Main task: Film analysis 3

Scream

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.

Main task: Film analysis 2

Halloween

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.

Main task: Film analysis

Dawn of the dead

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.

Main Task: Chosen genre mindmap

Main Task: Different genres mindmap

Preliminary task: Evaluation

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.

Preliminary task: Story Board

Preliminary task: Final video

Filming techniques

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Match on Action:

This is cutting on action happening in a film, for example when someone is opening the door, the camera would be filming from behind them showing that the subject is walking away from the camera and through the door and is starting to enter the room, and then it will cut and start filming from the other side of the door so that it shows that person walking towards the camera and away from the door as if they have already entered the room. In other words, it's where the editor cuts from one shot to another view that matches the first shot's action.

Shot/reverse shot:

This is a film technique where one character is shown looking at another character who is usually off-screen or is seen only by the back of the shoulder, and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character. Since the characters are are shown facing in the opposite direction, the viewer would assume that they are looking directly at each other.

180 degree rule:

This rule is a basic guideline regarding the on-screen spatial relationship between a character and another character or object within a scene. Usually an imaginary line called the axis connects with the characters, and that works by keeping the camera on one side of the axis for every shot in the same scene. the first characters is always frame right of the second character, who is the always frame left of the first character.

This clip is an example of every film technique mentioned above:

Introduction to my Blog

Hi, I'm Sanaz, and this is my blog. This blog will include my work while my production team and I make an opening to a fiction film. 

In my group there is myself, in charge of directing and editing then Abdulla and Harvey, who were in charge of filming and also editing. During the short film, Abdulla and I were also acting in the short film. Our production company name is Fuzion Films and our chosen coursework task was to make an opening of a new fiction film. 

All the images and text that was used in the main task was original, and produced by us. The original sound of the Film was detached and we added music from youtube to go with the genre.