Genre Research and intertextual links

There is one shot type which is common place in horror films, this is a point of view shot, from the killer. Often it will be filmed with shakey camera work to signify realism, and will also often zoom in from a distance to signify that they are approaching their victim. The opening scene of 'Halloween' is a perfect example of this. That scene was shot by somebody wearing a camera themselves, filming whilst walking around and also acting out the killing. But it is also seen numerous other films such as; Severance, Friday the 13th, Cry Wolf, etc.

A specific style of music is associated with films of a horror genre, the aim of the music is to interfere with the viewers heartbeat therefore making them tenser. Not one horror film doesn't use music o build up tension which shows just how much of a dramatic affect it has.

Horror films frequently use the same settings over and over again, these key settings are; graveyards, woods, houses, motels, country lanes, dark night time, stormy weather, full moons. These are unsettling locations as they are often remote, and the lack of lighting prevents the characters from being able to see what is going on. Full moons and graveyards also have links to the supernatural.

The film 'Halloween' is based around the night of 'Halloween' itself as it has spooky, supernatural routes, associated with terror, as is the date Friday the 13th as it's associated with bad luck.

Some films have taken normal everyday settings and turned them into horror films, which makes the films unusual. Films such as:

• Creep [Set on the London Underground]

• Prom Night [Set in a prom venue]

• Sorority Row [Set on a university site]

• 28 days later [Set in London in daylight]

Many horror films use 'false scares' or as they're sometimes known, 'Cat scares'. They're put into moments of high tension to make both the victim on screen and the viewer believe that something is about to attack the victim. This is seen in the following films:

• Club Dread [In the opening scene, a monkey jumps out trees]
• Bride of Chucky [In the opening scene, the radio goes off when everything is silent]
• Halloween 2 
• Scream

In many slasher films the killers are stereotypically similar;

• Most are male
• Most conceals their identity, often with a mask 

[Micheal Myers in Halloween] 

[Scream killer] 

[Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th]

• Many wear black/dark clothing, and in the style of scream, full length long cloak type of clothing
• Many killers opt for hand held weapons such as, blades, axes, chainsaws, machetes, etc. And also use the same one throughout, for example in 'Nightmare on Elm Street' the killer uses the razor sharp glove for every killing

• 
  
  The documentary 'Going To Pieces' outlines an idea, whereby the male killer is in some way sexually jealous and/or frustrated, and takes it out on the female victims who are sexually active. This is why the virginal final girl is capable of outsmarting the killer. It also suggests a clearly sexist view behind many slasher films, telling women that they shouldn't be sexually active.

Blue or green colour filters are frequently used in films to signify horror as they create a cold atmosphere. They're seen in films such as, 'Cry Wolf' 'Bride of Chucky' and 'Halloween'.

The conventions of horror are so clear cut, there is even a book called 'How to survive a horror movie', by Seth Grahame Smith. It is based on the most famous horror movies such as 'Halloween' and 'Nightmare on Elm Street'. It outlines the 7 deadly sins the characters who are destined to die, embody. These are:

1. Doubt - Those who believe the horror stories are further down the road to survival that those who doubt them
2. Machismo - believing that you are capable of defeating the killer with, for example, 'football skills'
3. Independence - going off on your own = death
4. Ugliness - being unattractive makes you a target to any killer
5. Curiosity - investigation = mutilation
6. Irresponsibility - you must carry out the task you've agreed to do or you or someone else is going to die
7. Vehicular Sex - do it and die, having sex in a car is guaranteed to result in death

The film 'Scream' plays on the fact that most teen audiences are well aware of the codes and convensions of horror movies. This clip from the film shows just how clear their understanding of the genre is:

A successful horror movie will ususally include the following aspects:

• Teenage characters
• Sex
• Drink and drugs
• False scares
• A scream queen
• A virginal final girl
• An unidentified psychopathic killer
• A figure of authority
• A and help penatrative weapon eg. knife
• Steroetypical quotes "Who's there?"

Assessment Criteria

The Brief:  

Preliminary exercise: Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule. 

Main task: The titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes.

The coursework counts as 50% of our overall mark and is marked in 3 sections:
RESEARCH AND PLANNING: 20%
PRODUCTION: 60%
EVALUATION: 20%

For our evaluation there are seven questions we need to answer, and to make it easier for us throughout the task we need to refer to these after everything we do, this is to make it easier for us when writing it up at the end of the task. The seven questions are:

• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and convensions of real media products?
• How does your media product represent particular social groups?
• What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
• Who would be the audience to your media product?
• How did you attract/address your audience?
• What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
• Looking back at the preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Initial ideas for film openings

My first 3 ideas for film openings are:

My first idea is that 3 teenage girls are driving at night when their car runs out of petrol, so they would pull into a service station, whilst they were in the store a man would go out and drain the petrol tank without their knowledge so they wouldn't be able to drive much further. When they approach the camera in a shot reverse shot  sequence, i would pan out so behind the counter would be visable, and reveal a body covered in blood laid there.

Following this opening, the men from the petrol station would follow them and when they ran out of petrol again and have to pull over and discuss whats going on, the men would then follow them, rape them and kill them. One would be left alive in typical horror style.

My second idea involves a group of teenagers, they would go camping on some moors. When they arrive at the car park there would be another car parked up and i would include shots of the man in the car to show that he is watching them. Then whilst the group were setting up camp i would have some shakey camera work watching them through trees and this would signifiy that they were being watched, and the preffered reading would be that it was the man in the car. One girl would go off to collect wood for a fire and the man would follow her.

Following this opening, the man would catch her and kill her, then other people in the group would discover her body and they would try and leave but their car would be gone and each of the group would subsiquently be killed off by the man following them, however one of the girls would remain alive in the end.

My third idea would be set on a train, a group of teens would get on ready to go for a night out and all sit down in one carriage, then one of the boys who had drank alot of beer would get up to use the toilet and as he is walking down the train her spots and girl sprawled out on the floor, he goes over to check if she ok and realises she is dead. He would look around and spot two more dead bodies and run back to the group. None of them would believe him until one follows him to where he said the bodies were but then they would be gone. He would tell them that he doesn't want to be on this train anymore and that he wants to go home so at the next stop would try to get off but all the doors would be disenabled.

Following this opening, the group would each be killed off by the people on the train.

The idea i will go with for my pitch is the second, I chose this because;

• there is availability for representation of the social groups of teenagers, such as alcohol and drug use as well as sex references and strong language used
• It allows us to input characters, stereotypical of horror genre such as the 'scream queen' and the 'virgin' who survives
• the cast would be easily available to us as we could use other 6th form students
• locations would also be easy as we could use the moor and the carpark opposite the cow and calf
• the problems we face with this are, that in order to achieve verisimilitude we will need to get people who can drive up to the moors, camping equpiment and alcohol/fake drugs
• we will need to compose some music for the scene where the psycho is stalking the young girl, also we will need to play a clip of music on repeat in order to avoid breaking copyright laws

For the first idea we would need to have found a petrol station, in a remote location, willing to let us film, and for the third we wouldv'e needed an empty train, both of which may not be easy to get hold of.

Genres + openings: codes+ conventions

Horror genre:
From the films i have watched the codes and conventions of the openings are; to open with a section of self contained narrative which is either from the middle or the end of the fim and then switch back to the begining. This brings the film straight into the dis-equilibrium stage which has the effect of making the viewer instantly uncalm. This is used in these films:

• Cry Wolf

• Severance

Alternatively some films begin with a section of self contained narrative from the past and then begin the start of the film narrative. This is the case for the following films:

• Friday the 13th

• Halloween
• Van Helsing

In order to keep the audience interested in the film and feeling uneasy and tense, these self contained narrative sections in the openings often show a killing within the first few minutes, this occurs in films such as:

• Friday the 13th
• Club Dread
• Bride of Chucky
• Scream

Horror genre films do not tend to have the central protagonist on screen first as they often begin with a killing and a central protagonist would not be killed off in the first 5 minutes of a film.

General codes + conventions of film openings

From watching film various film openings i have discovered that:

• One of the most popular means of providing the audience with exposition in order for them to follow a prefered reading is by, placing text on screen, which is seen in; Halloween, Maltese Falcon, Clerks, Club Dread and more.

• Other methods are to use a voice over, this is used in 'Hot Fuzz'. To input the information onto the characters dialogue, this is used in 'Where the Heart is'. However these methods can create chunky bits of dialogue, instead of avoiding it. Or to leave it to the Mise-en scene, but this method doesn't always anchor the meaning.

• Self contained narrative sections are used in most film openings

• Titles are often placed on screen at the beginning or end of the self contained narrative section, this is generally text on screen, one film which used a variation of this is, 'Napoleon Nynamite', they created text through the use of food instead.

• Films which don't follow a cronological order in the beginning can have a self contained narrative from another part of the film narrative, somewhere between the middle and end, an example of a film which begins with a section from the end of the film is, 'Severance'.

• To keep the film opening from becoming dull, shot variation is used in mostly all films. One film which has no shot variation, and follows the same take for an entire 5 minutes is 'Halloween'.

• Some films begin with a narrative section from the past, an example of this is, 'Marley and Me'.

• The first character on screen is usually signified as the central protagonist, for example, 'Anchorman' which begins with several short clips of the same character 'Ron Burgundy', and 'Burn After Reading' which signifies a central protagonist without even showing his face, by tracking his feet as they walk down a corridor. There are however examples of films which do not feature the central protagonist as the first person on screen, such as, 'Club Dread' which shows a couple as the first 2 characters on screen, but they're killed off in the first 5 minutes.

• Typically, films which are in cronological order begin with the equilibrium stage first, and then go into disequilibrium, following Todorov's narrative theory.

• Sometimes films put narrative enigmas and aspects of polysemy into the narrative top encourge the audience to continue watching. Some films which do this are; 'Napoleon Dynamite' which provides little exposition into the direction of the narrative which leaves both the plot and genre polysemic. 'Donny Darko' begins with the central protagonist laid in the middle of the road which creates narrative enigma and encourages the viewer to continue watching to discover what the character is like.

Prelim Task - Our sweded film

I've chosen to swede Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone with;

• Beth Cooper
• Emmie Bryett
• Jamie Baldock
• Joel Colborne
• Melissa Hodgson

I chose this film to swede because it has the best potential for being funny.
We will film the best parts of the entire film instead of just the opening.
This film also uses a lot of special effects, therfore recreating them with only the props we can get our hands on will produce comical material.

In order to swede this film we will need tho following items for costume;

• Dumbledore's beard and hair
• Capes
• Wizard hats
• Hagrids wig

For props;

• Wands
• Harry Potter glasses
• A baby
• A trolley
• Feathers
• Brooms
• Mrs Norris the cat

We will film mostly in school.
For the Quiddich match we might need a field or use one of the tennis courts in school.
Some of the scenes will need to be filmed at night.

Summary of Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone:
A young boy named Harry Potter discovers that he is a wizard. He is introduced to the wizarding world and is then sent of to Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry. He befriends a young ginger boy, Ron Weasley and an intellegant young muggle born girl, Hermione Granger.

Whilst at Hogwarts Harry learns how to play Quiddich, cast spells and make potions. The three of them discover a three headed dog which is guarding something in the school, they then set about trying to discover what is going on with the help of the grounds keeper, Hagrid. They suspect that Professor Snape is behind it but Harry discovers it was infact Professor Quirell, and has his first encounter with his nemesis Voldemort.

Characters:

• Main character, Harry Potter - Joel Colbourne
• Harry's friend, Ron Weasley - Me (Emma Graveling)
• Harry's friend, Hermione Granger - Beth Cooper
• Grounds keeper, Hagrid - Rob Cranley
• Harry's cousin, Dudley - Emmie Bryett & Edwin Heavisides
• Hogwarts Headmaster, Dumbledore - Beth Cooper
• Professor McGonagall - Me
• Professor Flitwick - Melissa Hodgson
• Professor Snape - Jamie Baldock
• Professor Quirell - Beth Cooper
• Ron's Mum, Mrs Weasley - Emmie Bryett
• Ron's Sister, Ginny Weasley - Melissa Hodgson
• Mr Filch - Edwin Heavisides
• Hogwarts student, Seamus Finnigan - Jamie Baldock
• Hogwarts student, Neville Longbottom - Jamie Baldock

The prelim task section can be found within the harry potter swede at 6.52 minutes to 7.09 minutes. It includes examples of match on action, shot/reverse shot and 180 degree rule.
The prelim task requires good use of continuity editing, which makes the film flow and the shots appear coherent. We will need to practise this so that when it comes to making our film openings we are able make good use of continuity editing as we recieve more marks for a range of shot types which will need to be coherent.
Match on action is a type of eliptical editing, which shows an action happening and the subsequent action following it, for example; somebody throwing an object, and the following shot would be another person catchin the object. Our example shows Joel [Harry Potter] placing his hand on a door handle, and the subsequent action in the following shot is him coming through the door, the eliptical editing cuts out the scene in which he actually opens and walks through it.
Shot/reverse shot is when two different camera are filming two different people looking at each other or one person looking at an object or event happening, the shots are then edited into a sequence so signify this.
The 180 degree rule is that in order to film shot/reverse shot to work properly both cameras must be on the same side of an imaginary 180 degree line, without it both of the people, or the person and the object etc would look like they were in the same position.

There are other examples of match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180 degree rule also used through out the film swede.

If we had tried to recreat 'Harry Potter' more accurately we would have faced these problems

• Settings would be limited, therefore scenes such as; Diagon Alley, the train and boats as the characters arrive at hogwarts, hogwarts castle, the quiddich match and the obstacles on the way to finding the philosipherstone such as the giant chess board.
• Costumes and props would lack verisimilitude due to lack of budget.
• CGI and SFX would be needed to realisticly portray magic and we wouldn't have access to it.

My initial pitch

My idea for a film plot begins with a group of six teenagers, three boys and three girls going on a camping trip.

The opening would begin with the group in a car, and they would pull into the car park so i would have establishing shots of the location and then pan to the car and track it as it pulls in to thee car park. The plot is that there would be a psychotic character parked in the carpark and he would watch the group set up to go camping. I would film this by having long shots of the group to signify that they're being watched. 

Next i would include medium shots of the group as they organise themselves and set up their camp, i would cut to more long shots which i would film with a hand held camera and shoot through trees to further signify that they're being watched.

Then one of the girls would set off to collect some wood for a fire, and not return. I would set this scene just as it was getting dark, and use more long shots through the trees of her walking away from the group. I would then get a medium shot of her bending down to pick some wood up and have him looming over her with a knife in his hand and then have the screen fade to black with an audio bridge of her screaming.

The rest of the story would be that, the group wouldn't notice that she hadn't come back for some time, then a couple would leave the group for sexual activity and stumble across her body lying in a ditch covered in blood. They would then return to the group and raise the alarm.

Some of the group would then go and retrieve her body whilst the others packed up camp and try to call the police only to find that there is no signal. Once the others come back with the body they would all set off back to the car park to get away from the woods, however the car wouldn't be where they left it.

Two of the male characters would then go try to find the car whilst the other boy stays in the carpark with the two remaining girls.

At this point it would be getting dark and the two boys would end up seperating, one gets killed by the psychopath, while the other returns to the carpark. The girlfriend of the missing boy would then try to find him and ends up falling down a ditch and spraining her ankle.

Then the other three would decide to set off walking and whilst walking they would hear the girl calling for help, one of the boys would run to save her but the psychopath would be hiding around a corner and kill them both.

Then there would only be two people left, a boy and a girl. As they continue to walk they would spot a car in the distance parked up with headlights. They would head towards it calling for help only to realise that it's their car and it's empty. They would get in and drive off.

Half way down the hill the psycho would be stood in the middle off the road brandishing a large knife, they would speed up and run him over, and then try to stop and get out to see if he's ok, but the psycho would have cut the breaks and the two characters would crash. Then in typical style of horror films the final girl would become concious in the morning and be the only person who survived.

My idea is the one my group have decided to go with, therefore we may need to improve on this.