Survey Responses

Audience Profile

From the responses to my Horror Survey so far, I seem to have many people that like the idea of my horror film, as they state that they're big fans of horror films. As well as this, they did answer the questions regarding the last horror film they watched and the genres they are most fond of, and I now have an idea of what my audience profile is.

People around the ages of 16-19 year old.
People who like scary characters, scary music and sound effects, blood an gore and just generally being scared.
However the people that answered this survey watched a film that isn't similar to mine at all as it was a different sub-genre to mine, although they did say they'd watch it.


This is my audience profile. I determined this from the responses I got from my survey. This gives me a good idea of where to improve/change our film and how to make it suit the audience a lot more.   

Nine Frame Analysis

Title Sequence Analysis

Title Sequence Analysis

First of all the film ‘Scream’ has quite a typical horror opening title sequence as it includes a dark background, and some animations that look like blood (making the slasher genre stand out more). Also this title sequence involves different types of musical instruments to get the full horror effect. The sounds used are often strings and synth adding depth and mystery to the sequence. This particular sequence is one of my favorites because it’s pretty simple and I think that the simpler it is the more mysterious and effective it will become in the long run.

Once again there is another horror film that is pretty similar to scream in the title sequence as it shares many of the same features, the film is Friday the 13th. Some of these features being, blood splatters, black backgrounds and really similar music of strings and synth to add an eerie effect, however the music is quite different in the speed and intensity as the movie’s story and way that characters develop and inevitably die is different from Scream.

And finally there are those title sequences that have changed over the years and have more editing and are not as simple and basic as the other ones. I feel this spoils some of the movie as they show clips of what happens in the film in some parts of the title sequence, and they show the characters etc. However there are some I quite like, for example 28 days later has a good title sequence and uses a song that is popular now since it was used, the song is not only popular but it fits the situation as it’s quite chaotic even though it’s quite slow and dull.  

Horror Survey

Genre Analysis

Genre Analysis

Horror is a genre that can be identified very easily due to the genre conventions alone. The iconography gives it away once you see the costumes and the props being used, props like sharp knives, guns, or huge chainsaws. Also the mise en scene gives away the genre straight away when you see make-up, costumes and certain parts of the setting that scream horror at you whilst watching.

Setting is also a huge giveaway in the horror genre, horror settings seem to be dark, abandoned houses, old buildings, long dark streets, empty parks and typically anywhere that has an eerie feel to it. The setting it one of the most important parts to a horror movie, without a scary setting you have no scary film, simple.

The themes used in horror usually include monsters, twists, complex psychological storylines and some good special effects. Monsters of all kinds are used in horrors to add an unnatural affect. Twists in the storylines are used to make the audience think that the problem is coming from a certain character when really the problem is the main character.

The narrative of horror consists of things like flashbacks that occur to illustrate a little bit of backstory of the characters to the audience. Also the structures of most horrors are pretty much the same, however some horrors that have a supernatural and psychological plot to them can sometimes vary in the structure adding to the affect of the sub-genre.

The styles of horror consist of different types of camera angles and a lot of editing adding special affects and music etc. Sounds are pretty important in horrors, especially if there is a chase scene or something and the slightest sound can be heightened to grab the attention of the audience like a deep breath, or a footstep… Camera angles in horror are quite vital and sometimes help convey the style of the film; some examples are long wide shots to display the character and the surroundings. Another shot will be a close up shot of the characters face to show their emotions and facial gestures. And finally editing is also really important in horror, especially in supernatural horrors that require editing and CGI to capture the real effects.

In horror there are a lot of stereotypical characters, one of these characters is the female victim. In nearly all horror films there is always a female victim as they’re portrayed as being vulnerable and in need of protection. The female victim character often puts the audience on edge, as her behavior is often jumpy and scary… Another example is the ‘non-believer’. These characters are portrayed as being laid back and at ease. These actions of the character often lead them to being the first killed and suddenly all the people he/she convinced that nothing was wrong seem to find out what really is happening. And there is always a hero and a villain, these characters are pretty similar as they always end up killing someone or something in the film.            

AS Brief

AS Brief

This preliminary exercise will involve the filming and editing of a character moving up to a park bench to sit down and discuss what happened the night before. Whilst the characters are sat down they then will share a couple of lines of dialogue. The task will also include different types of basic shots, including the reverse shot or the 180-degree rule shot.

Main Task

In the G321 task, we are making the titles and opening of a new horror film to last up to around about 2 minutes maximum. All the video and audio will be original; the use f garage band to apply music/sfx will be introduced, both of these tasks, the prelim and the G321 can be done individually or as a group, the maximum numbers of members in a group is 4. This task should use more advanced skills from what we learnt in the prelim task to make the film look a little better camera wise and editing wise.   

Storyboards - Instability

This is the first storyboard for the film, it has the opening scenes and all the information about the shots we're planning on using in it.

This is the second storyboard, this is the middle of the film, or the development stage as you start to understand to story a little bit. we use over the shoulder shots to capture the character reflection in the mirror.

This is the final storyboard, in this one we use some wide shots and some close ups to capture the facial expressions of some of the characters as the plot thickens.

Recce Shots of locations

Risk Assessment

This is the risk assessment table we are using to make sure nothing really goes wrong during the shoot. These risks are probably the most likely to happen, so we have added a detailed prevention to the table to make sure it's resolved.

Call Sheet

Call sheet from DunkanCA

Production Logo

This is the production logo we both worked on, it's pretty simple and plain but it's all original.
I guess the red can signify blood, and the black can signify darkness. 

Equipment and prop list

This is the equipment we plan to use in the shoot. All of the props link to the story somehow.

Animatic - Instability

This is an animatic of the storyboard we made to plan the shot of our film, we decided to make each 'box' the same length as we plan to film the scene for... This gives us more of an idea if were going over the time limit or just under.

Mood Board - Instability

this is the mood board we made during the planning of our film, we decided to use pictures of people that seem to be trapped in some sort of way, this linked to our plot and the way we wanted to convey the film to the audience.

Script - Instability

Even though the film is only 2 minutes long, we wanted to use dialog to capture the performance of the characters through the way they spoke to each other. We included actions in the script to make it easier for the cast to understand what they had to do before we eventually told them how to...

Mind Map - Instability

Shooting Schedule

this is the shooting schedule we are using to keep track of when were going to shoot each scene for this movie.

Treatment - Instability

Horror Sequence - Instability

Sequence sound testing evaluation

Sequence sound testing evaluation

This task didn't really require us to use the camera to capture clips following a narrative. This task was just to add sound effects to make something out of nothing, and as we finished the task I think we accomplished that. Shooting the little clips were done quite quickly, we weren't told to take a lot of time on it so we just shot a few ‘random’ things then went to add sound. Before adding sound we had to use final cut pro to add the clips and edit them down etc... After that we converted the clips into a quick time movie so we had an idea of where to put the sound.

After making the quick time movie, we started adding sound. We used garage band and used the sound effects that were available to us. The clips turned out to be creepy in a way, so we exploited it by adding some creepy, weird sound effects to add more effect.

The parts I found quite hard was editing the sound, we tried to edit the sound to make the original audio sound different and more ‘creepy’. This was tough; we couldn't get it right at first, and however we managed to do it. That was the only part I found quite difficult, all of the other parts we had already done in the past so it was really easy. I found this task pretty interesting, it was a good way to get an idea of how to use garage band effectively and to generally know how to add sound to make nothing into something.


This task was just to give us an opportunity to use garage band. We added sound effects to some clips we got in the lesson. It had noting to do with the main task, however it seemed to help most people out as they knew how to use it when it came to the real thing.

Horror Audience Research PowerPoint

This is the powerpoint of the all the most successful horro films that have been made, although it's not a blockbuster genre, some of these films were really successful in the box office. This also gave us an idea of what we had to do with our own, for example using the same sub genres as the successful films etc...

History Of Comedy

 The history of Comedy

The comedy genre is an extremely popular genre at this time. Comedy can be divided into a lot of different genres, based on the source of humor. For example, black comedy that deals with thing like drugs, death and the offensiveness of the joke with a lack of emotion etc. Or character comedy that deals with character stereotypes.

Comedy originates from the silent film era from the 1800’s. Silent films with the absence of dialog relied on the slapstick style of comedy; slapstick comedy is usually energetic with things like chases and collision that provided humor for the audience. The Lumiére brothers made the first silent film, it was made in 1895.  It was a 49 second short film that included a chase.

In 1914 Sir Charles Chaplin created his first ever comedy film called ‘Making a Living’ Charles’ career stretched for 75 years making him one of the most popular slapstick directors. Chaplin influenced other slapstick directors with his approach to comedy by using natural occurring events that would provide humor. This is used today for example a flat tire whilst riding a bike or bread being burnt in a toaster.

1930 – 1950’s with the silent film era growing out of fashion at a quick rate, dialog was added to film to push comedy to a new level, inviting verbal humor, this means that slapstick/physical was being used less often however it was still used. 1930’s – 1950’s comedy was influential to some but not to all, some people who make film used sketches to provide humor where dialog was not used that much and jokes were not appropriate in the situation.

In the early 1960’s comedy became darker and a lot more serious in films. Spin offs and spoofs were common. Surreal comedy exploited its strangeness to have an effective humorous approach to the audience; it is so strange it adds humor.

1990’s home alone, the film nearly everyone has seen. In home alone, the short scenes of the boy trying to stop the two intruders from getting in his house is extremely humorous because of it’s slapstick like and silent film but with dialog feel. One of the major developments is Rom-Coms; this genre pushed the success of films such as ‘When Harry met Sally’ and ‘Sleepless in Seattle’. Also British comedy in the 1990’s were like working class comedies like ‘The Full Monty’ and ‘Brassed off’

In the early 2000’s they were ‘stoner’ comedy films like pineapple express, which had a lot of drug related jokes and crude comedy in. These types of films included two people on an adventure with random things happening to them along the way. Another development of comedy was gross-out humor that was usually aimed at younger audiences but is still continuing with adult oriented comedies being made in the box office. This present time black comedies are performing well also, they’re also known as dramatic comedies (dramedies).

One of my personal favorite films is Zombieland, which goes under the Horror/Comedy genre class. At the moment, I prefer horror comedy to many others.  

LA Confidential Evaluation

LA Confidential Film Sequence Evaluation

I personally though that filming and acting out this sequence was pretty challenging. We had to draw out storyboard of the shots and the exact camera angles, and my drawing was pretty dreadful. That made the camera shots a lot harder to get right.

Looking back at the finished film sequence we realized that we made a few mistake regarding the camera angles at the end, in our sequence we shot a scene in a completely different way to the original. Also just relying a storyboard to help us out made it harder as we forgot some of the acting that was involved. For example silly things like chewing gum, or looking up and walking off sharply, small crucial things.

If I could change anything about the task it would be to get more people involved as we were limited to only 2 people in the sequence so it was hard to get the shots right. However more importantly I would have spent more time working on the storyboard and writing more of a descriptive instruction to each scene and to make my illustrations better. Therefore we would have had a more accurate sequence.

However overall I enjoyed the experience and I enjoyed the acting. After the acting we edited it and it was more experience and knowledge of the program. It was a good effort in my opinion.

60 Second Film

Prelim Task Video!

Clip Analysis.

Taken - Clip Analysis.

At the start the camera is tracking at a medium shot to show her moving away to another room to escape the sound of the music so that her dad doesn’t hear on the other side of the phone.
In this scene from Taken, at the start, when they’re on the phone there are a lot of short close up angle shots to show that they’re in a panic and rushing around.
When the girl sees the strange men taking her friend away, a long shot is used from the other building to still keep the strangers identity a mystery but to show the audience what’s happening, and what they will do.
There is a clip when the male character picks up his suitcase, that’s where a close up of him grabbing it is used and a wide shot are used to have everything in view.
When he opens the suitcase a close up shot is used to show him plugging in a recording device, this shows he is prepared and experienced.
After the girl crawls under the bed, medium and close up shots are used to show her emotion as she is hiding under the bed from her kidnappers.
The scenes with Liam Neeson, medium shots are used because he is just explaining to his daughter what must be done. This gives the idea that this character is a professional. Also as he is talking the camera zooms in slowly on his face to show the importance of the instructions he is giving her.
Close ups of the feet are used to hide the identity of the kidnappers and to keep the mystery going throughout the film.
As she gets dragged away from under the bed the camera angle changes to a wide shot to show a full view of the background including the kidnappers feet as he’s dragging her away.

60 Second Film Evaluation

60 second film evaluation - The Night Before

In this 60-second film, I had a lot of fun and a good laugh. I had the chance to use a camera and shoot for a real project. At first we drew up a story-board that was originally set in the library, however the library was a bit too full for us to make the film so we moved it outside where we shot all of our scenes. Although we didn’t use as many different camera angles as we had hoped to use, however the shots we did use were done well in my opinion.

To improve on this film I think that with more time and determination we could of involved a lot more different camera angles to make the film more different and better. Also with more time we could of watched the clips back to make sure that the sound was right and the lighting for each clip was ok.

Using the editing software was a great experience and a good opportunity for me as I will have more experience next time using it and will get the next project done quicker and to a better standard, however overall I think that the editing for the 60-second movie was good for a first time try. The editing was pretty basic, nothing to complicated our brilliant about it, we just added the clips in then used a the text tool to create a title to roll over one of our scenes, and that was the edit.

Opie Task Evaluation

Opie Task Evaluation

I thought that this task was a good opportunity to get used to using the different features on Photoshop. I felt as though I did well in this task seeing as though my skill in using Photoshop is very low, now that I have completed this task once I feel as though I could do it again but a lot better with more detail.

The parts I found easy in this task were doing the facial features, because all I had to do was use the magnifying glass to zoom in and use the paintbrush to draw eyes, eye brows, nose and a mouth, simple as that. However the parts I found hard in this task was doing the clothing, because I had a collar I had to use two layers, this made it pretty difficult to get it accurate in the short time that I had. My collar had little gaps in that didn’t get filled in with color. Another part I found quite challenging that doesn’t sound challenging was the hair highlights/shadows, I couldn’t get it right at first, I either did them to big or too small.

I found this task really interesting, it’s great how you can change into a cartoon just by editing a few things on Photoshop. Finally, I felt that this task was very useful, I now have more of an understanding of Photoshop, and so in the near future I will be able to use the application more effectively than I did with this task.