We showed the first draft of our opening to several other students, in order to gain their feedback.
They stated what they found to be effective, and also what they felt didn't work so well.
The parts that people felt were effective were:
The large range of shots
The non diegetic sound
Typography
Flashback shots are effective
The parts that people felt were less effective:
Horror genre unclear
Ending too abrupt
Title should appear at end
To improve, we moved the title ("Young Blood") to the end of the sequence. We felt that this would also solve the problem of the ending being too abrupt and confusing.
Recording More Sounds.
When we continued to edit our final film opening we realised that we needed one more sound in order for the audience to know what was happening in the sequence.
We had to record the sound of a purse falling onto the ground and so we went to a quiet place and recorded this using an actual purse a few times in order to get the right sound effect.
For our film opening we would be needing some diegetic sounds to overlay on top of our non-diegetic sound we will have throughout the film opening.
First of all we decided to record basic footsteps to use in the film opening. We waited until our surroundings were quiet and then had one of us walk down a corridor whilst the other recorded the sounds that were made. We ended up with having two sets of recordings for the footsteps as one sounded better than the other in some ways, it was louder and seemed to be more realistic.
The next diegetic sound we recorded was that of a door opening. We found a fairly old door that would make a lot of noise that we could capture when we were to open it. The noise it made was very realistic when we listened back to the recording.
The final sound we recorded was of the same door closing. We used the same door so that it would sound similar to when it was being opened but instead in reverse to portray that fact that the door would be closing instead of opening like in the previous sound clip.
Evaluation.
Overall I believe the sounds were quite well recorded and sounded like we wanted them to.
There may be some fuzzy sounds that can be heard in the background from the recorder so we may need to consider re-recording again
The sounds we recorded were what we needed for our film opening.
We decided that our victim would be wearing modern style clothing so that our target audience would be able to connect with the character and also since the genre of psychological horror, which is what our film opening is labelled as, is a fairly new genre it also conforms to the conventions of a psychological horror film.
Our victim would be wearing a fairly long coat, dark jeans/trousers and low ankle boots. It is a simple costume but also ties into our film opening by being modern and also for the actor to be wearing this type of clothing as our killer is obsessed with youth and beauty so it would make sense for us to use modern style clothing instead of an older look.
Killer's Costume.
For our killer we decided that we didn't want their identity to be known to the audience so that it would keep a sense of mystery behind the character and what is going on in their mind. In this case we decided that dark clothing that wouldn't be identified with either a male or female actor would be the best for our killer.
We opted for a black hoody/coat, black jeans and dark plimsoll shoes as all of these items could be associated with either male or female. The hoody/coat that we used was also quite big as then the character's figure couldn't be identified by the audience of a specific gender so our killer would still be in a sense of mystery.
Title: 'Young Blood'
We're going to be using the title of 'young blood' for our film opening as we agreed as a group that it would be the most effective and relevant for us to use considering our choice of a psychological horror genre film and what clips will be included in the film opening.
Even though our survey came back as our target audience liking a different title but we didn't feel that this was as good as our chosen title for our film opening. Although 'young blood' was one of the titles that our target audience did still show an interest in this title so we still think it would be a good title to use, especially since it still gained a few votes on our survey.
the use of young blood implies the film will be a horror.
it will appeal to our target audience as they are young as well.
it was still popular among our target audience so will be effective.
it doesn't reveal entirely what our film/film opening will be about.
it is appropriate for our film genre of a psychological horror.
We believe this title will be good and effective as it doesn't entirely reveal to the audience what the entire film would be about and so keeps a sense of mystery for the audience to try and figure out as the sequence goes on. It is also relevant to out film and film opening for what we are filming and so will be a good title to use.
Killer's Lair
For this location we will be using a garage owned by Charlotte in our group and it will include little mise-en-scene as we want the audience to be focused on the minimal amount of things that are already in the room.
In the room we will have pictures of the killer's victims that have been killed and are going to be killed, so this will consist of images of the victims dead, alive and being stalked.
There will also be jar on shelves in the room that will contain body parts of the killer's victims to show what the killer does with them.
This week I decided to try and mnipulate different fonts of text to try and make them have different effects on them in adoble photoshop CS6.
Typography: Title.
I used photoshop CS6 to play around with what we could do with our title's typography for our film opening.
For the some of them I used a property of satin and made the boldness of the actual red colour mode bold and more faded to see what it would look like. On one of them I also changed the position of the effect so that it wasnt covering the whole of the text, so some of the original black text was still there.
I also did some basic effects like putting a jagged edge round some of the text and putting borders of a different colour on some and changed the colour of the text to a different one and putting a gradient on it as well.
I also put a back shadow on one to make it look like that text is more 3D but no actually being 3D. I also used an effect where you put another colour onto the text and make it speckled by turing the colour's effect onto disappear and so it doesn't cover the whole of the text but makes it look like it is speckled or splattered with the colour.
Evaluation.
Overall I think the text I have created were good but quite basic so they could be developed more to actually changing the shape of the text itself. This would give the text a more developed and professional look and may also be more parallel with our film opening and it's genre of a psychological horror.
For our film opening we would be needing a noose in which the killer uses to hang their victims in their lair.
1. For this I went and brought around 3 metres of rope from a building shop and looked up a tutorial of how to make a noose online and found a well explained video on youtube on how to do so.
2. Firstly I made the rope into a loose 'S' shape with a long amount of rope on each end.
3. Next I made the 'S' shape closer together and pinched it in the middle making sure I had all of the loops held together.
4. Then I took one end of the rope and wrapped it around the rope 13 times to make sure the loop was secure.
5. Afterwards I had a smaller loop one end and a short length of rope. I put the short length of rope through the small loop and pulled on one side of the larger loop to secure this end.
5. Finally I pulled the other side of the large loop to make it bigger and more presentable to finish.
Evaluation.
I thought that this piece of mise-en-scene was quite effective as because it wasn't too thick it allowed it to look like anyone could have made it instead of it looking too pre-made. I also tried doing this with a much thicker piece of rope but it was very difficult to manipulate and actually make into a noose and so was not as successful or effective than the other, thinner piece of rope. I think we could use this in our film opening in small short clips of it hanging in the killer's lair, swinging and it being still as well to show that it is and has been used by the killer.
In the opening for this film the opening credits were very basic, they all consisted of being a light blue colour and travelled from the bottom of the screen to the top when they appeared.
0:03
Production Company: Warner Bros Pictures
1:19
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Text over image.
1:25
Actor: Jack Nicholson
Text over image.
1:31
Actor/Actress: Shelley Duvall
Text over image.
1:36
Film Title: 'THE SHINING'
Text over image.
Bigger than the other texts.
1:41
Actor/Actress: 'Featuring Danny Lloyd'
Text over image.
1:47
Actor/Actress: Scatman Crothers.
Text over image.
1:51
Actor/Actress: Barry Nelson
Text over image.
1:56
Actor/Actress: Philip Stone
Text over image.
2:03
Actor/Actress: Joe Turkel
Text over image.
2:07
Actor/Actress: Anne Jackson
Text over image.
2:13
Actor/Actress: Tony Burton
Text over image.
2:18
Executive Producer: Jan Harlan
Tex over image.
2:23
Extra Information: 'Based upon rhe novel by Stephen King'
Text over image.
2:29
Producers: Robert Fryer, Martin Richards, Mary Lea Johnson.
Text over image.
2:34
Screenplay: Stanley Kubrick, Diane Johnson.
Text over image.
2:39
Produced and Directed: Stanley Kubrick.
Text over image.
Existing School's Production Companies.
I looked into previous production company titles that were created by school students to give our group ideas on how we could go about making a production company animation and also they could give us ideas into how to make our creative and effective.
Firstly I looked at a film opening's title called 'Return' which I found quite creative.
They used a background of a moving heart monitor with the diegetic noise of the beeping that comes from it when the heart beat of the patient dies.
It also ties in with the fact that their film opening is called return as it alongside the production company title that it may be about something or someone coming back to life.
I also looked at another film opening's title called 'The Hunt'.
The production company animation for this film opening was extremley basic and consisted of a scene marker at the beginning of the sequemce and then the production company's name sliding across the screen but in a very simple way.
I though that this production company was good but could have been a lot more creative and detailed and could have related to their film opening a little more. Even though this animation is quite basic it still gives our group a good insight into what is needed to be included in a production company animation at the begnning of a film.
Results.
We sent out a survey at the beginning of the week and have gained 27 responses from our target audience of people within the ages of 15 to 22 years of age.
Our survey came back with the most votes going to The Blood Runs Thick, the second favourite was Young Blood and the third most popular was The Donors. As a group we will have to discuss our film's title and we will take into account what our audience think is the most effective title for our film opening.
Even though they did vote for the blood runs thick this may not be agreed within our group as the best title for our film opening as we know what will be going into our sequence, but we will still take into account what our audience thinks when deciding on our final title.
As a group we are not happy with the majority of the titles that are on the survey. We are going to have to re-think our film opening's title and maybe come up with some more to choose from as we do not feel that as a group these film titles would be appropriate for our opening and also we believe that we could come up with some more that would suit our opening better.
I looked at how different a trailer to a film and its opening are very different from each other and how they distinguish to the audience which is the trailer and which is the film's opening. To do this I looked a psychological horror film of Shutter Island to give me some ideas to how our group could make our film opening more obviously a film opening and not getting it mistaken for a film trailer instead.
Trailer.
The trailer of Shutter Island started off with the logo of the production company who backed the film which were Paramount and A Martin Scorsese Picture. It also includes at the end some names and other production companies to give the audience a sense of who made the film and there is also a scene where the leading actor's name appeared to give the trailer and film a name that the audience would know already.
The majority of the shots shown in the film trailer were mainly mid shots, one shots or establishing shots. This shows the audience the characters that would be involved throughout the film and also the location of the film and when it is set without giving much away to the audience about the rest of the film.
Opening.
The opening two minutes of the film Shutter Island consists of the two main characters travelling to somewhere which remains unknown to the audience on a boat. It is very different from the trailer as it is one long sequence of different shots, which also consists of mid shots and close up shots and a few establishing shots to she the audience who is in the film and where they may be without giving them too much information away. When the two characters talk to each other they also do not say much which is about to happen instead they talk about themselves as they are new to each other.
Trailers tend to have short and fast transitions between different shots and frames.
Whereas openings tend to be a longer shot and not as many frames, more of a story line.
More characters are shown in the film trailer compared to the film opening.
Most shots used in trailers are long, establishing, mid, two or one shots.
To see what other horror/psychological horror films' costumes of their victims looked like I looked at the film cabin in the woods as they seemed to have the same idea as we did.
Their costumes consisted of modern looking clothes to indicate that this could have been anyone and so that the audience could relate to the people in the film as well and make a connection with them instead of having actors dressed in older looking clothes that the target audience may find boring or irrelevant.
Orphan and American Psycho (Killer).
For looking at the killer's costume in horror/psychological horror films I looked at both the Orphan and American Psycho to see what kind of costumes are used.
For both of the two films the costumes that are worn by the killers/villains are quite dark in colour and also of normal clothing but to an extended point.
For the Orphan the girl wears normal looking clothes a girl may wear but they also seem to be quite out of the ordinary by how neat and perfect they look.
In American Psycho his costume is very neat and business like but still borders alongside the normal and out of the normal look that can be seen in the costumes of the villains in psychological horror films.
I looked at the girl in American Psycho who is involved in the chain saw scene to see what victims are portrayed as in psychological horror films.
This victim was dressed in white and was blonde haired which seems to typical of victims in any kind of horror or slasher film. This victim also is shown to be quite close to the killer and so may be trusts him until this scene. The use of the minimal clothing on the victim shows that because of her being a prostitute that she is quite vulnerable but also gives the audience little saddness for the victim once she is killed by the villian in this sequence.
There are also quite a lot of low angle shots framing the victim, this shows her to the audience as vulnerable and defenseless against the killer hunting her down as she has put herself in a vulnerable position of being trapped in the villian appartement with no one else to help her. She also wears very revealing and thin clothing alongside the colour of them being white it shows her oppositely as maybe a little more promiscuous so maybe she may have been waiting for the killer to kill her in a way that horror films are usually laid out as.
On a whole the victims in this psychological horror is shown as innocent and vulnerable. Her costume and make up are very minimal and casual to show that she is just another person and doesn't have much identity herself and is just known as the victim who is killed.
Stalking Scenes Locations.
For our film opening we need a few locations e.g. on a street for our killer to stalk their next victim.
The locations that we will be definitely using for our filming are a bridge, a small walk way with a bridge over a small river and a normal street.
Location: Bridge
Time for filimg approx: 3:30-400pm
We will be using this location as one scenes for our stalking scene as it allows us to be creative with camera angles and also shows the victim as isolated as it is over a motorway.
The time for this is as chosen as then we shall get enough sunlight for filming in before it starts to get dark as we would not be able to see the images clearly.
We chose this location as it gave us a good set up for the rest of our opening and because our target audience is between the ages of 15 and 22 they can relate to the location as bridges like these are often seen in many places.
Location: Walkway
TIme for filming approx: 4:00pm
We chose this location after wondering around as it gives a mysterious atmosphere to the scene and we decided that this will be used towards the end of the stalking sequence due to the effect it has. It also allows our target audience to get a sense of the location and the stalking scene in order to make them wonder what will happen next.
We would film this scene slightly later than the other one as the street lamp is effective lighting for us to use for filming underneath it.
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