Finally, our horror film opening sequence... 'Witheld'.

As a small British film, we have decided as a group to aim our film at the British  population. Following this we thought it would be relevant for our film to be distributed by a British Label, British Filming Institution (BFI), therefore we decided to find a horror genre specific Company. Hammer Films seemed a perfect choice as they have a good history of horror films including Dracula, The Curse of Frankenstein and The Mummy. Even more recently they've had hits with The Resident, Wake Wood and The Woman in Black which which is a film that has similar conventions to our film 'witheld' for example the suspense that we tried to build as well as isolation.

Questions & answers about the process

Newspaper creation for opening shot

Here are a couple of newspapers created by Lela that we used for the opening sequence of 'Witheld'. By using tea we splashed onto a table with these and other created newspapers we created a great shot for our opening sequence as it gives the effect of the newspapers looking very old and authentic. Also, we dripped red food colouring on the newspapers to give the impression of it being blood fitting in with the horror genre as a code and convention.

Our production logo and Witheld Presentation

 

Our production logo, this was created by josh and it ties in well with our name as the picture is of a noose, and our production company are called Noose productions. Furthermore, we decided to use a noose as it is a piece of iconography that is included in our film as it is a part of the storyline and is a piece of icongraphy that is typical of a horror genre film.



              

This is our Witheld presentation, created by Lela and Chloe and presented by me and Josh.

These are the slides we used in our film presentation. This slideshow was really well created by Lela and Chloe and then presented by me and Josh. We tried to cover all aspects of the film looking at the codes and conventions and ending with asking the class and teacher if they had any questions. I will be uploading the video to our presentation soon.

This is our script for our film, it will appear at the start of the film at the time of the equilibrium to set the plot for the film.

Mind Map for plot of Witheld

Our mind map of ideas concerning the plot of 'Witheld'..our film!

Film Synopsis

Summary for our horror film..'Witheld'
As a group we created the idea of a spirit coming back to haunt younger girls and killing them, we decided that this would be R.O.P.E (Roy Opus Pele Eddisson). His motavation for the hanuting and killing is that 100 years ago he was wrongly accused of rape by a 17 year old girl called Jane Hattaway, Roy was, a few days later, hanged in Nottingham centre for the rape of Jane. So five girls are out in Chilwell on a park talking about a party the next day, (equalibrium) suddenly they all receive a text at the same time, it turns out to be chainmail. Four of the girls read the text but one dismisses it as she does not believe in ready the chainmail. Later that night, after all of the girls have gone home, we look at each girl seperately, over numerous amount of days. The first girl is home alone when she hears noises, she goes downstairs to investigate but realises that it is just nothing. She returns back upstairs to the bathroom so she can start getting ready for bed, as she is brushing her teeth the lights in the bathroom go out, and screaming and banging echos around the house. The lights come back on, and blood has coated the bathroom with the first girl dangling for the shower, she has been hanged. The story progresses, as three of the four other girls eventually die in different places, but after every death, a clue is left by R.O.P.E which leads the last girl, who never read the chainmail, to pick up on the clues and look at the past history, discovering the mystery.

BBFC

Originally, we decided that our target audience for our film would be both male and females aged 16 - 24. This is because these aged people go to the cinema more often than any other age group and we feel that our film would attract this age group of both females and males. However, we have decided to change it slightly to ages 15 - 24 due to the required BBFC for the film which would be a certificate 15!

The results of our target audience questionnaire in the form of pie/bar graphs.
They show us that the majority of people that we asked, that fit into our target audience, think that horror films should have gore in them. This has helped us to decide whether or not we should include gore in our own production of a horror film, and as it is obviously a convention of a horror film that is appealing, it would be sensible to include gore, we believe.
Also, the results for which is the most popular sub-genre for a horror film is demonic possession closely followed by serial killer. This has inspired us to use one of these sub-genres for our own horror film, we have decided to go for a serial killer in our film as it is evidently a popular sub-genre for horror films.
Furthermore, the results to the question regarding what the scariest thing about horror films is, shows that suspense/tension, is the scariest convention of a horror film, once again through its popularity we have decided to focus a lot on this feature of a horror film in our own.

Basic plot to our horror film opening sequence.

Filming techniques and our preliminary task

An example of a 'match on action' shot that we learned, from youtube.<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Mv93covb53w" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

An example of a 'shot/reverse shot' another technique we have learnt, from youtube. <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/cvof8mI6pXk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

An example of '180 degree rule' a final technique we have learnt, from youtube. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wq40uhYowBI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

These are all filming techniques that we have learnt in class and will help us in filming our horror film opening sequence.




This is our preliminary task, it is to give us some practice using the camera and also to use some of the techniques we have learnt in class.

I've made some questions to ask about horror films for the target audience, male and female aged 15-24, for our horror film opening sequence. This is to give me a greater understanding about what it is in horror films that makes them so successful! The questions for the questionairre that i will be asking people soon:
1) What is the scariest part of horror films? Unpredictability, Suspense/tension built up, Violence/gore, Villains.
2) What do you think is the scariest horror film?
3) What sub-genre is the scariest in horror films? Gore, Cannibalism, Haunted house, Zombie, Serial killers, Supernatural, Demonic possession.
4)Would you rather go to the cinema to see a horror film or another genre film? Please specify which other genre.
5) Should horror films all have lots of gore?

Opening Sequence to 'Scream' 1996 and my analysis

My mood board.

This is a mood board on the audience of my horror film, it includes gender, age, and the types of things they do with their time as well as products associated with the age of the horror film audience.

Genre mood board! Horror.

Shows different things that people may be afraid of, along with words associated with the 'horror' genre.

AS Media Blog

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

How does your product re-present particular social groups?

What kind of media institution might distribute your film and why?

Who would be the audience for your media products?

What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?

I'm making an opening sequence to a horror film with; Josh Bakewell, Lela Finch, Chloe Hallam :)