Things To Sort/Make/Photograph/Source

Title Sequence/Main Film:

• Photos of girl/boy - (Can find some on Google)

This is the kind of look is what we want from the photos, but we will change it to black and white, to make it look a lot older. A girl about the same age as this would be ideal.

• Newspaper clippings of daughter killed - (Find images of deaths on google, and print them off)

• Family portrait with blood on it - (Family portrait found on google, put it in a frame which I have at home. The blood can be ketchup / fake blood which we have)

This is the kind of Family photo we would like to have (with the little girl to the right). We might even use this photo.

• Child back flash (Repeat of other photos, and use After Effects or some kind of editing software to make blood / or have fake blood on little girl)

• Time Lapse of Wollaton Hall

Art Of The Title

Here are the nine frames from "Art Of The Title". This is from the film "The Dog Fever", and it reflects the psychological horror genre, because of the strange images shown in the title sequence which makes an audience think what it is.

Title Template

We have decided on our titles, and how they will be displayed with the appropriate visuals.

We had to make sure all our images incorporated our film correctly, and not just have random visuals which don't work with our film. As our film will be this idea of a haunting we used may different things which incorporate that, for example slamming doors are very common as well as silhouetted figures and shadows.

In terms of props and settings, it will mostly be filmed in our main location (Wollaton Hall), and the props are accommodated inside of Wollaton Hall, so they are very easy for us to get to.

Props such as a rocking chair, can be found in our location, but we will have to do some research and look into newspaper clippings and photos of families to get them. We will need to also print those off.

Pitch Feedback

 

 

We can gather from the feedback from our pitch that our main idea was not very clear, and we were quite repetitive.

We thought about how we could make our idea more clear and we came up with: instead of a group of people in a haunted house, it would be much easier and more scary by just having one person.

Our title sequence gained praise from people, as it was very clear and worked with our film idea very well, so that went very well.

We thought this feedback was helpful, as it helped us develop our idea further and hopefully create something better.

PITCH

The following video is the pitch we did to our media class about our film ideas and what we will include. We then received feedback from them, to know what they thought and we could edit our ideas to suit the needs of our audience.

Narrative Ideas For A Film

In this clip of "Sixth Sense" it is showing the main character and his wife admiring his award from the Major. As they go upstairs to go bed, they notice their house has been broken into. A man is standing in the bathroom half naked, and seems very mentally unstable. He accuses he main character of failing him when he needed help. He ends up shooting the main character and then himself in the head.
We are then introduced to a young boy who is running away from the main character to a church. We can gather that the boy is a patient of the main character, and agrees to go to sessions with him.

I believe that in the next few scenes, the main character will meet with the boy and try to find the reason why he is scared.

I believe fear has been created with the music as when something happens high strings are played which make you jump. Also, leading up to the gun shot it creates a lot of fear to an audience, because the man shouts a lot and his body language is very unpredictable to know what he will do. Also the music comes to a crescendo at the gun scene, which makes an audience fear for the main character.

It is set in the household of the main character, and is very dim lit apart from the bathroom which is quite bright. The house seems very modern and family oriented, but the darkness could symbolize fear of the unknown. Also as the bathroom is brightly lit, it puts emphasis on the mentally unstable man.

We do see the threat in the opening; the patient, and we see how unstable he is. We know this by him shooting the main character.

Here are the IMDB ratings for this film:

This is showing that the average user ratings are all very similar and leveled out. This means that The Sixth Sense, is a very universal film in that any age and any gender of people watch it.

Intentions

Lauren (Hannibal Rising):

The main character Hannibal is a male in his late teens (19-20 years old). He is a bit unstable mentally because he ends up eating his sister, during a traumatic experience he has had. He is also interested in Anatomy, because he finds different ways of stopping people from fighting, so he can torture them.

The film opens in World War II, and Hannibal and his family are in a safe house in the middle of nowhere. Soviets then invade the area, and kill the parents and captures the kids.

The main ideas of costume are normal, for example for Hannibal he wears ordinary casual clothes. The main costumes are from the Soviet soldiers who are wearing uniform and this creates a authoritative image.

The overall lighting is very dark even though its mainly in daytime, this is to create a sinister effect. The main setting is the middle of nowhere which shows there is no escape.

Here is Hannibal attempting his revenge on the Soviets.

Sam (Paranormal Activity 2):

The main characters in this film are Kristi, Dan & Hunter. It is a typical family, were Kristi and Dan are married and have a child called Hunter. The parents are very laid back, until the demons enter the household which is when they become frightened. Hunter is only a baby, and is haunted by the demons.

The film opens with the parents coming back to the house with their newborn baby. Further on in the film, hauntings start to happen in the opening such as doors opening and closing and objects moving. The hauntings become worse during the end of the film.

As it's filmed in a home video style, all of the characters are wearing every day casual clothes, so nothing in particular which creates an effect.

The main lighting is sunlight and nighvision. Also the setting is all set in one house, which seems like an every day family home.

Here is Kristi in a dark lighting as she is silhouetted and haunted by the demons. 

Raja (The Haunting in Connecticut):

The main character is a teenager called Matt who has terminal cancer and is weeks away from death. He is usually in a lot of pain due to the radiotherapy he has.

In the opening it shows Matt coming back from hospital in a lot of pain, and in a last minute move, they move to Connecticut where the hospital is based. Matt finds a basement, where he sees visions of killings and ghosts.

The main costume is basic, and nothing to create an effect as they are normal people.

The overall lighting in and out of the house is mainly dark to create a scary effect and fear of the unknown. The setting is all in the house, which is where all the hauntings occur. The house is very old and outdated which makes it a prime location for hauntings to appear.

Here is the main character Matt, with his mother as he is having an unstable moment, where he has ripped his nails off by scratching the wall. We can see he becomes mentally unstable.

Horror Wordle

LAUREN:

Some of the key words in this include killing, murder. death, obsession and circumstances. We can evidence the important of these words in our film by incorporating them into the film. It shows that we need to involve death mainly, as words to do with death consistently appear on this.


SAM:

The key words in this are the main characters in the film, as well as the words violently, dragged, house, demon. These imply that the film emphasizes supernatural behavior. This tells us that we could have supernatural elements in our film.

RAJA:

The key words in this are house, treatment, funeral, cancer, Matt. These are telling us about the main character, Matt, who has cancer and has the ability to see ghosts in the house, which used to be a funeral home. This tells us that we could incorporate mental inabilities which enables someone to see supernatural happenings.

Here are the main words that come out of a psychological synopsis. As we can see, the main things that need to be incorporated are the mentally unstable, fear, evil, and human outbursts of violence.

Raja Virdi, Lauren Rudd, Sam Bushell - Title Research 2

The second opening scene we have chosen to do is 'The Shining'.

We are not given much information from this title sequence, but it allows us to make assumptions and guesses as to what it is about and what is happening. In the sequence, all we see is a car driving along various landscapes, along with the credits scrolling upwards on the screen. This relates to the genre as it shows that all these landscapes are very open, and in the middle of nowhere, and so suggests that there is no escape if needed as you would be stranded. The title sequence also relates to the genre as it leaves you guessing and plays with your mind, as many psychological films do.

The title sequence is a very simply presented one, as it is just made up of shots of a car driving around places in the middle of nowhere, with credits scrolling upwards in quite casual blue writing. The font is not one that can create a scary feel for the audience, as it is very normal. I think that the title sequence would have been better if the credits were better, and the font was different and looked scarier.

However, the music in the background of the opening credits helps with this feel, as it is typical music for a horror film, both high and low sounding with different tempos. This helps to create a slightly scary or disturbing atmosphere for the audience.

From this title sequence, we can learn that the font in the credits are very important in order to create an atmosphere for the audience, as well as music. We can use these things to our advantage to make a good title sequence.

Raja Virdi, Lauren Rudd, Sam Bushell - Title Research 1

Our first opening we chose to do was "The Haunting in Connecticut".

Even though, immediately we see there isn't any credits to people in the film we gather from the introduction what the film is about.

We know from this introduction that the film is based around death, as photos are shown with people and corpses. These photos are all presented in a sepia type colour in order for them to look old and from years and years ago. This relates to the genre of Psychological because we first see the image of the people then they zoom out and we see corpses. This somewhat plays with an audiences' head (like a psychological does) and possibly tells us these people are mentally unstable.
We also see little black and white clips of blood and medical equipment which again, tells us about deaths.

We can learn from this sequence that it is very powerful and interesting having simply photos as an introduction and can create quite a scary feel for an audience. I believe we could definitely use this technique in our opening.

It would have been better if they added credits of the people in some sort of blood dripping with scruffy fonts, but I think if we used this idea, we could use those kinds of fonts to our advantage and create something very good.

Kyle Cooper - Title Designer

Kyle Cooper believes a great title sequence is one that excites the audience and engages them. It needs to be one that flows with the actual film very well and keeps an audience interested.

A font can provide the information for a film by the actual style of it for example in "Se7en" the film has handwritten ones to show the man is writing in a journal and the Spiderman one is in some kind of web-shaped style.

You can use metaphor and a theme to create a title sequence by including images and different clips which are influenced by the film.

"Seven" - Opening Sequence Evaluation

In the opening scene we can understand that the character is mentally unstable. We can gather this because of the actions he does, for example shaving his finger in order to get rid of his fingerprints. He also rubs his blood on a journal he writes in. There is also a religious aspect in that he takes ideas from a Bible.

Most of the title sequence is shot with close ups and extreme close ups. I think this is done because it makes sure the audience can see only what he does and not who he is.

Many editing affects have been used, such as flashes to jump to different shots. The fonts are also scruffy, and flash on and off.


Here is the opening sequence of the film:

Textual Analysis - Raja Virdi

Textual Analysis - Lauren Rudd

Title Sequence Ideas

Here are our ideas for our opening title sequence using character and theme based ideas, and what we could include when we make our final one:

We got ideas from 'True Blood' using there black and white images to create quite a sinister and eerie effect. Also the use of blood is a really good effect we could use. We feel this will definitely work well for our title sequence because that is the feel we want for our main film.

We also got ideas from the 'Seven' title sequence, especially there credit font and the way it was laid out, we could definitely gain ideas from this. Also, the character in which he is reading the book and there's lots of close ups is the kind of look we want to go for.

Final Coursework Group/Mind Map

The group that we have now chosen to be in is Raja, Lauren & Alice. We have chosen this group because we all felt that the Psychological sub genre would be the best one to do for our horror film. Also we have worked together before in previous class assignments and worked very well together.

We are making a Psychological film because we are all interested in it and we can expand on the idea to create a piece that is captivating for an audience.

Here is the mind map, we have created to show the conventions needed for a Psychological film.