The film is a psychological Thriller hybrid with elements of horror. In the sequence, the characters conflict is caused by his emotional and physical stress. The character is beaten by his killer until he dies and in the film, would become emotional and paranoid due to his repeated visions of his death. A horror film may involve themes of death, mental illness and the supernatural. The word ‘Precognition’ is when a person is able to perceive information about a place or event before it happens. The aim of the sequence was to appeal to the genres audience by invoking fear and shock into them. They were supposed to be affected by what they see.
In the audience testing, the audience all suggested that the genre of the film was horror, so appealing to fans of the horror genre worked as they also recognised the thriller genre. A mix is sometimes vital to keep the audience entertained and offer something different. The audience also said that the sequences music was effective in creating suspense due to its low ominous tone.
The effects we added are also something different in the editing as they were at times extreme. We also used black and white to confuse time for the audience and make create a sense of tension and disorder in the story. The link below is the ‘Pi’ (1998, Darren Aronofsky) trailer from You Tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQ1sZSCz47w
‘Pi’, one of our influences was filmed with a high contrast and black and white effect. This idea, we implemented into our sequence. In the film, the protagonist is a paranoid, suffering from migraines, and tries to calm himself down with medicine. If we were to film more of the sequence, we would have had the protagonist in our sequence take medicine also to calm himself down from his paranoia of his nightmares. The protagonist in ‘Pi’ suffers from emotional and physical stress, which is where our idea came for our story.
Another influence was ‘Psycho’ (1960, Alfred Hitchcock), especially the shower scene:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoQ6Jc9PyCI
Psycho is a black and white film. Although unable to be a colour film at the time, this scene was effective because it was hard to see the killers face. This idea was used in our sequence.
Our first shot (below) is a shot of the protagonist. He is walking down the alley, peacefully on his own. However, this shot is also dull and dreary, showing a depressing feel to the opening. At first we thought we should have filmed an establishing shot, but as this sequence is a nightmare, we decided to jump straight in, which is something different.
After a long, quiet and peaceful first shot, the sequence cuts to an over the shoulder shot of a dark, hooded figure, watching the protagonist walk past (below). We decided that the character would be wearing dark clothes to show his dark personality, and gang culture. We also decided to film this character throughout with a shot not revealing his face so that the audience don’t know who he is and to show his confused identity.
To tell the audience the credits and to show that it would be a real film, we added captions. We decided to add them early on to disrupt the sequence and confuse the audience to what happened in previous shots.
At times in the sequence, we added one second shots of the protagonists face, appearing possessed. This was to confuse and disorientate the audience. This also showed the horror genre and was used to scare the audience.
The shot below is point of view from the killer of the killers hand about to grab the protagonist. Our inspiration for this came from the videogame ‘Doom’, which is a horror game with a first person perspective.
The shot below shows the killers violent attack on the protagonist. This is to show the killers ferocity and the helplessness of the protagonist. It also appears that someone is watching them through the trees.
The coloured shot below shows the protagonist waking up, revealing the initial sequence to be a nightmare. The shot was also used to shock audiences due to the protagonists gasp after the quiet and slow shots before. An enigma is also set as the audience wonders why he has had the nightmare and that it is important to the story because it happens in the opening.
We have represented different social groups in the sequence. The most dominant is men and women. We decided that the victim and killer should be male, as males are seen as more violent and so more believable as a killer. A female victim or killer would offer something different but would be a little to extreme and shocking for the audience. The killer wears all black and worn clothes showing his uncontrollable personality. The point of view shot from the killer showing his hand has a blurry effect, showing his dark and inhuman side.
Another social group represented is young people. Young people are seen as more violent and unruly than older people. We decided that the victim was to be young, to challenge stereotypes, and the killer to be older. Class is also represented. The sequence is set in a run down back alley, suitable for the working class character who wears casual clothes and a run down area is suitable for violence, as it is associated with.
We would want the film to be British, made by a British production company, starring British actors with British crew. We looked at production companies of similar films ‘Psycho’ and ‘Pi’ and found that they were too American. We then looked at DNA Films, the distribution company of ’28 Days Later’ and ’28 Weeks Later’. These are films with a similar style of our film and DNA Films is the only full British company we found that is suitable. The homepage is:
http://www.dnafilms.com/
The film would appeal to fans of the horror and thriller genres. It would appeal to mostly male fans of around 16-25 due to the violence, and fans with a special interest in the supernatural. It would ideally appeal to worldwide audiences as well as British audiences as it will offer something different to usual British films. This is why it would appeal to a British company as it would appeal to a wider range of audience. A British company is right for the budget as British films budgets are usually low.
We have learnt during filming about blogs, you tube and how to use and research from them. This project has allowed us to embed video clips to show our progress and allowed us to use effective editing in creating an effective opening sequence. If we had more time, we would have spent more time editing, being more creative with shots and added more effects to speed up the violence.
