Centre Number: 69559 Candidate Number: 1640
In the Prezi there is more detail about why these elements on the checklist are important.
Checklist:
https://prezi.com/vf3cgq0syhgz/key-elements-for-a-good-opening-scene/
Here is our ident we created for our film company, ECC PRODUCTIONS. Since our genre is horror, we wanted this to reflect in our ident, therefore we put the picture of the silhouette of a horror figure and the discolored, demonic looking eye. This will be placed at the beginning of our film along with the idents of 20th Century Fox and Ghost House Pictures.
Here is the ident off of youtube of 20th Century Fox Corporation we will possibly use in the opening of our film.
Here is the ident off of youtube of Ghost House Pictures we will use in the opening of our film, as it looks scary and is a good fit for a horror movie.
This third ident is one I found, which I thought would be perfect for out Horror movie, and it would set the opening scene up perfectly.
Production:
A production company provides the physical basis for works in the realms of the performing arts, new media art, film, television, radio and video.
New Line Cinema – USA – (The Mask, A Nightmare On Elm Street) Dimension – USA – (Scream, Scary Movie, Halloween)
New Line Cinema:
Although this production company is non-genre specific, it is profoundly known for its horror/thriller films, such as Annabelle, Nightmare On Elm Street and The Conjuring. These were all hugely successful and generated gross intakes such as:
Annabelle – $37,134,255
A Nightmare On Elm Street – $115,664,037
The Conjuring – $318,000,141
Dimension Films
As of 1992, this company is known for releasing horror, comedy and action films. The horror films were always very successful, such as Scream, Children Of The Corn and Halloween: Resurrection.
Scream
Children Of The Corn
Halloween: Resurrection
Distribution Companies – the company responsible for the marketing of the film.
Hammer Films
This company is significant for traditional gothic horror films. They’re synonymous with horror films after defining the genre in Britain with classics such as Dracula, The Curse of Frankenstein and The Mummy. Only 1/3 of Hammer films were horror however. Recent output includes The Woman in Black, Let Me In and The Quiet Ones.
Lions Gate Entertainment
Lions Gate produces films as well as distributes them. Their most features genre is Horror. They distributed films such as The Cabin In The Woods and The Last Exorcism.
Exhibition Companies
Film exhibition companies tend to feature in the public screening of the films. These companies sell the experience of the film as a whole rather than the actual film by itself. They have no direct input into creating and producing the film, they just literally exhibit the film.
All these companies have dealt largely with the genre horror, which is helpful to us as the horror films they have dealt with are well known and good quality horror movies. Although some statistics show they went highly above budget it shows how much work each company puts into every film, this is important to us as we would want a good quality film.
The GAP represents the general audience profile. our general audience profile is teenagers and young adults in general, because they watch more movies in general and especially horror movies because they enjoy the thrills.
ALCOHOL in this stands for – “age, location, class.. etc” which is important because it generally bases people off of their class system and shows how they spend their money. this is significant because it shows that only about 27.0% of 15-24 year olds go to the cinema, which can be challenging because thats our age group, but as they get older (25-34) go to the cinemas way more. Also, the ABC1 group goes the the cinema 66.3% which is good because it means the upper/middle/lower-middle class go to the cinema a lot and therefore will watch our film the most. also, the males are 49.9% more likely to go to the cinema, which is also a good thing for us because our target audience is mostly males, as they are more keen to watch horror.
the GAP FOCUS shows similar results to the other two GAP researches, and shows basically that 33.2% out of 100% of people who go to the cinema are our target audience. it also shows that 66.3% of a concentrated audience were upper/middle class, which is significant because it shows they are spending their money on cinema tickets, and therefore we should aim our production towards them. it also shows that males are more likely to go to the cinema than females, which is significant to us because research has shown that more males watch horror movies than females. Although our target audience is a mix of males and females it is important that we know more males would probably end up seeing it than females, so we have to plan accordingly and make sure it appeals to both genders equally or more weighted towards males.
To fully understand the demographic of my audience, I created a picture of my ideal audience member. Through the website http://www.uktribes.com/ we determined that our perfect audience member would be the Vlogger/Blogger. These girls are typically very “hipster” and always are on the latest trends. the definition from Uk Tribes states that they “describe young people that are vlogging, blogging, tweeting and instagramming their lives, attitudes and values online; they aren’t creating culture and new social norms (bar those with 1M+ followers!) but are having a huge impact on youth culture today.”
I created a short video showing my perfect audience member in her “daily life”– scrolling through instagram and tumblr, listening to music and what her daily outfit is.
Further information about her:
Our perfect audience member would be one that is trendy and interested in social media and very “hipster”. This girl has to be slightly “edgy” or else they probably wouldn’t enjoy the horror movie as much, but since there are aspects of romance and social media in our film it would draw attention to this film and make them want to watch it. A vlogger would be very interested in our film and probably write about it on social media as well as possibly copy some of the styles or listen to the music that is in our film.
1. Drag me To Hell
2. Carrie
These are the two opening scenes we showed in our audience research, to determine which was preferred. The audience that we surveyed were Year 12 and 13 boys and girls from Gordonstoun, this may be a small group, however, they are our target audience. We chose the two trailers, Drag Me to Hell and Carrie because they are both horror films which are different and relatively new. While ‘Drag Me To Hell’ focuses on the evil/spiritual side, ‘Carrie’ shows the more phycological side of humans and the audience is not quite sure what the movie is about at the end of the trailer, which makes them want to watch the film to find out what happens next. This is why people voted number 2, because the audience was intrigued.
Everyone we asked preferred number 2. They preferred number 2 because ‘it was good’, ‘exciting and interesting’, and they said that ‘Drag Me To Hell’ looked “fake”.
This board expresses our genre of horror with the slight mix of love (as you can see from the picture of the “broken couple” in the top right corner.) we chose to include this picture because in our own story we have an intertwining theme of a slight romance between the girl, a killer, and the main character. We chose the words “cyber” “horror story” “darkest secret” “nightmare” and “horrifically creepy” because these describe the genre of horror, and the use of fonts could be a deciding factor of how we make our opening credits and how they come across to the viewer depending on the font. The word “CYBER” is very prevalent to our mood board because throughout our film we are using elements of social media to make the horror more dramatic and relatable to the audience. We also chose to place the word “psycho” scrambled in the center of our mood board because although the audience knows who the killer is, the male character doesn’t realize its the girl until the end. He could use words like “psycho” and “nightmare” to describe the girl as well as the situation he is trapped in. The woods and eye also add effect to our mood board because we, like many other horror movies, have much of the action taking place in dark woods for dramatic effect, and have a “watching eye” which ties into the themes of cyber stalking and anonymous threats. The large scary faced man along with the woman with the gun shows the reversal of gender roles in our film because the girl will end up being the killer.
This mood board shows more words such as “the chosen one” because the boy in our story is chosen by the girl. it also has words such as “screamin” “demons” “serial killers” “crime” “horror” and “unlock the mystery” because we felt these words embodied not only our film but the genre of horror. Again, we have to watchful eye as to give our film a “big brother” effect in the sense that there is always someone watching and listening and planning their next move. We also have a scary looking masked figure at the bottom left because its very scary looking but not a typical “horror” mask or presentation. We felt it was interesting to put on something to do with hidden identities because it is a common theme in horror and could possibly appear in our film. we also chose to put the girl in the middle as inspiration for what we want our “killer” to look like.
This first shot, looks like a typical horror movie opening so this is key as you start to expect what comes next. This is a long shot.
This is another shot similar to the last, however the shot is taken from further away and they stay still because of the shock. This is an establishing shot. This helps the story of the film, because by going further out from the characters it adds tension to what will happen next.
This shot is key as you slowly see the camera zooming out creating a long shot.This is not as close up as the other, and you can see the house with the open door, which the murderer just came from.
This shot is key, as you see the murderer from the opening scene remove his mask and reveal that he is a child. This is a medium shot and it’s important as you see the child’s face and reaction, then the reaction of his parents. This shot also shows the boys face half covered in a shadow which shows one is not likely to trust him as half his face is hidden, like he has something to hide.
This shot is key as it shows whats happening from the characters point of view, their perspective. It shows the door you see in the first image, leading you back to the feeling of the beginning before the killing, the lighting is bright on what is in front so you can see clearly what is ahead.
This shot shows the perspective of the murderer, and the victim, the lighting is dark, however, the victim is well lit. This shot makes you expect what will happen next and its very important because of how the lighting is effecting the scene.
This shot shows the murderer reaching to pick up a mask to cover his identity. This is key, as the shots from the murderers perspective shows a mask outline. This is important as you see the outfit and the mask, and you expect a scary person, not a child.
This shot is key as the rocking chair is typical in a horror movie, and the way it is lit in this shot makes it look more scary, as its lit from behind with shadows.
This shot shows a pumpkin which is a tradition on Halloween so this opens the scene, its lit in a scary way, and a good start to a horror movie.
The opening scene of Scream starts inside a small house, the first character to appear on the screen is wearing a cream cricket jumper, with grey/white facial make up and dark purple lipstick, the make up and costumes look dated in comparison to the modern day, however, they look modern in terms of it not being anymore the fifteen to twenty years. You cannot tell what class they are, but they are nicely dressed and live in quite decent houses. The furniture looks old and dated compared to modern day too. The lighting in the house looks dimmed and quote gloomy. The characters face changes expression as she speaks on the phone due to what she’s saying. When she’s on the phone she looks comfortable, however she becomes very upright, scared and frigid. When she begins to get scared things around the house, such as the popcorn she’s cooking starts to burn and set fire. The lighting alters a lot and becomes dark then bright, it becomes bright when things get more tense. The action of the film moves outside the house. The mood of the film changes drastically within the first ten minutes. The lighting remains dark, however, the characters are well lit up throughout. The costume of the killer is simple, and a typical horror movie costume, it’s a black cloak and a scream mask in white, which stands out in the dark. The genre of this film is horror. The shots vary a lot depending on what is happening. There are lots of long shots to show the character being attacked. There are lots of medium close shots to show the different characters facial expressions, and medium shots to show body language. There is a lot of panning in this film in the opening scene to show the area, which surrounds the character and what is in the background which also has darker lighting as its meant to be somewhat intimidating and frightening for the audience. Much like many other horror movies, there are sound effects, which are placed in whilst editing, in this film there are sounds added in including screams.
Cecily Harris Stuart Media 
