Group horror film opening task

Genre:

Our group decided on a horror themed film opening, as it is the most likely to get the most views on YouTube, It is also most recognisable film genre in a short amount of viewing time, and is the most memorable genre for viewers.

Genre Final Idea:

Our final idea is a Blair-witch, unfriended style shaky cam film opening, focusing mainly on suspense and the viewers own expectations of what the evil in this scene may be. It will star a group of young teens out in a location at night while they are stalked and chased by an unknown enemy.

Characters:

Jessica

Jessica is the popular member of the group, and comes across as very proper. She is likeable and holds an influence over the rest of the group.

Billie
Billie is the comic relief of the group and is quite edgy. She is quite excitable and sometimes over-exaggerates her expressions.

Tessa
Tessa is Sophia's older sister and is not as cool as the rest of the group. She is trying to seen as older by the others. She gets quite worried about her sister.

Emma
Emma is the clever, geeky person of the group. She is shown to be the sensible member of the group and is far more serious than the others.

Sophia
Sophia is Tessa's younger sister. She follows her sister in going out but turns up at the wrong cemetery. She is shown to be quite innocent, especially compared to the others. She doesn't necessarily recognise the dangers around her.

Final Script:

Tessa: When are the others getting here?

Billie: I’m not sure but wasn’t your sister meant to meet us here first?

Tessa: I’ll ring her.

Tessa rings Sophia

Tessa: Where are you?

Sophia: I’m at the graveyard

The others walk over whilst the call is taking place and are whispering in the background

Billie: Well you’re not

Emma: Are you sure?

Sophia: Yes! I’m pretty sure I can see you guys

Jessica: well obviously she’s gone to the wrong one

Sophia: I know you guys are pranking me, I can see you

Tessa: We’re not pranking you, we’ll come and find you

Sophia drops her phone, the others panic

Tessa: Sophia?

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We wrote this script to give an idea as to what the scene would entail, however if we needed to change certain parts or add in things, we did so in order for the script to work with all the other aspects of the scene. Such as: setting and characters. 

Costume ideas 

As a group we decided we wanted them to wear everyday clothes however we molded what they would usually wear to fit their character slightly.

Poppy – well dressed, proper, jack wills.

Ola – dressed younger, all in white to symbolize vulnerability.

Megan – sensible, warm, practical.

Megan – trying to dress older than she is.

Harriet – just very casual, what she would normally wear on an everyday basis, jeans and a t shirt.

Horror

Setting - Usually isolated, unpopulated and dark which creates suspense and a fear of the unknown. It also gives opportunity for things to be hidden and unexpected events to happen. There's also no hope of rescue which can add to the tension. Typical settings are graveyards, forests, abandoned buildings or potentially more childhood related places like a fairground as this creates a creepy tone.

Hair and makeup - This varies depending on what the film is about. For a gory film, more extreme makeup will be used to create the special effects, like latex wounds and fake blood. In a ghost film, makeup may be used to make an actor look a lot paler and 'dead looking' while fake wounds may also be used to show the audience that they died a violent death. Makeup may also be used to make actors 

look like monsters, vampires etc or even clowns as this is a common fear of many people. Prosthetics and coloured contacts are often utilised to really change the person's appearance.

Costume - Can be used to show the audience that the characters are ordinary people, which can add to the scary effect as it's easier to believe that the events could happen to you. They are also useful for characterisation and showing what kinds of people the characters are. For example a 'nerdy' character is one that the viewer will assume gets killed/taken first. The costume will also help for if there's a monster as it will add to the scariness of their appearance and help show what they are: ghost etc. 

Props - Often, props used in horror are things like knives and weapons which helps to heighten the tension as it shows that something violent is probably going to happen and someone might be hurt or killed. It can help to show who the 'enemy' is within the film. Other props could be things like haunted objects which add to the plot.

Lighting - To create a mysterious, creepy effect dark lighting is usually utilised as this also adds to the fear of the unknown. It also makes it easy for jump scares to be created as things can be concealed in the shadows. Sometimes red lighting may be used to create a sense of danger, or there may be a general red tone in, for example, a slasher film which involves a lot of blood. Black and white, more muted colours are often used in a very typical horror movie to display the absence of hope and enhance what is happening. 

Character expression/movement - The viewer often feels emotions through the characters so their expressions can help to convey their fear and unease which is then transferred to the audience. This can be effective, especially when a character who hasn't been very outward emotionally is then obviously scared of something as it shows that it is something very terrifying. Movement, like running away, flinching, can also create fear and unease. The actors show that there's something wrong that the viewer should be afraid of.

Horror Film Openings

In Scream (1996) the first five minutes involve a girl on the phone to the murderer, unaware that it is the murderer, and eventually results in her death. The girl that gets murdered doesn't have any particular relation to the rest of the film, however her murder sets the mood for the rest of the film and introduces the murderer.

The opening for Jaws (1975), again, involves a young girl getting killed. This is mainly to introduce the 'killer', in this case is a shark, this is done through suggestion and implication to further the sense of fear and tension for the rest of the film.

Comparatively, in 28 Weeks Later (2007) the first opening minutes of the film very explicitly introduce the zombies and the hysteria of the characters, this may be due to the fact that the film is a sequel (so the viewers are already aware of what the scary thing is about the film) or it could be to immediately give the audience a sense of panic and fear.

For our 2 minute opening of a horror film, we decided that it would be best to have a similar idea to what happens in Scream and Jaws, where there is a victim of murder. However, it is not clear what or who the killer is, in order to add a sense of mystery and tension as it is left up to the audience's imagination through the power of suggestion.

Props

We didn’t want to use many props as we wanted the beginning two minutes of the film to be significantly fast paced and we thought using too many props could take away from that. However we did want to uses phones for FaceTime to bring another element into the film.

Lighting

Our group decided to use phone lights as it isn't too overpowering over the night light and it will create a more horror like atmosphere. 

Lighting Final Idea

In the end we ended up having to use some portable lights as the phone lights didn't show the person that well, but with the portable lights you could see the movement and facial expressions while still being able to see the night light. 

Hair and makeup

For hair and makeup, as we didn't decide to do an opening which required any wounds etc, there wasn't as much to think about other than how we wanted the characters to come across. As Sophia is the youngest character we decided that she shouldn't have any makeup to show the age gap and also that she should have her hair up potentially in pigtails or something similar. On the other hand, we thought that Tessa, the older sister, should have more obvious, excessive makeup as we wanted her to look like she was trying to appear older as well as her hair in a side ponytail, again to show that. For Billie and Emma we didn't think that obvious makeup was necessary as Billie is more of a tomboy character and Emma is more sensible. As Jessica is the more popular character, we thought that her makeup could potentially be a bit more obvious but not over the top. For their hair, we didn't have anything in particular that we wanted them to do as they are the age that we want them to be so we thought that their look fit the characters without changing much.