Nursery Rhymes

For our piece we need to decided on what nursery rhyme we are going to choose for the end of our opening.

Our first choice is,,, Goosey Goosey Gander

Goosey Goosey Gander, whither shall I wander?

Upstairs and downstairs and in my Lady's chamber.

There I met an old man who wouldn't say his prayers,

So I took him by his left leg and threw him down the stairs.

This could be quite disturbing when made into a song especially the threw him down the stairs but nut I feel that it may not be the best one for our piece as it may also be quite hard to make it scary.

Our second choice is... Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky!
Although this i generally a happier nursery rhyme I think it coul be brilliant as a scary one. I think panning and EQ will make this a very goo nursery rhyme to use. it is also one of the most well known ones so the audience wil relate back to the childhood making the child figure more scary.

Our last choice is... The Teddy Bears Picnic

If you go out in the woods today,
You'd better not go alone.
It's lovely out in the woods today,
But safer to stay at home.

This would be treally good in our media as it relates to a woods which is where our opening is set. I would also be good because everyone knows that its is a bout teddy bears and teddy bears relate to our little girl villian.

Out of all three choices i think The Teddy Bears Picnic is going to be the best one for our piece because it relates to our story the most.

Slasher typography

When researching typography used within the same sub-genre as our film opening, it became clear that many stuck to the use of Serif fonts and using the colours red, black and white. The colour red connotes things such as blood, gore and danger and seeing as these are some of the things expected by the audience in a horror film, it fits the audiences expectations which is why it's repetitively used for the text.
The typography used for Scream is repetitive over the series of films which makes it unique to the film, the use of bold white writing makes it stand out against those all with similar red, serif titles. The use of white more than red is most likely because it's more modern than Prom Night, Texas Chainsaw and A Nightmare on Elm Street and the older films are those which conformed to the conventions more than now. Although the Smiley film is modern, it has stuck to the conventions and used a deep red for the title, a deeper shade of red to the older films, one that looks like a shade of blood rather than a bright red colour.
The Cornered! typography is the one that goes against the conventions mostly, with use of Sans Serif font and the colours green and white/grey, again one that is more modern than one that stuck to audiences. Into The Darkness and The Final Destination are another two typographies that subvert the audience expectations with a lack of the colour red within them, both being more modern.
The Final Destination text looks as though it's reflecting light, which linked to the smashed mirror in the graphology of the poster, it linked the two together. If we could incorporate something from within our opening/film with the typography, I think it'd be interesting and different.

Evaluation of filming day 2

With a few hours spare on a Saturday and with one of it main actors free from work, we decided to use these hours productively and film what we could with this one character, Heather. We thought that the weather had taken a turn for the worst when it began to spit on the way to the woods but it stopped which was good.

It took us approximately 45 minutes to film 4 shots and get them exactly how we wanted which we all thought was a good use of time as this means that if we stick to this pace, on our next filming day, we should be able to get a lot done in just a few hours. We would say that we have around 20% filmed now as we have to refill what we have already filmed because of certain issues with our characters being too over exaggerated and another changing their image.

Different Production Companies

• Universal studios is a production company that has produced many of the top grossing films of all time, such as E.T and Jaws, this means that if it was to be used as our introduction people would notice straight away who we want to stage as the producers of this film as universal studios is a very prestigious company.
• The films that Universal Studios usually produce are more of action/adventure films and they are not known for producing any horror films, therefore it wouldn't be a great production company to use as there are better companies we can use to support our genre.

• Sony pictures animation is an animation company, responsible for the production of films such as 'Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs' , it is the animation section of sony pictures.
• Clearly this wouldn't be acceptable to use as our company as it is an animation company so it wouldn't fit into the horror genre we wish to use.

• Paramount pictures is another prestigious company responsible for the creation of films such as Star Trek and Mission Impossible.
• Due to the bright nature of the intro clip, it wouldn't suit a horror film, therefore making it unusable for a horror film, also due to the type of films Paramount usually makes such as action/adventure films, horror wouldn't fit the usual films that they make so it wouldn't be a wise choice.

• Lionsgate films is yet another prestigious film production company, responsible for films such as Expendables and American Psycho.
•  Due to the red colour scheme of the introduction this could be used as the introduction, as the red can show danger or and connote to aspects in horror films such as blood which is indeed a strong convention in horror films.

• Twisted pictures would be the perfect production company to use for our film opening due to the name and the logo, the word 'twisted' indicates that the film may be twisted or messed up, insisting that it will mess with the views mind
• The barbed wire indicates danger, as barbed wire is dangerous it shows that the nature of the film will also be dangerous by nature, all of these reasons put together indicate what kind of film the viewer will expect.

http://messmediatownley.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/survey-analysis.html

Problems Due to Filming

Up to this point, we have completed filming 40% of our movie opening, and this filming took place on the 30th December 2012.

We had filmed lots of different shots, often so that we had 3 choices to chose from. We then went onto editing these shots, taking the most effective ones, and then placed them in the correct chronological order, and shortened them to the appropriate length.

So up to this point, we had 40% of filming and editing done.

Character Problems: 

We were then ready to film the remaining 60%, however we realised that our "geeky" character was too over dramatic; she had very tight plaits, modest clothing, a book and glasses, which made it look like she would not fit in with the group. 

We therefore would have to re-film this in order to make the opening look more effective. 

Problems out of our control: 

Ater this we were then going to film on the 20th January, however this was not possible due to snow affecting transport, and the opening could not suddenly cut to snow. 

Actor Problems:

We then incurred another problem involving one of our actors. Heather has since dyed her hair a different colour, and she is a vital actor needed for the final part of the opening, therefore, like the snow, we couldn't suddenly cut to the same actor in a previous shot, but with a completely different hair colour. 

What we will have to do now: 

In order to swiftly over come these issues, as a group, we will be filming on Saturday the 2nd of February 2013, and we will film parts of the opening that do not require all the actors, as some have prior arrangements. On this day we will be able to use our young actor as well, as on the next day of filming this may be hard to complete due to the actor having school throughout the day.

In addition to this, we shall also be filming on Wednesday 6th February 2013 all day and our aim is to have completed all filming by this time, so that we can then get back to editing the filming that would have been recently complete and finish the task.

Theory of Equilibrium

The theorist of theory of equilibrium was Tzvetan Todorov. Todorov's narrative theory is based on this - an equilibrium is set up which is the disrupted, causing disequilibrium, which is the resolved in to a new equilibrium by the end of the tale.

Equilibrium is a state in which opposing forces or influences are balanced or it is a state of physical balance. In media this means that the scene is calm and peaceful and there is not sign of chaos (or in other words disequilibrium).

Disequilibrium is a loss or lack of balance. This basically mean there is a point of chaos when one or more things happen to interrupt the calm and peaceful scene.
Disequilibrium would increase as the suspense increases and reaches its peak when the suspense does. For example disequilibrium would increase if a man was climbing into a scary dark loft and it would reach its peak if there was a huge bang or scream off camera.

This is a disequilibrium graph for Nightmare on Elm Street, Shrooms and our own film opening.

Recordings evaluation.

This was the first thing I composed...


Out of the three things I recorded in the studio this was my least favourite. I don't think this sounds scary enough for the opening scene of our film. We want it to sound scary and haunts but I feel this sounds more like a group of aliens talking and so almost become funny. This is not what we want to portray to our audience and so we will not use it.

This was the second...


I preferred this one to the first recording. As it has a sense of mystery about it. Even though it ticks the criteria of being scary and haunting it strikes me as something you would hear in a 1950s film because it is like talking down a phone. We also wanted it to really sound like a child and not a 'woman' as such.


I then composed this one...


This is my favourite of the three because it ticks all of the criteria we wanted in the sound. It is chilling and haunting as well as being able to recognise a child like voice. I think it will go really well of our close up shots of our child villain.

As a group we have decided to use the last recording because it sounds the best for what we want to achieve in our opening. This week we want to get our child villain (Leah) into the studio to record the final piece. Having a child speaking will finish off the piece nicely and match the shot we will use. When the opening is finished the music and filming will complement each other giving the audience a chilling experience.