Horror film conventions

To help connote the typical horror conventions me and my group partner Ishpreet Sundal decided to pair up with another group and work collaboratively  in order to come up with a unique way of denoting the typical horror conventions. To do this the other group member Bryony had the idea of using the iPhone app 'Vine' in order to create a short video clip of both of our group members acting out the typical conventions. We found that by doing this it would be easier to show our audiences as instead of having to just read the writing of the conventions as they would be able to see the demonstrated version. Once we had filmed this Bryony then uploaded this to her app and we was able to access it on an online source.

Costume List

My partner Ishpreet Sundal created a costume list using polyvore. The costume on the left is what the character Tiffany appears to be wearing, from her use of clothes we can see that she is very fashionable as she has black leggings with an over sized jacket and a creme bag. Her fluffy head piece also connotes to the audience her personality of liking to take care of her appearance which suggests she may be quite self-conscious.

Our second character Gretchen is wearing fairly casual clothes and a large use of dark colours, she also happens to be wearing Vans which is very common and fashionable for teenagers/young adults who is our target audience and the use of dark colours also denote that she appears to be quite reserved which is a common convention used in horror movies.

Bentley Priory Location Shots

Here is some location images which I found of where we will be filming at Bentley Priory Wood's. I took these photos and uploaded then onto 'Imgur'. From the pictures you can see that they are very conventional of a horror movie which helped us when constructing our narrative.

Ident Storyboard

When me and my group member had been doing some research into idents, we found that it was very conventional of a horror movie to have incorporated and ident, me and my group member took this into consideration and I decided to also create a storyboard of our ident for our opening sequence. This gave us a rough idea of the type of ident that we wanted and we used sources such as www.footagecrate.com in order to help us get the ident that we wanted. By creating a storyboard I found gave us a guideline of what we wanted and the type of imagery we would want to incorporate. Below is an image of the storyboard I created for our ident.

Ident Homework

Ident Homework

Here is the dictionary definition of an ident:

Ident’s are usually used in films in order to connote the production company of whom has produced the film, depending on the production company ident’s contain very distinctive features. The first ident I have chosen to research is ‘Working Title’  which is a British production company owned by the conglomerate Universal Studios. 
This is an animated ident which me and my partner Ishpreet may be considering to use for our ident, the ident is fairly simple with the use of dull colours such as blue and brown connote that the ident may be fairly old. As the ident is quite simple this may connote that they do not have such as a mass target audience compared to Lionsgate Productions. However the target audience would be based mainly in Britain as they do not tend to go as mainstream compared to American based production companies such as ‘Lionsgate’. This ident doesn’t appear to contain any music or sound, as it begins it starts with a drawing which then leads onto the main opening titles, this could signify the process of the ident going from an independent production company to a conglomerate or may have significance. Me and my partner are still negotiating whether to include music into our ident or way may just interpret natural sounds and keep it quite simple. The Working Title ident doesn’t appear to give away the type of genre that it is representing, this could leave the audience questioning as to the film that they will be watching. Typically for horror genres the ident would usually appear to incorporate some use of blood or gore so as our opening sequence is only 2 minutes long we will make sure that our ident helps denote the genre of our film.


Lionsgate
The second ident I have chosen to research is 'Lionsgate' they are a very popular and well known production company and they have produced a variety of very popular films such as 'SAW' and the record breaking 'Twilight Saga'. They have created films from very different genres however when it comes to creating our ident I will be making sure I try and include some similar conventions from their horror ident. The clip I have chosen to use is for the horrow genre of films and I have chosen this one as I will be creating a horror opening with my partner.

From the 'horror' ident above I gathered that there was a large use of rustic metal bolts this could be to connote a typical horror convention as being quite old and ragged. The use of the visual connotes a brown colour to connote quite a dull atmosphere to the audience which reinforces the genre of the film, in the ident we see the two metal doors open which then goes to show the rustic bolts transform into normal shiny ones, this could be used to connote the difference in genres which they produce. The use of the translucent typography of the caption 'LIONSGATE' is embedded onto a dark red clouds which could represent the use of blood which is commonly used in horror films.

The use of the red clouds could use suggest a use of hell or danger which is a common statement used with this colour, this reinforces its target audience that the film may contain very typical horror conventions such as blood and gore. The target audience for this type of ident would either be a 15+ or 18+ this would depend on what is usually incorporated into the film.

Lionsgate also have another ident in which they use for their other genres of film, the ident appears to be quite similar to the horror one, this ident begins with the camera panning across similar bolts which is also used in the horror genre one however in this one they appear to be much more clear and shiny. The ident then zooms into the opening doors and similarly we see the typography of 'LIONSGATE' in a Sanserif font which is also embedded onto a set of clouds. The use of the blots and knots all structured together could be used to connote the themes of power and strength in which they have earned from creating such succesful films. The use of the bolts moving in unison could also be used to denote that they are continuously growing and producing more and more films.

Bolts are also used to connote quite hard working jobs and is usually used by strong males, this could be used to suggest the amount of hard-working and effort that they put into producing there films and the use of the heavenly image could be used to connote their final product. This also suggests that in order to get a successful final  piece you have to go through all the hard work in order to complete a high standard final piece, while studying media at A-Level I learned that to create a successful final piece we have to go through a large use of research and planning in order to get our opening sequence to the best of our ability which could also be what Lionsgate is trying to signify.

Step Outline

As for this task me and my group member were asked to analyse the use of editing, camera work, sound and how the shot changes. We both chose a different horror film to analyse the first two minutes of and uploaded these onto Slideshare.

Here is the step outline I created for my horror film Silent Hill (2006) and I analysed the different shot types and how each shot includes a different use of the four micro elements. This also allowed me to see how they conformed to the horror genre in able to give me an my group member how we could use the similar ideas in our opening sequence. The step outline was also helpful as  it was a thorough into the movie and showed me that the opening sequence can play an important part to help summarise what the narrative is going to be about.

Below is the Step outline which my group member created for the horror film Scream, this allowed her to analyse how the woman plays the typical vulnerable victim which is convention in horror films and is also what we will be including in our opening sequence

Step outline from ishy96

Draft Film Pitch Feedback & Ammendments

After me and my partner had conducted our draft film pitch we then asked them to write their ideas on what they thought about it onto a 'Padlet' this helped us with our research as we wanted to make sure that we didn't incorporate anything that they didn't like into our opening sequence.
One person suggested that ''We have a lot going on make sure its clear'', taking this into consideration will we make sure that we have a set dialogue for each shot and that it is clear for our audience to understand. Also we must make sure that we are fully prepared on the day with everything that we need so that when it comes to filming it runs smoothly.

Another positive feedback that we got was that ''Really realistic narrative'' this was important to us as our target audience is going to be teenagers so in our film we will have the subject matter as being something in which our target audience can relate too.

Below is the 'Padlet' in which me and Ishpreet conducted together:

Created with Padlet

Certificate Ratings

Here I used slide share to help show our research about certificate ratings, we used this enable to help us with our horror opening that we will be creating as we need to understand the importance and difference of each rating. From conducting research I gathered the difference between each age rating and the laws and regulations of them, these are a very important part a film as the nature of horror films and there content can be quite graphic which many people would not want to see. We have to consider this when creating our opening sequence as our target audience would be for young adults and so by watching our opening sequence me and my partner would discuss what rating we would be able to consider. This will be important when completing our opening sequence as we will have to consider what age our target audience will be, we also had to discuss what would be included such as if we would use, blood, gore and violence as to whether we would need to make it a 15+ or 18+

Film Pitch

Me and my group member conducted a film pitch in order to layout the narrative and suggestions we had for our opening sequence. The film pitch shows the justifications of our ideas to connote to our audience why we have chosen to do specific things. We will also be able to refer to this frequently during our planning so that we can build on our specific ideas.

Film Pitch for Horror Film Titles Project

Title of Horror Film	Captured
Genre	Horror- subgenre thriller
Log Line	Two friends Tiffany and Gretchen return to the woods and are walking through it, as Tiffany wants to take pictures of Gretchen for her portfolio. Someone is watching closely from the distance, behind the trees. This was inspired by the woods concept within ‘Blair Witch Project’.
Synopsis	·      Starts off with a shot of the setting, with eerie music ·      Then we see Tiffany Woodcock and Gretchen Hornett examining their surroundings carefully, by walking slowly through the woods ·      Point of view shots are given from the perspective of the villain, who is watching them. This is accompanied by heavy breathing, and eerie music ·      Tiffany has brought Gretchen to the woods to take pictures from her Polaroid camera for her photography portfolio. They were there a week earlier taking photos, but Tiffany lost a few and has to start over. ·      Another shot from the villain, who is listening to the two talking and taking pictures. Begins to move around slightly which causes noise. ·      Tiffany and Gretchen hear this, and become more aware and fearful of their surroundings- they continue to take pictures ·      Tiffany runs out of film, and kneels down at her bag to refill it ·      Gretchen goes to check out another spot for better light ·      Tiffany begins to look over the pictures and thinks they will be great. However she looks closely and realises a strange black figure within the corner of a picture ·      She screams as she gets captured by the villain who was keeping a close eye on them THE REST OF THE FILM: ·      News of Tiffany’s kidnap and supposed death spreads, as Gretchen is left psychologically scarred ·      Later on a bunch of teenagers who went to a different school to Gretchen and Tiffany, decide to stay out in the woods as a group dare ·      Strange things begin to occur to them, as one by one the teenagers begin to get captured and brutally murdered ·      Only one survivor manages to escape, who is also left psychologically scarred
Resources needed -Camcorder -Tripod -Polaroid camera	Locations -Bentley Priory woods	Characters -Tiffany Woodcock -Gretchen Hornett       -Mysterious antagonist
Justification for ideas: The idea of teenager exploring the woods is conventional of a horror movie. This idea can link to the woods theme of horror movie ‘The Blair Witch Project’. Our target audience are mainly aged from 17-18. Due to this our two main characters in our horror movie opening are also of the same age range; therefore our audience will be able to relate to them.

Horror research questionnaire and analysis

For this part of the task, Ishpreet Sundal and I sat down and created suitable questions in which we could apply to a questionnaire to ask the audience to help us for our horror film. We created the questionnaire via ''survey monkey'', this was important to help us towards our final piece as we wanted to gain information such as the demographics of our target audience and fine out what they like and dislike about horror movies. By doing this allows us to negotiate on what we can use for our final piece and give us a rough outline of what our target audience expect to see. We published our questionnaire on social networking sites such as: Twitter and Facebook:
Below is some screen shots which are taken from our questionnaire:

Here is the link to the website 'Survey Monkey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HLCD5WH

Once we had gathered all of our results Ishpreet Sundal uploaded the analysis of the results onto 'Prezi', this was important to us as with these results me and my partner could negotiate on how we can create our narrative and also use what they liked about horror movies so that it would be suitable for our target audience. By finding out what our target audience wanted to see allowed us to conform to these so that we would fit their criteria of what they would want to see.

Todorov Narrative Theory

To help us with our research and planning I decided to create a Power Point on Todorov's narrative theory as I established that our opening sequence would most likely fit his theory. By creating this connotes that we have an understanding of film theorist and how they regularly apply to films, this theory would most likely appear in every horror film as most horror films finish with a restored equilibrium. When planning our film we would consider the ways in which our film can subvert this theory however, as it is a horror genre it would be quite unlikely to do so.

Horror genre research: Timeline

For our horror genre research  my group member Ishpreet and I were researching into horror, we did this as we plan to create a horror opening sequence and to complete this we need to have a lot of background knowledge to enable us to create a film that follows the generic codes and conventions of a horror film. To help do this Ishpreet Sundal used www.dippity.com to illustrate all the information we had gained from our research. For each piece of research we conducted, we have embedded the link under each slot. We will be using this when creating our opening sequence as we may decide to pay homage to some old style horror films in order to conform to the horror conventions.

http://www.dipity.com/Ishpreet/History-of-horror/

History of horror on Dipity.

Preliminary task

In class our teacher had set us a preliminary task which enabled us to demonstrate the use of shot reverse shot and 180 degree rule, we decided to work in a group of me, Ishpreet Sundal Bryony Johnson and Rumena Ahmed. We used cameras to film this and then edited it onto iMovie.
In order to make this successful and to help us with our planning we created a storyboard and discussed as a group what to include and how, in order to help with our planning Ishpreet created a shot list which consists on location we will be using, actors and props that will included in the video. While doing this we noticed that the camera and tripods would remain as our two focus items as without these we cannot create a successful video.

After evaluating this we asked other group members on ways they think we could improve our preliminary task, I focused on the conventions which we used such as 180 degree rule which was one of our main focusses to convey media conventions.

Once we had edited our preliminary task we decided on a creative way we could evaluate what we done, so to do this as a group we created a news reported and we all had to focus on one main aspect of the video, below is the news report that we had created.

Match on action

Match on action is an editing technique which is used to shown an action being filmed from different view points and perspectives. The shots have to be edited in order to make them seamless and that they show continuity throughout the film and for the audience.

Our class teacher had explained to us how match on action works and then set us a task of creating a film of our own match on action. We were set the task to record two people walking into another room which for this we used our school common room as it was a simple location and showed two people walking into it from two different shots. We showed them having a conversation before the entered the room and then made sure they carried on the conversation onto the next shot to show continuity. While researching online about match on action and examples I managed to find a sketch of the outline of how match on action works.


I worked in a group with Ishpreet Sundal and Bryony Johnson and created a video in order to show we understood how match on action worked. To do this I filmed one of the shots and Bryony filmed the other and Ishpreet who was one of the main characters. We then used iMovie to edit the video together and had to be very accurate on timings so that it was continuous on to the next shot.
Whilst filming the match on action we had to make sure that we situated the cameras in the correct place which we found quite easy, we had to make sure that both of the cameras could not see each other. We had a few difficulties in making sure that we pressed record at the right time and that me and Bryony was synchronised. When it came to editing we had noticed that the shots were not simultaneous and that the dialogue was inaccurate, so to concur this we used footage which we had from before and learnt that when it comes to future filming we must make sure the cameras are recording at the same time and that every one is sure of their roles needed.

180 Degree rule and Shot reverse shot

Below I have used a diagram and a short video to be able to show how an 180 degree rule shot works. The 180° rule is an editing technique used to maintain continuity to the audience.

The 180 degree rule enables that the camera should always stay on one side of the actors. by using this rule you may also include a use of shot reverse shot, the 180 degree rule must always be placed on an imaginary axis around two characters you are filming, not breaking the 180 degree barrier around one side of the two characters, keeping the left character on the left and the right character on the right. By using this shot you can clearly see the eyeline match used between both characters present and to keep this continuity present the camera must not go over the imaginary axis line. If you go over the 180 degree line then you will be breaking the rule and this will not show continuity between the film and can also be quite confusing to those watching e.g. the audience.

 

As for shot reverse shot, this is usually demonstrated with two people conversing with each other. We see this when one person is talking and we will either see the camera on their face or the reaction of the opponent in the conversation, this is done so we can see their reaction. For example in film you would continuously record the conversation of two people and then straight cut to the other. You would have to edit this with good continuity in order to make it clear and understanding to the audience

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOiQlGhKrGs

Introduction

My name is Chloe Connell and my candidate number is 3044. I  am currently studying at Swakeleys sixth form, this is my blogger for the production of my foundation portfolio which is then leading to creating an opening to a film. I am going to be working with Ishpreet Sundal in order to create my AS horror opening sequence.