Final Task brainstorm

Final Version made by Zak Rodgers and Emma Bradshaw

20th Century Fox

20th Century Fox on Prezi

This is 20th Century Fox's top 40 highest grossing movies of all time. Out of all of theses movies, None of them are horror movies. Therefore, 20th Century Fox would not be a good choice of production company for our horror movie.

Preliminary Task Roles

Table created by Zak rodgers

The Name of our Film

AURA

The title of our film was thought of by my group member Zak Rodgers through a eureka moment.We felt this name suited our film as 'Aura' is defined as;

 au·ra

noun /ˈôrə/  aurae, plural; auras, plural The distinctive atmosphere or quality that seems to surround and be generated by a person, thing, or place - the ceremony retains an aura of mystery A supposed emanation surrounding the body of a living creature, viewed by mystics, spiritualists, and some practitioners of complementary medicine as the essence of the individual, and allegedly discernible by people with special sensibilities Any invisible emanation, esp. a scent or odor - there was a faint aura of disinfectant A warning sensation experienced before an attack of epilepsy or migraine

This links with the themes of our film as a psychological/supernatural horror.

Actor Consent form

Permission from zakrodgers

We produced a consent form for our two actors to fill in before we begin filming as they are both considered under age as they are both 16 or under. Callum, who is going to play the young child 'Stephen' is 14 and Jo whose is to play the female character 'Sam' is 16. 
This form was created by my group member Zak Rodgers

Sub genres

This is the business insiders 20 highest grossing horror movies of all time. I had a look and found that the most popular sub genre of horror is supernatural or psychological as 14 out of the 20 movies are of that genre. 

This will help us decide what type of horror opening to make as, by looking at this, we will be able to cater for more people.



(http://www.businessinsider.com/the-20-highest-grossing-horror-movies-of-all-time-2012-10?op=1)

Preliminary Script

Script:

Female walks up to front of house, approaches front door and enters. She walks into a room with a round table and two chairs; a male sat in one.

Male:I knew you would come

Female: (Whispered) Why am i here? 

Male:(Shouting) You know why you're here! The time has come and now you must pay for what you have done!

Pandemic pictures Logo

Designed by Emma Bradshaw







 We decided to use darker colours because we felt they had horror themed connotations. We chose to have a black background because the image we chose is striking on it's own but in front of a black background, it stands out even more and draws the audience's attention in. We wanted to give it an uneasy but mysterious feel to it as we decided our company would be primarily horror/thriller. 
We had the idea of a gas mask to link in with the idea of 'pandemic' as something infectious but were unable to take our own picture as so we therefore found our image online. We didn't want to use someone else's picture so we changed and edited it make it our own. Emma changed the picture by cropping it and  putting a darker section to the left of the image as I suggested we could put our title to the left and along the bottom to make it look a logo from an institution. We chose a simple, plain looking font of Times New Roman because we felt it was easily readable and your attention was drawn to it due to the text being white and the background being black. 
We wanted to add sound effects for when our logo was at the beginning of our film and so we stuck with a similar theme by using bomb sirens and heavy breathing.  

Sound effect examples

I had a look at a few different examples of sound used in openings to give ideas of what to use in our own

Group Film Openings:The Ring

Part 1:

Part 2:

Movie Analysis:The number 23

Independant Film Institution

Movie Analysis:Titanic

Movie Analysis:Seven

Movie Analysis: This is England

Group Film Openings: Nightmare on Elm street

Reaction from both viewers used to horror and new horror watchers.

Scary, red font-death

Film Company

Title, flashing

Black tension, mystery

Small screen- focus more on action- important to pay attention

Can’t see face- bad intentions, looks like weapon.

Well known director- draw in audience, have high expectations for film.

Title zooms forward (chaotic) creeping up/attack

‘Nightmare’ in bold during title-importance, set theme for movie,

Screaming-unpleasant, scary

Girl, blonde, white night dress- vulnerable, innocent

Isolated, on her own-vulnerable

Bright light ‘@ the end of tunnel’ reference to death. Any other death references? Walking away from light- not going to heaven, hell?

Close up, half shadowed, anxious- something to hide.

Anything could be in shadows- zoom from behind- creeping up, attack

Sheep- comic relief, anti climax,

Face watched

Music-sinister, tense

Bars, pipes, trapped- concealing, restricting view.

Vast setting, extreme long shot- isolation.

Laughs, fear, sinister, sadistic

Camera following persued

Mist steam- hiding, restricting view

Red light- danger, death

Claws slose up, present danger

Ripping of cloth represent her being ‘ripped’/ killed

Trapped- fire represents hell “hers”

Caught then wakes up from dream

Dream- at home, safe setting, comfy, dark lighting.

Cuts on nightdress-

Group Film Openings: The Grudge 3

The grudge 3 opening analysis

Drop of blood- indidcate death, pain, danger- red

Non-digetic music- horror,loud-scare audience

Production company

Tattoo-setting,red,blood

Convention,danger,red

Actors names, who was first, why?

Hair, links to film-motif

Black and white, flashback,Cuts from credits-flashback

Actions, credits, why ?

Close up

Pale, innoncence

Tells story, expenation

Low angle shot of boy watching.

Point of view of girl when drowning, sympathy, victimising her.

Man killing cat presents him as crazy, psychopathic, ruthless

Don’t know where boy is when he is hiding

Back to present- same establishing shot but house has more run down/abandoned look. –gates tied

High shot, someone looking down/ watching them.

Coming down stairs, tademark

Sorrow for girl is lost when she kills boy.

Reverse

Table of Film Openings and conventions of openings

Normally the opening of a film will take the form of one of the following;

• Flashback
• Panning on Landscape
• Narrations
• Chase scene
• Fight/shoot out
• Title Sequence

Though some are used more often than others, they are all used to draw the audience into the film and the plot or characters. By choosing the right opening for a movie, it sets the mood and genre of the film. It usually sets up a basic plot and gives the audience an equilibrium. We studied a few films and took notes of the openings.

Film	Genre	Conventions	Style of opening	Info in credits	Narrative/story line of film
Pretty Woman	Romantic/comedy	Non-Digetic music-piano sets up romantic genre, characters, pan of landscape, titles	Panning of landscape/scenery. Shows audience location-	Production company	Aimed at women, love story.
Dark Knight	Action/superhero	Non Digetic Music-dramatic, builds tension. Introduction to a main Villain.	Action, robbery, fight. Introduction to character, The casual introduction of violence so early in the beginning of the movie suggests that violence is going to be a constant thing in the movie.	Style of credits has been changed to suit style of genre. production company	Hero VS Villain
Final Destination	Horror/thriller	Non-Digetic music- sinister and creates tension, pan of fairground, Digetic sounds of fairground rides/games –make it familiar but they are loud and therefore, make the audience feel uncomfortable.	Title Sequence,, introduction to characters	Designers, producers, actors-main members of cast and crew.	Fate/destiny – suggested by the cards
Pulp Fiction	Comedy/action	Title sequence, Introduction to  characters	Character introduction	Actors, title	Crime stories
The shining	Horror/thriller	Non Digetic music builds tension and fear due to its resemblance to wailing, Title Sequence	Establishing shot, view of landscape-sets scene, shows audience the isolation- far out in the middle of the mountains. Titles over the top of opening shot.	Actors, key crew members, producers	Shows house is in the middle of nowhere-car driving for a long time-isolation, raises question

Media introduction

Media Introduction

Advert analysis

Denotation:
de·no·ta·tion

Noun:

The literal or primary meaning of a word, in contrast to the feelings or ideas that the word suggests. The action or process of indicating or referring to something by means of a word, symbol, etc.

A denotation is a direct meaning of something not what is assumed by association with a word or a thing. 

Connotation:

con·no·ta·tion

Noun:

An idea or feeling that a word invokes for a person in addition to its literal or primary meaning. The implication of such ideas or feelings

A connotation is an idea or meaning suggested by being associated with a word or thing

For example: 

This is an advert for a 'Eternity' which is a perfume by Calvin Klein. 

Denotations: 

There is a woman holding a child and looking at him. He is looking back at her and has his hands either side of her face.

Both of them are wearing white  

The picture is in black and white. 

The word "Eternity" is written in capital letters at the top of the picture and is in a long thin sans serif font. This is also at the bottom of the page for the words "Calvin" "Klein" and "Perfume". 

There are hills and fields behind the two people   

Connotations:

The word eternity is written at the top in capital letters to show the importance of the word and that that is the name of the product. It shows importance and makes it look strong and ever lasting as the word in its self suggests. This reflects on the product as it is advertising that you can smell it long after it is applied. It makes the product look classy and elegant. The hills and fields gives us the impression that the product has a natural smell and is clean and fresh. This is also shown through the choice of white clothing representing purity.

Preliminary Task

During our first session when discussing the genre of our preliminary and coming up with ideas, we came up with many different types of films that we could do. One of these ideas was to do a Silent film and have the dialogue written inside a frame such as the one on the right hand side:
However, we decided against this as it would take a long time to edit, to find music to fit and we wanted to concentrate on the mise-en-scene and camera shots and angles for the preliminary so we had an idea of what worked and what didn't. Our second choice was to do comedy. Our idea was of a prank gone wrong. We eventually decided against this idea as we thought it would be more useful to do the horror genre because then we would be able to practice appropriate camera angles, mise-en-scene and sound that would create a horror atmosphere, helping us make our main task more polished.
Once we had decided on horror we started brainstorming structures for our scene. We decided to stick with concentrating on mise-en scene and camera shots and so decided we did not want a complicated narrative. When we were thinking of ideas for our scene, we were struggling with which shots to put first and so I suggested that we should block out our shots before we wrote them down so we knew roughly what order we wanted them to be in. It was then suggested that we film our progress of ideas so that we did not forget what we had discussed before we had time to write it down and also to help us discover what was a practical way to use the camera and what wasn't. This is my group coming up with the basic ideas and then developing them further with a few of the shots we thought of. There are some written ideas of other shots that we added in to help us remember roughly what order to put them in. Once we had done this and then looked back on our findings, we drew up our storyboard.

Conventions of Horror

Why is the media so powerful? Why do we study it?

Why is the media so powerful? Why do we study it?

We study the media to help us understand how it contributes to society and effects us. It provides us with information from all over the world and helps us learn about different cultures, whether that be musical taste or political views. It has the power to influence everything about us from opinions and views of the world to how we dress. By studying it in detail, you can learn how music or a certain camera angle can influence the way an audience or reader may interpret a scene from a movie or TV show, how certain colours can symbolise different things and evoke different emotions, or how and why certain programs or advertisements can appeal to different age ranges. The media is a record of how times have changed. By looking at newspaper articles from 50 years ago, or by watching one of the earliest "talkies"  we can see how people, and the media along with it, has developed. 
 I think the media is powerful because it is something that can take numerous shapes or forms and it influences our everyday lives in a way that we do not even sometimes notice. I think that the media has the power to influence what we want to do with our lives. We are exposed to the media at a very young age and so it can inspire us to want to be just like the people we perhaps see on television or read about in books. By reading a childhood book that you can relate to immensely may make you aspire to be a children's writer to inspire other children. Our view of the world can be sculpted by how things are presented by media platforms such as the internet or advertising. I think the media presents people with so many amazing opportunities to experience things that we might not have been able to without it. We are aware of all these amazing places outside of our own countries .

Before starting this Media project, I was not a horror movie fan and had not seen many of them. I had not seen many horror films and so I decided to try to have a look at different horror movies to get an idea of what they were like. I thought that looking at some of the best horror films would help me do this so that I could get an idea of how to create my own. To do this I looked at The Guardian's list of 25  best horror films of all time. 

1. Psycho
2. Rosemary's Baby
3. Don't Look Now
4. The Wicker Man
5. The Shining
6. The Exorcist
7. Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror
8. Let the Right One In
9. Vampyr
10. Peeping Tom
11. The Innocents
12. Ring
13. The Haunting
14. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
15. Dead of Night
16. The Cabinet of Dr Caligari
17. Halloween
18. Bride of Frankenstein
19. Les Diaboliques
20. Dracula
21. Audition
22. The Blair Witch Project
23. The Evil Dead/Evil Dead II
24. Carrie
25. Les Vampires

Out of the above list, I have highlighted the movies that I had already seen before starting the project or seeing the list.Other horror movies that I have seen are;


1.The Orphanage. 

A Spanish horror movie based around a woman called Laura, who grew up in an orphanage and returns to this orphanage with the intention of turning the now derelict home into a home for disabled children. Problems with the house begin when her son Simon gains an 'imaginary' friend with whom Simon later goes missing.

2.Paranormal activity.
Katie and Micah believe they are being haunted and set up video cameras around their house in order to capture what is haunting them. The film is presented as if the footage has been found and a commercial production.

3. Shutter Island

Marshall Teddy Daniels is investigating the escape of a patient from a psychiatric facility on an isolated island.

4. Black sheep

5. Sleepy Hollow

6. Sinister

Although I have not seen many horror movies, I have found that my personal favourite type of horror movies are psychological,  supernatural or 'ghost' movies. 

Three shot types

Camera shots

Suspense

sus·pense/səˈspens/

Noun:

A state or feeling of excited or anxious uncertainty about what may happen. A quality in a work of fiction that arouses excited expectation or uncertainty about what may happen.

Suspense is when the reader/audience is left hanging. Thriller and horror movies use this as a key element technique to engage the audience, keep them interested and want to know the ending. Suspense is that "on-edge" feeling when watching a movie or reading a book that makes you think that something is going to happen. It can help emphasize and make important or final moments more memorable.Suspense is not only created in simpler moments such as the victim being stalked but is generally conflict,about the obstacles between the hero and his goal.

Movie Genre Presentation

Movie Genres Presentation from KelseyDuffy