The Questionnaire

Questionnaire:

1.What gender are you?

2. How old are you?

3. How many horror films have you watched this year at the cinema?

4.What is your favourite horror film?

5. How much would you rate this film out of 10? (10 being the best)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

6. Who is your favourite horror villain?

7. What scare tactics in this film did you find effective?

8. Where do you prefer the setting of the film to be?

9. What type of horror film do you prefer?

• Vampire
• Serial killer
• Zombie
• Monster
• Alien
• Other

10. What is your favourite murder weapons in horror films?

• Knife
• Gun
• Chainsaw
• Disease
• Bite
• Other

Questionnaire results

1. Eight Females. One Male.

2. Five 16year old.

Two 17year old

One 19year old

One 50year old

One 22year old.

3.

• 2
• 1
• None
• 3
• 5
• 1
• 1
• 7
• None
• 1

4.

• Paranormal activity
• Alien
• Jeepers Creepers. x2
• Haunting in Connecticut
• One missed call
• The unborn
• The Grudge
• Orphan
• Drag me to hell

5.

• 8
• 8
• 7 and 5
• 8
• 7
• 8
• 7
• 9
• 8

6.

• Hannibal Lecter
• Hollow man
• Jigsaw
• Jason x2
• Freddie
• The old lady from drag me to hell
• Michael Myers
• Doesn't have one x2

7.

• Sudden movements with loud music
• Silence, sudden loud noise effects.
• Jumping scarecrow.
• Music, sound effects, quick camera movement.
• suspense, music.
• Thing that make you jump.
• Sound effects.
• Surprise use of everyday objects.
• The way in which people are made invisible.
• Sound and camera shots.

8.

• Deserted houses/areas
• Mansion
• Outside
• Homes x3
• The woods x2
• Forest
• On the moon or in space.

9.

• Ghost/ spirits
• Alien
• Serial killer x3
• Other x3
• Monster
• Vampire
• Zombie

10.

• Knife x4
• Other
• Chainsaw x5
• Disease
• Bite

Conclusion

From these results i can conclude that this now gives more of a direction on what path to take in what to put in the clip. The answers from the audience of horror films has let me know what is favourable in horror films and what excites them, and type of characters scenes and settings are enjoyable to watch.This will help the group to now make decisions on what would be appropriate to include in the clip. The use of the feedback from the questionnaires will be very helpful.

Pitch Idea:
Cluedo

• Six teenagers are staying over at one of their houses.
• They decide to play a game of Cluedo a murder mystery game.
• As they play, one of them go off to the kitchen to get some food, whilst the rest are also being noisey around the huge mansion.
• All of them return to the game except for one.
• So somebody from the group goes to look for that person and finds them dead.
• They return to tell the others who are mortified and question who could have done this. They start to blame each other and get into an argument.
• They try to contact the police but can not get through onto the phone line.
• They decide to try and survive the night, until morning when the owner of the house returns.
• The rational person suggests that they all stay calm and stick together at all times.
• As the night goes on they each have to leave the main group for the toilet, food and to move around.
• They all start talking of who out of the group that they think the killer is.
• This person is found dead which means that they could not be the killer.
• Another member of the group is also noticed missing from the room and they become the victim of accusation of being the murderer.
• This person then does not return but their body cannot be found, making everybody believe that they are still in the house.
• The three remaining survivors decide to all stick together at all times, so when one of them decides they need the toilet they all go together.
• While this person is in the toilet the other two people wait outside, but they start to argue and agree to walk away from a fight and come back in five minutes to meet their friend when they come out of the toilet.
• When they return the door has been smashed up and their friends face down in the bath. They have been drowned.

Shanice Collins pitch:
Games at night.

• A teenage girl has a sleepover at her house with four friends.
• They all decide to play the Ouija board as a bit of fun.
• The bad spirits start talking to them- sending messages of death and murder.
• They say goodbye and stop playing the game, dismissing it as nonsense.
• They invite some friends over and start drinking and having a good time.
• One of the girls decides to go downstairs to get some more drink. As she tries to go back upstairs she sees something in the mirror behind her.
• The girls upstairs notice her missing from the party and one of them volunteers to go and get her.
• She finds the body.
• They then spend the rest of the night trying to survive this group of demons that are passing through their house.
• One by one they start to die off with the demon continuously appearing then disappearing.
• The girl who's house it is survives the night to tell her parents of the demons.
• When her parents return she tells them of her horror and what happened through the night.
• The police are called and when they analyse the body they decide that she killed the girls, as they were killed by knife and hitting of her body. (Head and face).
• She is arrested and her parents are left in the house alone through the night.
• They are also killed, but not by her as she was in prison. The police don't believe this mystery killing was a demon and pass it off as a mass murder, by someone else.

My Horror Pitch:

In the Graveyard

• 
  
  A group of teenagers go to a Halloween house party and get drunk


• 
  
  Then they all decide to visit a graveyard.


• 
  
  They start to vandalise the old grave stones by kicking them, throwing drinks at them etc.


• 
  
  They all start towalk away, when all of a sudden the ground starts to shake and the tombstones shatter.


• 
  
  Then zombies start to appear out of the ground walking slowly towards the teenagers with their arms out in front of them making a groaning sound.


• 
  
  The teenagers try to run away from them and hit them off, but the zombies still attack.


• 
  
  The zombies start to eat the teenagers by pulling their limbs apart and taking big bites.


• 
  
  All of the teenagers are dead except for one who survives.


• 
  
  All of the zombies return to their graves accept for one.


• 
  
  The last girl standing walks home to tell her family what had happened. She enters her house and shouts for her family but nobody answers. The television is on and she can see the back of her mother, farther and also her younger brothers head.


• 
  
  She runs in front of them to tell them what happened but only to find their throats bitten with big chunks of their neck's missing.


• 
  
  She turns to find the zombie standing in the corner of the room walking slowly towards her arms out making those grotesque groaning noises, with its arms out in front.


• She screams!

The end

I think that this pitch would make a successful horror film because it is similar to other classic horror films. The fact that my storyline contains zombies, which are also known as 'the living dead' in other films are very popular characters to have in horror films. My pitch also has blood and gore through out the story which keeps it within horrific, sticking to horror. However my storyline also has a group of teenagers as part of the main cast which i personally think would attract the teenagers as an audience for this film.

Codes and Conventions

(http://www.filmsite.org/horrorfilms)

Horror films are said be the focus of the dark side of life and to bring out people's fears and nightmares, alienate us and make us vulnerable inside. This involves peoples fear of death and dismemberment, loss of identity or fear of sexuality. Horror films can often attract and repel the audience at the same time.To do this different sub-genres can also be put together with the genre horror such as; Fantasy, supernatural or science fiction.

The frighten and panic causes the audience both dread and alarm and invokes our fears usually with a shocking finale, also captivating and entertaining us at the same time in a cathartic experience. Horror films are often combined with science fiction when the menace or monster is related to a corruption of technology, or when earth is threatened by aliens. The fact that horror films have made it so successfully even left the genre with different names they are also known as; Chillers, Scary Movies, Spook fests, and the Macabre.

Horror films can also often be combined with other sub genres such as science fiction which is usually a scientific visionary,comic strip like,with imaginative settings with the use of gadgets and advanced technology. Special effects are also at important use when combining the two together.

The supernatural sub genre used with horror is usually the more spiritual side to the films which includes ghosts,miracles, gods and goddesses and other similar ideas extraordinary phenomena.

Fantasy is also another sub genre put together with horror films. However unlike science fiction films that base some of their content on the bases of scientific truth, fantasy takes you to more of a fairytale place where events are unlikely to occur in real life.

Top 50 Horror Movies of all time.

(http://www.buried.com/editorials/top50horrormovies.shtml)

1. Psycho (1960)

2. Alien (1979)

3. The shining (1980)

4. Aliens (1986)

5. Diaboliques,les (1955)

6. Faust (1926)

7. Jaws (1975)

8.Planet Terror (2007)

9. Cabinet des Dr.Caligari,das (1920)

10. Grindhouse(2007)

11. The night of the hunter (1955)

12. Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

13. Nosferatu,eine symphonie des Grauens (1922)

14. Testement des Dr. Mabuse, das (1933)

15. spoorloos (1988)

16. Frankenstein(1931)

17. Jungfrukallan (1960)

18. King kong (1933)

19. Dead of night (1945)

20. The thing (1982)

21. Onibaba (1964)

22. The innocents (1961)

23. The exorcist (1973)

24. Invasion of the body snatchers (1956)

25. Dead man's shoes (2004)

26. Rosmary's baby (1968)

27. Kaidan (1964)

28. Repulsion (1965)

29. Shaun of the dead (2004)

30. The invisible man (1933)

31. Night of the living dead (1968)

32. The unknown (1927)

33. Yeux sans visage, les (1960)

34. Dawn of the dead (1978

35. What ever happened to Mary Jane?(1962)

36. The birds (1963)

37. Halloween (1978)

38. The haunting (1963)

39. Peeping Tom (1960)

40. The holy mountain (1973)

41. my name is Bruce (2007)

42. Survie style 5+ (2004)

43. Vargtimmen (1968)

44. Evil dead 2 (1987)

45. Profondo rosso (1975)

46. Abre los ojos (1997)

47. The hound of the Baskervilles (1939)

48.The phantom of the opera (1925)

49. Freaks (1932)

50. Dracula (1958)

Review on the continuity clip

The storyline to this piece was a simple storyline to show that we could film different types of shots from different angles, also by doing this we could show that we know how to use a camcorder. The types of shots that we recorded were:

• Match on Action
• Shot Reverse Shot
• 180 degree Rule.

The storyline was about a boy meeting up with a girl and giving her a gift which was a rose. The expression and body language of the boy and girl were both shown using medium close up shot, close up, and long shot. My partner and i also filmed the boy walking away at a distance from the camera at the end.

We thoroughly enjoyed filming this clip as we had learnt how to use the camcorder in a way that will be relevant to us and our work. However we did not have the smoothest run through when filming this clip as we had a couple of set backs. The first mistake we had made was when we had filmed half of the clip in one lesson then the other half in the next lesson. When we went to film the second half of the clip we had accidentally left a long 2 minute pause inbetween the first and second clip. Because of this we had to delete the second half of the clip and re-film it at the appropriate part of the tape. The second difficulty that we had come across was that we had not filmed our Match on Action clearly so we had to re-film that part as well.When we had done that we had successfully finished filming our continuity piece.

Analysis of the opening to a Horror film: Jeeper's Creeper's 2

The opening credits to the film starts off basic but keeping its leery Ora. The credits are shown in standard white text against a black background, with no music playing just total silence. Towards the audience this gives the 'expect the unexpected' feeling.

This being Jeeper's Creeper's 2, shows that this is part of a sequel. Which is similar to The Grudge, this could be a trend for Horror films. However they did not show clips or flashbacks from the first Jeeper's Creeper's, instead of this they used words showing dates to show the name of the place where the second film was situated and the day, month and year, as that later on during the film has a severely relevant reference to what is happening in the film. This writing is faded on and off the screen in slow motion, which keeps the audience engaged with the screen.

As soon as the film story starts the diagetic sound from the tractor suddenly starts getting louder and louder. Next there is an establishing tracking shot to show the view from across the desolate wheat fields, showing how out of place and lonesome the scene really is. After the scene has been set, more writing appears across the screen stating the day, month and the year once again. Next more diagetic sound starts but this time its the crows, which are suspiciously sat on one scare crow but not the other, this tells the audience things are going to start getting sour.

The young boys father noisily starts up his tractor and starts farming, but there is also an extreme close up of one particular part of the tractor. The normal everyday farming continues showing an establishing shot of the young boy, his brother and their father.

A long shot is then shown of the boy walking away into the dry wheat fields. The loud non-diagetic music starts as the dog barks as loud as he possibly could when he hears unusual rustling in the fields. The dog is used cleverly as animals are meant to have a sixth sense when something is not right. This not only indicates the boys family that something is wrong but it also tells the audience that something is not right but very very wrong.

A behind the shoulder shot is taken from behind the young boy in the feild with the dark mysterious bat posing as a scarecrow. This shot is engaging with the audience making the feel like they're intruding on this horrific event.

A slow tracking shot then shows the monster's face. The none diagetis sound gets louder and louder along with the dogs barking, as the establishing shot from the fathers point of veiw sets the scene of the boy being dragged through the wheat feilds. Then the next shot shockingly shows a veiw looking up to the sky watching the monster fly off with eyoung boy in his claws. The music then stops. This creates fear for the audience of what's going to happen next? A zooming on extreame close up is the the last shot shown of the fathers eyes before the plot is continued.

Analysis of the opening to a Horror film: Scream

The opening to the film is very inviting to the audience because it's filmed as if you are there with the character or the 'victim' of that particular scenario. This illusion is created by the way that shot had been filmed, this was done by using a tracking shot. At first it was a medium shot of Drew Barrymore in the kitchen on the house phone to a stranger, whilst she is the the kitchen she is fiddling with the knives in a wooden chopping block. This creates irony as she is on the phone to a stranger and could potentially be murdered that night. The use of the diagetic sound of the popping popcorn in the background is used to the max as the sound of the popping gets louder and louder, this helps to build up more tension and suspense as to what is going to happen next. The camera then followers her as she walks out of her kitchen and around her her desolate house. This shot is from behind the shoulder and also done with a hand held camera, that looks like the audience are sneaking up behind her.

For the beginning of the film using a medium shot is very enticing for a horror film because it shows its surroundings and the background. For example whilst Drew is talking on the phone she's standing right in front of the garden door windows, where there's just enough site to see a sneak preview of whats going on outside behind her. This gives off the same effect as the 'behind the shoulder peering shot', except you are also able to see the expression on the victims face whilst the unexpected is behind her.

Task 2:Research into Existing Products

Romantic Comedies

The typical story lines:

1. Boy meets girl
2. Boy loses/can't get girl
3. Boy gets girl.

These are the rough outlines of a Romantic Comedy, the guy is usually very stressed about getting the girl, during his mission he usually comes across some humorous events in his quest to get his love. These films are often cheesy but likable at the same time, just like this paragraph (:


Thrillers

A thriller often has one goal that is to be met by the end of the film, during this process there is a tendency to to keep the audience in suspense and thrilled at the same time with them hanging at the edge of their seats.
Thrillers have more of a broad range of story lines than a Romantic Comedy, you just don't know whats going to happen.


Horror films

These are supposedly meant to horrify you about you inner worst fears while captivating and entertaining us at the same time,with a terrifying shocking finale.They are often combined with science fiction when there is some sort of monster involved with the interference of technology.



Analysis of the opening to a Horror film: The Grudge 3

The Grudge 3 is part of a sequel therefore opened with clips from the first two films. To show that they were clips from the past they were shown in black and white and flashed every few minutes,this conveys that this is not part of the film but a flashback to recap the previous series. The language spoken in this scene was in Japanese, so there were also clear English subtitles written in white at the bottom of the screen.The majority of these shots were done by using a hand held camera, this gave off more of a real life effect, and looked like the audience was sneaking a preview, this draw the audience into the film because they fell like they are a part of it.

The opening credits began straight after the recapping of the first two films.This was shown with a bloody red background and thin black writing appearing at the corner of the screen, with rich black hair creeping onto the screen. This really gives an incite into what kind of a film it was going to be, because this particular film is the third out of three it is the last of the series therefore expects you to know some things that are coming up.

When the actual story of the film begins it starts in silence, but when anything creepy happens blunt music suddenly starts with a slow zoomed in camera shot. When the first two characters of the real story start talking, they are still talking in Japanese, and they are of the Japanese ethnicity. Therefore the link between the first clip shown and the begining of the actual story is there. This shows that the subtitles on the page can make a big difference on the influence of what the audience think about what is going on, and what's going to happen!