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.