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HOW DOES YOUR PRODUCT USE OR CHALLENGE CONVENTIONS AND HOW DOES IT REPRESENT SOCIAL GROUPS OR ISSUES? By Nosa Ighodaro
BRIEFLY EXPLAIN YOUR IDEA, THE GENRE/S IT MIGHT BE CATEGORISED AS Our film is categorised as a horror/murder mystery so we had planned on targeting fans of that genre as a whole. Our idea involved a murder based around the 70’s who we see as just an ordinary janitor type character until a more sinister plot is revealed as you see what his true intentions are and what he is trying to hide. By most horror fans some might categorise our movie as more of a murder mystery or possibly even a psychological thriller.
USE OF / SUBVERSION OF TYPICAL CAMERA SHOT SIZES, CAMERA MOVEMENTS, FRAMING, FOCUS, ETC Throughout our opening sequence we used many different camera shots to make sure we were able to capture the best angle to get a better atmosphere for the opening sequence as a whole. For the majority of the shoot we wanted to have quite a few medium shots and close ups just to emphasise the emotions or lack of in the characters faces. Though we did have to compromise as some shots which we had thought we had gotten we had to change or take out completely because of continuity errors or just bad takes. We had tried using different camera movements such as a handheld walking back shot this was one of the harder shots that we tried to get so we had to take it quite a few times to get the one we were most happy with. Getting shots such as the ones I have mentioned are commonly used in horror films the best example of a shot we got was inspired from the majority of handheld shots from the Blair Witch Project and even the tracking shots used in the film Split.
SUBVERSION OF CAMERAWORK When filming our opening sequence I felt that we had gotten camera shots and sizes where you would see them in a typical horror movie which entails in having many close ups to show the either frightened or sinister expressions on the characters faces which I feel we were able to get with the close ups of our killers face. This was a convention we had implemented as it is this type of camera work which attracts horror movie audiences and possibly even psychological horror film audiences. We tended to have more upper body and medium shots so that it would not reveal what actions of our killer were this hopefully kept the audience in anticipation for something to be revealed. After the body had been revealed we had more wide shots from low angles to capture the man dragging the body across the hallway to create a sense of shock for the audience.
USE OF / SUBVERSION OF TYPICAL COSTUMES, PROPS, MAKE UP, HAIR, LIGHTING, SETTINGS When trying to figure out what types of costume we had wanted for our cast in our opening sequence we first had to decide what feel we had wanted for it and how we wanted to go about making the killer look more unconventional to other serial killers and how we wanted to make the victim seem innocent/vulnerable. We felt that the best solution for this was to make our killer look like an ordinary man in the 70’s with typical dress for that decade this would hopefully throw the audience off with them thinking that he is just an ordinary character. But we did keep in mind that we wanted him to give off a creepy serial killer vibe with style choices taken from killers in that decade. Inspiration for the costume design for our killer comes from Patrick Bateman in the American Psycho he is a character who you would have not expected to be a serial killer in the beginning due to his attire and his general attitude this is the feel we had aimed for with our killer. For our victim we put her in a white dress as we felt white represented pure/kind/innocent to make the killer seem more cold blooded.
SETTING We had chosen the hallway as our only setting as it was the best in terms of giving an idea of what our opening sequence and “movie” would be like as a whole. The hallway was a location we had chosen as it had the best eerie and overall creepy atmosphere to it rather than having shot the sequence in the studio or outside of school. Though it did take quite a bit of effort to find the right type of lighting we wanted and where we were going to position the lights to get the best overall outcome. When coming upon our chosen location we found that there was another door leading down to the boiler room we used this to our advantage and added it to our opening sequence this gave us an even more ominous and sinister theme for our opening sequence. Though when choosing this location we did not account for the lack of lighting, but it possibly attracted more horror film fans as dark lighting is a theme constantly used throughout most horror films.
USE OF / SUBVERSION OF TYPICAL DIALOGUE, DIEGETIC SOUND, NON DIEGETIC MUSIC, SOUND EFFECTS / FOLEY ETC In our opening sequence we did not have any dialogue as we were informed that it is quite hard to incorporate good non awkward dialogue in a two minute sequence so instead we had used music to fill the silence throughout the whole of the scene going from diegetic to non diegetic. We wanted to make the sound in our scene feel completely different to how horror audiences would think it would sound so we used contrapuntal sound such as the upbeat 70’s music we used through our sequence. Though it is not used often in some horror movies they can be found in a few of them such as the example I had brought up before from American Psycho where Patrick is seen murdering the man while upbeat diegetic music is playing in the background. We did keep some ambient sound in the sequence mainly in the beginning when he is washing the clothes and the end when he slams the cellar door just to give a more sinister feel. We did not have to add any extra foley sounds meaning we didn’t have to add any extra sound effects as we captured all the sounds we had needed on the actual shoot day.
USE OF / SUBVERSION OF TYPICAL STRUCTURE, EDITING TRANSITIONS, PACE / LENGTH OF TAKES, FILTERS & EFFECTS When editing our opening sequence we wanted to make it seem like it was moving at a slightly slower place in some areas such as the reveal of the body and the killers descent into the trap door, but we had struggled to get some bits to not feel dragged on such as when the killer is pulling the body across the floor into another room this however can be seen as unconventional as you do not typically see the killers in horror films hiding or cleaning their own scenes. We had tried making the transitions seem less rough between shots which gave it a slower pacing which could add more shock value to the audience finding out that the man is the killer. We had to specific long takes one of which is the killer walking down the corridor this was supposed to make the audience feel uncomfortable and awkward as they did not break away from the killer another long take we had was the shot looking down into the boiler room as it was almost completely pitch black it leads the audience to wonder what the killer is keeping in there. One other area that our group had trouble with was colour correction and lighting we had tried to make the sequence not look so dark in certain parts by turning up the saturation of the colours but then we felt we would have lost the feel of it being more of a horror film so we decided to keep the colours and lighting constant through the sequence.
