The opening of any film should set the tone for what is to come during the duration of the rest of the film. It should entice the viewer, catching their attention and making them intrigued about the plot and the story.
Firstly, you need to have music playing in the background. This music needs to be old, slow and scary to make it more intense and unnerve the audience.
You then also need opening titles to represent a horror. This would be by having a spooky effect on the font as well as the titles being red as this will represent the blood of the people that die in the film.
Furthermore, to create even more suspense and to encourage the uneasiness, the scene has to be set at night to create a scary feel. Its also better to use characters that are innocent and vulnerable, such as a family, even better a single parent with children.
Lastly, it should be set in a relate-able situation, this being like at night home alone. This is so that the audience will understand how uncomfortable and scared the characters feel.
A hybrid genre is a genre in fiction that blends themes and elements from two or more different genres. This is different to a sub-genre as a sub-genre is a category that forms a specific class within a larger genre or group, whilst hybrid films are a way to create more opportunities for script writing and plot lines which can make the film more entertaining for its audience.
Common Horror film hybrids include:
Comedy/Horror: Shaun of the dead and Zombie land
Action/Horror: Jaws and The Terminator and The Shallows
Romance/Horror: Twilight and Warm bodies
Horror/War: The bunker
Horror/Historical/Drama: Pride, Prejudice and Zombies
Action/Horror/Comedy/Sci-Fi: Attack the Block
Hybrid Genre for my main brief?
Originally we said no to the hybrid genre. However, after looking at audience research we realised that having a hybrid genre would allow a larger audience, meaning more people will be attracted to the film. Although, we are going to be careful as we don't want to over complicate the whole genre of our film.
We are planning to make a action/horror/Sci-Fi, mainly targeting the Sci-Fi part due to linking in with the supernatural and paranormal subgenre.
Comedy Horror fuses the typical conventions of horror films with the comedy genre. This has became more popular over time. Examples of popular comedy horror's are; Shaun of the dead and the Scary movie collections.
Psychological Horror
Psychological horror relies mainly on the character and their emotions to build up the atmosphere and the tension in the film. It also relies on sound effects, relevant music, emotional instability and the CGI effect to create paranormal creatures to scare the audience. Lights Out is a new psychological horror which is a good example.
Horror Splatter Films
Splatter films are specifically focused on violent deaths and a lot of gore to scare the audience. These films tend to display an interest in the vulnerability of the human body and the guilty pleasure of extreme deaths. An example of these films is Cabin in the woods.
Supernatural Horror
Films of this genre often include ghosts, demons, or some other type of supernatural creature. These films have plots of exorcisms and deal with the unknown questions of life; therefore, they tend to incorporate religious elements into the plot. Since they emphasise the unknown, Supernatural films are considered quite suspenseful. An example of a supernatural horror is Paranormal Activity.
Action Horror
Action horror is a sub-genre that combines paranormal/evil events and people with gun fights and chase scenes that are often performed in films of the action genre. This genre often contains themes such as zombies, demons, gore, or vampires. A famous Action Horror is Attack the block.
Gothic Horror
Is a genre or mode of literature and film that combines fiction and horror, death, and at times romance.Gothic horror films normally include castles, magic, the supernatural and many other themes or locations that are classed under the Gothic genre. Most of the earliest horror films fall under the Gothic Horror genre. An example is Nosferatu.
Sci-Fi Horror
Science fiction horror can sometimes deal with the paranormal, but more often tends to involve aliens, mad scientists, and/or experiments gone wrong. An example of this is Aliens.
Slasher
Slasher films are mainly killers who we see kill many people in very violent and torturing way. These films typically end with a bloodbath of mass slaughter of the characters. An example of a slasher horror is Halloween.
Change In Popularity
Sub-genres of the Horror genre change over time due to popularity. What this means is that the sub-genre changes reflect with the fears of the generation. Early Horror films mostly consisted of the Gothic sub-genre but has changed many times over the years and now the paranormal and supernatural sub-genres seem to be racking up ranks.
Applying to my Main Brief
Applying this research I have carried out, for my main brief I will most likely use the sub-genre of paranormal as it seems to be in favour. So I will take back this thought to my group and we will brainstorm ideas around the paranormal sub-genre and hopefully create a successful opening for a Paranormal Horror film.
The start of horror had key conventions of; male antagonist, female victim and extremely Gothic. They believed monsters existed at this time so it was very scary. An example of this is Nosferatu.
1930's
The genre of the 20's was continued. The main location was castle and far away. This included the era of Frankenstein, vampires and Werewolf's. The first talking horror always appeared- Dracula (1931).
1940's
A decline in horror films occurred during this time. This was due to World War 2 but also comedy horror became an interest. A new horror was produced where characters turned into animals. This first happened in the film Cat People (1942).
1950's
After the war ended everyone had it on their mind. This lead to films with a plot of invasions, such as, Invasion of the body snatchers. Horror films also experienced the rise of rampaging creatures like Godzilla. A large competing market led to 3-D gimmicks. The first colour horror appeared to; The curse of Frankenstein (1957).
1960's
In the 60's the horror genre became more realistic in that it was based on human evil. At this point the mutant monsters seen in the 50's were beginning to be seen as stupid, so the 60's they introduced as believable 'evil' rather than a surreal 'evil'. A Popular 60's horror was; Psycho.
1970's
A fear of the 70's was the drug Thalidomide, which was given to pregnant women. However, the fear was created because it had the effect of babies being born with deformities. Therefore, films with young children as the antagonist were big hits in the 70's. A successful film was The Exorcist.
1980's
This was the era of gore! Technology evolved largely leading to better SFX. This meant bigger and better blood. This made films more gory and lead to increase of whats known as slasher films. These films included a large number of killings with the use of weapons. An example is Nightmare on elm street.
1990's
In the 90's, horror movies included psychopaths, as people were no longer afraid of "vampires" or "zombies". These films would include brutal murders of humans, which was a more believable twist to the horror genre. Popular films in the 90's included; Scream and the Silence of the lambs.
2000's
The 2000's have been so different due to people being immune to past horror films, as they are all somewhat repeated in a way and have become not scary. However, the rise of the unknown has potential fear. This is what most horrors are know like due to being one of few that are scary. An example of these films are; Let the right one in.
Today I am going to be beginning my main brief project. We have been asked to produce an opening to a horror film between 2-3 minutes. This process will include narrative planning, time management, organisation, and a large amount of research in order to be carried out correctly.
To begin with, in our mini brief the first thing we evaluated is that the sound of heartbeat at the start is too quiet. The problem of this is that it did not create the effect that we wanted it too. This was to aware the audience someone was hurt and in hospital and can relate to the the heartbeat sound we hear or relate to hospitals. Therefore, for next time we have learnt how to use the sound correctly on the editing software so its effective for next time, as sound is a vital influence.
Next, the shot used of the out of focus door was effective in establishing the setting of the scene. Also, it introduced the first character the doctor. However, the shot is slightly shaky and tilted which means it loses any professionalism. For next time we will make sure we use a tripod properly as this time it wasn't use in the way we wanted it to be.
Also, another mistake we saw was the the mise-en-scene in the background, which was that when the doctor walked through the door it was slightly open but in the next shot it was completely closed. The problem for this again is that it ruins the continuity editing we wanted to achieve. This technique is to create the effect that the whole scene was filmed in one shot. But having this mistake again creates a unprofessional effect again. On the other hand in this shot we used match on action editing technique which was very effective is showing the setting and matching the action together.
Later on, another weakness of our scene is that the player, Adam isn't shown in the shot properly and is off shot slightly. The problem this causes is that our attention is draw away from the main character so then the shots are not effective in creating a sad conversation with bad news.
Lastly, the end shots are poor and sounds are completely irrelevant to the genre. The shot in the picture above is bad because the actors are in the wrong place in the shot, our main character Adam is half cut out of the shot making him not the focus which was our aim. Therefore, the audience is drawn away from the sad conversation making it less emotional.
The software we used for editing is We Video. We Video is an online editing software that is accessible on most devices which was very easy to use, which was good for people with not much experience. Firstly I used the storyboard mode because it was easy to download videos and edit the clips before using the timeline mode in order to excel the mini brief with better editing. We Video also made it easy to adjust sound levels on particular effects as well as providing many sound tracks and effects which we could use to improve our piece.
For the non-diegetic sound, I used a copyright free song provided by We Video. It was a sad slow song, just instrumental because I thought it was suitable for the genre of our Mini-Brief and it fit well with all of our scenes. The level of the music rises at major parts of the speech, for example when Adam received bad news, the sad music increased and became more emotional.
Our Mini-Brief specified that we had to use match-on-action and shot-reverse-shot which are both editing techniques. So when we was filming we prioritised theses two editing techniques, so that it would look more professional and also get more practising in filming using theses editing techniques.
For our mini brief we wrote a brief for our characters. These briefs contained the characters general information such as their name and age, their profession and extra information that would be relevant to the characters to the rest of the story if the film was made.
Our male characters name is Adam , he is 15 years old and he is an up and coming football star. Despite being one of four brothers that are looking to become a professional football player, Adam has excelled ahead of all three older brothers and the closet to become a full time professional. Adam is currently signed with West Ham United's academy, and also playing up many years for the first team of the U21 squad. However, Adam became injured which then he was told to be out for two years. However with the support of West ham, friends and most importantly his brothers, a lot of a hard work produced a miracle, to then become the 'best' player of all time.
Our other character is Dr. Thomas Larke. He is twenty five years old and is a doctor. Dr.Larke is one of the best doctors around the world. Throughout the film he works incredibly hard to help Adam recover quicker from injury. He experiments many surgeries and treatments that could help speed the recovery for the young star.
In our storyboard we chose to use many different shots in order to see which shots worked best in different scenarios. We used close up shots in order to show the emotion on the characters faces. This was essential in our mini brief due to the context of the film. We also used point of view shots in order to show the action from the eyes of the character. This meant that the audience would be able to establish a relationship with the character as they can clearly see what they are witnessing.
Also, story boarding helped us with a sense of time for each shot. Furthermore, it gave us ideas of the sound we needed for each shot we used as well as different camera angles but importantly the lighting that will be present.
Before we started to film our mini brief, we needed to write a script for the sequence. As we wanted our sequence to be about a football player who got injured, we had a football player and a doctor. We also wanted to have a sad ending with the doctor saying its bad news to the player. We wanted to make the sequence very emotional, and have the main aim of provoking a reaction from the audience by making them feel for the player.
Main characters:
Adam – Aspiring footballer hoping to move up the ranks of his football club West Ham, but something tragic gets in the way of his progress
Doctor – Explains to Adam what the situation SCRIPT:
(Screen comes on but in the medical room)
(Door opens doctor walks in)
Doctor: Morning Adam
Adam: wait what…..where am I? What’s happened? Who are you......? Why am I not on the pitch!
Doctor: Calm down, Calm down just let me explain the situation. So you don’t remember anything at all?
Adam: NO! Tell me what’s going on
Doctor: breathe Adam, so what’s happened is yesterday you were involved in an accident in your game
Adam: YESTERDAY! What happened…….? Did we win?
Doctor: Basically it’s not good news, we have x-rayed you and you have several bones broken in your leg and severe damage to your ligaments
(Pause)
Adam: so what does that mean to my career?
Doctor: you’ll be booked in for surgery on your right leg and you’ll look to be out for the next 2 years
For our recce we explored three areas in order to check the lighting and sound as well as making it look as serious as possible.
What we wanted is a hospital type situation. Therefore before we decided our location we decided all the possible places we could try attempt to make look like a hospital. In the end we chose the medical room because it was easily the most realistic, and this is as close as we could get to a medical room. We had decided that we wanted a quiet location, which had some background noise but very little. This was in order to make the sound as clear as possible for our scene.
We also looked at the fields outside to potentially film action from a football game. However we felt this wouldn't help us at achieving a high quality mini brief. This is because the sound was all over the place as well as not being able to get the whole effect of an audience.
The third location we looked at was the gym. This was again to see if we could film the main character training hard. However it was very tight, so the camera angles would have been poor, as well as the lighting being extremely bad which ruled out the gym as a location.
As a group we came up with many ideas. These varied from an interrogation scene to a patient in hospital receiving bad news. As a group we brainstormed these ideas by looking at examples and videos of other peoples mini briefs. In the end we decided to go with something we haven't seen, and have attempted a professional football player who gets injured, which then we film the scene between him and the doctor where he receives bad news about not being able to play for next two years.
We also planned the location we are going film at. This decision was made on the basis of the most realistic, best sound, camera angles and lighting which was available to film.
There are many different camera angles and shots used in films. For our mini brief we had to learn and look at some examples of camera shots and where we can see they have been applied in films. To begin with, an establishing shot is used to set the setting of a scene, this is normally at the beginning of a movie or scene. The purpose of a close up is to show the emotion of a character or to show detail of an object. We also learnt that a medium shot only shows from the waist to the head. Longs shots shows the object or person in relation to its surroundings, this is similar to an establishing shot. A tracking shot is a shot that follows the subject and an aerial shot is referred to as a birds eye view. A dolly shot is where the camera moves however doesn't follow the subject like a tracking shot, also a swish pan is where the camera moves quickly from one shot to another. To add, a high angle is used to show which character is more powerful in a situation. Lastly, arc shot is where the camera films around a subject in an arc motion e.g. like the 20th century fox introduction.
CAMERA SHOTS
Aerial Shot – A camera shot taken from an overhead position. Often used as an establishing shot.
Close Up – A head and shoulders shot often used to show expressions/emotions of a character. Also can be a shot of an object, filmed from close to the object or zoomed in to it, that reveals detail.
Extreme Close Up – A shot where a part of a face or body of a character fills the whole frame/dominates the frame. Also can be a shot of an object where only a small part of it dominates the frame.
Establishing Shot – A shot that establishes a scene, often giving the viewer information about where the scene is set. Can be a close up shot (of a sign etc) but is often a wide/long shot and usually appears at the beginning of a scene.
Medium Shot – the framing of a subject from waist up.
Two Shot – A shot of two characters, possible engaging in conversation. Usually to signify/establish some sort of relationship
Point-Of-View Shot (POV) – Shows a view from the subject’s perspective. This shot is usually edited so that the viewer is aware who’s point of view it is.
Over the Shoulder Shot – looking from behind a character’s shoulder, at a subject. The character facing the subject usually occupies 1/3 of the frame but it depends on what meaning the director wants to create (for example, if the subject is an inferior character, the character facing them may take up more of the frame to emphasise this)
Overhead Shot – a type of camera shot in which the camera is positioned above the character, action or object being filmed.
Reaction Shot – a shot that shows the reaction of a character either to another character or an event within the sequence.
CAMERA ANGLES
Camera Angle – the position of the camera in relation to the subject of a shot. The camera might be at a high angle, a low angle or at eye level with what is being filmed.
High Angle – A camera angle that looks down upon a subject or object. Often used to make the subject or object appear small or vulnerable.
Low Angle – A camera angle that looks up at a subject or object. Often used to make the subject/object appear powerful/dominant.
Canted framing (or oblique) – camera angle that makes what is shot appear to be skewed or tilted.
CAMERA MOVEMENT
Pan – Where the camera pivots horizontally, either from right to left or left to right to reveal a set or setting. This can be used to give the viewer a panoramic view. Sometimes used to establish a scene.
Track - a shot where the camera follows a subject/object. The tracking shot can include smooth movements forward, backward, along the side of the subject, or on a curve but cannot include complex movement around a subject. ‘Track’ refers to rails in which a wheeled platform (which has the camera on it) sits on in order to carry out smooth movement.
Crane – A crane shot is sometimes used to signify the end of a scene/ programme /film. The effect is achieved by the camera being put onto a crane that can move upward.
Steadicam - A Steadicam is a stabilising mount for a camera which mechanically isolates the operator's movement from the camera, allowing a very smooth shot even when the operator is moving quickly over an uneven surface. Informally, the word may also be used to refer to the combination of the mount and camera.
Tilt - where a camera scans a set or setting vertically (otherwise similar to a pan).
Zoom – Using a zoom lens to appear to be moving closer to (zoom in) or further away from (zoom out) a subject/object when in fact the camera may not move (so, strictly not camera movement). Can be used for dramatic effect.
Applied examples of camera angles, shots and movements used in the Paranormal Activity trailer.
The camerawork in the trailer uses point of view shots as characters are filming in their house with a hand held camera. This allows an audience to connect with the characters as everything is shown from their point of view meaning that a consumer finds out information at the same time as the characters.
Similarly, point of view puts the audience in the shoes of the character and this means that there is no dramatic irony as the audience know no more than the characters themselves. The camera movements are very shaky to reflect that the characters are filming. This is a convention of the horror genre as it makes the audience feel involved as they share the nerves and unease that the characters do. This choice of camera movement allows the film to look more realistic as the medium shots only show what the characters can see in the house.
The trailer includes camera shots that are filmed from the perspective of an audience watching the film. These can be classified as as a point of view shot and an over the shoulder shot as this allows a consumer of the trailer to share the same experience as the audience at the cinema.
Similarly, mid-shots and close-ups are used to show the audiences reactions to certain scenes in the film. The reactions shown are often of shock and this makes the consumer curious as they are unable to see the visuals that the cinema audience are seeing on screen and perhaps makes it more likely that people will go and watch the film.
The 180 degree rule is an editing technique where the camera stays on one side of the imaginary line. Therefore the audience will not be confused by the characters eye contact looking at different things.
Match on action is an editing technique where you match two different shots and angles that are in the same scene. For example, taking a shot before the character walks through the door and then one after the person coming through the door.
A shot reverse shot is used to show both characters in a scene, usually in a conversation. The effectiveness of this editing technique is to show both characters reactions to the conversation in the scene.
Below is a video to show an example of a shot reverse shot in the film- Spider man.
You are required to film and edit a short scene as detailed below. You must use all camera angles identified as well as completing a storyboard and script of dialogue.
A character opens a door, crosses the room and sits down on a chair opposite another character. They then exchange a couple of lines of dialogue.
You need to document all stages of production (pre->post) on your blog. Remember to use terminology and justify your choices of mise-en-scene, scripting, lighting, sound etc.
You need to have completed this checklist before you are allowed access to the equipment.
Hello, my name is Dominic Lewis and this is going to be my blog for AS Media studies. Over the next coming months I will be presenting my work and the progression I am making within this course on this blog. The first task I have to undergo is a mini brief which is asking to film a scene which includes a conversation between two characters. The main task of this course is to create an opening sequence of a horror film. The scene should be around 2 minutes long and will include title and credits. To prepare for this coursework I will be analysing horror films and learning about the different camera and editing techniques needed to create a successful opening sequence for my own horror film. I will also be learning how to use professional software to edit the opening scene. Throughout the year I will be posting on this blog to update my progression on this course.
