Survey and Results

To help with our project, we made a survey on Survey Monkey which would ask the general public questions about horror films and other genres. The information gathered from this survey would provide more guidance as to what audiences would like to see from a film opening. I used Facebook to help get as many people to take part as possible.

Overall we got 20 responses which we were quite impressed with, considering the short time scale we gave to accumulate results.

First of all, we asked about age, this was to see whether the majority of people taking part in this survey were in our age group, because if not, the results might not be as helpful as our target audience are aged 16-25. Luckily 90% of the participants were in our target audience age group.

We the asked what their favourite film genre was. Although we were expecting horror to come out on top, it was comedy that 60% of people enjoyed the most. This tells us that clearly comedy is a popular genre, and it would be beneficial to us if we incorporated some comedy into our clip, as that is what our target audience enjoy the most.

The next question was about what the most important element of a horror film is. This was a very important question for us as it would give us a huge clue as to what we needed to include in our clip to make it as successful as possible. After looking through the responses, we found that the most frequently mentioned elements were 'suspense' and 'tension'. These are very typical features of a horror and we will make sure we try and create them through camerawork, editing, sound and mise en scene.

Then we asked what people enjoyed most about horror films. By getting audiences opinions, it helps us to create a clip that we know will be enjoyable to watch, as well as meeting the brief given. We found that the responses were quite similar to the question asked before; answers such as 'suspense' and 'anticipation' as well as the obvious 'being scared'. I think that these are easy guidelines to try and follow for our clip and having now asked this question, we are able to create a clip that our audience is more likely to enjoy.

The next question we asked was what people disliked most about horror films.This was an important question as it would tell us what we needed to avoid when planning and creating our clip. Popular answers included 'gore/blood' 'boring/no story line'. Through these answers we now know that to make our clip as enjoyable as possible for our audience, we need to make sure there is a decent story line to keep it interesting, and try to keep blood and gore to a minimum.

We then asked what our audiences favourite horror film was and why. This would help us to see what sub genre people enjoy and what kind of films are the most successful and appealing to our audience. 'woman in black' was a film mentioned a few times which tells us that we might need to research this film and find out what makes it so appealing, in order to make our own clip the best it can be.

Overall, I think our survey has been very successful as it has helped us a lot to see what people enjoy and don't, and what they want to see from a horror film. We will definitely be taking these ideas on board!

Film Opening Sequence Analysis

To help us with our planning we looked at different film openings all within the horror genre. This would provide us with inspiration and ideas for our own coursework.

First of all we looked at the classic American slasher film Scream directed by Wes Craven.


In this opening sequence we see the titles being presented straight away as opposed to the regular convention of titles being shown a few minutes in. What we like about this opening is the regular use of close ups in steady cam which adds to the realism and tension of the film. This is something that we are planning to use. The use of sound is also an element that we want to incorporate into our work as in the beginning, the sounds are all diegetic, then as the clip progresses the tension builds as the soundtrack gets louder which adds the sense of terror.
Another film we wanted to look at, which we will be taking inspiration from the most is Blair Witch Project directed by Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick.

We like the realism within this opening sequence. All characters act in a naturalistic way, which is beneficial when we look for actors, considering we will not get the opportunity to work with professionals. Hair, makeup and clothing are all incredibly natural which again is useful to us as we don't have access to makeup artists or stylists. All shooting is done on location rather than studios, and all footage is shot on a handheld camera. We like the fact this film is low budget yet still manages to be a cult classic without trying too hard. The opening titles and text on screen gave exposition for a few seconds so no time is wasted. The title is basic, medium white font on a black background. This simplicity sets the tone for the rest of the film.
Another film opening we looked at was 'scary movie' directed by Keenan Ivory Wayans. The reason we chose to analyse this was because it had comedy conventions that we wanted to encorperate in our clip.


This clip features elements from other films, in this particular one they choose to parody the opening of 'scream'. The reason this opening is so successful is that the audience can tell straight away which film they are using and from the beginning it includes comical aspects such as the constant cutaway to the popcorn and frequent use of explicit language.
For our narrative, we wanted to use the plot-line of the killer or names of those killed, shown in some way. For example in 'Broken Lizards Club Dread' the killer's names is played in the songs.We like this idea as it makes it obvious to the audience immediately what is going to happen.
Another film we wanted to base the narrative on is 'Final Destination'.
The reason we chose this one aswell is because the people die but not becasue of the cause stated. We agreed that this would also be a good idea to use as it goes against the idea of the killer being obvious, when in reality it's due to natural causes.
For the theme/setting we wanted to take inspiration from 'Urban Legends' 


The reason we chose this is because the whole film is based on what the book says. We want to include a theme like this for our opening sequence with the characters thinking that what happens is due to what is written.

Mind Map

To start off our project, we decided that we wanted to do film for our coursework option as we had previous experience with making a film and we all enjoyed the process. We first brainstormed ideas of different genres of film. We noted what we felt were key films in this genre and what the genre represented, as well as audiences expectations. By carrying out this research and using mind maps to help us, it gave our group a greater understanding of each genre and what is expected. We used wikipedia.org to help us with this mind map



After doing this mind map, we decided that we wanted to do horror as our chosen genre.

Preliminary Task and Feedback

Below is our preliminary task we did prior to our production. It was an important learning experience as it helped us to grasp basic filming and editing skills such as:
- 180 degree rule, where the camera was constantly on one side of the line
- Shot/reverse shot, which was used to show the conversation between each character
- Match on action, we shot this when the actor was opening a door and appeared from inside the room
Overall I think our prelim was quite successful for a first attempt at camera angles and editing as it met the criteria well and has given us a good starting point.


Below is the feedback we received on Facebook and YouTube from our video

The comments that we received concludes that although camerawork and editing it good, sound is something that definitely needs improving. We will use this criticism to make sure we have better audio for our clip by maybe using an audio dub over the clip or muting background noise.

Introduction

Hello! Welcome to our AS Media blog. Our group consists of: Bita Jedo and Sophia Asilah Kelly and we have chosen to make a film for our coursework.

VIDEO BRIEF: The titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes
During this project we will be blogging every step of the way to show our progression and development to a successful film opening. Here's a little bit more about us:

Bita Jedo- I am sixteen years of age, I study Media Studies, English Combined, Psychology and Art and Design. I am hoping to study Media further at university but am unsure of what field, so doing this project will help me decide whether the film industry is for me. What I am looking forward to most about this project is being able to experiment with different camera techniques and having the freedom to base the idea on anything. I wanted to do the film brief because it's what i'm most interested in and it gives me the opportunity to apply my knowledge on film making to hopefully create a fantastic opening sequence.




Sophia Asilah Kelly- My name is Sophia and I'm really excited to start on this project with Bita. As well as media I also study film and drama and hope to go on and work in that field. I think that choosing the film option for my coursework will benefit me greatly in a sense that it will allow me to practice my film-making skills. The aspect I'm looking forward to the most is experimenting with using a photography camera and also a handheld camera to see what effects they create. I also think that it will be interesting to explore the different genres of film and different locations we could use in order to make our film as believable as possible.