AS Media lesson

Last lesson we started filming on the preliminary exercise. It has been quite some time since me and Abdulaziz used a camera, Sajjad was the only member in our group who hadn't had experience before. The problem we had with this lesson was that we didn't find an empty room to film in, so we decided to film in our classroom. The problem with this was that there might have been background noise from people talking, there were also many objects in the background that we didn't need in the film. We still decided to film because we didn't want to waste time. The filming could have done better if we had a spare room to film in, but we carried on anyway.

Target audience research

For my production, it is important that I do research into the target audience for my product. This is so my product would appeal to the target audience and so it would be suitable for them. Since I am creating a horror film, my target audience would most probably be suitable for people 18+, this is because many horror films usually contain frequent violence and explicit language. My production will most probably contain violence because it creates a horrific atmosphere, which would be necessary for my production. In my production, I will definitely use elements of evilness and violence as these effects create negative emotions for the audience, which is the main point of horror films.

Top rated horror films IMDb

I checked the top rated Horror films on film website IMDB

I found that most of the films here weren’t recently made; half of the films here were made in the 20^th century and were more than 20 years old. I could now research more into these older films to see why they are more popular, I can then observe these films further to see what techniques and effects they used to make their film more memorable.

Dawn of the Dead opening

I have also researched the opening of the film Dawn of the Dead as this is a zombie-horror film, we might do a film like this as these films tend to be scarier in my opinion.

This opening also uses close ups and shaky camera to give a horrific atmosphere for the audience. In this close up we can see a zombie with blood over his face; this creates horror for the audience as we can only see this close up for a second until it cuts to another shot. We can implement this into our own production as close up shots and shaky camera movement is quite easy to film.

The Shining film opening

I have researched the film opening of The Shining. This film has quite an unusual opening as it showcases an establishing shot of a car driving through the mountains. The reason why this film opening has a scary feel is due to the tense music playing in the background. This music makes the opening feel spooky with its low pitched notes and slow tempo. Even though the scenery for the opening is quite beautiful, the music gives an overall horrific atmosphere; we are able to understand that this is a horror film. This might be a good opening to experiment with because I think the opening of The Shining is still suitable for its genre. This opening makes me understand how important the soundtrack is to a horror film.

Se7en film opening

Se7en opening

I also looked at the opening of Se7en, since this film had elements of horror. I found that the opening had many close-up shots and this created a feeling of confusion and mystery for the viewers which made the opening have a gloomy and dark feel to it.

We looked at the film opening here: http://www.artofthetitle.com/2008/03/26/se7en/

The opening also had many fast cuts and shaky camera shots which emphasised on the scariness of the opening. I feel that these techniques can easily be implemented into our production because they are simple to do and they produce good effects for the atmosphere of the film.

Film openings

I watched many horror film openings on the websites Art of the Title: http://www.artofthetitle.com/about/. This website had many different film openings that we could obtain ideas from.

The page caught my attention because it had explicit images that are often seen in horror films; we can see blood and close-up shots of people in these screenshots which gives a scary feeling for the audience. We could use these techniques to make our film more gruesome and scary for the audience.

Locations for filming

We plan to use our school as the main location for our film because we will have access to many different rooms after school. We also might do some filming in the park (setting in film will be forest)as this will give a secluded and lonely atmosphere for the scene, which would be perfect for when the victim becomes lost in the forest.

Ideas for our film

We have had many ideas for our horror film. We have thought of doing a zombie film because we found it will be easy to do. We haven’t decided on what type of horror film we want to make yet, we would obviously like to make something scary but we also want it to be original. We have also thought of having a serial killer as the main antagonist for our film because it would give us the chance to film chase scenes and we would be able to use shaky camera movement: which is relatively easy to do.

Introduction to my group

The people in my film group include- Filip Mihajlovic (myself), Abdulaziz Saber and Sajjad Rao. We have decided to make a horror film opening for our AS Media production. Abdulaziz will serve as the cameraman while myself and Sajjad will focus more on acting and editing. In order for us to create a film opening suitable for our target audience, we will be sure to research into different elements of horror, such as looking at many other film openings to gain new ideas.