Location Planning

Towards planning forward with our film ideas we decided we had to ask our target audience where they felt the scenes should of taken place and based our findings on these thoughts.

This shot shows the front of the school, we chose this because we think that this is the perfect place to film our film, we found that this is the most accessible place and it will clearly set the scene for our film, its also somewhere where we can all meet easily.

We have chosen this location where the mystery room is as this is very secluded from the rest of the school, we felt that this would fit perfect with our film as it gives off suspense. We felt that this location was more suited than others because it was close to where we are filming in the other building. This location was better than the buccleuch suit because it was better equipped and had a larger area for us to film .

We have chosen this corridor to be in our film because we felt that this gave a chilling feeling, this was also the best choice for us due to tight small space that the corridor has to offer and the fact that there is only one way in or out 

The two pictures below show the rooms in the pavilion, we thought that this was a great place to have as the mystery room, it was also the only room with doors in-between, we think that this will be perfect for our film.

Planning - Producing A Storyboard For Your Opening

Before moving on further with our planning we thought it was necessary to make a storyboard to illustrate the shots we are going to use in our 2 minute horror movie opening, this is because it would give us a clear idea of what shot would take place next including all the important information such as dialogue, angle and location. In addition to this we could visually see what would need to happen in the shot with a brief drawing of the moment, giving the directors and the actors a better understanding of what should take place. Overall it was important we did this to keep our work organised and make the recording process easier for our group allowing us to move forward with our main task with ease.

Planning - Writing A Treatment For Your Chosen Opening

treatment for the opening 2 minutes (including titles) of ‘The Unknown’ by Alpha Productions

The film opens with alternating cuts of various establishing shots and opening Titles excluding the 
characters involved in bold sharp white font. After the final titles has been shot it will fade into to sky 
from a white screen; this then pans down into an establishing shot of west coast high school and
when the school is in frame, non-diegetic sound of a school bell ringing will come in to the scene.

This cuts to a long shot of the corridor, cuts to a long shot of Kai in the corridor by his locker, 
then it cuts to a mid-shot of Kai by his locker pulling out books, then this cuts to a mid-shot of 
Kai closing a locker then a tracking out shot of him and his three friends walking through the corridor
to their classroom.

After this they enter the classroom with a mid-shot of them going to sit down in their free period. 
As half an hour passes by Alisha, Sarah and Jermaine decide to go the canteen while Kai carries
on to study, Kai then notices something mysterious about the room he is working in, the lights tend
 to flicker continuously and the screen turns on automatically. This cuts a close up shot of Kai’s face
getting worried and non- diegetic sound slowing coming in. both odd occurrences stop for a while
and Kai gets back to work as he thinks it was just a faulty with electricity.

Suddenly a very loud bang is heard from behind him. He turns his head and as he turns it cuts
to the other direction to show him looking at what the noise was from the other side. All Kai sees
is a door with a sign saying “Do Not Enter” Eerie music now starts to play as he looks at the
mysterious door. Kai looks around the room to find anything else that could have possibly
made the bang but he found nothing, reassuring him it came from the door. Kai is not
slightly afraid, but his curiosity got the best of him leading him to walk towards the door
slowly with a tracking in shot.

Kai then slowly reaches to open the door, this leads to a long shot of him opening the
 door from inside the room the very dark room, Kai is very surprised of what he sees
 inside and shouts as the eerie music comes to a sudden halt. This then goes to a
 black screen showing the characters acting in the film while the walking dead theme
tune plays throughout to the end where it will subtly fade out.

Research : Target Audience Feedback

Before moving any further forwards with our ideas, we felt that it was necessary to consult with members of our target audience in order to get their opinions about our film.

This was a stage that we felt to be vital as we wanted to ensure that our idea was one that appealed to the demographic to whom we were targeting our film.

There were various ways that we could have conducted this audience research, including video and audio interviews or paper questionnaires. However, we decided that the use of a web-based survey, such as those provided by Survey Monkey, would be the best option for us as it would allow us to share the survey with a wider sample of our target audience. This is because our audience is more used with technology and social media allowing us share our survey easily, for example the people that took part in the survey were reached by using Facebook to inform them.
(picture of post on Facebook) (Jamie, Ben, Ryan, Sam and Alex)

We chose that our target audience would be teens and above, so the ages between 12 to 20 because we felt it would be most suitable for our initials ideas of a horror movie opening.

We created an online survey on Survey Monkey which allowed us to send to everyone easily. When choosing the questions our aim was the receive information that would give an idea of how our horror movie should start.

We first asked the audience what age group they were in to make us better understand what ages tend to watch horror movies more and we found that people aged 15 to 19 watch horror movies more with the outlier of people ages 20 and above.

We then asked the audience if they were a fan of horror movies to see if it was a popular genre, from this questionnaire we had found that 4 out of 5 people that participated agreed that they enjoyed horror films with the exception of the 1 that did said they do not.

Moreover we added our 60 second pitch to the question and asked them if they thought that someone should end up dying in the opening, we then discovered that 60 percent of our audience agreed they would expect someone to die in the opening and 40 percent said no one should die in the opening. This gave us a better understanding of seeing the target audiences expectations towards horror openings, although we took this information into consideration we still decided that no one will die in the opening for a more suspensive start to the movie.

Lastly we specifically asked for 5 people that were either young men or women to answer our final question,this is so we can get a true opinion on how you movie should start, this would valuable to use as it fits our target audience and make the movie appeal more to the age group. after receiving the feedback we took the 2nd and 3rd comments and implemented into our own script/treatment as we found the idea of a danger behind closed doors very fitting for our pitch, on the other hand we thought 1st comment would show too much of the movie and speed up the opening exploiting too much, although the last 2 comments were very good but we thought we wouldn't be able to fit into our 2 minute opening.

Planning : From Initial Ideas To A 60 Second Pitch

This is all of the year 12's 60 second pitch, to find my group, start at 0:50 and finish at 1:37

to plan and carry out our 60 second pitch we first started with a mind map and wrote down various characters, sceneries, plots, working titles etc. this would allow us to clearly see the options we had and make a decision on the best idea to be presented for our 60 second pitch.























After we had finalised our idea to pitch we gathered and thought of how to word it so we do explain the whole movie as you were going to watch it and more like giving a brief explanation of what the movie will bring. after we had managed this I would read the script and see if it close to 60 seconds. after some changes to and additions to the script it was close to 60 seconds. We split the pitch script into four sections and assigned ourselves a section.

Research : The Importance Of Opening Titles

When researching the importance of opening titles I first went onto the website http://www.artofthetitle.com then i looked at opening titles of several movies to get an idea of how they are presented and in which order they show the names of the people that were involved in the making of the film.

I then went on watch the the opening titles of the movie Se7en to do some further research on horror opening titles and learn how they are significant in films

I then took sheets of A4 paper to do my research

Next I wrote down every timestamp of when an opening title appeared on the movie Se7en. From this I learned that there are several openings titles that are used to show all the main people involved in the movie.

Next I explored the typography of opening titles in the movie Se7en by talking about the background, font colour, font type and size. From this I had learned that the style, colour and size of the font really makes a difference to the atmosphere of the movie.

Next I turned off the sound, watched the opening titles of Se7en again and with detailed described all the visual elements I saw excluding the titles themselves. From this I had learned that the things you show in between the titles give a deeper meaning to the movie and gives you a brief idea of what the movie is like

Next I watched the opening titles of Se7en without displaying the actual video and described everything I heard. From this I had learned that the sounds within a opening scene add to the sense of movie, give an emotion to the audience and create a clear atmosphere of the movie.

Research Essay : Codes And Conventions In Existing Horror Films Aimed At A Teenage Audience

Codes are an arrangement of signs which generate a denotation of what is being represented. These codes can be separated into two categories, technical and symbolic. Technical codes are all the methods of which equipment is used to tell a story in a media text, for example the camera movements, shots and angles, the editing and the use of sound (diegetic and non-diegetic) in the clip. Symbolic codes show what is beneath the surface of what we see and is not as evident and technical codes. These codes are usually seen through the aspects of mise en scene, for example, a characters decisions or actions will show you what the character is like and how they are feeling, their clothing and how much they wear can be decoded to help us better understand what type of person they are and certain props have suggestions or connotations which can have a common meaning interpreted by the audience. Some codes fit both categories - non-diegetic music for example, is both technical and symbolic.

Conventions are generally accepted ways of doing something. There are general conventions in any medium, such as the use interviewee quotes in print article, but conventions are also suited to specific genres. For example an action movie convention would be a large explosion. A few examples of conventions in horror movies are a secluded location, someone inexplicably falling over and having a small group of people.

Wrong Turn starts off with two characters, one being male and the other female rock climbing in a secluded location that are soon killed by a ferocious cannibalistic man lurking the woods of west Virginia. Beginning with the technical codes; the use of camera in this film was limited to a lot of high angle shots of the characters and location which gives a sense of power looking up towards the other character, establishing shots of the scenery to give the viewers a good idea of the location and distance from safety and extreme close ups of facial expressions and objects when struggle or danger occurs. In the editing there was a fade transition between the opening titles and the climbing site which gives a sense of how far it was. The diegetic sound used in this movie was simply things like the sound of the wire moving or clasping a hook, although the non-diegetic sound really gave the film a sense a danger as the tempo of the music picked up rapidly and increased in volume. Moving onto the symbolic codes; in terms of mise en scene the costume used shows the female being slightly underdressed which will make the audience relate a bit more, blood on the body to show it was a vicious attack and a vehicle being used as a prop to show the safety. The main conventions found in this is a secluded location and a person running through trees and ends up falling over.

A young woman and a group of her school friends embark on a holiday weekend at a lakeside cabin to reminisce about their college days, only to run afoul of an evil spirit.

Camera angles and shots firstly consist of a low angle and an extreme close up of an old damaged sign. Then changes to a establishing shot of a sign that shows they are in an isolated location as the next gas station is far away. Then it changes to a low angle on the side of the car which shows possible danger lurking towards the car.

The editing is smoothly done there is the pace between each shot it is quite slow however later on when there is a possible threat the pace becomes faster to create a fight or flight response to the audience to make the build-up more intense.

The use of sound the diegetic at the start was a metallic creaking noise moving side to side this created a dark, cold cricked effect to the audience and the sound of the birds singing gives a sense that of nature is nearby. The sound of the radio having no signal creates an effect of loneliness and vulnerability as they are in the middle of nowhere and there is nowhere to run to for safety. The non-diegetic sound was a static noise when a figure was getting closer to the car and the noise then would get louder as he got closer building up an intense atmosphere for the audience.

Mise-en-scene the girls clothes were showing a lot of skin which teenagers can relate to. The map and flare gun symbolises that they are alone in the middle of nowhere. The car shows that there is an escape vehicle in case anything goes wrong. The fact the male is having to get petrol for the car shows it ran out and broke down which is common in horror movies.

In the film opening of  Dead wood, the use of codes is effectively used. Codes are system of signs which create different meanings. codes can and are usually divided in two categories which are technical and symbolic. Technical codes are all the different ways in which the equipment is used to tell the story in the media text. Such as; The camera work when filming, The editing process and the use of sound such as the really disturbing music at the start which creates the feel that their is danger there. (diegetic and non-diegetic). Symbolic codes show what is beneath the surface of what we see, which links back to the music making the feel that their is danger. These are usually shown through mise-en-scene. The characters actions when filming shows you how the character is feeling in that scene. For example the facial expression that the girl has when she sees the man get pushed of the cliff and also how scared she is when she is running away.

In all 3 film openings they are in the middle of nowhere and can't escape for example in Wrong Turn  they are on a cliff miles away from anyone and it is actually stated in the opening just in case you didn't pick it up. When in danger and also when a character is being chased. For example in the opening just before the male character gets to the top of the cliff and killed, meanwhile it is pretty obvious that their is no one around to help. and also when the woman manages to miraculously fall from a great height and have no major injuries and very few minor, to mange to run through a forest. 

With all 3 of these films all of the characters are within there early-mid twenties and which can be presented in a number of different ways for example it could be showing that no matter what physical condition u will not escape, and the youthful getting into more danger than people of other ages or even innocents to the young and the become easy victims. Also all of the women seem to be weaker than the males and show a lot of flesh to show that they are very exposed to a threat and would not have much to protect them. They also use the camera to show how isolated they are by using establishing shots to show the vast forest that they are in, this is shown in all 3 of the movies letting us know that no matter how far away they are from calling for help when the need it. This is shown exceptionally by the male figure shouting "What are you screaming for" when the women falls and scares herself.