Summer Research On Horror Film Openings

Ingredients of an opening of a horror film

An Eerie location, good horror films thrive on tension and environments that force claustrophobic mazes, tunnels, old mansions, basements, etc. all force characters into close contact with monsters or each other.  Whether they are psychos or actual creatures, that tight habitat with mystery around each turn breeds the most effective opportunities for terror add in craziness and you’ve got a recipe for horror opening

Innocent characters, the audience cares about are a must for successful horror opening. For example, children.  When children are put into jeopardy, everyone cares and hopes for their safety and redemption.  They are vulnerable and innocent who doesn’t want to see them unharmed. Families are also great motivators for redemption, no one wants to see a nice family destroyed the struggle to keep the family together is good for tension. Women, particularly attractive women because no one wants to see an attractive women’s good looks go to waste in the worst way

Let the minds do the thinking, so many of today’s films rely on the shock of gore, showing every aspect of the brutality in a step by step nature. For me I just watch through and laugh because of how ridiculous the gore is. The best thing is to show a psycho holding a knife and then hear laughing and the knife piercing the skin and then some screams. That way our brains did the work.

The Unknown, touch on an aspect of human nature that is universal fear of that which is unknown.  Those big regions of our world that remain largely unexplored.  The ocean, space, the forest, the human psyche, unknown disease, the afterlife etc.  These are places where mystery thrives and the imagination is free to unleash havoc on our otherwise common senses.

Music, this is key to an opening scene because you can tell if the pitch and volume of the music increase then there is going to be something eerie around the corner and also it sets the tone for the rest of the film as well as make you jump

A Level Media - Summer Work

	Characters	Location/Time	Opening title (font)	What do you learn about the story?
Blade Opening	Vampires who were students, one ordinary student and Blade	The evening, In a Nightclub which sprays out blood	Bold and Red	That everyone is being turned into a vampire and blade needs to kill the vampires and save the world
Insidious Opening	Evil old woman and ordinary woman and ordinary child	In a spine-chilling bedroom at night	Sharp, bloody and old	The evil old woman will be haunting the child and mother or try to possess one of them
Signs Opening	Two men and two children one girl one boy	Daytime, in the cornfields in the middle of nowhere	Sci-fi, bright	They get abducted by aliens or possessed by a huge monster
Scream Opening	One women and a masked man	Night, in a huge mansion	Bold and bloody	This man in the creepy mask is going to be killing people severely for something in return
Women In Black Opening	Three children dressed old fashionably all girls	In the attic of a mansion at day time	Black, dark, bold	Those three children are controlled by an evil old women and become possessed and start haunting people

Mini Brief Evaluation

Mini Brief Evaluation

Our mini brief begins with a black screen this is a P.O.V shot of Adam knocked out in the medical room and the non-diegetic sound of heartbeat in the background is to signify the heartbeat of Adam. too improve we could've made the heartbeat louder in order to create a greater effect on the audience so they know exactly what is going on.

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.

  

Mini Brief

Here is the Mini Brief that meet the requirements:

Storyboard

Storyboard

Planning Ideas

Planning Ideas

These were our main ideas in the end to help up produce our mini brief because it was simple:

Recce - Mini Brief

we went around the school collecting pictures of potential locations of where we are going to film, this would give us an idea of what we are going to do and what shots and angles we would use and more importantly see how much space we have to shoot our mini brief. This is what we collected:

Roles of filming

These were our roles for our mini brief:
Dominic Lewis - Cameraman/Director/Editor
Thabo Nyambe - Screen Writer/Director
Joe Hill - Actor/Director

Character Analysis

For our mini brief we only had two characters and they were Dr.Larke and Adam. Adam is an aspiring footballer that has been set back because of an injury, in his west ham U21 career, that has occurred the day before the meeting takes place with Dr Larke. Adam is a very career focussed and work driven young man who will do anything to make his dream of playing at an elite level come true. Dr.Larke is the doctor that lets Adam know how long he is out for and when he can get back into action. Dr Larke is rather inconsiderate about Adams dreams and is unable to comfort Adam in his time of need.

Script

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

(Extreme close up on Adam’s face)

Camera shots/angles for mini brief

There are several camera shots and angles that will be used to do my main briefing e.g. The establish shot this sets the scene and is mostly used at the start of a film. the close up shot is tightly framing the person or object to show detail or emotion, the medium shot is head to knees or waist, the long shot its head to toe and shows context to surroundings, tracking shot follows the character, aerial shot is from a high angle and can be called a bird's eye view shot, the dolly shot moves but it doesn't follow anyone, zoom shot is when the camera moves into an object, the swish pan shot moves from one object or character to another it changes the point of interest, high angle shot  is used to show which character is more powerful, the arc shot moves around object to get different views of it, point of view shot shows what it looks like from the character's view and finally the head on shot which is when the action comes to the camera.

Below is going to show all the camera angles I have just talked about:

Editing skills for mini brief

These editing skills will also help me to edit my main brief (post-production). 

Shot reverse shot
swapping from one shot to the other to show both character's emotions, next there is the
 
Match on action
that's where the editor cuts from one shot to another view that matches the first, 
for example:

180 Degree Rule

Mini Brief Checklist

Mini-Brief

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 demonstrate camera angles as follows; shot/reverse/shot and the 180 degree rule. match on action

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.

Research document of genre, editing styles etc
Recce
Script with dialogue
Character Analysis
Completed Storyboard

Introduction

Hi, my name is Thabo Nyambe and this is my AS Media Studies blog. I will be showcasing my work progress for Media over the next coming months on this blog. My first brief is to produce the opening sequence of a horror film. The opening sequence should be around 2 minutes and include titles and credits. In order to prepare for this coursework we will be watching/analysing horror films and learning how to use professional editing software. I will be posting throughout the year on this blog about my progress and to update you guys.