OPENENING SEQUENCE OF MY HORROR FILM

Planning Opening Sequences

1. Decide on which sequence is going to be constructed in your group?

2. Begin to plan out the construction:

· Locations? (consider cost and distance)
· Who is required? (Cast)
· Think about narrative elements? (Story)
· Mise en Scene – (mood/ style/ genre/ elements

Then story board out shots:

What is a Horror film?

I thought this video on Youtube was quite helpful.

Horror films exploit the audiences Fears or Terrors. For example, horror films often incorporate these aspects into the narrative, as these are all common fears;

• the fear of the unknown/monsters
  ·
• the fear of the body being ripped/ mutilated
  ·
• people’s personal boundaries being crossed/ someone in your house,
  
  People enjoy horror films because it allows them to identify with and experience these fears from a safe distance.
  
  Ideologies discussed with in horrors
  
  
• Themes of punishment, Rejection and Repulsion at subjects that are considered ‘wrong’ within society.
  
• The condemnation of any deviant beliefs/values/religions (such as NON CHRISTIAN behaviour, for example, the virgin, non-smoker, non-drinker, ‘good’ girl surviving at the expense of her rebellious, ‘slutty’ counterparts.
  
• Our modern perception that the power of science can defeat the ‘Darkness’, in contrast to our older beliefs in religion and superstition. For example, the modern Halloween, a Dr trying to treat the murderer because he is ‘mental’, has developed from Dracula being treated by the priest with holy water and crosses.
  
• Exploitation of subtle fears, that gradually build suspense without out much explicit imagery, they are psychological and allow the imagination to create its own fears, alternatively ‘Slashers’ (Halloween, Friday 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street) are very explicit and have limited implicit messages, they are very visually obvious and not so much psychological.
• Horror films suggest that all escaped mental patients go out and stab people and all hitchhikers are really murderers, however is that really the case? But horror films create this misconception.

ANGELDUST (HORROR POWERPOINT)

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PRELIM TASK POST PRODUCTION TASK

To edit our footage, we first access it from the ‘Final Cut Server’, where the rushes had been uploaded from the camera tape. We opened the edit proxy (digital copy of the footage) from ‘Final Cut Server’, into ‘Final Cut Pro’ where the editing takes place.

Continuity editing is the process of arranging shots in a way that makes sense to the audience and keeps the story consistent. The use of ‘match-on-action’ and ‘eye-line-match’ shots are essential in Continuity editing. Continuous diegetic sound is just as important as the consistency between shots. Sound can be used as a sound bridge between shots, to help show a less obvious edit.

Before arranging the shots, it is necessary to log the shots. This is because the edit proxy is a single video and we need to have each shot individually. To do this we create a new folder to organise our shots in, this is called the ‘Log Bin’. We find the beginning of a particular shot on the main video, selecting the best take of the shot if we have made a few takes, we press the ‘I’ key (in) on the key board to select the point at which our shot begin and press the ‘O’ key (out) to select the point at which our shot ends. We then select ‘modify shot’, give it an appropriate name so we can select the correct shot quickly, and save it into the ‘Log Bin’. We only save the shots into the ‘Log Bin’ that are appropriate for use and free from errors.



We then positioned the shots we want to use, in the order required on the timeline in 'Final Cut Pro', to do this we had to consult our storyboard for the order the shots should be in. We had to ensure all the transitions between the shots were smooth and so that they ran well into each other, and so that the transitions were not obvious. We could not follow the storyboard exactly because they did not fit together. The majority of the screen time is given to Ross, as he is the most important character in the sequence. We had two close ups, one on the suit case as this is the most important

Intro to video camera

We were taught the basics of operating a professional video camera. We learnt what the icons on the veiwfinder display meant, and how to understand them and alter them.
The timecode: 00.00.00.00 the hour, the minute, the second, the frame number (0-24. The camera captures 25 frames per second)

too much gain, too much unnatural light ruins the effect of the shot.

Intro to stills camera

In our intro to stills camera, we learnt several techniques of taking still images.

We learnt about deviding our shots up, in particular 'the rule of thirds', in which you focus on four hot-spots (where the lines intersect) and the different spaces surrounding the lines, and how depending on where the subject of our shot is positioned, it changes the feel of our image. For example; if the image is taken from below, looking up at the subject, we get what is called a 'hero shot' where the subject is put in a position of power and is presented as a 'hero'

Example of a 'Hero Shot'. The subject is placed in a position of power, making the audience feel inferior.

The opposite of a 'hero shot' is a 'god shot', where the subject is put in a position of inferiority and the audience is in a possition of power.

Film Poster

This is my movie poster titled 'The Curse of the Shadow People'. I used a picture i took of a girl leaning on a fence, using the lasso tool I cut her out of the picture. I then found an image of a stone grave, i used the lasso tool to cut the grave out of the image and position the girl so it looked like she was leaning on the grave.

I found an image of a large open grave yard, and set this as the back layer, to serve as my background. The tombstones in the image were very white so I used the burn tool to make them look darker and scarier and more fitting with the theme.

I found an image of a darkened outline of a person in a stereotypical 'zombie' way. The body shape is crooked and opresive, this was perfect to use as 'shadow people'. I copied the image a few times, and pasted several layers. I then transformed each one individually, using transform tools; skew, rotate, scale and flip vertical.

The writing is quite a sinister gothic font and almost faded like a 'shadow' to reflect the title.
The colours are quite dark and nuteral to reflect the theme of a 'shadow', apart fromn the red writing which reflects the colour of blood in a stereotypical horror movie poster way.