Skills learned from the prelim task.

Prelim task.
We were given a task where we had to come up with an opening sequence for our own Horror film. We were taught the use of different camera angles and how they are effective withing a horror film. for example, an establishing shot helps the audience understand the characters surrounded and what is happening within in. Having watched several horror film opening such as Scream, Se7en, the Others etc, it gave us an idea of what is expected to be seen within the opening. These ideas come under the term 'Conventions of Horror Movies', which includes such things as blood or weapons or sream or death etc. The use of these conventions helps the audience identify the genre of the movie.

However, for the audience to feel invloved with the film Non-digetic and Digetic sounds are used. Non-digetic sounds are sounds such as the background music, wherease Diegtic sounds are sounds such as a door slamming. The effect of Non-digetic sounds are to create a sense of suspence and for it's target audience to feel uncomfortable. For example, in Scream the music is rapid and loud, helping to create a sense of fear and anxiousness. Digetic sounds too are used to create a sense of suspence but mostly makes it's target audience jump. For example, in the Strangers when there's a knock at the door, the audience jump as the knock is sudden and then they begin to uncertain as they question who is at the door?

After having learnt all this, we were ready to decide who our target group(s) are and on out opening sequence of our own horror film. We decided to we wanted to aim our film at teenagers and young adults as they are more likely to go and watch a horror film since they have more time on their hands. We wanted our opening sequence to not be something that was easy to figure out and understandable, instead we wanted our audience to be confused. For example, the opening sequence of the Others starts with the main character, Nicole Kidman reading a child's book and then there's a sudden scream (Digetic) to make the audience jump. The camera then shows us three other character's walking to a house which looks haunted (Convention) talking about something to do with death and as they reach the door the main character opens it looking confused as to why they are there. This opening sequence is effective because it makes the audience ask questions such as 'why did she scream?', 'who's dead?'. 'what's going on?' etc and also makes them want to watch more of the film in order to undertstand what's going on.

We were also taught about the term 'mis-en-scene'. This includes the props, setting, costumes, make-up and lighting used in the film. We decided we wanted our character to wear school uniform as the opening scene begins with her in school (setting), holding her school books and bag (props). Make-up is only used towards the ending of our opening as we wanted our main character to look 'dark', 'evil' and 'scary'. Also we decided we wanted to use natural lighting. Having learnt about different camerawork/shot types, we decided to use a range of shots such as mid close-up, close-up, establishing shot etc, to help create different effects. Our editing skills came from our own experience and this helped us to come up with a lot of different ideas that could have more effect on our audience. Also for sound we decided to use Non-digetic sounds such as ballads to confuse our audience in thinking nothing scary is going to happen at that point. We used Digetic sounds such as the sudden slam of a door to make our audience jump and we also decided to use the technique of a voice over.