Thursday, 28 November 2013

Never look back DVD cover


This is my attempt of creating a DVD cover for our film opening. I have used all the typical conventions of a film poster and linked them in with the horror genre so I was able to portray that I was advertising a horror film. I have included the title of the film using a particular font that we found called 'Face your fears' and we coloured it in a blood red colour to create a horror effect which links with the title of our film opening 'Never Look Back'. We then created a tagline, using the same font and colouring as our title, 'Don't take the chance, You'll regret it' which seems quite mysterious as it doesn't give away anything about the content of our film. We also made sure that we included a couple of star reviews, and in this case we made out that the reviews were from popular newspapers and the reviews stated that it was a 5 star rated film, as the ratings of a film would let the audience know whether the film was good and worth watching.

For the actual image for the DVD cover I used a still image from one of our clips that we filmed. Within the particular clip it showed Becca (the victim) walking up the alleyway and the over the shoulder shot of myself (the antagonist) walking towards her, so you can only see the back of me with my hood up and then Becca walking towards me. I then took this image and edited it in Photoshop, adjusting the lighting and tones to make sure you couldn't see the sunlight as clearly. I also made the image black and white so the figures look more distorted, I was then able to conceal Becca's face as the change I made on the lighting cancelled out her facial features. This effect creates a mysterious effect as it conceals both characters identity but because Becca's character is lighter it contrasts to the image of my character which is dark, which suggest an aspect of danger because I am playing the antagonist and Becca is the victim, therefore her character is a lighter tone within this image.

Tuesday, 19 November 2013

Horror film poster analysis

The font used for the title of the film is bold and quite simple, even though it is white and contrasts against the darker background it doesn't distract the eye from the actual poster itself. The image shows quite a close shot of a young boy, but his eyes have been given the effect that they're scratched out, which gives a frightening effect to the poster. Behind the young boy there is a house which is the main setting of the film as this is where most of the horror aspects of the film will take place, and the clouds are quite dark which gives off quite an eery effect, so the weather links in with the fact that the film will be a horror because its dark and gloomy, almost scary. The colours used are again, quite dark and gloomy, which is a typical convention of a horror film as people link darkness to scary things, because if brighter colours were used it wouldn't look like the poster was advertising a horror film because bright colours are not a typical horror convention. The tagline 'It's not the house that's haunted' makes the audience question what that sentence could insinuate, so the audience may begin to question what could be haunted if it's not the house, and with the image of the young boy in the front it could make them wonder whether the boy is haunted. The film has been given 5 stars and described as 'so scary, I was whimpering in sheer terror' which gives the audience the idea of how terrifying the film will actually be from someone else's perspective, but even though the person who rated the film found it extremely scary they still rated it 5 stars because they obviously thought that it covered typical horror convention or even bended them a little to make the film as frightening as possible. Overall this poster gives off a scary effect and you can clearly see that it is advertising a horror film and the use of colouring, font, image, tagline etc. fits in with typical conventions of a horror film poster.

When looking at this poster for Paranormal Activity 3 our automatically focus on the blood red colour of the title as it contrasts against the plain black background, also red being the colour, could represent danger which links in with the horror genre. The font used looks quite distorted which pairs with the title 'paranormal activity' as distortion and paranormal activity go together because it's not really natural. The image is based across the poster but smaller so you're able to see the plain black background as if to portray the fact that the characters are being watched through someone else's point of view and not the camera mans, also the image has a blueish tint to it and is also distorted which adds to the fact that they're being watched. You can also see a dark shadow in the middle of the image between the two characters beds which again, shows the fact that they're being watched but they obviously don't know that they are because they're asleep. The tagline 'Discover how the activity began' and 'It runs in the family' gives the audience a sense of wonder and mystery because it's not really giving anything away but it's hinting a little about what the film will tell you once you have watched it. The overall effect of the poster, again gives off a scary effect and it doesn't give away anything about the film, but it still includes typical horror conventions to make the poster as spooky as possible so the audience will be enticed to watch the film.

This poster is pretty simple when you look at it, however it still involves various horror conventions within it. The background shows a severed hand placed on a bright white tile floor, which could represent the contrast between the purity of the bright white and the speck of blood that has splattered onto the floor from the hand. The title Saw is quite simple but it does fit in with the horror genre as a saw is sharp and can be used as a weapon which would cause a lot of damage or kill someone. The font and colouring of the title is quite spooky as it is quite disorientated with the different placement and size lettering, the colour use is also quite a bloody red/brown which pairs with the blood that is splattered on the floor. The overall effect of this poster is that even though there is no tagline it still gives the audience a little bit of an idea of what the film may include.




When looking at this poster it looks pretty simple as well, however the background image shows the main antagonist with the signature costume/mask, and this mask takes up most of the poster, with the mask contrasting against the plain black background and the plain black parts of the mask, this makes the poster look pretty creepy and also shows the audience that the scream character will be returning as this poster is advertising the fourth film from this popular selection. The font is simple bold lettering, however the 'A' in Scream is made up of a 4 instead of the letter A which shows that this is the fourth film, the 'M' is also quite sharp as it goes down which could represent a knife as this is the weapon that the antagonist uses when murdering his victims. The colouring of the font is white which again contrasts against the plain black background but the '4/A' is red which could represent blood as this is a horror film. The tagline 'new decade, new rules' implies that since this film was only recently made compared the the first three the change in time period means that there will be new rules to how the antagonist will target his victims, which is good as it gives the audience the sense of mystery as they will wonder how the victims will be targeted. Overall this film poster is very effective as it doesn't give away anything about the film and for people who enjoyed the first three films they will understand/know a little more about the film but for those who haven't seen the films it will give them a sense of mystery.

This film poster shows the three antagonists as the main focus as the image, but also the two main victims that they target throughout the film facing towards them so the audience cannot see their faces. The three antagonists all have some kind of mask on so the audience cannot actually see the faces because they're actually real people and you can see that they are, but as this film is said to be based on a true story the director obviously wanted the characters to look as realistic as possible. The tagline is 'because you were home' which tells us that the victims were obviously targeted within their own home, but also implying that the antagonists attacked the victims because they were actually home at the time and when you're at home you are supposed to feel safe, but a horror film contrasts this as victims are likely to be targeted in their own homes because they do not expect it. The titles font is quite a basic font, however it looks a little disorientated and with the colouring it looks as if it was glowing which can be seen as quite creepy as it looks like quite a horrific glow, like something you would see during Halloween, also the actual title itself tells us that the antagonists are just people who are strangers to their victims and the victims are unaware of who they could be, which creates fear and mystery. Overall this film poster is very effective as the colours are quite dark and it doesn't give away anything about the film, which entices the audience to see it as they would want to find out what happens throughout the storyline.

Thursday, 7 November 2013

Mise-en-scene within our film opening

The Location:
We decided that the location of our film opening would be an alleyway because even if it was daylight alleyways can be seen as quite frightening as they are quite a narrow and confined space which are difficult to get out of in most cases as you are only usually able to go up or down. This is where the victim would be killed as the particular alleyway that we chose is quite confined and in this case, you are only able to go up or down so if someone was walking towards you or behind you you're only able to escape with one way out. We didn't only use the alleyway as a setting, even though this was the main one we also used a small cul-de-sac/side street to film the beginning of our film opening to show the contrast in setting when the victim is with her friends in the street to when she is on her own in the alleyway.

Costumes:

We decided that the three young girls/friends would be wearing normal everyday clothing for their costumes as they were portraying that they were walking home from school on a usual day. The still image on the right shows from left to right: Friend 3, Friend 2 and Friend 1 (the victim) walking home having a conversation, however within this shot we decided that the victim would be carrying a bag as it singles her out from the two friends and she clutches it as if she is wary of her surroundings, especially when she is in the alleyway in case someone approaches her and attempts to grab her bag.
We also decided that the antagonist/murderer would wear a plain clack costume, including a black hoodie and black trainers/sneakers as they're practical and black as a colour can represent danger and also mysteriousness, also when in the dark, black is a good colour to wear if you wanted to go unnoticed or blend in with the darkness. We decided that this character would have their hood up when they are in contact with the victim as it shields their face and again adds the aspect of suspense within the scene.




Props:
 Finally we chose to use simple objects for props, the main ones being a fake/toy knife for the murder weapon when the antagonist attacks and murders the victim, fake blood to create the effect of the victims stab wound once the murderer and the knife has made contact with the victim, and a mobile phone as we have to use phones throughout our film opening as we will include shots of texts messages/notifications within the scenes so the audience can get more of an idea about what is happening.




Filming sessions

Our whole filming session took place through out a whole day, starting from 11:30am. Within this time period we were able to film each shot/cut, using our storyboard to help us with each camera angle and scene, therefore we were able to film all of the shots that we needed for our film opening so we are now able to begin editing and creating the titles.

Difficulties that we came across when filming was that the camera that we were using ran out of battery before we had finished filming all of our shots, however luckily Becca had her own camera with her in her bag so we were able to overcome this problem, therefore being able to film the final shots that we needed to to finish our film opening.

 In terms of film conventions we did include various conventions that would be seen in a horror film, for example the antagonist wearing an all black costume to add an aspect of danger and mysteriousness, a murder weapon, the victim being in a vulnerable position, the murderer watching the victim from a hidden place, the victim being alone when attacked. However we did add in the aspect of suspense with the fact that we made it look like the victims friends were the murderers out to get her, but then the actual murderer did end up getting to the victim, we also created a situation where the murderer actually takes the victim by surprise when they kill her as it was just a quick and simple task, even though there will be a build up to the event.

Tuesday, 5 November 2013

Our filming schedule

We scheduled to film our opening throughout the whole day on Tuesday 29th October over half term, this meant we had to arrange with the rest of the group and our extra person, who was to play the remaining character when we were all free to film.

Restrictions or problems that we thought about before hand was:

  • The weather- We had to make sure that it was not raining hard or too windy as it would affect the amount of filming we were able to get done and the quality of the shots, also we had to make sure that, if the weather was sunny, that we were able to keep the right amount of brightness when filming and not cast too many shadows within the shots
  • The setting- As we were filming in an alleyway and on small occasions, a quiet cul-de-sac we had to make sure that the setting was quiet and that if any members of the public needed to walk by we stopped filming and made sure that random members of the public were not filmed whilst we were filming.
  • The content- As we were filming a opening of  a horror film we had to make sure that the public did not feel that they were under any risk as the murderer was wearing an all black costumes and hoodie, which could look threatening to the public eye. We also had to use props such as a fake/toy knife and fake blood to create the murder scene so again we had to make sure the public did not feel at ease if they were to walk past and see the props.
We also decided to practice a particular shot/camera angle whilst we were in a media lesson so we were able to plan it out correctly for when we came around to actually filming each shot. 
We secured the camera onto a skateboard to then be able to move the camera below to film Becca's feet walking along without showing any other part of her body. This was useful as we were able to see whether this method would work so we were able to include this particular camera angle within our film opening.