Sophie Scott 0123Claremont Fan Court School 64680

OCR Media Studies J526B324 Production Portfolio in Media Studies

Video Brief 7: opening sequence from a new thriller with storyboard

I worked in a group of three, with Matthew and Aidan. I took specific responsibility for organising the location and organising the props needed for my character and the character of the creepy girl. I also took responsibility for drawing the opening sequence and the title sequence. We made a thriller film opening called ‘Banshee’. The genre of our film is thriller.

Research into similar films

Blair Witch ProjectThe Blair Witch Project is a film made entirely of handheld camera,the hand held camera adds tension and suspense, the unclearness ofa hand held camera is quite un-nerving and this adds to the thrilleraspect of it. The film is about 3 students who go off hiking in the BlackHills near Burkittsville to go searching for the Blair Witch. But thestudents go missing, and the camera they used to film their expeditionis found a year later. The recovered footage is presented as the film.

The RingThe Ring is a thriller, unlike the Blair Witch Project, the film

barely contains any hand held camera. The film is about a tape which contains random and disturbing images. After the characters watch the tape, they receive a phone call from a young girl telling them they will die in seven days.

Our target audience

Our target audience is likely to be both genders aged 18 or above. They are likely to have seen these films recently: Halloween (dir. 2007)Zombieland (dir. Fleischer,2009), Shutter Island (dir. Scorcese, 2010) Inception (2010, Nolan), Sanctum (dir. Cameron, 2011). They will probably visit the cinema 3-4 times a month, they may buy DVDs and/or download films from their computers. Audience figures show how popular the thriller /horror /action genre is. Box office returns for films similar to mine show the following figures (source Box Office Mojo): Shutter Island ($294,803,014).

Forms and conventions used in our film opening

The locations we used was simple but it was affective for our opening. We used a nearby park to film the ‘banshee’, we also used our classroom to film some shots of the banshee’s face. The reason we used the park was because it provided us with a swing in which we needed. We used our school grounds to film the teenagers in the opening. Even though park’s are meant for children to play in, we put it in our opening because it adds eeriness to the atmosphere because we’ve turned something so innocent into something more terrifying.

The banshee wore an old white night gown, the white silkiness of the night gown resembles that of a ghost, so we used it to portray the ghostly qualities of our banshee.

Forms and conventions continued

The soundtrack for our opening, we used mysterious and ghostly music accompanied with various ambient sounds such as the heart beat and the rattle of the lock on the gate. The heart beat gave us an idea that death would occur and the rattle of the lock on the gate suggested the coldness of the atmosphere.

We used many camera angles in our opening. We used a Dutch Tilt which emphasised the eerie atmosphere. We also used a Point Of View shot to make the audience feel as if they are in the characters shoes.

Audience feedback

How successful our project is as a film opening

I feel that overall, our film opening was quite successful. Being one of the actors and editors, I made sure to experiment with sounds and how they fitted the title sequence.

We used a variety of camera angles to create the atmosphere and the sense of not knowing what was going to happen next.

The sound effects we used weren’t originally planned but we found they work well with the opening, we used them to emphasise a sense of death and mystery.

We got successful feedback from internet sites and peers.

How successful the whole project answered the brief

The project was very successful. We managed to capture nearly all of the codes and conventions of a horror/thriller hybrid opening. We also managed to obtain appropriate feedback. We tried to use as many camera angles as we possibly could. The soundtrack was very important in creating a

Appendix

Distribution

Horror Genre Research

Horror Genre Research 2

Horror Genre Research 3