There is a variety of
different roles throughout our opening scene. Here is a list of the characters
with their role allocations...
Antonia Georgiou (Mother):
The Mother, Antonia Georgiou in our film is shown as a typical mother who
cooks, cleans and looks after her child instead of going out to work. She wears
casual but smart clothing and her make-up is very simple.
Stevie Georgiou (Son of
Antonia Georgiou): The Son, Stevie Georgiou in our film again is shown as a
sweet little boy but because of the storyline to our opening scene he turns to
the complete opposite (evil/possessed). We have done this as it will shock the
viewer from how the character has changed.
A normal house is seen during the night-time, in the
window we see a woman. The woman is standing preparing vegetables when her
knife slips and she cuts her finger. The phone rings and she picks up.
Woman: [raising phone to
ear] hello?
Man: [out of view over the
phone] hello! It’s me, how’s the new house looking?
Woman: [smiling against the
wall] it’s looking like its slowly getting there.
Man: it’ll feel like home
before you know it!
Woman: I guess so, I-
The woman cuts off as she hears footsteps running
upstairs. She looks up to the ceiling, holding her hand over the phone.
Man: hello?
Woman: [raises the phone
back to her ear] oh sorry, I think Stevie is messing up upstairs. I’ll see
you later tonight.
Man: Okay… Bye…
The woman walks to the bottom of the stairs, turning on
the light, and walks slowly upstairs with the washing basket, humming a song.
She wonders into her son’s bedroom, ready to shout.
Woman: I've told you to stop
running in the house! I’ll tell-
She notices no one is in the room with her. She goes
through the wardrobe pulling out clothes. She turns around and doesn't see a
face hidden by shadows in the wardrobe. She exits the room; the face disappears
back into the wardrobe. She searches all upstairs and realises he isn't upstairs. She turns the lights on and off in each room, confused. She looks out of the window to see her son playing near a playhouse in the back garden.
Woman: [calls out window]
how did you get down their so fast?
Boy: what? [carries on
playing]
Woman: never mind… what are
you doing?
Boy: playing with my new
friend.
Woman: no one is there with
you?
Boy: yes there is…
The woman shakes her head and goes back downstairs,
turning off the lights. !!!EDIT!!! 28th of November Script Edit The Script for The Playhouse was altered in the filming process, as we found using the window scene would be a lot harder to film with low lighting. We decided to film on the stairs to show the same effect and use of high and low angles as we had better lighting and less background noise for ease of editing later on.
What is the 180 degree
rule? How did you incorporate it in the planning of the task?
The 180 degree rule is
where the camera must stay on one side of the action that’s being shot. The
camera stays on one side of the action throughout the scene because this keeps
the characters in the same position from and audience’s perspective and keeps
the actors looking at each other when only one actor is on screen. This
technique allows the audience to see unseen background area while focusing on
the actor talking perhaps. It is a ‘rule’ because when the camera films two
actors, it mustn't cross the axis of action. If this happens, it will give the
audience an impression the actors have swapped places in the situation.
We decided to use this
rule to show a two way conversation between two actors face to face. It would
be done at a mid-length shot including the shoulders and face to portray
expression during the conversation, showing the audience what the actors are
feeling to what they are saying or being told.
What is a match on action?
How did you incorporate it in the planning of the task?
A match on action (or a
cutting on action) is an editing technique where one shot cuts into another
shot showing the action of subject. (e.g. opening a book, close up of the book,
back to full image of reading the book). This creates a sense of continuity,
carrying a visual bridge drawing the audience’s attention away from anything
else in the background and on the object of interest. A match on action should
show the same situation and same image, not two different objects or
situations. We decided to use this editing technique to show an objects point
of interest such as the mobile phone. Instead of the character being full
focus, we cut from a long shot of the actor pulling out the phone, a close up
of the phone being typed on and a long shot of the actor then moving the phone
up to her ear. This shows the actor making a phone call in more depth rather
than the audience not knowing the actor is making a phone call instead of idly
playing on her/his phone.
What is an eye line match?
How did you incorporate it in the planning of the task?
Eye line match is another
continuity technique used in filming. There is a cut between two shots showing
the illusion of the character looking at an object or another character out of
shot. We decided to use this on using one shot of the actor looking down out of
shot, then cutting to another high angle shot of the phone. This gives the
audience the illusion that the actor was looking at the object.
How did the filmmaking
process go in terms of filming the shots from the story board and filming
around college?
Some aspects worked quite
well where others need vast improvement. In some shots we forgot to add speech
or certain actions to make the story make sense. Such as we forgot to make the
actor take out her phone on the match on shot so didn’t show her actually
taking her phone out and jumping to her dialling on her phone in a close up
shot. We didn’t record her speaking so no dialog was used and didn’t make sense
at all. There was no hint of storyline, just a lot of actions that didn’t run
smoothly. We experimented with camera angles a lot with the running scenes, in
which directions would work best and which looked unprofessional. We learnt
running towards the camera at a diagonal worked better as we saw the actor’s
expressions and the direction of where she was running more. It took us a long
while of how to do the close up on the feet when running for a match on action.
At first we couldn’t get the feet in the frame, so we used the running on a
diagonal towards the camera again and found out that worked best. We were
successful with using what distance shots to use as we found this easy to
incorporate. We need to improve on camera angles, different techniques and how
they are done, and matching dialog to movement next time we film.
What did you learn about
video editing on adobe premiere? Think in terms of using transitions, adding
sound and green screen.
The transitions were easy
to put in when editing the film. Since it was based on an action film, short
sharp transitions were used to add a sense of hurrying and a dynamic theme.
This adds to the fast paced action of the actual movie. We added non-diegetic
background music which had fast drum beats and loud sudden elements. This again
adds to the action theme and the fast paced of running and tension of the
actors situation. We didn’t get round to using the green screen in our editing
but I think we would of used it to add explosions and distortions since these
are the conventions of action movies. The red and orange associates with danger
in which the actor is related to.
We decided to create our
movie in the horror genre. This captivates audiences of our age 14-19 years old
as we like to experiment with the unknown. The horror genre was created from
1890’s onwards, adapting to the times as it progressed, becoming more and more
horrific. The horror genre is associated with developing a negative emotion
from the audience and viewers by making the audiences primal fears seem real.
Horror came around from
literature from authors such as Edgar Allen Poe, Bram Stoker with Dracula and Mary Shelley with Frankenstein. These were written to
startle the readers and future audiences. Macabre (grim atmosphere) and
supernatural elements usually feature in these literature or films. Horrors can
overlap with fantasy and thrillers, and sometimes comedy.
When creating an opening
sequence we would have to make sure we create the same macabre atmosphere and
initialize the audience’s terror of the unknown. When researching plots with a
horror genre, they usually consist of an unusual event, intrusion of evil
forces.
Regular fears consist of;
-Ghosts
-Aliens
-Vampires
-Werewolves
-Demons
-Gore
-Torture
-Vicious animals
-Evil witches
-Monsters
-Zombies
-Cannibals
-Murderers and serial killers
Many horror movies generate
from myth or true stories exaggerated. This scares the audience further as
there is some element of truth which makes the audience feels anxious of how
true the plot is. This has the audience thinking ‘What if…?’ which should be
the element we need in our opening sequence.
1920’s
The era of silent movies.This is where the visual element of horror was
all they had. Many supernatural movies escalated around this time, such as 'Nosferatu'. Many films came from gothic literature and myths and legends from
Europe. Audiences were captivated by how ‘ghosts’ could be captured on film or
how producers used lanterns for ‘supernatural’ experiences. The black and white
technology of the times was played on, by making scenes darker with more
shadows by doubling the filters. Audiences found a special interest in vampires
at this time. Many of the conventions and filters are still used today. Many of
the horror films produced in this time have been lost due to no way of copying
and storing back in this time.
In this screen shot, we see a
young woman playing with a pet cat. We associate cats with luck and other
fates. They are seen as quite a give away in horror movies. This may indicate
the young women is associated with magic for instance a witch as the connotations
for a witch is to have a pet cat.
1930’s
This
is the time when sound first came out, reinventing horror movies having a huge
impact on this genre. The silent movies consisted of just visual arts, now
contained more growls, grunts and horrific sound. Vampires and ghosts become
less popular and monsters became a new fad. Sound became a new dimension for
terror and music was experimented with to create tension
or presence of evil. Basic sound effects were introduced into the cinema world
such as echoing footsteps. Horror was created for escapism for the audience.
During this time for instance, the Great Depression was in America, which made movies popular in this time for a few
hours to escape the real world.
The movies started to create a
sense of fantasy mixed with horror, taking the audience away from life as we
know it. Now using deigetic sound, actors put on exotic voices to make the
escapism more authentic. Again, the use of gothic literature sparked many of
the movies ideas.
Audiences seemed more
enthusiastic in this time period than 1920's as horror movies were becoming
quite popular as time went on. This appears to be the case of wanting to forget
the realism of global events and The Great Depression.
80 million people attended the cinema
on a weekly basis, 65% of the population from the US.
An example of a popular movie of this time was Frankenstein (1931).
The power of speech was new to the 1931's as seen
in the above clip. By scaring the audience before hand was a way to put them in
the right mindset for the movie. The way the introduction has been done, leaves
the audience questioning what will happen that is so shocking in the movie. By
using vocal in our main task, we could also put our audience in the right mind
set, with the use of deigetic sound.
1940's
Wartime horror movies circulated America at the time
as horror movies were banned in Britain due to Europe being busy with war and
not importing or exporting anything they didn't need to waste money on. Also,
Hollywood was the main audience for movies and film due to their culture so
stayed mainly in this area for a couple decades before becoming worldwide. This
was the time of experimentation, and limits due to the war having impact on
many people's lives.
One theme experimented with at this time was
animals and understandings of them. Films such as 'The Wolf Man' and 'The Cat
People' became popular as this intrigued the audiences by seeing their own race
merged with ordinary creatures, and revolted many people.
The Wolf Man (1941) became a huge hit to cinema
screening. Producers trailed back to mystic mythology and started to look at
werewolves and their legends, like they did for Dracula. The mise-en-scene
widely used in this movie were a concoction of;
Silver Bullets
Full Moons
Pentagrams
Gypsies
1950's
After war, many changes took place globally. We see
this in horror movies from the 1950's. Horrifying monsters were done away with
and a new era came to Hollywood. Horror movies started to place human faces on
the face of evil, along with day to day creatures. This era was known as
'Creature Feature'.
World War II had left 40 million humans dead
causing more damage to humans faith in humanity. Inhumane actions became a big
discussion in this time period, questioning the horror of human actions. Due to
war, many cinemas were left without customers due to soldiers being in their
own state of horror from events displayed and wartime widows being wrapped up
in their own world of horror.
In this time period, a new phenomena had occurred. The
first ever sighted UFO in 1947 and following that the Roswell incident. This led
to a new fear of the unknown in space and science, creating a window of opportunity
for horror producers to scare their audiences. The line between real and fake,
fact and fiction became thin during this time as audiences became wary of
technological advancements.
This is where the age of B-movies starting booming.
B-movies are low budget films of inferior quality were used as a supporting feature
in a cinema program. The age of colour TV programs instead of black and white
was becoming more and more popular, shadowing out movies. The top stars were
being selected for musicals and classics other than horror movies, pretty much
like today, meaning the audiences would rather watch an A-star actress over a
B-star.
Audiences for horror movies took a rather large
turnabout. Teenagers became the main audiences for these low budget
productions, very much so like today. Instead of older audiences viewing
certain actors with certain plots, many teenagers would hang around a drive-in
movie and became a regular hang out area for these teenagers. The twisted
creatures used in these movies seemed to captivate the experimental minds of
teenagers, making them the main audience of this era. Another key feature of this era was the Mutant Madness. As explained before, science was becoming a new and exciting thing. Radiation was a new movie feature, making creatures larger (such as Godzilla) or shrink (such as The Fly).Existing life forms made for better movies as they could be photographed using Blue Screen techniques or recreated in model form with stop-animation bringing them to life. Early attempts of this in films such as 'King Kong' were successful but wasn't widespread until this era. The cutting edge technology used worked well enough to draw audiences from their new found television sets, back into cinemas. Many of these plots have to do with a huge monster being on a rampage. A mad scientist is always the hero in these films as well. The fear eradicated from the use of atomic bombs. By being a new weapon, many people were scared of the bombs outcome. America had to deal with the mass destruction of an atomic bomb and soon after the fear of the world ending and many unanswered questions.
New movies were now being advertised on public television, gaining more of an audience. Movies were also starting to produce merchandise and advertising in news papers by showing the monsters and mutants as real images. Even with low quality sound and picture, the experience was something for someone to enjoy. An example of a prime movie in the 1950's was 'The Invasion of the Body Snatchers'.
1960's
The sexual revolution. This was the year of great change, where horror perceptions took a huge turn. New things were approaching such as new hemlines for the females and homosexuality. Horror movies wanted to find a new way to perceive sex and violence in there B-movie films. New cinema chains such as 'underground cinemas' were experimenting with no scrutiny or censorship on what they showed to shock the audience further. This new decade brought a new opinion on showing nudity and onscreen violence along with it. These challenged society and caused an uproar. The main audience from the 50's were now grown ups and took no interest in false movie titles with predictability. The 50's audience, now growing older wanted movies more relatable, and more realistic to their situations as budding adults. They longed for more sophisticated aspects and the issues they face now in their modern world.
Even though this was one of the most tragic decades of this era, there was a certain sense of companionship, optimism and humanity was moving forward into a brighter future. The mutant monsters were a thing of the 50's where the radioactive technologies were a thing of history, making the monsters appear to be a bit stupid now. Aliens were also out of this area with no certified answer for if they exist or not or no further sightings. Horror movies had to now dig from the inside of society and out instead of scaring them with 'what if's?' Horror movie producers learnt they had to change their attitudes to suit the teenagers of the era, thus came along the mainstream audience for horror movies being teenagers as they associate with these age ranges the most. The idea of self image was becoming a theme for the 60's so producers thought, "lets scare these kids by making them the monsters and ruining their images...".
Night of the Living Dead was a major hit and a prime example of ruining body image for the teenagers of the 60's. The idea of the dead coming back to life was unbearable and that their own body image could be ruined because of the event. Night of the Living Dead had a budget of $114,000 to be produced. This promised to be the first of its kind horror movie which we see today with the main conventions; death, zombies and gore. Acting was becoming more realistic, make up was being more advanced and the special effects were now up to date a highly believable.
1970's
The 70's were known as the disappointing decade. In the 60's, moonlandings, sex and cultural revelations were feeding the society. In this decade, the whole 10 years seemed disappointing compared to the last 10 years. The humanity died and became the doom and gloom years, which only meant more bright ideas for the big screen. This marked the first outcome of high budget horror movies, addressing societies fears and individual psychological fears too.
A new development of the fear of children. More so, the pain and messy aspect of child birth. Many horror movies were based on the fact of birth control pills as they were new for this era so the movies express their fear for new medication.
Another fear was that a family member is a serial killer. This era revolved around paranoia. The new sense of having no humor in their horror movies.
One film showing the fear and paranoia in families is Alice, Sweet Alice (1976).
The new feature of dolls and masks became a new feature as well. This is because they hold the same over happy expression no matter what. This creepy factor scares quite a lot of people due to the fake expression. Hidden identity paranoid many people thus masks scaring people too, usually with creepy factors such as doll faces or chainsaw masks.
The dolls also played on the fact adults started to fear children and their naive nature.
1980's
Special effects have now started to catch up with the gory realistic images of inside the human body. Advances in animatronics, liquid and foam latex meant movie producers could go further with bodily mutilations and distortion. This meant they could now show close ups without looking mediocre, scaring viewers and revolting them. Audiences wanted everything in a horror movie, the gore, the amazing plot and the amazing actors. This was where colour TV flourished and horror movies were higher budgeted.
The audiences imagination became a large part of horror movies. Movies such as 'The Blair Witch Project' where they shown no monsters or scary conventions at all. It was all in the setting, the sound and the acting which still took people right to the edge of fear. The other aspect was the show the audience exactly what they wanted. Blood. Gore. Guts, to induce the audiences reaction of nausea but kept the audience watching just out of fascination. An experimentation was the allow audiences to watch a video of a surgical operation which induced the same feeling as the horror movies. There was a link between showing the inside of the human body and horror movies.
Horror movies needed to find the balance between gore and shocking images. If they just shown gore all the way through, it would lose its meaning. Many films couldn't find this balance and became more of a teenage laughing stock. We wince because this is inside us as we watch the movie and this could happen to us.
Zombies were still the main monster of the time, introducing the blood and gore aspect even further. These types of movies would rake in millions instead of thousands, showing the growth of love within horror movies and the new audiences. The main audiences of this time was the 15 to 24 year old category, looking for new thrills and competition between their friends. Sex still was present in these movies just like today as the slogan 'sex sells'.
The Thing (1982) was the prime example of the human body and gore. There was some highlights where they were laughable moments instead of screams but the whole movie captured what the 80's was about with experimentation, science and the extent of the human biology. The slogan for the movie was 'Man is the warmest place to hide' hinting at the movies plot.
Here we see the gore in action in the movie. Nowadays we would know this wasn't real, the blood colour is wrong and it just looks fake. Back in the 80's this was the real thing. The gore would send people rushing out the cinemas and the sight of something so inhumane would curdle everyone's stomachs. The setting only adds to the fear factor being based in the antarctic. A desolate cold place where no one can hear you scream if you were the only one alive...
1990
The decade of serial killers, psycho's and murders. After the gruesome 80's, the effects worn off of the viewers. They seemed to fascinate and amuse more than scare and repulse. Zombies were now being mocked, they out lived their time. Killers and Cannibals were this decades fear.
In the first five minutes of Scream (1996), we see the serial killer already making moves. The mystery created tension which producers found was the perfect recipe for horror movies. The new phone technology was becoming more advanced, finding the perfect way to mask identity and use this to scare people. By producers making the setting in a house, the whole globe could relate. By using house hold appliances, it shocked people into thinking anything can be used to kill someone with. By creating the horror in someones house, it haunted every for many months after leaving the cinema.
2000
Global convergence. This was the main focus of the noughties. In 2001, the events of 9/11 took place, capturing the globes attention. A new type of fear was eradicated for the 2000's, the fear of terrorism. Certain areas were affected by recession and the music industry was certainly affected. The movie industry became sensitive to what they could show without offending people. There was so much stress circulating companies, movies, and pretty much everyone, that there was even calls to close off the horror movie genre for the time being just for world peace at this time. But with a miraculous rebound, the horror genre was at its prime at 2005. Horror genre movies was topping the box office than any other genre on above average gross and below average budgets. Horror movies became a challenge between friendship groups on who can be the bravest, raking in massive crowds from again the ages 15-24 years. They use horror as escapism from the global issues dragging this age group down just as their great grandparents went to escape the realism of the War.
The prime example of global terror is 28 Days Later. A very unconventional horror featuring in broad day light instead of the traditional dark shadow forlorn conventions.
Many of the films nowadays follow this 'epidemic' feature as we become aware of the apocalypse. There is a pattern with today's horror movies, featuring a hell on Earth as everyone fears the unknown.
The opening scene starts
some indie style music, Sweet Things – Changing the Seasons. This is a love
song with a light beat which most Romantic Comedy’s use at the start of the
movie. This appeals more to female viewers and ages of 16-25 years due to the style
of music. The song relates to the whole movie which shows elements of
foreshadowing. This is non-diegetic sound as it is part of the movies
soundtrack and the characters cannot hear it or react to it. The mise-en-scene
of the first 5 seconds of the opening clip has bight lighting which most
rom-coms use. This makes the seen look more cheerful and colourful which
appeals to the female audience. The location is based in the school grounds of
a high school. We see the school in the far background of the shot, and a park
like grounds more towards the camera. Editing used here is the credits which
have been artistically places on the floor of the grounds. This makes the movie
look professional and also the audience’s eyes are more attracted to this style
of displaying credits. They use a white base text as it contrasts with the
background so the audience can read it with ease. The camera is taking an
establishing shot, on a track as the camera is steady and moving slowly
forward. As the camera tracks forward, we see two teenagers walk into the shot
and become main focus. This is an over the shoulder shot and they walk off into
the distance.
Their costumes suggest they’re students in a school since they are in casual
attire and wearing backpacks and holding files. We see more and more students
walking around the shot space with their friendship groups. We see this as
friendship groups as they’re talking to one another and showing gestures of
being comfortable around each other. The credits are still being smartly edited
in. The camera tracks forward more and swoops around to other students, and
repeats a few times giving the audience a little more scenery piece by piece.
The camera begins to pan, following a boy skating across a path making him the
main focus for this section.
The
camera uses focus pulls from one group of girls to another. All shots on the
students have been long shots up until it focuses from a front view of one
female group.
This makes the audience think this group will be main focus of the movie. A mid-long shot is used, capturing a pouty facial expression, showing the girl is popular and important here. The camera tracks backwards showing the front girl is on her phone, as a prop, meaning she might be popular and goes into the story a little bit each more revealing new aspects. Her friends talk to her and leave, possibly saying a parting gesture but the girl struts with the camera reverse tracking showing she is leader.
The focus is pulled to another girl as the leader bumps into her sending her files over the floor. This is used in romantic comedies a lot to make the main girl appear like a damsel in distress and not popular in high school. They use this as it makes the girl look helpless and the audience automatically sympathies with her. The camera pans down to the girl on the floor’s level. This uses a long shot but we can still see the girl’s perplexed expression and her uniform and bag suggesting she is a student. She scrambles on the floor for her file work as we notice no one helps her. She is on a low level connoting as she is seen as a low down priority person in the school. The lighting is a little darker here and may foreshadow she might have bad luck or a change of fate later on in the movie. We also get the sense she does well in high school and maybe associated with a ‘nerd’ as she looks worried about her work becoming dirty on the ground as she fumbles for her files.
