In our sequence we have used the song 'Left Unfinished' by Machine Head. We realise this is copyright source and therefore our film will not be exhibited outside of our college.

Opening sequences

Opening sequences are very important to a film. They determine whether the audience is enticed by it and whether they will watch the rest of the film or not. It sets the initial tone for the following scenes and helps to establish genre.

Shooting Schedual

12th Feb - shooting opening sequence, introduction to character.
crew involved = George Hunt, Will Wardle, James Mcshee, Louise Willis
Acting = Mike Clarke

14th Feb - Indoor corridor shots
Crew involved = George Hunt, Will Wardle, James Mcshee, Louise Willis
Cast = Mike Clarke

22nd Feb - Editing camera work

23rd Feb - Technical difficulties and loss of data.

24th Feb - Indoor corridor shots
Crew involved = Will Wardle + Louise Willis
Cast = Will Wardle

25th Feb - Reshooting opening sequence, introduction to character.
Crew involved = George Hunt, Will Wardle, James Mcshee, Louise Willis
Cast = Will Wardle

We gathered several of our ideas for our sequence from watching scenes from other appropriate films. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre heavily influenced the basis for our film, as from it we took the idea of distorted images and clips telling a past horror story. The opening to this film however was heavily narrated, we decided not to narrate our film as we thought this would be less suspensful than if we had a more vague and confusing beginning. We also looked at The trailer to The Grudge, this inspired our idea of having a less conventional explanation of the plot at the start of our movie, leading us to decide on having a phone call playing over our sequence to partially explain but also to create mystery.
Along with other movies, the Girl on the Bridge was a prime example of the use of sound to create an audible bathos within the tension created from the scene.

Narration - Good/Bad

Over the many years of movie making and theatre, narration has been a main part of scene setting, character introductions and creating a strong sense of genre for the audience, be it suspense, comedy or violence. However it can also act negatively by puncturing the tension in the scene or leaving little room for the audience's assumptions, which are a big part of creating a mysterious and suspensful atmosphere.
For our piece we used and alternative to narration, a voice over of a phone call in attempt to maintain the tension whilst introducing characters and plot.

Pictures Of Shooting Spots

Features we may use from other sequences

The Others - Candle light
Texas Chainsaw Massacre - photos telling a story of something that has already happened- but lots of narration so we would have less - distorted imaging/filming
The Grudge- no spoken narration, leaves it very mysterious and suspenseful so we will have a voice over of a phone call to partially explain the situation but still leave it all.. confusing.
The Girld on the Bridge - selective sound used to create an audible bathos in the tension

The Grudge Trailer

--very vague explanation, leaves the audience to fill in the blanks - suspenseful
--fast cuts from clip to clip - creates mystery but conveys the horror theme through the screams and distressed sounds
-ambiguous and ensures the audience don't quite understand what the grudge is - makes it more tense as they don't know what to expect, enigmatic.

Shot List

1. Establishing shot of school (black and white, grainy, fuzzy)
-fast zoom to window
-fade to white

2. Close up of window (black and white, grainy, fuzzy)
-slow zoom out
-quick negative of window
-cut

3.Fast flash up of corridor (negative - quick sharp scream)

4.Newspaper clippings and photo/portraits of history (candle lit)
-track across
-flashes of scary things (relevant to the newspaper articles and photos)

5. Hallway with a host figure (flash no:1, sharp scream)

6. More Newspaper clippings and photo/portraits of history (candle lit)
-track across
-flashes of scary things (relevant to the newspaper articles and photos

7. Cut to outside old hall building (ghost in bottom right corner)
-Flick book style movements (jaunty angles) the ghost flickers randomly around the screen getting closer, towards camera through use of photos
-(black and white, grainy, fuzzy) Screams get loud and more synthetic- reference to the mirror scene in 'The Matrix'

First Draft: Opening sequence

The shot opens to a pan across countryside, the weather is dull and stormy. the camera pans right round to its view of a big old house in the country.
The camera begins to creep towards one of the windows of the house's first floor. then suddenly speeds up and melts through the window. A dark corridor lit by only a few ceiling lights, the camera pans across the wall of the corridor showing photos and newspaper articles, these reveal a vague story of murder and family hostility. this can partially introduce an evil entity, villain, murderer or monster.
The camera pans across the wall showing various different pictures, with each picture comes a very short cut scene of the situation in which the picture was taken, the camera turns to show the length of the corridor.
Throughout there will be a voice over of a phone call, with a girl in distress partially explaining the situation.

Brief Synopsis

A story about a haunted school. 5 students have gone in during the holidays and been massacred, ripped limb from limb :) . The start will be telling the story about what happened.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Fuzzy, black and white, old, distorted images.
It is narrated by a male voice. Cuts, flashes and the screen goes negative.
Selective sound is used.
Over exposure on the corridor. Zooms in to the light. Fades to white on evidence.
The colour on the important hits of evidence.
Selective sound- the banging of the tape.
Cuts to the film of the police walk through- this is in greyscale.
Title appears on screen. Fades out and a loud scream takes you to the film.

The Others

The first five minutes of 'The Others' is bathed in the idea of candle light and calm surpressed music. The film starts with a black screen followed by a women's calm reassuring voice, it creates a warm atmosphere that contradicts it's horror genre. this further creates confusion but is drowned out by the 'Creationism Speech' that the voice dictates.

Horror Movie Techniques

The main purpose of a horror movie is to scare the audience, this can either be through suspense, tension, sudden movement, gore or/and physcological thriller.

The Girl on the Bridge

Directed by Christian Fechner

The clip that we saw used various editting techniques to create suspense and tension within the scene. Accompanying the applause of the audience at the beginning of the scene is a fanfare sound which immediately establishes the importance of the impending act. At first we see the stage from the point of view of the audience, before seeing the point of view of the performing characters. These two perceptions contrast and the faces of each of the characters are fixed on for long periods of time, prolonging the suspense. A similar technique is used when the main character pulls the curtain shut, overlapping editting is used to extend the length of the act. This puts emphasis on the significance of the action and creates tension in the audience. When the non-diegetic music begins the audience falls silent, this drastic change in the crowds reaction accentuates the apprehensive atmosphere. The selective sound of the knife is emphasised to contrast with the silence and creates tension every time one hits. Fast cuts are then used when the knife hits the board to show the contact and then to move the focus back to the reaction of the two characters involved. This leaves the audience unsure as to what has happened and drags on the suspense throughout the scene.

Although this films genre isn't the same as the horror genre that we want to pursue for our course work, it includes some simple but effective techniques to create tension that we may be able to emmulate in our piece.

Horror genre Ideas

The aim of the opening scene of a horror movie is to introduce a villain or monster, and introduce it's characteristics through the use of a victim.
It should evoke a feeling of suspense or tension from the audience that will entice the audience to continue watching.
The Monster:victim ratio is suited to the type of monster and storyline.

Questionnaire Results Analysis

Will on comedy: After looking at the results of the questionnaire, we found the most popular genre to be comedy. This broadened our horizons, giving us the option for a comedy based film, but as we watched more comedy movies, it became clear that a lot of them weren't funny and it took a funny director to make them, and we're not funny.
Louise on comedy: We researched the opening sequences to various comedy movies, but decided that the first few minutes of the film don't necessarily reflect the comedy genre as we feel they rely more on the plot to emphasise the humour. Since we only time for the first few minutes of our piece to appeal to a certain type of audience, we decided that it would be more effective to create a suspensful sequence of a horror movie instead.

Preferences

Questionnaire Results

Our film

School Questionnaire Results

12-15 = 4
16-18 = 17
19-21 = 0
22- over= 1

male = 13
female = 11

comedy = 11
action = 2
horror = 5
romance = 3
thriller = 2
other - musical = 1

DVD = 7
Cinema = 15

Questionnaire - email the results to geo-yeh@hotmail.co.uk or post in a comment.

As an A level media group, we request 2 minutes of your time to fill out this questionnaire. This primary task will fuel the research for our own film.

Tick the correct box that applies to you.

1. How old are you?

12-15
16-18
19-21
22- Over

2. Gender?

Male
Female

3. What is your favourite genre of film?

Comedy
Action
Horror
Romance
Thriller
Other Please state ............................................................

4. Do you prefer to wait till DVDs are released or go to the cinema?

DVDs
Cinema

Thank you for your time.

Camera Angles

Our short film comprised of a range of camera angles and camera shots.

1. medium close up shot
2. pan left + right shot
3. Tracking shot
4. long shot
5. eye level shot
6. over the shoulder shot
7. point of view shot

Preliminary Task

The brief was to film someone walking into a room and exchanging a few lines of dialogue with another person.
We chose a corridor to film our entrance scene .
Using the 180 degree rule, the camera panned from left to right following the 'actor'. We incorporated various different filming techniques such as :
- Eye line match
- 180 degree rule
- Over the shoulder shot
We acheived all of these and believe they worked well.