LOCKED

This is the finished version of our psychological horror opening sequence: LOCKED. I am very pleased with the end result and am glad that it is finally completed.

'Boom' - Sound

When researching horror sound effects, as we have added many to our opening sequence, I found that most of them are used to make the audience jump or to create tension. The sound effects that are in our sequence consist of a telephone ringing, a heartbeat and a voice-over. We did however add a 'boom' sound effect at the beginning of the sequence and really liked this. This lead us onto adding more as they matched our genre.

 

When watching some horror sequences such as 'Scream' I noticed that 'boom' sound effects are used quite frequently when ever something notable happens.

 

 

Whenever the killer says something intimidating to the main character there is a boom sound effect. At 2:17 in the sequence the antagonist says "I want to know who I'm looking at" and as the fear crosses the characters face there is a quiet and subtle boom sound effect signify that something is happening and the character could be in potential danger. A similar sound can be heard at 3:28 when the antagonist says "Blondie" showing that he knows and can see the character. The sound following this is quick boom-like effect representing danger. This sound continues until the character thinks she is safe by locking the doors. The final boom is at the end of the sequence at 4:59 when the antagonist knows the name of the characters boyfriend. The sound effect is subtle and tells the audience that the antagonist is correct and whatever happens next cannot be good. This is also accompanied by the characters face of shock:

 

 

Like our opening sequence a boom sound effect signifies when something bad is about to happen. In our sequence we have a boom whenever the antagonist shows up: in the corridor, when they grab the protagonist and in the media room. This represents that this character is evil one in the film and anything including them will have grave consequences.

Black Swan - Use of Editing

'Black Swan' has a elegant, beautiful opening sequence that I think is a nice way to start of film. The use of editing in this opening sequence is simple yet effective during the repetitive shots.

The sequence starts with a soft piano track and the production company's name in a simple white text on a black ground. The letters fade individually away and fade into the first shot of a black piece of chalk (or crayon) on a piece of paper. The shot gets lighter and follows the chalk as it moves. The movement is smooth which matches the music. Most of the shots cross fade into each other so that if pauses at the right moment both shots can be seen. Some shots are longer than others but they all fade into each other:

 

In this image two shots can be seen and they overlap each other. This has a nice flowing effect that make one shot slowly transition into the next.

 

The faster and more vigorously the crayon moves the shorter the shot. This could represent that the character will go through some troubles and/or aggression and they may quick and rash decision like the edits. The sequence ends with a pan shot of a large black scribble showing that the elegant drawing has gone wrong somewhere.

 

I think that although the sequence is repetitive and short the edits are smooth and could have a hidden underlined message behind them that is for the audience to figure out. The edits match the music and credits perfectly.

Target Audience - Why is it Important?

Having the right target audience is one of the most important factors to take into consideration when making a film. Depending on the genre every film will have its own target audience and will create the film around what that audience likes and wants to see when they watch the film.

 

 

Age ratings are given to all films which is a small indicator for the age group the creators of the film had in mind when making it. Horror films usually have the rating of 18 whereas a animated comedy will have a U or PG rating. The higher the age rating the more violence, sex, gore and explicit language will be used in the film as the audience is more mature to those kind of things and will know what to expect before watching.

 

 A good example of an 18 rated horror film that is aimed for a target audience around 18 - 28 is the horror film 'Halloween':
 

 

This film is clearly intended for an older audience as it involves murder and nudity within the first 4 minutes. The ending of the opening often shocks viewers during the first viewing, it is also likely to disturb the audience due to the young age of the killer. The target audience of 18's and over is very important for a film like Halloween as it is not suitable for young children due to the suggestive themes and murder, even though it is not seen directly.

When creating our opening sequence we had a target audience of 15 - 25 in mind as we felt that younger people would have a bigger interest in our film than others however, like all films, there are always people that are not part of the target audience that watch and enjoy the film.  The reason we made our target audience 15 - 25 is because as teenagers we know that most people are age would be interested in watching a horror film and as ours is a psychological horror set in a school our target audience would be able to relate to or understand the character in our opening.

As our film does not include graphic violence or major amounts of blood I think our film could be passed as a PG but would be better as a 15 as the point of the film is to make the audience uncomfortable.

Horror Clichés

Clichés are in most films no matter how unique they are. Props and gender stereotypes involve the most clichés especially  in a horror genre:

 

An opening sequence that I think shows these clichés in an effective way rather than making them predictable and boring is Saw:

  

 

This opening sequence introduces the horror genre through many clichés such as: darkness, chains, blood, dirt and a dead body. It perfectly lets the audience know what to expect throughout the film by presenting these commonly used themes in a new and refreshing way.

Mise-En-Scene in Horror Films

Mise-en-scene is important in any film especially horrors. The setting, clothing, hair and makeup and objects such as flashlights and murder weapons are all crucial to the film. The audience will immediately associate certain places with genres and will know what a person is like from their clothing. Their will also be items in the film that the audience would expect to see in that genre.

 

Mise-en-scene is something that should always be thought of when making a horror film. For our opening sequence we had our main character wear a ID badge showing that she was a sixth form/college student. Our antagonist wears only black as the colour is usually associated which horror, loneliness and darkness which I think represents that character quite well. As our location is in a school our props match the scene. Our props are schoolbooks, pens and a pencil case, a backpack, a coat, a mobile phone and a class full of computers. Our character having a mobile phone does fall  into the commonly used horror props which I personally think is a good thing as I wanted to keep some horror clichés in our piece as well as making it unique.

Gender Representations in Psychological Horrors

(Blog Post on Genre and Gender in Horror + Gender Stereotypes)

 

Psychological horrors rely on atmosphere and the mystery of the unknown to spook the audience whether this is through the actual film or the posters advertising it. However psychological horrors are no different from regular horror films when it comes to stereotypes. The gender stereotypes used in horror films are usually the same: a defenceless young woman as the protagonist that narrowly escapes death throughout the entire movie and the male antagonist that is usually a fully grown man and carries a weapon that matches the way he kills or a young girl or doll that possesses supernatural powers. These stereotypes are used in horror films, psychological included, as they work. The audience is familiar with these stereotypes and immediately put them into categories.

 

The psychological horror 'The Conjuring' was a highly praised film that marketed the film with teaser posters before it was released. The first picture they released was a tree with a noose hanging from it. This only hinted at the themes that would be in the film and gave no suggestions towards who the characters were and what the threat in the film would be. However the second poster included many stereotypes from the horror genre, including gender:

 

 

 

The stereotype for the antagonist is there and the gender stereotype of the protagonist. From the poster it is hinting that the woman in the rocking chair is the protagonist, a female that is unaware of the threat, the doll, and is looking straight forward. She is clueless to the threat which also shows the audience that this is a psychological horror and the girl herself looks unkempt which could be hint towards the characters mental state. This kind of character shows up continually in many different horror films as the audience will know this kind of character well as because of the female protagonist stereotypes they will now what to except from her during the movie.

The Shining Opening Sequence - Sound and Credits

The Shining is a psychological horror film that has a simple yet effective opening sequence. The sound used creates a uneasy, tense atmosphere that contrasts with the picturesque scene of the hills and lake. The credits are simple and cannot be missed as the flow over the screen.

This sequence has effected our group opening sequence as it has given us ideas for music and credits. The music is low, simple and repetitive similar to the one that we made for our opening. It is tense and creates a sense of mystery and enigma about the place the sequence is shot. The low and deep sounding piece of music helps represent the psychological horror genre in a different way by using sound effects such as the strange high pitch noises that can be heard in the clip from 1:25 onwards. If the music was happy and upbeat it would portray a different genre therefore the music suits the current situation perfectly: mysterious music to match a unknown location that the audience is unfamiliar with.


The credits are a soft blue that roll over the scene like end credits usually do at the end of the film. These credits are incredibly simple especially when they are compared to credits in films such as Zombieland where the credits smash when touched:



Although the Zombieland credits are interesting and entertaining to watch the simplicity of The Shining's credits is just as effective as it achieves what credits are suppose to do. They simply inform the audience of the key details in the film. This will be similar to our credits as we are unfamiliar with the program After Effects we will make simple credits which we were unhappy with at first  but after watching The Shining opening sequence we saw that it could match our genre.

Group Progress - Sound

When re-thinking our ending for our opening sequence my group and I decided that we wanted to set an atmosphere that matched the genre of our film. As a psychological horror silence is usually the best way to create a tense atmosphere however we were not sure whether that would work and needed some inspiration for our ending. We searched the internet for creepy horror films, TV shows and video games before finding a hugely popular psychological horror game called 'Silent Hills - P.T". This provided us with the inspiration for our ending and how to use sound effects alongside silence or music to make the footage more interesting. We also found that their were already many similarities between our opening sequence and the game such as the dark corridor scene in our opening and the dimly-lit corridor in the game. We now have a clear idea of our ending for our opening sequence that we think will match the genre and create a tense atmosphere.

 

GROUP BLOG POST

 

Our Opening Sequence

Silent Hills P.T

 

 

Group Progress - What Makes Our Opening Unique?

As our opening is set in a school we needed to make it look creepy to show that we did not pick the easiest location to film and we put the effort into making the corridors dark and making it match our genre. This makes our sequence different as we waited for everyone to leave and turned the media room dark and creepy by putting static on the computer

Something notable about our character is that she doesn't talk. Although we will have a voice-over the character is never seen speaking in our sequence. She screams, gasps and mutters the words "Stop!" she never says anything more than one word. I think this makes our character more enigmatic as all the audience will know about her is what the voice-over tells them throughout the opening and most characters in other people's sequences have at least one line.

 

 

Many other media students use the theme of a stalker we wanted to make ours different by making the stalker keep disappearing and will only attack when provoked rather than killing randomly. We want our genre to stand out amongst the other horror opening sequences as a psychological horror. We have not seen another psychological horror so we think this could set us apart from the other sequences in our class.

Group Blog: http://shotgunproductions.blogspot.co.uk/

Who Would Distribute Our Film?

Distribution is the main part of a film and every film needs one if they are going to make their film available to the public. The larger and more well-known distribution company that I think should distribute our film is the company Paramount Pictures or Lionsgate. Paramount Pictures distributed Paranormal Activity which was a hugely successful indie horror film. Paranormal Activity was on a small budget and I think that our film would also be a low-budget indie horror film. As Paramount Pictures managed to make a film that not many people had faith in a huge hit which went on to have several sequels I think that it can do the same for our film as it has a lot in common with Paranormal Activity.

Lionsgate has distributed many famous films such as the Hunger Games series but also produced the horror film Saw. Although Saw is a more brutal than our film I still think it resembles some similarities and, like Paramount Pictures, Lionsgate managed to make Saw a success with several sequel being made after. They distributed the film to be a success and that is what I would want for our film.

Although these companies are large and would probably be hard to get to distribute the film but I think that if they decided to do it they could make our film have a fan base like they did with their own horror films.

An indie distribution company that I think would suit our film is Artisan Entertainment. They distributed 'The Blair Witch Project' and is a lesser-known company compared to Paramount and Lionsgate. The Blair Witch Project was a popular indie film that managed to create a buzz before it had even been distributed. Artisan Entertainment distributed the film after the film had been marketed in such a successful way that the audience thought the film was a true story, Artisan Entertainment could then distribute the film in various ways and the target audience would watch it. I think that as our film is a psychological horror, just like The Blair Witch Project, Artisan Entertainment could distribute our film in the exact same way as the other films they have distributed as they are all small budgeted indie films similar to ours.

The Ring Opening Sequence

The Ring is a psychological horror film that focuses more on atmosphere and building up suspense rather than contently scaring the audience. It perfectly makes the audience become extremely tense until the climax which is quick and ends within a few seconds.

 

 

 

The sequence starts with a shot of a teenage girl about to walk out of her kitchen when she hears a static sound. The screen then goes into a close-up shot of the girl to show her shock and confused expression. This lets the audience know that something is obviously wrong. The TV is then shown to be the source of the sound and has been turned on however the room is empty and the remote lays on the sofa untouched. This creates a sense of enigma, the audience know that something is happening but nobody, neither the audience or character, know what is causing the problem but the audience wants to find out more. The girl turns off the TV and places the remote down however the TV turns back on causing the girl to stop in her tracks. The character blames another person in the house however the audience will know that something else is causing these problems. There is then a noise causing the girl to turn to face where it came from, only to see nothing suspicious. The fridge then flies open and after closing it the girl travels upstairs to find the only other person in the house. However the is a liquid all over the floor by the door and dripping of the door handle. There is a shot of her hand slowly opening the door before a flash of events. She bursts open the door, sees the TV on the death tape, the camera zooms into on her face, it is difficult to see what happens but it looks like her face melts or (as it is psychological) has been possessed. There is then several image flashed onto the screen followed by the TV static.

The audience is left to only guessed what the images are as they flash up for less than a second and what happened to the girl. A large sense of enigma is left behind as there are many unanswered questions that the audience will want answers to.

Using sounds to create a sense of atmosphere is key for a psychological horror and this opening used it perfectly. There is music on very quietly in the background and makes the scene even more sinister. Static is also a key sound and is heard 3 times during the sequence and hints that it will be a important feature that the audience will have to look out for later on in the film.

The camera shots are also different instead of all being medium shots such as high angle from the top of the stairs to make the character seem smaller and a close up of her hand on the door handle. This makes the sequence more interesting to watch as although the continuity edits are very smooth it is still a creative way to show the basic activities that the girl is doing.

Opening Credits - Zombieland

Opening credits show who had a main part in making the film such as the producer, actors and designers, some are words over a background and others are included in the films footage. One of the most interesting opening credits belongs to the film Zombieland.

Zombieland Official Poster

Before the credits begin the film gives a bit of background to the film as a narrator sets some rules to follow during the film. It is also to set the tone of a horror survival situation but the narration gives it an element of humour. The credits start at 2:40 in the video and are cleverly placed into the scenes. The scenes that are playing are all in slow motion so that they are barely moving, this lets the audience look at the scene and the credits. Each scene shows a different horror that the characters will be facing through the film, the main threat being the zombies.

The credits themselves are placed into the scenes in a bold red text so that they are noticeable  and stand out in each scene however the most interesting point about the credits is that if a character crosses the text instead of going through it the text gets knocked out of the way. This represents the tone of the film as the world is falling apart and fading away much like the text.

Target Audience Questionnaire

Questionnaire - Target Audience for Psychological Horror

Name:

Age:


1) What is your favourite movie genre?

2) How do you watch films? (DVD? Netflix? Downloads?)

3) What is your favourite film?

4) What do you like most about your favourite film? (Story? Characters?)

5) What do you think psychological horror films should include?

6) How would you feel and what would you do if you were the main character in our film plot?



Group Progress - Ideas

When discussing ideas for our opening sequence we decided straight away that we wanted to do a horror film. Although horror is a popular choice and is seen as the easy genre I disagree, I think that a good horror film is difficult to make as it has to contain scares but also trying to avoid using too many clichés and having something about it that sets it apart from the others. When discussing what kind of horror film we wanted to do we decided on a psychological horror. This allowed us to be more creative and focus more on the atmosphere than jump scares. We wrote down two different stories to chose from on the group blog but after discussing which one would be interesting to watch we settled on the second on we had written as we had put more thought into it. The plot for our opening sequence is:

As the first draft of our plot it will likely be changed by adding and taking away parts of it. An actor will also need to be chosen for the main character and a storyboard will need to be made to help us have a clearer idea of the shots when we begin to film.

Genre and Gender Representations - Horror

Genre is the most important part of a film as it lets the audience know what to expect when they hit play. All films have a genre such as horror, action, thriller and comedy and some even combine two together such as action thrillers and romantic comedies. All of these genres have something specific about them which makes the film fall under certain categories.

 

Horror is mostly associated with darkness, blood and murder so in a movie trailer if anything like or similar to those aspects the audience automatically knows that the trailer is advertising a horror film and would be surprised if it turned out to be anything else. For example a rom-com is unlike to involve a killer that walks around in a mask and a bloodied knife during the night as this would usually fall under the horror genre, if it did the audience would likely be very surprised when watching the film.

 

Most people can assign a film a genre with classic 'clichés' that show up in trailers or during the film. For example some horror clichés would be:

 

• Creepy Locations (hospitals, abandoned buildings, forests)
• Darkness (with only a flashlight/small amount of light to see)
• Killer / Dolls / Young Girls as Murderers
• Blood
• Demons / Supernatural

These are only a few but most of these things are the parts of horror films that people enjoy the most. The poster for the horror film Friday the 13th shows most of the points above:

 

 

Genre often includes stereotypes of the two different genders by having characters that are require to act a certain way. Sticking with the genre of horror the main protagonist is usually someone that has no idea of their current situation, whether they are male or female and sometimes a sidekick that will usually be killed. The main character is usually a venerable woman that is victim to the killer however narrowly escapes death throughout the film.  The antagonist is typically a full grown man in a mask with a weapon or a young girl or a doll that can do anything a human can, typically dressed in a dress and the things that people would usually associate as being 'cute' or 'innocent' suddenly become creepy. Instead of a weapon the young girls usually have some supernatural power or be able to kill them without a weapon. If the antagonist is grown male they usually have something unique about them that separates them form other horror killers, this is mainly their weapon choice. A knife or machete is usually chosen but some films have had new and scarier weapons such as chainsaws and pickaxes.

 

 

I personally think that these four pictures play to the horror and gender stereotypes: doll, man in a mask, younger girl victim and/or antagonist and a woman having the main role as the victim. Horror films are usually centred around either the protagonist or the antagonist, this means that the audience has to either route for the character or plot against them. However a oblivious female protagonist makes the audience immediately recognise this character as the one the film will be focusing on

Psychological Horror

Horror is a large genre as a whole having many subgenres, one being psychological horror. Instead of constant scares and visual horrors it relys on creating a tense atmosphere and making the audience believe that they are seeing things when in reality there is nothing there. These play on the audience's fears such as creepy sounds, flickering lights and shadows in distance, small things that will make the audience feel tense about what is happening in the scene.

These films focus on metal state of the audience by making them feel just a vulnerable as the character in the film and they are looking for every detail to avoid being scared. These kind of films play mind tricks on the audience playing on common fears, however unlike regular horror films these fears are subtly shown to the audience instead of making the audience jumps and scream.

Some differences between regular horror films and psychological horror films are:

• Horror films are more likely to show the audience the threat during the film (such as killer, antagonists) whereas they will be subtly show the threat to the audience will sounds and images rather than showing it to the audience upfront.
• Psychological creates a tense atmosphere through out the film to keep the audience on the edge of their seat whereas a horror film will build up to a dramatic scene.
• Psychological horrors usually contain  plot twists to throw the audience off guard and make them re-think the film.
• Psychological uses small scares such as strange lighting and shadows, sounds and sudden movements to scare, usually in the same place as the character whereas in ordinary horrors' the can see the horrors first hand and sometimes before the main character.

Horror Pictures

For a homework task I had to take horror pictures testing out different camera angles. For my picture I asked my dad to dress in a skull mask and cloak and take a picture in out garden at night. We got a separate mask of a head and got my dad to hold it up with a fake bloody hand holding a fake knife up to the head. I took several photos from different camera angles but my favourite angles were the most simple: a long shot and a medium close up. I put both pictures into a PowerPoint slide and annotated them.

 

The Long Shot:

 

This shot shows more of the background, such as the tree and the bird bath, and less of the man/killer's appearance and what he has done.

 

The Medium Close-Up:

 

 

This shot is closer to the man/killer and it shows what he has done, killed someone and is now holding their head. It also shows that he is holding a knife and what the head and his mask looks like at a closer distance.