Today we finished our opening sequence and I am so happy to see all of our hard work and effort finally completed. Overall I am very pleased with our end result considering the time and the footage that we had. We spent todays lesson touching up the credits and sound. However our sequence is still 3 minutes long and we did not put in Shotgun Productions logo due to the length of the sequence. Apart from this setback I think our sequence is good and it is nice to see all of the footage come together to tell a story.
This picture is of our group right after we had finished our sequence!
The previous credits in our sequence had to be changed due to it looking to much like a 'essay' font. We changed it so that it is smaller and each credit is in a different spot on the screen. The actual font itself has been changed to be more slender and creepy like:
It is more elegant but is also pointed which I think represents our opening. Everything might look normal but there are plenty of small twist and turns throwing the audience and character off-track. I personally like this font a lot more as it looks more professional and matches the genre which is what we were aiming for when choosing a specific font.
When re-watching our opening sequence I noticed that
the use of camera is solely focuses on our main character. It is a third person view as the audience follows her around the school while being stalked. In our entire sequence there is only a single POV shot and that is when our character sees the antagonist for a second but other than that we are watching the character in third person. Most films shots like ours as they are the easiest to convey a story however there is one psychological horror that uses POV shots through the entire film:
'The Blair Witch Project' is a psychological horror that was disgusted as a real story by filming in POV shots (as someone was behind the camera talking it is similar to a POV shot). It was made to look like a phone or camcorder had filmed everything and due to the muffled sound and causal acting of the actors makes the audience truly believe that the footage is real. The use of the camera is shaky to show it is handheld and 'bad' quality footage to show it was filmed on a phone or camcorder instead of a professional camera. The reason this use of the camera is so effective is because the audience can only see what the characters can see unlike our opening sequence where the antagonist is shown to the audience but not to our character. Choosing what the audience can and cannot see if important for any horror film, in 'The Blair Witch Project' everything is hidden from the audience because the camera is shaking due to the first person shots whereas in our opening we chose to show the audience the antagonist as it shows that the threat can disappear at any time. Both of these are effective for a horror film as they both can put the audience on edge as they want to see what is going on but if they do they are nervous about whether the antagonist will show up again and what they will do if they chose to show themselves to the camera.
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.
With only a few more edits to fix, in a study period today half of the group watched the sequence again and went through what needed fixing. We added in some extra 'boom' sound effects to create suspense and tweaked some of the credits (after being told that the font was to casual for out genre). However the main problem was that our sequence is 3 minutes rather than 2 but there was nothing in the sequence we could take out otherwise our character would jump from on scene to another. As all scenes link to each other so taking out one would take away something from the story which leaves us with a problem. The sequence needs to be shortened to meet exam criteria but there is nothing in the sequence that we can delete that will not make the sequence jump or ruin the story. To solve this problem the group will have to have a discussion about what to cut out and what to keep.
In today's lesson (24/03/15) we completed the credits! We are close to completing our sequence all together and all we have left to do is add in a few more sound effects. We have also decided to change the music from violins playing repetitively to some royalty-free music called "Insidious". After spending hours on the music trying to perfect it but nothing seemed to work and after finding the royalty free music we thought it was just as effective and decided to use that instead. We have also chosen to have the last scene, in the media room, in silence. This creates a suspenseful atmosphere and puts the audience on edge. We have also added a heartbeat sound effect as it represents the fear that our character is going through the audience will be just as nervous as our character is. The last sound effect that we added today was a static sound but it is interrupted by speech. This plays when the death screen - "YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE DONE THAT" flashes up. This sound effect is both haunting and creepy as it sounds like somebody is trying to talk to our character but fails because of the static.
'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.
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.
