Analysis of two minute opening film sequences

Analysis of two minute film sequences

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Theories of Narrative: Scream

Theories of Narrative: Scream

Theories of Narrative: The Ring

Theories of Narrative: The Ring

Analysis Of Title Sequences

Analysis of title sequences

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Audience Questionnaire For Our Teen Horror

To research and plan the opening film sequence effectively I must demonstrate an appreciation of our potential target audience, so who is going to watch/consume your product. This could help influence your creative our process also as Im am the script and story boarder it could help me create new ideas for our opening sequence and the easiest way of doing this is to get/use ideas that are brought forward from a questionnaire - here are some suggested questions based upon asking about you're our chosen sub genre teen horror.

I would distribute the questionnaire to at least ten people of different ages and gender in order to get a different opinions. Once I have received the questionnaires back and read through the feedback I would create a table/pie chart on Microsoft excel reviewing the key themes and data I received.

Media Questionnaire.

Institutional Research

Media Institutions tend to produce certain types of films or have qualities/values associated with their brand. So for our film we need instiutions that can make the concept, strory line and genre clear. Below i have created a powerpoint on what film distributor i would use if i was going to actually distribute our film; inhumane.

Institutional Research

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Production and distribution companies

I belive that decided DNA films is the best company to produce our film as as they are an independant British Production company who make short films which corresspond with the same style as our film. Finally, I think we should use Fox searchlight Pictures as our distribution company as they are independant British distributors who distribute modern British films including '28 days later' whihch has a similar storyline to ours even though the genre is different. Also, Fox Searchlight Pictures has distributed many independent Britsh films so they may be willing to distribute ours. In addtion to this the distribution company has released many film that are "15's and 18's", this showed me that they could help us reach/ target our audience.

Film Certification Research

UK film/video classifications
Below is a image displaying all the film ratings under BBFC. this in important as if our film was produced and distributed we would need a film rating on it.

BBFC Ratings Research

Below is a word document displaying information from the british board film rating scale. I out souced this information from the website itself which is www.bbfc.co.uk after reading the website I decided to make a table of the information I found out as the group would need to put an age rating on our opening film sequence; Inhumane. British Board of Film Classification

Synopsis research - Paranormal Activity 3

Synopsis of Paranormal Activity 3

The Paranormal Activity franchise continues with this third outing from Paramount Pictures. The film is about two sisters that try to make sense of the supernatural events they experienced as children.

How can this be related to our opening sequence?

Paranormal activity is a supernatural horror and uses the concept of “home movie” to portray the story line. However in our film our group has decided to down play the elements of supernatural horror in order for it to meet its target audience of 15-16 year old teenagers and the genre of teen horror. Although Paranormal activity is one of the best known films for its elements of fantasy which is incorporated with horror, in order for our opening sequence to be a success basing our ideas around this movie would help create a wining opening sequence.

Snopsis Research - Chronicle

Snopsis Of the Movie Chronicle

Three high school friends are exploring in the woods when they come across a mysterious substance. Soon after the strange discovery, they each begin developing a unique super power and find that the best way to hone their new skills is to play around with them together. But as their personal lives get in the way, the very powers that brought them closer together may just be what inevitably destroys them.As they begin to learn their may be a darker side to having powers.

How can this relate to our opening sequence

Three high school friends are exploring in the woods when they come across a mysterious substance. Soon after the strange discovery, they each begin developing a unique super power and find that the best way to hone their new skills is to play around with them together. But as their personal lives get in the way, the very powers that brought them closer together may just be what inevitably destroys them.

Synopsis Research - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

A Synopsis of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Driving through the backwoods of Texas,on their way to a Lynard Skynard concert in Dallas five teenagers pick up a traumatized hitchhiker,who then shoots herself with a gun at the back of their van. Looking for the local authorities, the group travels through the town, meeting the locals. One by one, they are picked off by a strange man with a demented face. Realizing that they are in mortal danger, they must escape from the town from a family of cannibals and a chainsaw wielding mad man.

How does this relate to our opening sequence?

This remake of the Texas chainsaw Massacre, relates to our opening sequence in a number of ways one of which is that is is a well known teen horror that involves them escaping from a man. However in our opening sequence the teenagers will be escaping the "killer disease" that is being spread around. Although the plots may be slightly different there are many similarities between them as in both scenario's it seems there is no way out and they have to fight the impossible in order to survive what lies ahead of them. In addition to this in the trailer it has, digetic music such as a heartbeat and uses flash's of light that look like pictures, this holds the image in the audiences mind whilst absorbing the the film. We could use this in our opening sequence as it is based on cctv camera, devices such as ipods, mobiles and dv cameras. So it could connate the fact that something is going to happen.

Synopsis Research - I know what you did last summer

Synopsis of the film I know what you did last summer

It's the fourth of July and four friends Julie, Ray, Helen, and Barry are celebrating along with graduation. On their way home they hit a pedestrian walking down a curved corner. They make a pact to keep it a secret in hopes of saving their futures. While dumping the body in a near by sea, the body becomes alive and tries to attach Helen. They throw him in and never return to that site. One year later, Julie returns home from college for summer break. In the mail she receives a letter stating that "I know what you did last summer." Julie freaks out and gathers up her old friends who are now separated, miserable and not speaking. They all decide to find out who saw them that fateful night and in the process of tracking the suspect down, the body count goes up.

How can this relate to our opening sequence?

"I know what you did last summer" is a typical teen horror, about four teenagers which is what our concept is based upon, although there is a different plot/story line. It is one of the best examples that follows our code/conventions. There are also subtle uses of horror which we could use in our opening sequence. Futhermore I believe that this is a prime example of what we should aspire to in order to create a worth while opening sequence.

A presentation of the sub genres of horror

Horror-sub genres.

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Other Sub-Genres of Horror

Although our group has already decided on Teen horror as our sub genre i have made a powerpoint which explains other sub genres of horror just in case we decide later on to change our inital genre. Also it expands my knowledge of the sub-genres of horror for future prefrence.

Generic Codes and Conventions of Teen Horrors

In order for our opening sequence to be a sucess me and other members of the group have to be able to understand the codes and conventions of typical teen horror films. This involves watching and identifying similar techqiues displayed in all the teen horror films. Below is a powerpoint I created that displays information I discovered after doing an internet search on google and using my own knowledge from teen horrors I have already seen.

Codes & Conventions of a Teen Horror

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The genre of our opening sequence - Teen Horror

After having a group discussion we have all decided that the best genre to make our opening sequence is teen horror as we all all teenagers ourselves and we have easy acess to teenagers due to our friends from school so it should not be too hard to find the actors and actresses to perform in our film.

Preliminary Evaluation Audio Response

As You Tube is now backing and running we were able to upload our audi evaluation. The video shows Ameerah(on the left),Carmelita(me;in the middle),Sam(on the right)talking about our preliminary evaluation. What went well, what worked and what could be improved when doing the actual opening sequence.

Premiliniary Evaluation Video/Audio

Ameerah, Sam and I created a video that showed us talking about our premliminary evaluation we did this via web cam on an apple mac. This showed that we learnt how to use different forms of media to present our task. However due to Youtube not being able to upload the video it is not availbe at this present moment in time. On the other hand there is a written evalaution that includes some of the key points that was mentioned during our premilinary evaluation. Considering the fact theat the deadline for our blog is due tomorrow it will not be uploaded in time but was created.

Preliminary Evaluation

Prelim Eval

Preliminary task - "Have you fed the fish ?"

Our Preliminary task was based on a short script and a small cast, and was a way in which we could practice for our opening sequence

Preliminary Task Script

Preliminary Task Script

Media Lesson - Preliminary Task

From my previous media lesson I found out that we had to carry out a preliminary task in order to practice working togther as a group, drawing/completing a story board, the strengths and weaknesses of the group, how us use the required equipment e.g. tripod, hd camera ect. and how to edit our footage. Although the script was pre preapered and given to us we had a lot of lee way as we could interpret it into whatever we wanted. In the lesson we came up with a mafia style way of interpreting the script so there would be two body guards and main person the would be controlling the victim and the line "Have you fed the fish" could be a code for something else. Our group has arranged to get together in our free periods to complete the film and edit it. I belive that i will learn a lot from this experience and so will the other members of my group; both pros and cons.

The concept of using black and white in our film opening

“Lou Lou lives here” is a short film that I came across when looking for ideas on the BBC film network homepage, it is made by British actors and had a small budget to work with. What I grasped from watching this video clip is that Lou Lou is a girl that turns into a dog, I found the concept of the film interesting as it was not what I expected. I also found the use of black and white an effective and powerful tool as it create a sense of suspicion as black can symbolise death and many other sinful things, as well as this through the short film not actual words were but the audience can quickly pick up what is going on through the sense of sound, not only is this imaginative but it strides away from the usual which is characters speaking to one another. The use of close ups is another aspect of the film that would absorb the audiences attention, as we are planning on creating a teen horror, I think it would be a good idea if close ups were used as they distract the audience from what’s going on around them and is a technique used to shock/ surprise them. If we incorporated all these elements in the opening of our film, i believe it would be beneficial for our group.

Ideas for the opening sequence

This Youtube clip is from a BBC drama called Survivors although it is not an opening of a film it is based on a similar idea to ours where there is only a few people living and they have to come together to fight off a disease. In this short video clip a wealthy playboy wakes to find girl he met the night before dead in his bed, a young boy is surrounded by dead bodies in a mosque and so is a charismatic and dangerous inmate in a prison; a brave new world is emerging and the survivors must unite and stand together or die. In our film the dead bodies would most likely turn into zombies as is it will be a teen horror and not a BBC TV drama. When I first watched the clip I found the whole concept entertaining and I was in suspense/shock as I didn't understand what had happened, if this feeling was created in our film it would engage the audience and could result in a good film opening.

Media Lesson Inspiration

Today I had a media lesson with my teacher Mr Roberts, the lesson was to inspire us to come up with ideas for our opening sequence. He showed us a few clips from numerous websites showing pass media film openings and short films. We were then given a chance to do research of our own. I was particulary inspired by BBC film network videos some of which help me come up with ideas of my own e.g the concept of using black and white, how death can be incorporated and whether there should be one or many survivor's in our opening sequence

Our first concept

From a group dicussion in class we brainstormed an idea for our opening film sequence based on the theories that the world is coming to an end. Intially we got this idea from the film 2012. However I suggested that we should use one of the theoires that I researched whihch said how the world would come to an end. I found a list of ten theories, from which we chose was the idea of "disease as it would be one of the easiest to potray and one were audiences members would be able to understand it easily visually.

Disaster movie – genre horror (possibly teen horror)

Movie title: Apocalypse

Characters: Dead people – At least 10 no more than 30
Group of friends – 3
Other actors for the background

Synopsis: We are basing our opening five minutes on the concept of the end of the world. There are many theories about what is going to happen but as a group we have decided to on the basis of a disease that takes over. Once a person catches the “killer disease” there eye turns a different colour, and the disease takes over their soul and body and slowing begin to die. When discussing the difference between disaster movies with elements of horror and movies without elements of horror it was clear that movies that involved horror had supernatural and horrific elements. It also makes the audience petrified, as they don’t know what’s going to happen. In addition to this horror is the feeling of revulsion that usually occurs after something frightening is seen, heard, or otherwise experienced in our case this will be the ending of the world/2012. It is the feeling you get after coming to an awful realization or experiencing a deeply unpleasant occurrence. In other words, horror is more related to being shocked or scared, while a disaster movie has an impending or ongoing disaster (such as a damaged airliner, fire, shipwreck, disease, an asteroid collision or natural calamities) as its subject. Along with showing the spectacular disaster, these films concentrate on the chaotic events surrounding the disaster, including efforts for survival, the effects upon individuals and families, and 'what-if' scenarios. In our opening five minutes we are going to try and combine these two concepts together in order to create a successful film opening.

2012 Movie another trailer

2012 movie trailer

2012 is a disaster movie maven which written and directed by Roland Emmerich who also had involvement in the films Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow. 2012 crafts this apocalyptic sci-fi thriller following the prophecy stated by the ancient Mayan calendar, which says that the world will come to an end on December 21, 2012. Ever before has a date in history been so significant to so many cultures, so many religions, scientists, and governments. "2012" is an epic adventure about a global cataclysm that brings an end to the world and tells of the heroic struggle of the survivors. When a global cataclysm thrusts the world into chaos, divorced writer and father Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) joins the race to ensure that humankind is not completely wiped out.

A 5 minute clip of the movie 2012