Analysis

From an audience perspective, I was firstly drawn into a scene of the young girl screaming. This gave a sense of terror and may startle the viewers, which emphasis the negative personae. The sound effects run throughout which creates a tense atmosphere, such as; doors slamming, echoes and creaking floors. Theses all add to seek emotions in a negative way. The audience are then revealed to an extreme close up of a swing - the hinges. It portrays a mysterious setting for the young girl. The main character is a young girl who is perceived as insecure, shown by her facial expressions. She then develops psychotic tendencies, which are represented by different handheld objects e.g A knife. Another element which builds up the tension is broken glass, this leaves the audience questioning their minds ability to read 'whats going to happen next?'.  

Analysis continued

Film Opening Analysis

THE DEVIL INSIDE

'The Devil inside trailer' is now the basis of our own film opening. The beginning of this trailer starts with tension which is built up by diegetic sound, then a sudden changed in the lighting which flashes to reveal a girl in white. I particularly like this effect as it startles the audience in 'shock'.

Font Style

28 days later.

shabby ball point.

voronov.

face your fears.

I researched into different fonts to find the best one to suit are title 'facelift' and the genre.

Font Titles

The font title for our 'film opening' was important to our target audience whom are 15 plus years old. As a group of four, we managed to come up with various options which include;

• Lockup
• Facelift
• Re-birth

Facelift was our final choice as a title to our horror film opening. It suits the purpose and the story line, without to much information being given to the target audience. It had to draw people in and create a negative emotion.

Permissions

Before the making of a film opening, permission to film on private property is essential. As a group we we're lucky enough to not have this problem, as one of our group members owns a farm which would be our location. In order to gain permission we consulted her father and he happily allowed us to film in the industrial barn and elsewhere which was of interest.


" Dear Mr Pollard


We are writing to you as part of our As Media coursework for permission to film in your barn. Our film genre is horror and feel this industrial setting would benefit us greatly, in order to create a quality film opening. Please can you let us know if that's possible.


Many Thanks


Catt Lawrence "

Props - Fake Blood

I researched into different types of method of 'how to make fake blood' this particular one seemed to be the easiest, by using ingredients from around the house. It included the following; corn flour, red + blue food colouring and golden syrup. This blood will be used as make-up on the main character (Sophie Morton).

Film Rating

15 certificate

The British Board of Film Classification, originally British Board of Film Censors, is a non-governmental organisation, funded by the film industry and responsible for the national classification of films within the United Kingdom. It has a statutory requirement to classify videos and DVDs. 

This certificate is only suitable for those over 15 years who are admitted.

Nobody younger than 15 can rent or buy a 15-rated VHS, DVD, Blu-ray Disc, UMD or game, or watch a film in the cinema with this rating. Films under this category can contain adult themes, hard drugs, strong language, moderate-strong violence/sex references, and mild non-detailed sex activity.

As a group, we felt this was an appropriate age to rate our 'Film opening'.  The context of a horror film usually include; torture, ghosts, satanism, demons, haunted houses, and serial killers.  The aim is to seek a negative emotion and  often features scenes to startle the audience. This sums up the type of film we want to create.

                                                                    

Questionare - Target Audience

1.Are you Male or Female?

• Yes
• No

2.How old are you?

• 11-14
• 15-18
• 19-21
• 22-25
• 26-29
• 30+

3.Do you feel 'film openings' are important?

• Agree
• Disagree
• Strongly Agree
• Strongly Disagree

4.Do you enjoy the 'horror' genre?

• Yes
• No
• Unsure

5. If you said you enjoy them, please state one reason why

If you said you enjoy them, please state one reason why

6. If you said you do not enjoy them, please state one reason why

If If you said you do not enjoy them, please state one reason why

Make-up

White eye.

These initial make-up ideas were inspired from an image we found on the internet. We wanted to create dramatic eyes, which would fit the genre of our film.

Dark bruised eye.

Bruised.

Firstly, as a group we decided on a pale face which would represent a ghostly girl. Our ideas changed later on, as we felt this wouldn't fit within the brief on 'horror'. Instead we researched into different effects and came across a bruised eye.  This worked well as it makes the audience get emotionally involved, especially as its a young girl - Child abuse it unfortunately a common problem in the UK today. The make-up developed into a dark more obvious bruise on the face,fake blood would be later added and contact lenses (no pupil). 

Contacts.
'dats a scary face'  quote O.H

Sound Track

make track & upload...

Title Change

After researching into different film openings, we felt our title didn't fit with the story line. 


The name of our film opening is now called 'Strangers calling'

Lighting

Lighting needs to be taken into consideration when producing a film. More importantly when producing a film opening for your Media Coursework!

As a group we had to decided how we we're going to tackle this situation. The setting of our film is in a Barn, which provides little natural light, as a results this was a problem when filming the quality seemed okay on the camera but we found as we were editing the pixals weren't as crisp as we would have liked. In order to solve this problem, we used lamps and other means on sources of light to make the setting brighter than we wanted. The next step was to edit our film, and by using different software we were able to dim the lights, to create a dark atmosphere.

Costume Design

The inspiration for our costume design came from these two images. The idea behind the dolls, creates a atmosphere which is creepy and unreal, as the dolls have no human life but still represent a real person. I dolls have a lot of make-up, hair do's, large cheek bones and petite patterned clothes. Their eyes, stare into space, with no emotion shown, but flicker their long eye lashes which i felt was a perfect example of a figure, we could base our characters on.

Target Audience

The target Audience for our opening film would be teenagers, aged between 13-19years old. I feel this age group would be suitable for our horror film because the scene aren't so gory that an adult audience would not be startled by but for the age group we have chosen they would be made jumped by certain scenes and events which happen. They are also, more likely to come and watch the film at a cinema as it is stereo typically seen as a young person thing to do.

Story Board

scan story board..

Casting

A suitable age for our characters we're early teenagers, as our films target audience was aimed at 15 year olds. As a group wanted to use a younger figure but felt it may distress viewers.

The main character; Sophie Morton 


The five girls; (Industrial Barn)
Beth Pollard 
Tess Skidmore
Esme Stan 
Kathryn Tindall 
Catt Lawrence 


The van driver;
Dave

Development

Location: In Purston Crossroads Farm, set in an industrial like farm at Dusk.

Mise en Scene: The props shall include, swing, rope, machinery, Old wooden chairs. The make-up, tights to give a bold head effect, pulp less contact lenses, pale skin, blood, red eye-shadow.
Costume: Skin coloured tights over head/face, Baggy clothing (rough), characters will be wearing pyjamas - creepy childhood. Greasy hair, Back combed and no contact lenses (£10 each).
Makeup: Either bold look, or greasy.  Bruised eye making the character look stressed and hurt, stitching around the forehead and neck.
Set Design: There will be a number of chairs (the girls will be tied up/ragged) in an open building. The location shall change around the Barn. Also, the girl shall moves into different places i.e Swing, Truck.

Initial Planning

• Mannequins
• Horror
• Dolls
• In a line formation
• Human form
• Little girls
• Cupboards
• Lighting - red/black

Film Opening.  As my final coursework I felt I would work better in a group rather than individually, being as I am new to the software for editing I wanted to learn from experience and gain a better understanding. Firstly, within our group we decided on the genre horror as we felt it was a topic of interest Our Initial idea was based around 'Mannequins' from watching varies Film Openings, we gathered our thoughts about what elements portrayed horror  partly well and what didn't necessarily.  The idea of having a 'girl' or 'doll' in our film was under the theme of life-less which added emphasis to our genre. In order to have really life Mannequins we had to contact different stores in the local area, to be able to film them.  Unfortunately, companies couldn't offer us them for free, we would have had to pay around £175 (offer from John Lewis) but having a low budget we couldn't afford this sum of money.   From this slight full back we managed to reconsider our ideas, and developed another plan.  I feel this idea has worked out better than our previous. 

Credits

Credits/Titles

Genre - Horror

Definition; Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of unreal figures and lifeless. 

My Initial Genre was Romance, but later decided on Horror as i felt it would in-capture the audience right from the beginning. I have researched into different film openings which have used horror as a theme, this has help develop my own ideas. The above film 'Insidious' has inspired me greatly, in the way its been edited then produced. The begin is slow moving but engaging.  I like the idea of flashbacks of different events which are happening in para to the main event. This will give a sense of an abandoned/lost world. To create effective lighting, I will research into this aspect - Filmed in the dark, possibly with a hand held torch or have colours dropped into the background such as; Green, Red and Purple.  These colours represent a horror atmospheric vibe. 

Powerpoint

Preliminary Task (write up)

The Preliminary Task exercise consisted of filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. The Task should have demonstrated match on acton sot/reverse shot and the 180 degree rule.  This task was to enable my initial ideas and skills to create a film opening, of the genre of our choice.  For this Task, i was working within a group which had its disadvantages and advantages. The Disadvantages of this, was that we had different ideas and thoughts about how to go about the preliminary task, which later developed into controversy. Also, I felt some were more motivated and hard working than others. The Advantages of a group was that we could get the filming and editing done in a shorter space of time, which left extra time to go over our work.  I was new to the software used e.g Final Cut Express.  At first I found it was difficult to get to grips with the software, and had to learn from others. This helped my understanding whereby i developed new skills, such as; Uploading film clips into a program, exporting them and editing.  Along the way we came across many problems, the camera angle wasn't the correct way which we had intended and we weren't able to adjust the problem.  Secondly, we did't leave enough 'handle' at the start and end of each clip this became an issue as we couldn't us transitions in between, instead we had to use the 'pen tool' and by hand we drew on the edits.  Thirdly, the lighting in the frame was poor because we didn't take this into account when filming in the dark/unlit corridor's.  The Task did not involve using a soundtrack, but we explored this idea because we felt it would add atmosphere to our film opening(Youtube converter > Soundtrack > upload). Overall, I was disappointed with the end result. Note: To improve the quality for my final film opening I will spend more time on developing my editing skills, make sure the camera angles are correct and leave handles, think about lighting also. 

Media shots

"Change your thoughts and you change your world" Norman Vincent Peale

The Content of the Course involves practical and theory. The coursework unit is internally assessed and externally moderated.  As students we will complete one Preliminary and 1 main Task from a variety of set briefs prepared by the board.  Alongside, the tasks we are also marked on research and planning as well as evaluations produced in response to a series of prompt questions. 

Marks are awarded as follows:

Research and planning  20marks

Construction           60marks

Evaluation             20marks