Moodboard of horror movies

Final Opening Sequence

Pitch

Call Sheet

Raw footage

Expectations for our genre

 

Audience expectations from a psychological genre

A stereotypically audience members for psychological horror films would firstly be people who enjoy a range of horror films. This is because psychological horror films are sometimes a sub-genre of slasher and supernatural. People would enjoy the darkness and creepy storylines within the film, plus they would not be too distraught after watching the movie. 

 

Also, the audience would expect to be scared, especially with lots of twists and jump to make the movie more exciting and intense. Furthermore, they would expect to sympathize with a character- either the killer or victim as psychological films tend to play on the realism of the event which would make the audience put themselves in the characters shoes which enhances the experience of the movie, creates new fears and really engages them into the storyline- which makes the movie a lot more scary! We will use this in our horror movie as we have decided to create a story about a rebel student who is in detention one day and gets trapped in the school and then gets followed and killed by a mysterious killer. It will be a mixture of exciting, scary, gruesome and sad- which is exactly what our audience would be expecting from us when watching the film.

 

 

Here is a list of horror films that would meet the audience expectations for a psychological horror film:

Audience Profile

Audience profile (Who is the demographic for your film?)

Here is a few examples of what someone from our audience would stereotypically look like:

The demographic trend is towards an younger population, in particular female and male teenagers between the ages 15-21.

The reason for this chosen audience is because they can relate to the main character 'Dwayne' who is a student at a college and in detention. This would appeal to the audience as they can easily put themselves in his shoes which then plays on the fear of isolation and being in a environment that you believe is safe, such as school, but then developing new fears of the unknown and not really knowing who people are and what they are capable of.

People in our audience would most likely be students who go to school, college or university. They would enjoy going out with their friends, watching movies/TV shows, reading, playing sports, shopping, clubbing, go on social media networking sites, go to concerts and listening to music. Typically they would be part of class B and C. Furthermore, they would eat at places like McDonalds, KFC, Subway, Pizza hut, Starbucks, Burger king and Nandos. 

Film Institutions research

Production Company Idents
 

A film production company ident is a promotional sequence that normally occurs at the beginning of the film/TV show. It gives the brand brand identity so it's a critical part of the footage for the production as it allows the institution to be recognized which could then may create brand priority making people watch films simply because the institution made it which they would be able to tell at the beginning of the film.

4Seven

One of the most common and creative production company idents is the 4 7 logo used for channel four. They used a 'ManVsMachine' motion studio to create this ident and have now made a series of videos that show the logo in a birds eyed view of a kind of landmark or place that seem to create a 4 and a 7. Here is a series of examples:
https://vimeo.com/45190656

Lionsgate

Lionsgate is considered one of the 6 'major' brands in Hollywood. It's production company ident is extremley popular and recognisable. Founded in 1998, Lionsgate has always used a multiple amount of production company idents. Here is  a link to the all of the production company idents Lionsgate has used throughout the years: http://www.closinglogos.com/page/Lionsgate+Films

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 

Metro-Goldywyn-Mayer has a very recognisable and popular production company ident. Founded in 1924, it is the famous ident that shows a Lion roaring in the middle of the screen. MGM has created hundreds of movies, many commonly known, here is a list of the movies:
http://www.mgm.com/#/our-titles

Also, here a example of the famous production company ident: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVCxJ1aT24A

Storyboard

Storyboard for opening sequence

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Technical Difficulties

As a group we did face some technical difficulties when shooting.

• We were forced to re shoot some scenes due to Camera settings. On our first day of shooting little did we know that the white colour balance was incorrect. As a group we found this very time consuming and frustrating.       

• Another Difficulty for us was keep continuity. This meant that we had to always shoot more than we needed. We are currently in the editing process and if it wasn't for time restrictions I feel we would go back and re shoot some parts.

• Finally the last major problem we have it that we are finding it difficult to cut down our opening. In total we spent several hours shooting the opening , however, now converting all of that footage in to 2mins worth of film is quiet challenging. 

Film Institutions

All classification decisions are based on the BBFC’s published and regularly updated Guidelines.

Personally, I feel that our film will be classified age 15.

What will this mean?

No-one under 15 is allowed to see the film at the cinema or buy it.

Reasons as to why it will be a 15

• Extreme violence
• Drugs
• Horrific Images

The effect which this will have is that it meets our target audience. Having the age restriction benefits us because it can appeal to more people. In addition to that one of the key sets of the film is a school , therefore having the age restitution at 15 means a lot more young people can relate to the film and feel engaged. This may raise our revenue 

Directors associated with genre

James Wan is a successful horror movie director. He bases his horror films on the sub-genre slasher. He tends to also create supernatural films that are based on creepy dolls and puppets coming to life e.g. Billy the puppet(saw) and Annabelle (The conjuring)some of his films include Dead silence,Insidious,The conjuring,Saw,Annabelle and Death sentence.






Alfred Hitchcock-He was known as the "Master of suspense" He created many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres, creating a foundation for the sub genre inspiring many film makers.
Here are some of Alfred Hitchcock's most popular horror movies:

Psycho
The Birds
Dial M for Murder 
Rear Window
Vertigo
Strangers on a Train
Frenzy

Rope

Title Sequence timeline 2

Night on Elm Street  Opening Sequence Timeline

00.01-00.13- New Line Cinema title.

00.20-00.26- Media home Entertainment inc,Smart Egg Pictures Present Title

00.439-00.43 -A Robert Shaye Productions Title

1.01-1.06 - Wes Craven Film Title

1.09- 1.09 - Night On Elm Street Title

1.24-1.27 - Starring John Saxon title

1.29-1.32- Ronee Blakely title

1.32-1.36- Heather Langenkamp title

1.37-1.40- Amanda Wyss title

1.41-1.44- Nick Corri title

1.46-1.49- Introducing Johnny Deep title

1.56-2.00- Charles Fleischer, Joseph Whipp, Lin Shaye

2.05-2.08- Robert Englund as Fred Krueger title

2.10-2.13- Casting by Annette Benson title.

2.15-2.18- Director of photography by Jacques Haitkin title

2.29-2.31-Production designer Gregg Fonseca title

2.33-2.36- Mechanical special effects by Jim Doyle

2.38-2.41- Associate Producer John Burrows title

2.46-2.49- Film Editor by Rick Shanne title

2.51-2.54- Music by Charles Bernstein title

2.56-2.59- Co-producer Sarah Risher title

3.00-3.03- Executive Producer Stanley Dudelson and Joseph Wolf title

3.05-3.08- Produced by Robert Shaye

3.10-3.15- Written and Directed by Wes Craven tiltle

Title Seqence Timeline

Here is an example of a title sequence timeline that we found on the internet from the horror movie Seven, which will have similar opening to our opening:

Technical difficulties

From our preliminary exercise we learnt a lot about the equipment involved when making a film. We had some technical difficulties in our shooting which was caused by  an inaccurate white balance.

The Auto White Balance setting typically does a good job of reacting to varying daylight conditions, such as bright sunshine, cloudy skies or shade, but the colour temperature of indoor lighting generally falls outside of the range covered. 

The usual result is that interiors lit by general-purpose lights have a yellow or greenish colour cast. Which we did not realize until we had finished shooting and for that reason we had to do most of the corridor shots again.

The main reason why we decided to shoot the corridor parts again is that we need our opening sequence to be a continuity and it wouldn't have made sense to have the greenish colour cast effect in some parts of the film and not the others. In other words the continuity would be broken.

Jobs within the industry

Within a horror films certain job roles come in at certain times.

Saw

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dAWK9V9Hk_A" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

opening Title sequence

1. Distributor
2. Production company
3. Producer/Producers
4. Writer
5. Film Title

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/suold-07Zik" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Opening Title Sequence

1) Production Company

2) Producer

3) Film Title

4)Cast

I feel that the people whom invest ,money into the film are those that go first. Normally the most famous actor is put at the start of all the cast this occurs due to a negotiation within agents. 

Professional job roles

Editor

One of the roles in which I will be doing is the role of the editor. As an Editor you have a huge role because , poor editing can really harm the quality of your film production. I believe that the role of editing should be taken with great care and control as you could say that editing is the icing on the cake.

Famous Editors Quotes 

"My movie is born first in my head, dies on paper; is resuscitated by the living persons and real objects I use, which are killed o n film but, placed in a certain order and projected on to a screen, come to life again like flowers in water." Rob Bresson


"Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls." Ingmar Bergman

 Here is an Image of some editing taking place using Final Cut Pro

Film Institution Research

Dimension films is an American film distribution company which came to life in October 2005.

he studio was founded by Bob Weinstein to distribute horror films, but was expanded to release other genres. The studio was owned by Miramax Films, but in 1993, Dimension Films became a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Studios due to their full purchase of Miramax Films.

Famous film Successes 

• Scream
• Dracula
• Halloween II 
• Scary Movie

Personally, I feel that Dimension would be most appropriate in producing our film , this is due to the fact that this company has a lot of experience. Evidently , purely due to facts this company has proved to have a lot of  financial success and for that reason I would love for my short film to be distributed by this company 

Screenshot of editing

This is a screenshot of our work during the construction of our film opening. We are using final cut pro and have edited together the first half of our work so far.

Our video is going successfully however we feel that we may have to re-shoot our last shot to make the ending of our footage more dramatic.

Detailed characterisation

In Our film there are only two characters:

1) Dwayne - Dwayne is a typical  male teenager. He is 6 ft tall and can be seen as quite intimidating. Dwayne is of black origin and you would expect him to be strong and macho but, through out the opening of the film we begin to see a change. As the film continues Dwayne's behavior changes , as he begins to realize that he is alone is attitude changes and he becomes a lot more quite.

2) Teacher - Dwayne is the teachers student. The Teacher plays a very small within the play , but having him there makes him a potential suspect.  Eventually at the end of the film it is revealed that the teacher is the killer of the film. The irony is that initially Dwayne is seen as the bully while his teacher is a victim but later on it is as if they switch roles