Evaluation Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Chase Scene
 

The biggest horror convention we incorporated into our movie was the chase scene. Chase scenes are used in horror films because they create a sense of fear for the audience and the character. They also display the characters helplessness in the situation. An example of  a movie that uses chase scenes is Scream 2.

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This scene is taken from the opening of Scream 2. It is similar to our opening in the way that the character being chased is confused and unaware of why they are being chased, which also causes confusion for the audience. The scene, accompanied by fast paced music further excites the audience and keeps them intrigued. This is what we hoped to achieve within our opening. Also, the female being chased is a popular convention we have conformed to as females are stereotyped as weak and unable to defend themselves.

Todorov's Theory
A convention we subverted from in our movie opening was using Todorov's Theory as a structure. The theory can be found below.

Many films use this structure to create a balance between positives and negatives within a film. It gives the audience a sense of safety to know there is a restored equilibrium at the end. However I find this structure quite unrealistic and overused which is why we didn't use it in our opening. In our opening, it begins with a disruption instead of an equilibrium. This allows the action to take place straight away and keep the audience intrigued from the beginning. An example of a horror film which conforms to Torodov's Theory is Paranormal Activity 4, which can be seen below.
I find an opening like this quite boring and cliché as it is a structure used in many genres and I believe horrors should be more exciting. In this opening, the characters are at the equilibrium stage; they are happy and unaware of any problems that are going to occur. However, with our opening, Sarah is at the disruption stage as she is aware she is being followed right at the start.

Music/Sound Effects
The use of music/sound effects help set the mood for the movie and acts as a catalyst for the tension build up. Our movie opening includes a fast paced track that is used while Sarah is running away from Danny. This track is appropriate as it excites the audience and anticipates them for what is going to happen next. It isn't a scary track but it still builds up the tension. Saw slightly varies.

In Saw's opening, an slow and eerie track is used in the background, which intensifies at the end when the character is pulling the chain. This opening also includes loud and screechy sound effects when the dead body holding the gun is shown. The music and sound effects used in this opening varies to our opening as the music is  a lot slower and creepier but it still builds tension due to the storyline and location of the opening, as does ours.

Change of location

Here we are filming the opening scene of our movie.

As you can see in the pictures above, we are filming our movie opening in the park. We have done this as we wanted a wider variety of locations in our opening, we felt only filming in Kiera's house was limiting the variations of lighting and shot types we could use. This location was also convenient to us as it is less than a minute away from our school, so there wasn't trouble when it came to travelling with the camera and the tripod. Although, we did encounter some problems with the camera while filming. We also felt the park would add create more of a scary atmosphere for the audience as it is a place people go to as a leisure activity. This makes it more relatable to the audience. We are creating a discomforting scene which will put doubt in the audiences mind, as it is a location they go to to enjoy theirselves. It wasn't dark when we filmed this scene but we aim to edit the lighting once we begin to edit our opening.

Possible Production Names

As a group, we brainstormed possible production names for our movie production company. We decided to make a chart consisting of three words associated with our film and list synonyms of the words, in hope of finding a production name we liked.

 

As you can see, this method wasn't suited to us. We couldn't think of many words asscoiated with the topics we had chosen. Also, we had to take into consideration that the name of our production company didn't have to have anything to do with the genre and storyline of our movie. Due to this, we also came up with these three names:

• Flashlight Studios
• Tunnel Vision Studios
• Skyhigh Studios

We liked these ideas as we felt they were original and had significance to film production and editing, rather than our movie. We also had an idea of how we would edit these names into our movie. These production names seemed stronger and more memorable to us than the ones we had on our chart.

Overall, our favourite production name was Tunnel Vision, as it infers that our movie is the only thing we want our audience to focus on. Also, it infers that we are a fully focused production team.

tunnel vision

n

2. narrowness of viewpoint resulting from concentration on a single idea, opinion, etc, to the exclusion of others

 

Although we wasn't concentrated on a single idea at the beginning, we now are and are now giving it our full attention. Which is why I think Tunnel Vision Studios will be an appropriate and suited name for our prodution company.

Music and sound effects ideas for movie opening

After doing some research, we have found free, non copyrighted horror sound effects and music which we think will be appropriate for our movie opening.

This video consists of a variety of different sound effects which include ones which would make the audience jump, there are also some very good tension building sound effects. They are very appropriate and match the genre of our movie.

This is a very long piece of music, lasting almost 10 minutes. It is very dark, starting off slow then gradually getting higher and faster, raising the tension. It is the type of music that would excite and scare the audience as they would be waiting for the climax to happen.

This mix consists of 13 horror instrumentals. Not all of these are suitable, as some of them climax too late or seem to be aimed at a different sub-genre of horror than ours. The tracks which we thought could possibly work were track number one: Moonlight and Roses by Lee Rosevere, track number 8: The Crazies Are Out Tonight by Dylan Palme and track number 13: Awaken From A Nightmare by Silver Process.

Production Schedule

Production Scheduling

Script for Ex-Terminate

Here is the script for our original idea for our movie. However this is no longer our script as we have made changes to the treatment. We wasn't very fond of this script because it involved too much dialogue, which decreased the scary mood for the audience. Also, it took up too much time, it overrun our time limit of two minutes. There wasnt' enough of a tension build up which there should always be at the beginning of a horror movie.

For our new treatment, we decided not to have any speech. This is because the opening of our movie changed to a chase scene which does not need dialogue. We believed that less speech and more tension music would have a scarier effect on the audience. The lack of speech confuses the audience more, as without speech they are almost unable to identify exactly what is going on and why.

Old and new Storyboard for our movie

Here is the storyboard we began to create for the first treatment of our movie. However, this had to be changed as we changed our treatment. The new storyboard for our movie is below this one.


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Here is the storyboard for our new movie opening
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