i want to try CU and perhaps practise my pan shots and hopefully get some good takes
  • I will be acting, I'm excited but i don't want to be rubbish so im going to put a lot of effort in and take it seriously
  • I also want to enjoy the day and experience how timing and takes work and get use to using a shot log.

Friday, February 5, 2010

Planning For the Practise Shoot

We have really been trying to get everything sorted in time for our practise shoot. As we learn't with the prelim how important it was to plan before the shoot:

We have been mainly storyboarding this week and Spencer, India and I have been working really hard on it during lunch and after schools we have come up with a colour scheme for each of the pictures we do in order to make it easy when shooting;

•Yellow = Close up
•Pink = Mid shot
•Green = Long shot
•Blue = Title
•Orange = Time and description of shot
 
This has allowed to look at how many of each shot type were using in our opening
 


Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Acting

My group have decided that I will act the first half of the opening sequence which will be the girl tied up and locked in a shed. I don't mind doing this as there isn't any dialogue and it will mostly be extreme close ups and close ups therefore i won't have to do much acting

If after the practise shoot I don't feel id did a good job then  I will ask someone else because it would benfit out opening.

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Proposal and Feedback

Today we have all finally gathered our research together and have come up with a proposal that we can make to our teachers and to our class mates. I made the handout for the proposal after gathereing our group ideas i went home and typed this up and then as a group we looked at it to make sure we agreed with what we wanted to propose

Here's a copy of the proposal:

















Feedback

  • I thought the proposal could have gone a lot smoother
  • We got out idea across however we were given feeback which is on our blog to improve our narrative and location
  • We are now working on that ready to propose again, hopefully allowing us to move on#
We made a few ajustments and proposed again to our class and teachers and.. we got signed off! This was really excting new because it feels like were making progress and we have an idea we can reall work on.

Feedback
  • It went alot better the second time and i think people understood the idea more
  • The new location worked much better and our teacher was much happy
  • I didnt present as much in the second proposal as there wasn't a lot to say so i mainly controlled the blog allowing visual references.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Research Meetings

This week we have been holding lots of group meeting to discuss in detail our plans for the opening and what sort of things we like and have researched. I told my group my idea about which was to have a murder take place and a girl kidnapped and there be pictures all on the walls of her as if he's been  stalking and obsessing over her. My group seemed to really like the idea and so did my teacher when she asked what sort of things we cam up with

Mine and James's idea were pretty similar and as a group we made a decision to go with this idea as we all really liked it. We then thought about charcters and decided on having an unconventional character so we had a man with OCD. I went home and found a really good clip on youtube which is on the main blog, which watched and took key ideas from.

We now have to get our final proposal together to present it to the class. I'm really excited to see others take to the idea.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Research on Film Genre

I've been starting to look at how music effects horror scenes and just generally looking at films that could help us with out opening sequence. We have already decided on a thriller/horror film. Something that could make the audience jump, prehaps something that bulids suspense.



This is the famous shower scene from Psycho the impact of music is quite cliche in it and I think the music used is the typical music associated with horror. I also watched a clip without music and the impact was quite significnt. From this I think we defintely need to have a soundtrack and this adds to effect of the opening sequence and also gives the genre away to the audience more.



This is a clip that has been made by somebody and is an opening to a horror film. From looking at this it shows how important it is not to give away the narrative in the opening sequence. It should not reveal much information instead it should leave the audience wanting to know more eg/ Who is that? Why is he there? What has he got to do with that murder? This is something when planning and researching we need to keep in mind.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Initial Ideas

Idea 1

  • a murder being commited
  • a kindnap being commited
  • themes of obsession and stalking
  • Little dialogue-man kinapped young teenage girl on the wall lots of different girls. He takes pictures of her when shes tied up
  • man-weird,creepy,hidden face,dark clothing
  • girl-young,feminine,pretty,scared
  • dark lighting
  • small garage set up like a photo shoot this is where he takes the photos
  • Whole wall of lots of teenage girls
  • Slow steady pans,ECU, long shots,Mid shots
  • One continous sequence
  • graphics come on like a photography-flash up?
  • Influences-scene in hollyoaks women gets taken advantage off and pictures are taken

Idea 2
My idea is for a thriller/horror film:
  • Setting-a very dark place where a low lighting is used.
  • It can either be set in the day or night
  • Location-shed, small room
  • 2 girl actresses
  • Music-slow creepy ephasise mad girl
  • Target audience would be horror fans both male and female as female protagonist would encourage more girls to watch it
  • Age-15-30

First shot would be a slow pan of loads of photos pinned up across a whole wall and the camera makes it seem as if its someone's eyes scanning across the wall. We see photos of the same boy and girl in different situations and across some of the pictures are her face scribbled out or pins in it.

We then see a girl looking at the wall- scary/freaky lighting below so her face lit up she slowly turns her head then then the next shot is the girl from the pictures tied up looks scared has tape acroos her mouth etc

The story plot would be something to do with this one girl who has mental problems and is still in love with the boy in the photos and the girl tied up would be the current girlfriend who is innocent in all of it.