Deconstruction of Lighting - Mehrabi Ward

Deconstruction of Lighting - Cabin in the Woods:

This is a deconstruction showing the different types of lighting used in a horror film. The film I have chosen to analyse the lighting is called 'The Cabin in the Woods'. Although the sub-genre of this film is that it is a slasher horror, the levels of lighting used in all horror films are generally quite similar. And parts of this film are also filmed in the woods which is where we are planning to film our footage so it is quite relative to our idea.

This is a shot of one of the characters who is a victim in the film. And as you can see the level of lighting is quite low however there is light shining through the trees from behind but there are a lot of areas in the dark.

 In this shot there is a vast difference in contrast of the lighting in different areas. The level of natural lighting is very high however we can also see that the level of lighting actually in the cabin is very low by the front door, darkness is a connotation to danger suggesting there is danger in the cabin.

Here, the level of lighting is very low, there are a lot of areas of the scenery that is in darkness - giveing an eerie effect to the viewer as it is almost fear of the unknown.

Overall from these shots, I have found that types of lighting used in horror films is usually quite dark or if it is a light area then the place that is mean to show danger, are the places that are usually in the shadows.

Storyboard Draft (2): Final - Mehrabi Ward

Storyboard Draft - Final:

This blog shows the final draft of our storyboard to show any extra shots we decided to add or any shots we didn't use and why. As this is our final storyboard, all the shots shown, all fit in with the shots on our film opening.

• This is the first two shots of our updated storyboard. The writing underneath the boxes says what the shot is of and what type of shot it is. 
• The second shot is the only one thats changed from our first storyboard as we forgot to add in a match on action shot so we developed it to fit the criteria.

• These shots are the same as the ones we planned on using for our original storyboard, which shows that we wee using our first draft of our storyboard when filming.

• We had previously planned to use both these shots in our film opening before we filmed our footage, however for the first shot, it was meant to be a panning shot of just the scenery and the little girl was not meant to be part of it.

• We hadn't originally planned to use these shots in our opening, however as the day we went to film was the first time Charlie, Georgia and I had seen the location, we started getting new ideas, and these shots were one of them.

• These shots are developed on from the last two, where Zoe turns round and stares at the camera as if it were the supernatural figure, that was in the background of the last shot, as explained in the writing under the boxes.

• Again these shots were not planned, before we filmed but we thought they would be effective so we decided to add them in as part of our opening.

• These shots are more developed on from our last storyboard, as we didn't know about the drawings on the walls in the bunker which we then ended up filming. 
• We also didn't originally plan to shoot footage of the supernatural figure in the bunker, as our old idea was to have Zoe looking like she was hanging from a tree, which we decided not to do as it was too dangerous and wouldn't be able to make it look effective.

• These are the final shots to our film opening and it is of the doll that had been dropped to the floor when Zoe gets to the top of the bunker and finds the supernatural figure. 
• We then added our title at the end of our footage, and decided to call it 'They're Coming'. 
• We got this idea as it was what was written on the wall inside the bunker when we got there and we thought it suited our idea very well and was also more effective than all of the other names we had come up with before.

Opening Scene: Women In Black- Charlotte Wilson

Women In Black Opening Scene 

I looked at the opening scene of the women in black as this is part of the supernatural horror genre and thought this would help me get inspiration for our own film opening. 

Within the scene creepy child themed music is used which sounds like a child's music box tune, this is one of the ideas we have to use for our film opening due to the fact a little girl is used. 

One of the first shots used is a long shot of three girls playing, this is a common representation of supernatural horror movies being young innocent children. We can see by the way they are dressed, the room and the toys which they are playing with that it is set a long time ago. 

There are a lot of close up shots used throughout the scene, the shots focus on more of the objects and toys instead of their facial expressions. This is the first shot shown. 

Within the scene there are a lot of toys one of the main ones being a doll, i think the use of a doll is very effective, definitely an idea which we will use within our opening as well as a close up angle on it. 

A high angle shot is used in this image, from this we can see that the girls and vulnerable and a victim due to the angle of the camera. I also think us not seeing what they're looking at is effective as it questions the viewer what they're starting at. 

Throughout the scene there is some slow motion used and zooming. I'm this shot the camera zooms into the window meaning there is a significance to it, i really like the slow motion used within the scene making it eerie and spiritual being a convention of supernatural horror films the use of demonds and ghosts. 

By analysing the film opening of the women in black i am able to identify the key features used in supernatural horrors and apply this to our own film opening. I also now have a clearer idea on certain shots, props and music which will be used. 

Feedback- Charlotte Wilson

Feedback

When completing our first draft of our film opening we presented it to the rest of the class. From this our peers then analysed our film opening writing positive and negative things about it as well as improvements which can be made. 

Some of the positive feedback received was our variety of different camera angles used, the affective location of a woods conforming to the genre , clear genre with the use of the doll, our actor used being a young possessed girl, figure and clothing, effective child music conforming to genre, the flickering of clips of the anonymous figure. 

However some negatives and improvements to be made is that lighting was too bright and needed to be darker, that the title font didn't work and transition to it and that production company framing needed to be landscape as it was portrait and didn't work.

Due to the improvements needed to be made me all took a role upon ourselves to improve it. Natasha made the lighting darker where it was needed, Mehrabi re filmed our production company so it was the right way around being landscape. I did the title changes to do this i chose a different font which was the one used throughout on the credits which was an old fashioned font linking in with the genre of supernatural horror. I then changed the effect on it the last one was quite fast where the word appeared then went quite quickly. I changed it to a fade where it came in quite slowly but still be effective. 

This is a screen shot of me adding in the title making the changes from our feedback.

Deconstruction of mise-en-scene in horror movies in general - Natasha McGill

Deconstruction of mise-en-scene in horror movies in general

In Paranormal Activity, there are different mies-en-scene props. The main source of prop is the baby's toys. They move automatically when a supernatural presence is near and this makes it play a typical child's toy box music theme tune, this will spin slowly as the music plays slow as well building up tension. The dog and the baby themselves have a major role because they can both detect the spirit so therefore are more intrigued in whats going but the dog is more alert that there is danger. They have a usual normal house that is on the street surrounded by others so it makes it look normal but this house does have a basement which is where the spirit hides. The photo with the baby in it, the way the camera is showing the room is a high angle wide shot allowing the viewer to see the whole surrounding.

In the film, Emaze, there are many different spooky props as we can see in the image below that there are creepy pictures that are twisted and hanging of the wall to show little care looked after the house and the stairs have no carpet or proper flooring to suggest lack of maintenance and respect. All of these things build up and make the house creepier. Especially the effect of the photos shows little attention and caution and awareness off what is going on. Also the photo looks messed up and out of place just like what could happen in the film.

 

 

 

As in the Woman in Black, the mise-en-scene is very creepy. These are just two of the dolls/toys that are used along with many more old fashioned toys. These aren't the typical toys to give to children they are the old china toys that are easily breakable and can be seen as very creepy looking. The fact the doll has no expression with its backcombed hair and faced all scratched makes it looks freakier and if itself has been possessed. The fact that these sorts of props are used in horror films show that children are usually seen with them and makes them be seen as the victim. Also the clown is a prop that is shown a lot along with many toys similar for example an old monkey. We see these toys in a shot of a child's bedroom in the haunted house in the film, clowns are portrayed as being daunting and frightening and the make up on the clown portrays a more thrilling and creepy object. 

Post Production: Title/Typography- Charlotte Wilson

Titles/Typography

Within our film opening we included titles and credits. After watching the openings of supernatural horror movies i got an idea of what to include and the font to use. One of my main inspirations was from the film the Conjuring.

I really like the font used as its old fashioned linking in with the demonds and spirits in the film, which is similar to ours.

I then chose the appropriate font and added in the credits, i decided to use just our names to appear throughout the opening i found this most effective. I also chose it to appear and disappear in a fade effect  this made it look eerie fitting in with the genre of ghosts and spirits. 

This screenshot shows me adding in the credits. One of the problems i encountered was making sure the text was in the right position for each persons name and that the time gab between names was good and when it appeared. 

After changing It a few times we then decided on the titles font of our film opening which is 'They're Coming' . It took a long time to decide on what to call our film opening, our final decision was made once we put all of our footage together in the right order and edited it. We decided to keep it the same font as what had been used for the credits, which was an old fashioned style font in white being quite spaced out in between each letter. We also thought a fade affect was the most effective to use which worked well as linked in with the rest of the film opening and genre. 

Screenshot of me adding in the title. 

The final title. 

Overall i am happy with our title name and font i feel after looking at other supernatural films i got a clear idea of what was needed and from this was appropriately able to choose the corret title font and credits. I think our title makes viewers able to identify the genre easier being supernatural horror. 

Final storyboard - Georgia Serrecchia

Final storyboard:

Below, it shows our final storyboard for our horror film opening scene and it shows that it is different compared to our original storyboard that we had produced.

We had to make quite a few changes as we were unable to produce some of the things we wanted too as they would've been too difficult for us to act out.

For example, we were unable to get the string in order to look like the girl was being hung, and we added in a few extra shots to the original storyboard as we had to add a few more in on the day.

This image shows two of our shots, the one on the left is the actress sitting on a wall whilst staring at the figure that it behind the trees.

 The other shot shows that there will be a pan shot of the figure standing in the woods and it will be quite close to the camera.








This image shows the next two shots, there will be a hand - held medium shot of the actress walking towards the stairs, which will then be followed by a hand - held shot of her walking down the stairs and it will be quite a shaky and eerie shot.

This shows the next couple of shots, one they are in the bunker there will be a close up of the walls, where theres a drawing saying 'they're coming' which is accompanied by a triangle. It gives off quite a mysterious effect and comes across as quite eerie to the audience/viewers.

This shot is then followed by a tilt shot of the black figure standing in the corner of the room, letting the audience know that something scary may be about to happen in the scene.





This next shot shows a close up of the scary, torn up doll and the actress will be dropping it on the floor where there will also be a scream showing the viewers that something has occurred.

The final shot is the title, 'They're Coming', it will be quite bold serif text and it will fade into the screen and then suddenly disappear.

This is effective because it will be quite a dramatic ending.

Feedback from our film opening - Georgia Serrecchia

Feedback from our film opening:

Here is some audience feedback from our first draft of the psychological horror opening scene. We showed some peers our film opening and then they wrote down some improvements, in order for us to add to and improve our film opening. The peer feedback means that we can know what the viewers are expecting and what they would like to see when watching our film opening as we need to know whether it suits our target audience and fits our film opening genre.





This feedback says that our text is basic, therefore we changed our text today into something more interesting in order to draw in the audiences attention.

We also have to improve our production company as it was portrait, however the rest of the opening scene was filed landscape. Therefore we're re-filming the production company in order for it to fit in with the rest of the film.

Therefore, we are going to incorporate all of these points into our film opening in order to improve it and include all the things that viewers would like to see from us.

storyboard drafts - Georgia Serrecchia

Storyboard draft:

Below is our draft for our storyboard, these are the individual shots as to what we would like to film on the day. We chose these shots as they fit in with our theme and genre of the opening scene.


This is the opening shot as it will start to create tension in the beginning of the scene which will then cause tension throughout.



This is a shot of the teddy/doll falling out of the girls hands.

Practical Task: Sound - Mehrabi Ward

Practical Task of Sound:


This blog is to show the types of different sound effects and sound tracks I though would be effective to add into our film opening.


This is a sound effect that I found on Soundcloud. It is a short clip of a scream, that I think would be effective to use at the end of our film opening, as this is when the girls doll drops to the floor suggesting to the audience that something has happened to her.




This is a sound effect of a heart beat which is very slow but yet could build tension if it was used in our film opening.
I think that the beginning part of the clip is better than the second half when it begins to change as i don't think that the second sound effect is quite as effective.
The heart beat sound could be used when the girl in our clip is walking through the dark bunker as it shows tension and that she is getting closer to the supernatural figure.




This final sound clip is less of a sound effect and more like and actual backing track. I quite liked this clip because in a way it sounds like a children's tune but that it's been tweaked slightly to sound scarier and more thrilling. This could fit in well to our film opening as our main character is a child therefore it would link in well, to the whole aspect of the film opening.

Once everybody in our group has listened to everyone's soundtracks that they have found we will all decide on which is the best and which sounds we will and won't put into our film opening to get the best result.

Audience feedback and improvements - Natasha McGill

Audience feedback and improvements

After we had finished our film opening we had an audience feedback lesson where we watched our class mates film openings and we evaluated them saying what we thought was effective and good and what could be improved on. When we got our feedback back there was three major improvements that came up quite frequently and these were:

• change the orientation of our home-made production company 
• the lighting of some shots could be darker as they thought it was too bright
• changing the title at the end because it didn't fit well into our genre so didn't conform to conventions of usually titles for supernatural horror and the way it zoomed in and out before didn't fit well with our genre

Here below was a screenshot of what I done to make these changes which was to make the shots darker, the shots that was already dark didn't need altering and some angles made the shots darker already so I only changed all the shots that was necessary. Although on some shots making them darker meant the image wasn't very clear so I only altered the shots that still looked at a good quality still being darker.

 

 

Now that the shots are darker, this does add to the effect of it looking creepier because with the dark misty linger in the air, this does look more professional than previously it looked like pure bright daylight. When we first edited our film opening the shots were made darker because they were originally very bright but having watched it a few more times and with our audience feedback we realised that the shots can still go a bit darker.

Improvements Made to Film Opening - Mehrabi Ward

Improvements Made to Film Opening:


After our film opening had been completed we had time for people in our class to watch it and make evaluative comments for us, to tell us what they think we could have improved on.
We had some positive feedback with comments such as:

• They liked our props (the doll)
• They thought we had some creative shots of the underground bunker which enhanced the effect of the film opening.
• The innocence of the protagonist, as she is wearing pyjamas
• People also said that they liked our choice of location, as it is quite unique for the genre of our film opening, yet they also said it looked effective.

There were a few comments on what we needed to improve on such as:

• Improve the lighting of our shots as it doesn't look very effective
• Change our title at the end of the opening because, it didn't look very effective and didn't suit the genre of the film opening.
• To change the orientation of the shot of our home-made production company - this is the thing that I was appointed to do, as I have been the one who has filmed it and edited it before.

I can see why this comment was made about our home-made production company sequence, as all of our footage is landscape and I filmed the footage for the production company in portrait there for the sequence doesn't look right throughout our complete opening.
To improve this, I am going to have to re-shoot this clip again, however in landscape, so that it looks better.

This is what our home-made production company looks like now that I have made the improvements:

I had re-filmed the shots of the blood dripping into the bath, however I did use the same filter on shot and used a similar style of writing as I did before. I also used an effect for the text, which was to have it entering and exiting the sequence as a blur. I think this is much improved as the orientation fits so much better and doesn't look so out of place.

Practical Task - Actors: Mehrabi Ward

Practical Task of Actors:

This blog focusses on the actor we are planning on using for our horror film opening. From my research that I carried out on types of actors used in horror films I came to the conclusion that it would be a good idea to use a younger girl, as it shows that she is twice as vulnerable as an adult in the presence of a supernatural being.

This is a shot of our actress:

• Her name is Zoe and as she is Georgia's cousin.
• We thought that it could be ideal to use her when shooting our film opening as she will then be reliable, and is unlikely to say she is unavailable.
• We thought that Zoe has an innocent looking face so it would make the feel of the film opening more effective as she is being lured in by the supernatural figure.
• As I had carried out research on actors in supernatural films, I had found that using young children in horror films is very common and effective as they are made to look more vulnerable which makes the idea, scarier to the viewer.

 

 



Deconstruction of actors - Georgia Serrecchia

Deconstruction of actors:


In psychological horrors there is normally the same type of characters throughout most of this genre of films. There is normally a normally family with parents, who usually have young children in which one of these children is normally the one to become possessed.
This relates to our horror scene because we used a young child who looked around the same age as the kids that are usually used in these psychological horror films.


In slasher horror films there can be a range of different characters throughout. However, there are normally only two or three of these actors who appear to be the main characters in the film, and the ones who usually get hurt or killed.

This photo shows the female actor from the psychological horror 'The Exorcist', It shows that she is a young girl which is normally the type of actor seen in this genre of horror movie.

Therefore, we will be using a young girl in our opening scene and this is the girl that will be participating:



 We will be making her face paler and using other types of make up in order to make her look more possessed so that she suits the common actors of psychological horror films.

Evidence of filming - Natasha McGill

Evidence of filming

Throughout filming our horror film opening scene we had to take photos as we went alone to prove that we actually filmed instead of taking or copying the footage from elsewhere. The way we decided to show this was through photographs of our actor acting and the different locations we was at and also different photos of different people in our group filming.

This was a photo that I took when we just arrived into the woods at our location and was about to start filming, this was the wooded path before entering into the army bunker and this is where our actor will walk at the start of our film opening so therefore following our storyboard we started filming here first. The photo with the camera and we see Zoe climbing through the fence was a shot that Mehrabi filmed. We was making progress on our film opening.

This next photo shows that I am filming as I had to climb up onto the bunker and stand on top of it to get the right angle of the black figure standing in the woods. This was when our actor (Zoe) was about to play around the trees all innocently before she actually realises that there was a supernatural being possessing her. A number of shots was filmed up here some one which included zooming in and out focusing on the black figure and extreme long shots showing Zoe playing and our black figure standing in the distance to show her appearance. Also a shot like this allows the location to be shown like filming in the woods as it has a creepier effect to it.



The shot below shows that I also filmed inside the army bunker but before I started filming I took a photo of the camera and Georgia inside the bunker. The image below shows Georgia who was the black figure in the background and this shot was taken when we was inside the army bunker. There was a lot of different shots that was taken down in the bunker and this was one of them that I filmed. In the bunker the lighting was produced by natural daylight but in some aspects when we was filming right inside we all had to have our phone torches out to shine next to the camera and on what we was actually filming. This shot of Georgia we had to shine just one torch on Georgia herself otherwise it would have been to dark.