activity 1

EVALUATION

We developed and challenged forms and conventions using mainly media products when producing our film. Firstly, we did this by designing a logo on a piece of plain paper, we then looked at the logo and  went on the computer to re-design the idea, we made it into a better circle and changed the colours and boldness of the lines. We also came up with the film name 'Euphoria' which challenges the genre as it means joy, whereas a typical horror film would have a frightening name. We decided to use great contrast by adding a very bold, white font against a black background to emphasize the sinister angle, by using this graphology we attract attention to the title which allows the audience to think about the meaning as well as introduce them to the film. To show the names of the people included in the making of this film we used a simple white font so that the main title stands out more and is the main focus.

The geographical location that we decided to use was quite close to our houses and school so that we could re-film any mistakes easily. We decided to film in a forest as our survey said that a lot of people are scared of being alone in a desolate forest at night, and so we used this to effectively scare the viewers. The costumes we used were quite effective as we used a stereotypical costume for the clown- bright red wig, bright red nose, white face, bow tie etc. By using these conventions we will scare the audience more as the clown appears as just a normal clown that entertains children at circus’. We allowed the clown to hold a noose which was an important convention for our film- we used it as the main weapon that ended up killing the young girl. The young girl wore natural coloured clothing, and also had natural blond hair to make her seem pure and innocent which makes the audience more shocked when they find out that she is mentally unstable.

We edited the footage to show match on action shots to display the chase scene between the young girl and the clown, although the clown is not chasing her, she feels like she is and so using this shot we emphasize how she is running fast and wants to get away from what she is seeing. We had to edit a lot of footage as it was too long or did not flow well, for example when the young girl screamed, the actor- Jade, did not scream long enough and so we had to lenghern the duration of the shot so that it looks like she screams for longer. Also, in some shots the actors smiled accidently, or looked into the camera at times they shouldn’t have and so we had to crop this out to make it look more professional. We used a tripod to capture steady shots and clear panning which was quite effective but we also used handheld camera on areas like the chase.

The story is about a young girl that is situated in a mental hospital- this is because on our questionnaire the results came up quite high with our target audience to be scared of horror films set in a mental hospital. The young girl escapes from the institute and is mentally unstable so she can see things that are not there- this is quite obviously a horror but could be mistaken as a thriller. The opening shows that the girl has escaped from the hospital as we include close up shots of her files with explanations of her mental instabilities, the audience also know that she has escaped because the shot cuts strait to a chase. The young girl is introduced in a photograph when the camera goes to a close up shot of her files, wheras the clown is introduced in the very beginning through the title sequence when it cuts to quite cuts of him to scare the viewers. We didn’t use many special effects but we did decide to change the contrast and brightness of certain shots to make the clown appear brighter and the forest appear darker.

blogging

We drew up a story board to help us to film our opening sequence. We then annotated the story board slightly to add in a match on action shot. Overall i think that it was very effective and useful to have.

I have print screened some still frames from the opening sequence we filmed as a group, I have decided to do this to show the angles and shot types we used, I will also analyse conventions and 'Mise en scene' that we used. I feel that these are effective and successful as they are used appropriately.

We decided to add a match on action shot to emphasise the chase of the clown and the young girl. By doing this the viewers can clearly see that the girl is running away, fast and distant. The young girl is wearing neutral coloured clothes and no make up to emphasise her purity which then makes the audience feel sympathy towards her insanity. The background setting is in a forest which is meant to be frightening as it is a secluded area. We decided to add a close up shot of the clown to make the audience feel claustrophobically close to the clown, our aim was to do this and scare the viewer by making them feel uneasy.

Research of typical Synopsis

The genre 'horror' is usually a recording film or video that contains the iconography as discussed above, including the props such as weapons, like knives, swords, blood stained objects,dark lighting etc. Quick cuts and close ups are often commonly used to scare the viewers, if a director decided to use long shots then the viewer would know too much about the film, where it is set etc and ruin the film and the mood. The aim of the film is to scare viewers and get our heart rate pumping higher, watching these films make people feel alive. A typical horror film is about a character that is a victim in a dangerous situation that is in danger or under risk of being harmed, there is usually suspense and thrill included.

Collage of iconography

Collage of iconography

Icons associated with the genre 'horror' include:

1. A haunted house or area/place associated with fear creates a frightening mood for the audience when watching a horror film. When the viewers do not feel at ease they become more jumpy and aware of what is going on in the film. 

2. Symbols of pain and death such as phalic murder weapons include chainsaws or knives, this could also be blood stained areas or objects. By including this, viewers become frightened by harmful and dangerous props used.

3. Darkened atmospheres such as a forest, cellar door or deserted building create tension and allow viewers to feel frightened more easily.

Directors that direct horror films

Takashi Shimizu directed 'The grudge'

He makes use of lighting effects, and in particular darkness, and shot types-especially close up quick cuts. He also makes use of high pitched sound via music and props such as mirrors and CCTV cameras, this makes the victim feel targeted, bullied and in danger even when the other character is not near them. I have included a screen shot of a shot used in this film to great show the use of close up shots within the film, this shot shows the woman hiding under her covers, then seeing someone crawl into bed with her, pull her down and when she lifts up the covers, there she is- shown through a quick cut close up and very high pitched music.

Danny Pang directed 'The Eye' 

He makes use of typical frightening or unusual scenes such as a hospital and also quick cuts are used to scare the viewer. Danny pang also makes use of CCTV camera footage, which is similar to 'The Grudge'. I have included a screen shot of this to show how it is used, the reason why it is used is because the footage can be shown as what is or isn’t there. The woman can see a man standing in the corner of the elevator, but when she looks at the footage, there is nothing there. This makes the audience wander, if he is just a figment of her imagination.

Wes Cravan directed 'The Hills Have Eyes'

He makes use of frightening scenes such as mountains by using the darkness of the rocks and the lightness from where the sun hits the rocks- by being up so high the mountains thrill the audiance as they are dangerous to fall from or stumble on. Other conventions Wes Cravan uses are the holes in the mountain, the deserted scene and lighting used within these areas, especially darkness when used in holes. Wes Craven uses more gruesome props and ideas such as ligaments being torn off and lots of blood!

Tommy Lee Wallace directed 'IT'

This film in particular is important to our opening sequence as we have also based the protagonist upon a clown like figure. He makes use of sound, which is usually high pitched and lighting, bright quick cuts and flashing images to scare the viewer. I have added the trailer to the movie so that as a group, we can view the way Tommy Lee Wallace directs the film and makes it effective. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f1bXb5uYWQ

Also, Alexandre Aja directed 'Mirrors' makes use of props such as mirrors. M Night directed 'Sixth Sense' makes use of quick cuts and sound effects. All of these directors could be studied in the future, this way our group can use similar 'mise en scene' to them so that our opening sequence as effective as there films are.

Questionnaire

As a group, Jade Coombes, Conor Taylor, Adam Meehan and I came up with a list of questions that we feel, once answered, will help us to determine how to create a successful opening sequence for a horror movie. For each question I decided to make a chart for the answers, by using a pie chart I can help my group to clearly the main answers, these answers will be what we decide to use. For example, if most of the answers are yes then we will make sure that the answer is yes in the footage.

1.Do you think eerie/tense music ass to the horrific effect, does it scare you?

[ ] Yes

[ ] No

2. Does theme/signature music add to the enjoyment of watching a horror?

[ ] Yes

[ ] No

3. What lighting do you think would be most effective in a horror?

[ ] Flashing

[ ] Dark

[ ] Bright

[ ] Gloomy

4. Do you think flashing and fast paced images and quick cuts add to the fear of a horror?

[ ] Yes

[ ] No

5. When you can see from the perspective of a character does the fear created, rise?

[ ] Yes

[ ] No

6. What do you expect the protagonist to be in the film?

[ ] Victim

[ ] Bad guy

7. Who would you prefer to be the “bad guy” in a horror to be?

[ ] Ghost/evil spirit

[ ] Devil

[ ] Alien

[ ] Human

[ ] zombie

[ ] Vampire

[ ] Human like figure (clowns/toys/dolls etc.)

[ ] Children

[ ] Mythical creatures or animals

8. What adds more fear?

[ ] Fast moving cameras

[ ] Slow moving cameras

9. What atmosphere (setting/background) would you prefer to see in a horror film?

[ ] Mental Hospital

[ ] Urban setting

[ ] Lab

[ ] Countryside

[ ] Deserted Building

[ ] Remote Area

10. Do the font and main titles add to the effect of a genre?

[ ] Yes

[ ] No

11. What is your favourite genre?

[ ] Romantic Comedy

[ ] Science Fiction

[ ] Horror

[ ] Action/adventure

[ ] Thriller

I  the asked 20 students to fill out these questionnaires, Jade asked 10 and Conor and Adam asked 5 each. The results are slightly biased, however as we only asked students aged sixteen to eighteen, if we could repeat the questionnaire we would ask a wider range of people. From our results, we found that we need to include:

1. Eary tense music

2. Signature theme music

3. Quick cuts

4. Perspective camera

5. Victim=protagonist

6. Human like figure (clown)

7. Fast moving camera

8. Mental hospital

9. Effective main titles

A study of a recent film

Friends with Benefits is a recent film that was released on the 9th September 2011, it is a romantic comedy about two charactors that meet (Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis) who had both just been dumped, they meet and decide to have 'no strings attatched' fun, subsequently, they fall inlove.

A successful actor

Will Smith is a successful and well known actor that has been a charactor in a wide range of genres such as: horror, sitcom, comedy, romance and action adventure. Will Smith is usually the main charactor in films or in lead supporting an actor. Will Smith is well known around Europe and the USA and therefore attracts the attention of people when his face is used on posters, front pages or cases, this is because he is important for publicity.

MOMENTO

MOMENTO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cifPv4QWTH0&feature=fvst

Momento opening titles has a close up shot of a photograph in the background that a man flicks and it slowly fades to nothing, this is telling us that someone's memory is being erased using the photo to symbolize the memory, this means that the sequence is being placed in reverse. The soft, low toned, slow music creates an eary effect of emptiness and links with the loss of the memory.

Insomnia title scene

INSOMNIA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m70eyk6xr3s


The opening titles of the film insomnia immediately suggest the film is about tiredness and sleeping. I think this because of the conventions used, these include several things. First of all, the colour of the background against the titles is dull and boring, this theme makes a person bored, tired and consequently, want to fall asleep. Secondly, the font used is very blurry but fades into a clear font, this is how a person views life before he or she falls asleep and gives the effect of a persons eyes closing, dozing off to sleep. 

Shutter Island Crew List

Shutter Island is a physchological thriller that is quite simular to a horror film and so I have written the people needed to produce the film, these are:

1. Director - Martin Scorsese

2. Producer- Bradley Fischer, Mike Medavoy

3. Cinematographer- Robert Richardson

4. Writer- Laeta Kalogridis 

5. Editor- Thelma Schoonmaker

a study of the first 1 minute of '28 Days Later' in comparison to 'An American Werewolf'

An American Werewolf is a film about a tourist that was bitten and becomes a werewolf. 28 Days Later is about chimps that got very angry when someone told someone else that a chimpanzee had bitten a woman. These two films have completely different plots, I will now evaluate the opening sequences of these horror films because it will be useful to explore the mise en scene used as my group have decided to record a horror film.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMGA3e0I-2c
An American Werewolf the horror conventions are immediately shown through a dark background against blue bold text in upper case writing which soon turns to night sky with blue outlining of clouds and the moon and lightening bolts striking through the sky, this is shown in a low angle shot also known as a worms eye view. This shot then fades into a long shot of the city of Paris in the night time, this sets the scene as the well known Eiffel Tower that instantly tells the audience that the scene is set in Paris. The sound of the wind whistling is added to scare the viewer along with low toned music. The camera moves backward to end up with a medium close up of a church which creates a spooky atmosphere and then moves on to a close up shot of a statue in the rain. The weather acts as a convention to show the genre of horror.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1VbxTx2uLQ
In comparison to this, 28 Days Later starts off with a very stressful scene of people fighting, the hand held camera gives off the impression that the veiwer is there in the crowd of people fighting and quick cuts add to the stressful atmosphere.The conventions used in the background are: police, fire, darkness. Long shots help to set the scene and close ups help the audience to feel a part of the scene, this is quite similar to An American Werewolf. The camera then fades out to show that the footage just viewed was actually being viewed by another character on a television set. A long shot then shows us that this character is a monkey being strapped down to a table and forced to view these horrible scenes, this immediately introduces the horror genre.

Evaluating the preliminary task

The preliminary task was to create an opening sequence to a film which involved the male protagonist walking across the screen to sit down next to the female protagonist to start a conversation. Our task was to include the match on action shot, which allows the audience to see the departure and arrival of a character from room to room, inside to outside, or basically one scene to another. We also had to include shot reverse shot while maintaining the 180 degree rule which is where the camera cannot spin around more than 180 degrees past a character, object or scene. My role was to edit the scenes after they have been films, this is called an editor.

This is a match on action shot taken from the recorded film.

This is a shot reverse shot, commonly used in conversation as seen to the left.

This is an extract from the opening sequence we recorded in our group, it is a shot reverse shot maintaining the 180 degree rule.

Characters involved in this podcast are Jade Coombes and Adam Meeham, Conor Taylor was filming and him and I then edited the film. I feel our recording was quite successful as we included all shots needed and the correct conventions within the sequence, conventions include a commonly used romantic setting and books to emphasize the point that it was filmed at a school. As I am in a group with people I am friends with, I feel that we work well as a group and feel comfortable sharing ideas, this is important so that everyone has a say in what is being done. The actors listened well to the director/filmer and I now feel slightly more comfortable editing. 

Famous Shower Scene From Psycho

This is a side view of the woman, in the background the walls and doors are white which signifies the purity and innocence of the woman, this is ironic because is could signify that she has not fully lived her life and is soon going to be taken away from her. She is checking that the door is closed to ensure privacy before she gets into the shower, this also emphasizes irony because a man will soon appear to disrupt her privacy and kill her.

This is a low angle shot of the water falling down on the woman's face, this shot allows us to see what she sees  in her perspective, this makes us feel the same emotions as the woman and will later on emphasize sympathy for the woman when she dies as we have seen life in her eyes or as her.

This shot emphasizes the 'bad guy' character as he is in dark shadowed colour, portrayed as mysterious but also negatively as he is a dark silhouette in a light atmosphere, this same technique is also used later on in the podcast when this man stabs her, her blood is the dark colour in the light atmosphere. The darkness in the light of the room shows evil to make us feel on edge as someone is coming, the man is holding a knife which immediately clocks 'danger'. However, the darkness and shadow of the person shows mystery.

This close up shot of a hand signifies the woman desperately gasping for help, this portrays the woman holding onto her last hope life, but when her hand drags along the wall and onto the floor, the audience knows that she has no hope left. The woman is weakening, she has no or little strength left and is desperate to live.

This is a high angle shot of the plug hole which portrays the woman's life being washed away, it is literally going down the plug hole.

Evaluation of 'The Hills Have Eyes' opening sequence (the making)

I have chosen to evaluate the opening sequence to 'The Hills Have Eyes', it is a horror film produced in 2006 as a remake of Wes Cravan's original film that was in 1977, the film is based on a of a group of people that struggle against murderous mutants that are attacking them after there car breaks down in the desert. I have chosen to evaluate this movie because it is based on the genre 'horror', and I need to look at this type of film genre to help me have an understanding of the conventions used within the mese en scene of this particular genre so that I can go on to make my own successful version of a horror film. 'The Hills Have Eyes' starts with a voice over, it is spoken by a male in low tone- it sounds like he is struggling to breath, this instantly creates tension as it is very likely that the audience will feel scared and worried as to who the voice over is and why he is speaking this way.

The first shot is a medium shot that uses mainly brown, green, grey and white dull and natural colours. In the background of this shot the scene is deserted with no nature growing around the swing set of which abandoned dummies have been left swinging on, this makes the audience feel alone. As the opening sequence went on, quick cuts were made and flashing images appeared on the screen mainly of close up shots of signs, photographs or news paper articles, this is to set the scene and give the audience an understanding of what the film is about to be about without actually telling them. From these close ups the audience can tell that the crops used are old due to the signs being on old wood and photographs captured in greyscale. The opening sequence also consists of longshots of the desert to set the scene and allow the audience to understand the setting, temperature and mood of the film.

Suddenly, an atomic bomb goes off, this is in a high angle shot to make the bomb look greater, the low high angle shot is usually used, however, to make something look imperial as apposed to superior, however, in this context, the high angle shot works as it also shows the surroundings which makes the atomic bomb look like it has destructed a large area. As the podcast goes on, the quick cuts get faster to emphasise the large amount of things and people that have been destroyed, this also includes newspaper articles on nuclear testing etc. The titles used at the end are written in upper case CAPS in write writing to go against the dark background of blood soaked walls.

The hills have eyes sourse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIU4bPO7IMk