Our costume was designed by Abdulla, and we thought we would be able to get a morph suit as soon as possible, but we weren't able to find any. Instead we decided to stick with black trousers, a hoodie and an anonymous mask.
For handheld props, we are using a big knife, around the style of a machete but much smaller than expected. It has shark teeth like spike on the blade making it less cliche and more traumatising.
When we first came up with the idea of filming a horror movie, the group and i agreed to do it in an abandoned area with a torn up room to give it the haunted effect so that it looked like an actual nightmare setting. The image below is an idea of what we wanted the area to look like:
Thursday 5th November
My group mate went out on this date to find a perfect location near his house and took a few images of the suitable areas of where we can set up our props without them being ruined or taken away by strangers. Some of the abandoned houses couldn't be entered due to construction going on in the area, however Qatar's law states that workers must stop working at 7 o'clock in the evening mostly on a weekend; this makes it easier for the group and myself as our shots will be set during night time and this will allow us to set up our equipment efficiently and film the scenes without any disturbance from outsiders. The following images are ones of the area we will be filming our movie } Taken by abdulla:
The group and i have made a new focus group focusing more on our film and what they think of the choices we have made, as well as what are better choices to add on to our film.
Films always start with titles or credits and each title has its own font to resemble they horror that usually occurs in them. Each title has a different colour style and size of font and most may look the same.
Both the red and font style in this title look like blood.
The red in this title resembles the actual name of the movie sequels and the white tells us that its the name of the one movie. Therefore making it a larger font.
Insidious is all in caps and red. Theres shadows on the top of each letter showing us that theres a source of light hitting from below giving it more of a horror effect.
This title is in white allowing the viewer to think as if its a torch of car light coming towards you from he distance. The repeated writing in the background looks like a glitch maybe trying to give us a message about what the movie is about.
This last image is the title of our movie. We created it by using the other titles to help us come up with a font as well as colour. I think that it is appropriate for our movie and creates a feel towards it.
Because my group and i are making a horror film, we decided to look at the audience profile and decide which age etc would be suitable.
For our movie, our target audience is aged from 15 and above because they are old enough to be able to watch horror but also seek the feel of an adrenaline rush that comes from a horror and therefore be able to enjoy it.
The lifestyle of my target audience would have to include a student because although our movie doesn't present the character as a student through mise en scene, the student is the reason our target audience will be aimed more at students as well as adults.
In slashers it is most likely that the age range would be around 15+ to at least 25. This age range are normally used as the victims or as the main focus in the film, allowing our target market to be able to relate to the characters, making the horror more thrilling.
Our target audience are both male and female. These two genders enjoy horror films, relating to Dolph Sillmans 'snuggle theory' which tells us that female like watching horror films with a male specifically for a reason, and this reason is because they are brave and it is easier for a female to snuggle up to them when they are scared.
This is a mood board i had created to resemble paralysis and how it is demonic. I added words to it, to show the type of genre we are looking at and how its supposed to affect the viewer.
To find the appropriate age to view our film, we used the BBFC website and checked out each bullet point giving the information about what each age limit can view. We had a dilemma about whether we chose 18+ or just 15 but we sorted it out by just choosing 15's to make it more appropriate for people our age to watch horror films. Referring to the 18+ category, our film has both blood and gore as well as strong horror but since everyone in it is going to be 17 we thought we would just keep it in the 15+ category.
Although we will be exceeding the limit of the 15+ age category, we still decided to leave it as that. Due to this, our group must make sure to not go to over the top with violence and anything else that is too inappropriate.
Our movie may be dangerous to a few people as it may be harmful to viewers with photo sensitive epilepsy. This is because our film may contain various scenes with continuous flashing of bright lights when the crosscutting in the scene occurs.
The two standards that have cause us issues in the 18+ category stopping us from making it at that level were the "strong horror" and "strong blood and gore" as shown below.
To be able to understand the preferences of our audience, we went around and got other students to help us fill out our questionnaire. We got at least 30 responses by just going around and asking them to tally their answer choices for each question.
These are the questions we asked the other students. We made sure that we put them into graphs so that we can see the results clearly As shown below;
By looking at this graph, we are told by other peoples opinions that they prefer our film to have claws included rather than any other weapon. Claws bring out the horror in the killers, showing us that they are supernatural like werewolves etc. Or just typical killers who wear costumes, therefore increasing the capacity of danger.
My group and i had many options for a movie title, however they all relate to issues about night time and sleep. By the looks of it, our audiences choice was "Out of the shadows". One option i suggested was paralysis. This also seems appropriate as our movie is going to be more about paralysis than any shadows.
The names we picked out for our antagonist are names that are usually used by a fair amount of antagonists in other movies that bring out the evil and fear in them. My favourite choice from there is the shadow man, because it reflects the darkness and gives a demonic type of sense. The results tell me that the chosen name was not specific, therefore a name that the group and i have picked out would be more likely to be used. The name that we had come up with is Deuchallion.
The majority of the people we had asked were female, therefore the answers that they had chosen were the typical 'jump scares' making this answer the one we should use. Jump scares are the heart of horror movies since the beginning which is why they are supported when scaring the audience as to whether it will be through quick shots of the antagonists or the jump scares.
Saying which creature is the scariest was the easiest thing to talk about back in our day when we were all younger. Since we are speaking for todays time, stalking nowadays is really common through social media and in reality, therefore it is something that is feared by civilians and audiences. Due to this we have picked our creature/villain to be a stalker, and not really much of a paranormal demon etc. So that it creates the effect that even the audience understand the actual feeling of the protagonist making it have a more real feeling.
There is a tie between Jason from friday the 13th and Michael myers from halloween. Both these antagonists fit perfectly into the stalking category making it a perfect choice from our fellow students. Since the students thought it was the worst way of dying, they thought it was appropriate to choose this. They both have the condition of stalking, abducting then murdering or keeping their victims as hostages. To allow our audience to experience the full shock, we could show them a preview of various photos of the deceased and their limbs everywhere and expect reactions of them looking away or tremble.
This answer was consistent and showed us that the most popular movie stereotypes are both The hippie and the Teenage girl who dresses inappropriately. As a group we decided to have one or the other during the opening of our film, but looking at the results, we have chosen the teenage girl to be featured.
The results helped us find a place to film our nightmare scene. The location with most votes was the haunted house and it allows us to film the majority of our movie in a normal house therefore allowing the haunted house to be included during the main scene with the nightmare. The same exact room will be used except we will mess it up by pouring blood everywhere and messing up the walls etc.
Some of the students said they watch horror films monthly or whenever its on. Other students voted "others". Because "there" wasn't clear enough, we made sure to ask what exactly they had meant; all of them replied with, if they were on a date or trying to make it more romantic with the girl causing her to cuddle him etc. Telling from this information, we as a group need to make a fpm that is suitable for both genders and not cause a sexism debate. Meaning that it must feature each gender equally and appropriately.
The idea for this logo came from popular snap backs used around the middle east. Since no one has used it as an official film production logo we thought we would use it. The F's that have their backs towards each other were made from scratch to go with the name fusion films.
We showed the students a clip from Saw IV which features a popular trap that occurs throughout the whole series.
For the focus group we asked three students to kindly cooperate as we asked them simple questions about the clip they had just watched. The group and i got detailed questions from each individual person, and we made sure each spoke equally.
Abdulla got an image off the internet and asked what each student thought about it. One of them (Ellie) really liked the picture and thought it looked really interesting, Another thought he could pull it off better than the actual person in the image, and the last one (Alex) turned away saying it was horrifying, which was surprising since it was coming from a boys point of view.
The focus group gave us similar answers to the questionnaire we sent around the college, but a few of them were a lot more detailed. An example of one detailed answer was about the music and how they never even noticed the music in the background which gave us the image that it didn't really do anything to them during the film but for our opening we will make sure it is heard so that it actually gives them scary vibes throughout. Another example was the special affects and how they said the blood and everything else gave them the same affect as the music stating that it did not affect them. Our special effects will not be over exaggerated so that we wont make the viewer become bored of it.
Gender is usually seen as being stereotypically presented which can mean that women are being presented through media as "objects" mainly sexually and emotionally orientated. Throughout, they are presented to be beautiful and much more emotional compared to men who are stereotypically seen as being more tough and less emotional. They can be represented as part of a group such as a group of friends or a family, tending to work and think part of a team, taking the role of a helper and that they are generally never a leader.
Men are usually the heroes in typical media forms, they incline to taking on the active roles whereas women manage to take on the passive roles. This is telling us that there is a definite lack of female role models compared to the amount of male role models. We occasionally know what types of relationships men have with the characters, as their roles are made out to be a lot more active, allowing us to focus on their actions even more.
Visibility has always been an issue when it comes to thinking about gender representations. About 20 years ago the visibility of men to women in media was 2:1. This proving that males are much more dominant within. Women on the other hand can be seen as sexual objects as mentioned before. Often, we are presented with women either nude or wearing revealing clothes whereas men are never seen nude. This showing the difference specific male and female reps.
Referring to the paragraph above, the presentation of female visibility in horror films is different compared to other media forms. The main female protagonists can turn into the final girl and are therefore present throughout, until the end of the film. The visibility of women in horrors remain quite low as more often than not. Where they are alone and not working as groups which they often do.
Lastly age can affect the presentation of women. We always see all variety of males: age, class and race, whereas we only usually see young females of white race, who are considered to be young, pretty and sexy, in other words dumb blondes.
Throughout the scene, the use of editing and camera shots show the tension and frustration allowing them to build up quickly. Many shots are used throughout the scene, with some being quick and short, showing how there is something intense happening up until the girl kills her attacker and al the blood is all over her. That is when the shots become more longer and a lot slower. This emphasises the scare that the character is experiencing.
This image shows a quick close up during the time of the girl being attacked and how the attacker has just missed her head. It emphasises her emotions telling us that she is scared as she had a jump scare partially due to the killer jumping out from behind her.
The killer is shown dragging the girl from a low angle shot; This is used to depict the lack of power available at the hands of the audience. However, as the girl is taken from a high point and dragged to a lower point it is clear that Mia (the girl) is swiftly decreased of power.
Here the use of eye level shots that lies on the ground with the character illustrating the former stated point that the audience have lost the power that they had during thee start of the movie. The quick cuts associated with the low key lighting generates the cynical and pessimistic atmosphere that the genre of the movie has promised to offer.
One way of structuring a films narrative is by using the Todorovs equilibrium theory. By using this method, a film is split up into four sections:
Beginning/Expostion - This gives us the introduction to the story and the situation that is present.
In this case, the characters is haunted by demons
Complication - The situation from the beginning of the movie is disrupted
The protagonists find out about the demons, and attempt to solve the problem
Climax- The turning point in the film
In the case of The Conjuring, the family and the priest perform an exorcism and thus removing the demons and evil spirits from ones body and house.
As said before, demons are ridden from the body of the character. Therefor resolving the problems that occurred throughout the film. There are three stages of possession- Infestation, Oppression, and Possession.
The opening of conjuring is in black and white like most horror films are because it gives this old, dull look which also creates this scary atmosphere. Also, it gives the audience an impression of mysterious things happening. The black represents darkness and death however the white can represent pure innocence in which this makes the audience unsure on what to expect.
A newspaper effect is used frequently in the sequence which highlights realism. This is because when people read the newspaper, they tend to read it to find out what is happening and believe what is said. This can represent realism in the film to real life scenarios making the atmosphere a lot more intense.
In the movie title there is a long shot with a house in it, trees, and a rope in the top left hand corner. This is made to make viewers think that it instantly has something to do with a death due to the rope and the way it is positioned, usually this would be associated with suicide and refer to someone who is depressed and unhappy. This sing piece of rope could also link to the one house that is isolated in the background in which this could highlight loneliness which the audience could also believe to link to the main.
Furthermore, the people who are seen in the title sequence are mostly dressed in an old fashioned styled clothing line and the gender and age range is mixed (as shown below). The way they look suggests that the town/area has stayed the same for a long time, and what has been happening has been going on for a while.
The viewer gets this idea from the way things are positioned throughout the sequence. It can give off a sense of secretiveness and make the audience feel tired about whats happening around them. The background music in the sequence is typically a deep tone which includes wind chimes, birds and trees rustling. These usually represent the night time as the sounds are what you would expect to hear when its dark out and extremely windy, also making it more realistic for the audience to feel the intensity.
Referring to mise en scene, it is usually set in abandoned areas where no help is available for the characters and also there is no chance of running away. There is thunder and rain used to increase the idea of downgraded cliche isolation. Props are typical weapons and antiques. Portraits are big props mostly used to invent a sinister mood.
Colours used are usually red and/or black. Red mostly represents blood, and black represents darkness or danger. Lighting is regularly used in horror films to give the effect that something terrifying is going to happen, for example, when the lights starts flickering and you see shadows all over the place, this causes the audience to feel nervous. Lighting can also be used to create a personality of a character by casting shadows across their faces to make them look sinister minded or to get a different personality from that same character.
In horror movies, costumes can vary because they have stereo typical characters which are differently dressed, for example, if it was a blonde girl they would be wearing revealing clothes and as for jocks, they would wear their baseball jackets plus matching trousers with their school logo on it showing that they are part of the team.
Audio is the most important part of a horror movie, or any movie in general especially when editing. Using exaggerated sound allows tension to be created and build up suspense in the film. When the audio is fast and loud thats when you know something is coming closer to you or in other words towards the screen, this sound can help make the audience feel scared and jump out of their place (not literally).
As shown from the clip above, when there is music input the scene becomes more traumatising to the viewer than it would have been in vice versa. This therefore allows the audience to feel the horror taking place in the scene. When there is a high-pitch sound in a horror movie, thats when you know that they use such audio to irritate the ears and make the audience feel uncomfortable about whats happening. This therefore keeps the tension ongoing throughout every scene.
Horror films usually insist of stereotypes which include, the jock, the attention seeker, the scholar, the good girl and the dumb guy. These characters usually play a huge impact on their film roles, this is because they develop a storyline throughout. The jock who is known as the 'bad boy' is normally an over confident character who believes he would be able to take out the monster/killer within the movie. He is usually killed because he decides to go after the killer while 'releasing body fluids'. Then we have the blonde, usually a character who isn't the brightest spark in the box and typically dies wandering off to investigate alone. Finally we have the 'good girl' who tends to be against things such as alcohol and sex, and is always the one who ends up staying alive.
Scream starts off with a black background and 'Scream' written in bold white lettering , a sound is then heard that sounds like a drawing knife, which is then shortly followed by a scream. As we hear this scream, which belongs to a female, the title which was previously white turns red in a flashing affect. Instantly, from the scream we gather that the movie is horror which also associates with the red we see as blood. The flashing of the red could symbolise a blood spill in a stabbing motion which eventually spreads around the whole screen. Before the film even starts, we immediately think that the murder is linked with a stabbing.
The film opens with an initially calm woman answering the phone, after a brief conversation she puts the phone down to what was believed to be a wrong number. Shorlty after, to her surprise she receives another phone call, the use of medium shot portrays her confusion as she turns to answer it. When the call is answered she seems pretty eager to get off which makes the conversation shorter, after this we cut to a medium long shot of the house from outside, possibly the view of the mysterious caller himself. The shot has a creepy feel to it that is created through the swaying of a swing. This enhances the creepy sensation of being watched and followed, thus fitting in with the horror movie stereotype.
The camera pacing was pretty slow, following the girls pace as she moved around her house.In this opening scene, there aren't many cuts, as there are a lot of long shots used throughout the scene. The continuation and flow of the long shots enhance the idea of being followed and watched.
The house is clearly located in the American suburbs, showing that the surroundings are rather quiet and empty, giving the feeling of being alone and enhancing the factor of terror. The location is very quiet which is exaggerated by the sound of crickets. From this we presume that the house is secluded from the city and that it is in the middle of nowhere.
Mise en scene has a major part in this film opening because it includes the knife as the prop, the clown costume worn by the little brother referred to as Michael, the setting being held in the house, mostly the living room and/or bedroom, including the different lighting in each room.
The establishing shot is a long shot of a house in the dark. Low lighting is used to create shadows, a key convention of horror films. This makes the audience look around in suspense expecting to find things jumping out from the shadows keeping them constantly on the edge of their seats.
The music in this opening sequence is introduced by absolute silence; this builds tension and gets the audience ready for something scary, stereotypical of a horror film. A high-pitched sound follows and shocks the audience as there is no action happening in the scene. The film is now toying with the audience as there hasn't been any death but with this sharp sound affect we are already on the edge of our seat. This is the opposite of creating a false sense of security and makes the audience anticipate the scary events but does not know when to expect them and is therefore are constantly in distress. After this we then begin to engage in the track, for a horror movie the music is very loud and obvious, like the antagonist themselves, they don't sneak around, they don't attempt to hide. The music was very repetitive; once it started there were no pauses whatsoever. Throughout the build-up, the only thing that would alter would be the pace and pitch of the music, also with the constant outbursts of high-pitched sound effects, making sure the audience are still fully engaged. The music seems to synchronise with the scene as each step the antagonist takes to his victim becomes a key lower to the previous, connoting detach and foreshadowing the victims death.
The sequence uses only two shots throughout the film opening. The first shot is a POV hand held continuous shot. It shows the perspective of the antagonist/main character of the movie. This creates suspense as the character is not immediately established as the antagonist and as the character reaches for the knife the audience instantly feels a sense of unease and fear. The second shot in the sequence is a mid-shot of the little boy, this makes the audience feel shock s a small boy just killed his sister and this is unexpected. This is no typical horror genre convention as typically if the victims are seen from the killers point of view the identity of the killer is not revealed until a lot later in the film or not at all. This suggests to the audience that not only is the boy our antagonist but also our main character and throughout the movie many victims will find the same fate as his sister.
The POV shot is eventually develops so that we are seeing the shot through the eyes of the killers mask. Due to this, we can't really see what is going on, which sets the audience on the edge and gives and eerie feeling. This use of off screen space makes the audience feel unease as they do not know where to speculate, making the experience of watching the film more active and therefore scarier.
The victim is revealed as a naked young woman. The fact that she is a woman is very typical of the horror genre; the women are commonly portrayed as being weak and vulnerable. Her nudity could also be a symbol for her vulnerability and to show how exposed she is to the killer.
The opening sequence of 'Dawn of the dead' straight away gives hints on what is going on and how the story may unfold.
The apocalyptic/outbreak horror genre is best shown and explained through the opening sequence with the use of sound, editing, font and various other filming techniques. A very effective method both to add credibility, to help suspend the audiences disbelief, and tension is to use a newscaster reporting the outbreak and skipping ahead again and again to show either short or even long passes through time, via cuts and cross cuts, was sadly not used in this movie.
Scientific images are used in this extract, of genes and cells which give the idea of some kind of genetic mutation or virus to anyone who has seen resident evil. This is further proved, as during a long shot of the road, you can see many unusual human figured entities walking in an disordered way. The opening sequence of the film does not introduce us to any characters as a result of the archive footage used. The film opening is shown to be located in a House, which is in a neighbourhood, in the US. The people played in the film are the parents, a young girl who has turned into a zombie, and extras who were the citizens/zombies. The representations fit perfectly well with the genre convection.
A wide variety of camera shots, angles movements and transitions have been used in the opening sequence of the film. The camera movements are very calm as this creates the event that we are in a dream and that its not part of reality as the camera isn't shaky enough. During the middle of the scene there are about a second shots. These second, snappy shots are very effective as they surprise the audience. The cuts that are used throughout the opening scene are sequenced.
The use of mise en scene within this extract adds points towards the horror genre cup of the film. The use of darkened lighting creates a blurry, foggy effect on the camera, creating a sense of foreboding and building tension in the audience.
I think that our video was really well planned, and filmed, but the only issue I thought we had with it was the setting. I think that it would have been better if we recorded it somewhere other than in the schools common room, I think this because it would have looked more professional and there wouldn't be school uniforms used, as well as school facilities and that it could have looked more like an actual competition arena.
The video editing near the end was over exaggerated, because we used a transition that was too mainstream and too flashy plus the shot was handheld and extra shaky, but I think that it went well with the videos theme which made it look alright. This made it seem as if it was a rough competition and that there was tension between the players which allowed the shot to be violent and fast.
The actors were in their planned positions as to whether they were watching the game or were playing against the main actor. The only props used were sunglasses during the end to show that the actor won against everyone else and made him look cool.
For the main task, I'm gonna improve our video by making sure that we record it at an exciting scene, and that there are even more props used including planned outfits. We're going to use artificial lighting so that there will be shadows and a clear view of the main person as well as the people in the background.
