paranormal activity 2

• During halfterm Kate, Sarah and myself went to the cinema to watch Paranormal activity 2! 
• The film is filmed by a hand held camera which is similar to how our own film is going to be produced. 
• What I loved about this film is throughout the whole film they keep the audience tense and scared, as the film takes a while to get the audience scared even though the audience is aware of something going to happen.
• I liked how they have used a house as the setting, as it is helpful to get ideas for our own opening of our film. I also liked how they used close up shots of the important props e.g pots and pans, mirrors, knife which gave the audience tension as to what has just happened or what might happen. 
• I found it good how the film made the audience jump many times which left you feeling aware and jumpy after the film was over!

Opening scene of Sorority Row

• This is the opening scene of Sorority Row, I have chosen to analyse this film as it is a similar opening as what i am planning on doing for my own opening film. 
• The scene starts all energetic, happy, confident and cheerful etc but as its a horror film the audience know that it wont stay that way. 
• What I am going to include similar in my own film for example, the actors will be a similar age as I want the actors to come across dominant and confident to show the audience as if they aren't scared of anything, but also showing some vulnerability. 
• Also costumes and setting will be very similar for example, the actors are wearing make up, flaunting clothing etc to make the girls look attractive and sexy in a seductive way to attract men. 
• The director has made these girls too look like this to show that they are the victims.

• I like how the director uses non-digetic sound to set the party mood by using background music and sounds of other people talking at the party and also the dim lighting, I will use something similar in my own film to make it seem realistic, which will suggest that just by the first few minutes of the opening scene the audience will straight away know that it is a horror. T
• he dim lighting always sets the scene which creates more oppotunities, such as shadows which always get the audience feeling scared.

• The opening scene of the film is set at a fast pase which gives the audience a mystery and tense feeling as the audience want to manage to keep up with whats going on and about to happen and how the killing is within the first few minutes of the film. 
• This is exactly what I would like to include in my own film, to get straight into the main story line to make the audience feel tense and aware straight away. 
• One reason why I have chosen to analyse the opening scene of this film as the main story happens within the first few minutes and doesn't take a long time to get into it and this is a feature that my group and I are wanting to use. 
• I like this as it makes the audience to engage with the film straight away and gets straight to the point of what the film is about.

• I like how there is an establishing shot at the start of the film to show where the scene is taking place. Long shots are often used which gives the audience a vibe as to if someone is watching them, to get the audience tense. This is something my group and I may include in our own film.

• The opening scene is set at a house which is aimed to a younger audience, my group and I have decided that we are also going to set our scene at a house as our film is targeted to a similar audience. 
• A different setting that is set in the opening scene is when the Sorority Row girls are outside in the middle of knowhere, this is to suggest that they do not want to be seen, and also gives the affect that somebody is watching what they are doing.

Mind map

Strangers analysis

• Strangers is one of my favourite horrow films of all time! I have added the trailer as it shows some good shots of the film. 
• I like how they have included the 'scary monsters - ones who are wearing masks' outside the house and inside the house to creep up on the main characters, for example when the couple are inside the house the women is standing in the living room looking around and a 'scary monster' creeps out from knowhere behind her and she doesn't notice. 
• When i watch something like this, it gives me a scary feeling in my whole body and I just want to scream out and run, this is the kind of thing I would like my audience to feel when they watch my own. 
• One of my favourite shots is how they use a close up shot of the knife, this is to show that the knife will come in use sometime in the film and to give the audience a feeling as to what the 'scary monsters' are capable of doing.

• In my film i would like to use something similar, like when the couple are looking outside the window, they are waiting for something to pop out at them as they open the curtains, and to not only scare the character but to scare the audience too and to be aware of something that is going to happen when you least expect it. 
• I would also like to include in my film, jump cuts to show the 'killer' getting closer to the house and cutting back to the characters inside the house. 
• There is so much tension used in this film that you are scared throughout the whole film, meaning you don't know whats going to happen next!

Planning - Mind map

Today in the lesson we have been focusing on our planning. This includes making a mind map for our film and thinking about the aspects of a stereotypical horror film, which includes; Camera shots, Setting, Audience, Purpose, Sound, Costume, Lighting, Props and examples of horror films. This will shortly be uploaded to my blog once it is completed with all of our planning to show everything that will be included in our film.

Opening of Halloween

• I have chosen the opening of halloween as I like how they have shown the 'knife' in the first few seconds of the film. 
• This gives off tension to the audience, giving them a feeling as if something bad is about to happen. 
• In my film I am going to include a knife in the opening scene, with the killer walking towards a house holding it in one hand with blood dripping from it to make it look more realistic, as if the killer has just stabbed someone with it.
• I also like the fact the bad guy is hiding in the house, to give the audience a feeling as if the bad guy is about to creep up or jump out at someone. 
• Another feature that i like that this film has used, is the non-digetic music, which is used to give off a scary and tension vibe to the audience. I hope to use something like that in my own film.

Examples of horror films

My group and I have researched the type of horror films that we are going to base our film on. These being;
- Paranormal Activity 1 & 2
- Strangers
- Taken

- When a stranger calls

- Night of the living dead
- Halloween
- The haunting

We have chosen these types of films as they are targeted to a similar audience as our own and can help us get some good ideas for props, costume and lighting.

     

Group Work

Over October half-term my group and I have decided to meet up over a few of the days to watch and take detailed notes on the opening of films from our chosen genre (horror). We have decided to go round to Kates house as that is where our film is going to be taking place. It is the perfect location for the setting of our film and we can start to think about how we may want to set out our film because of the way the layout of Kates house is and the access to alley ways, woods and the motorway which will be useful for a horror film to make it look more realistic.

Research and Planning - Change of idea

My group and I have had a big think about the type of film we are wanting to do. Our first option was to do an opening of the first two minutes of a skins type film but we have decided to change it and do an opening two minutes of a horror. We think that doing a horror would be easier and more enjoyable as we would be able to find better props, actors etc for it and lastly the setting will be alot easier to film, than it would be to do a skins type opening.

Further editing/Preliminary Video

• Today my group and I looked over our preliminary task and decided to change a few things. We have decided to include shot-reverse-shot between the two characters Sarah and Kate. 
• We edited more on the scenes we had, cutting the scenes so there was no jumps to make the overall effect realistic. We will have one more lesson on filiming our preliminary task tomorrow and then our task will be finished.
  
• Unfortunately one of our group members has decided to leave school, so there is now just Kate, Sarah and myself. We are having to get use to the group as just being the three of us, and completing the task without yaz.
  
• Overall the lesson went well and my group and I decided on what to change and what else we needed to include, below is our finalised preliminary task.

Preliminary task completion

• Today in the lesson, my group and I had finally finished our preliminary task. This task had taken us five lessons to complete, two being used for filming and 2 for the editing. 
• I found the editing quite difficult to get the hang of, especially cutting bits of the scene as I have never used any software like that before so it is all new to me. 

• For our preliminary task my group and I decided to go to the library to film our scene, as we felt that it would be a quiter place to film. This worked out well as we managed to find useful props to use to make our scene look more realistic for example, Newspapers, paper, pens etc. 

• For the last filming and editing lessson, I had to step in and take the leading role of filming, as that was yasmines part in the task and as the last bit of filimg of the shot-reverse-shot I did not need to be included in the filming.

• We used different camera angle shots such as, over the sholder shot when the characters are talking, A close up of the character opening the door, which would also be used as an establishing shot to show that the character is about to enter a room and is where the scene is taking place. A long shot to show the character walking over to her friends and finally shot-reverse-shot of two characters having a conversation.

• Throughout the whole scene there was diegetic sound which was visible from the voices of the characters. From the first few seconds that you see in the scene is the character opening the door, the use of synchronous sound is used from the opening of the door.

• Overall I feel that my group and I worked hard on our preliminary task, as we felt that we all worked well together and enjoyed filming the scene and editing it, and adding in non-digetic sound such as, music in the background to give the scene a more realistic vibe.