Production company research

Rogue are a entertainment production company set up in 1997 owned by relativity media. The company has recently made two supernatural horrors: my soul to take (2010) and the unborn (2009)
My soul to tkae was unsuccessful at the box office, and was poorly received by critics. 
The unborn  was released to an overwhelming negative reviews.Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a rating of 11% based on 114 reviews, with the site's consensus stating: "David Goyer's Unborn is a tame genre effort with cheap thrills and scares that border on silliness." Meta-critic gave the film a 30 out of 100, based on reviews from 16 critics, indicating generally unfavorable reviews . We therefore decided that this production company may contribute ideas that would be detrimental to our film and they have not produced a supernatural horror which has done well in the box office recently. 

The Ring opening titles deconstruction.

0:03 Production company

0:09 Director 

0:14 and 0:21 Main actors

0:29 Film title

0:30 Actor

0:35 Actor

0:41 Actor

0:46 Actor

0:51 Actor

0:56 Casting director

1:02 Composer

1:12 Editor

1:22 Photography director

1:17 Production designer

1:28 Producers

1:39 executive producers

1:49 Screenplay writers

2:01 Director

This opening sequence is quite unconventional as it uses a series of strange images that do not seem to have any relevance to the film instead of starting the narrative. The starts slowly and softly and build pace and volume throughout conforming to the stereotype of horrors. The same image at the end and the start of the opening credits is very effective as it is repeated and therefore the audience will remember this easier. it also builds intrigue as the audience doesn't understand the relevance of this to the plot. The typography stands out simply because of the colour and also is it looks like a persons handwriting. this film opening subverts the convention that the film should be shown at the very end of the opening titles. 

Finding background music

My task was to find and manipulate background music to our film opening originally we found a child singing and when we put it to the footage that we had edited it did not fit very well. Another idea that we had was to find s child singing hymns as it would be appropriate for the genre and work well as we have a priest in our film opening. But we could not find any legal free background sounds like this so I then looked for background music that was eerie and would work well with the visuals that we had. 


I found a website which provided this. I then downloaded the sound and layered it over our footage. 

The music did not need any manipulation as  it seemed to fit the footage very well. I also found another sound effect from the same website to add to the flashbacks. The sounds work well together. 

Carrie deconstruction

At the start of the scene there is a deep ominous noise that runs which is contrapuntal to the scene. Carrie looks very innocent and young as she does not have a lot of make up on and her clothes are not very revealing. When the mother and daughter start to fight the deep sound indreases in volume and more sharp sounds are added to build tension and drama.

The strange whispering makes refrence to the fact that there is something supernatural in the house. This also foreshadows up coming events. There is also frequent refrence to religion as the mother talks about praying and there is a shot of Jesus on the cross, this convention of supernatural horror works well in this sequence. 

The tone of voice which Carrie uses shows her despertness which makes the audience feel uneasy. The sudden diegetic sound of the door cracking surprises Carrie and her mother and the non-diegetic sounds stops for a while to mark the significance of this. When the deep creaky noises and strange breathing start up again they are much more noticeable as there is not much else going on in the scene. 

The darkness of the scene is realistic of the closet but also works very well as it has an air of mystery about it. Though you never see a supernatural figure it is still quite chilling 

Editing our opening scene

My task was to edit some of the footage that we had shot already for the final opening to our film. I choose to do the church scene. I imported the footage into final cut, and cut any talking between the media group and the actor, Rebecca's sister. Then I cut the footage so that each shot was not too long, I used the blade tool to do this. this made the sequence look more effective and professional as there wasn't any shot that was too long. 

To make the cuts between each clip of footage smoother I added a cross dissolve to make it not look like any jump cuts had been used and therefore less amateur.

After this I looked for sounds that were already on final cut to use to make the footage sound more like a horror film and conform to the conventions of a supernatural horror. I added the clips where they would be appropriate and layered lots of different sounds on top of each other. To make the sound flow better I used lots of short clips of sound and gradually decreased them in volume each time so that the change would not be as noticeable. 

Finally I added a visual effect to the footage to make sure that it was not as bright and made the main character look quite ill. 

 Overall I think the effect of the scene work very well. The sound work well together and the absence of speaking is not very noticeable. The sequence looks quite smooth and looks very professional. To improve could try to use our own sound effects that we have created. Unfortunately this footage did not save which meant that we had to re-edit it.

The strangers deconstruction

At the begining of the sequence there is heavy breathing which puts the audience on edge as they know that the main character is scared. The diegetic clangs of metal which start at 0:09 get more frequent which heightens suspence as you do not know where they are coming from.  There is an eerie sound at 0:48 which builds in volume and foreshadows what is about to happen. It is suddenly a lot louder when she put the knife into the curtain which conveys danger to the audience. There are a few moments of complete silence which contrasts with the sharp metal noise which has been amplified and the scream. The hand banging on the window at 1:12 is contrapuntal to the scene. 

The diegetic music that turns on has a very old fashioned repetitive style which paired with the deep knocking is quite effective in freaking out the audience. The  noise of the locks opening at 1:23 plays on the audiences idea of safety and is very relatable. Before the door opens there is a very deep noise which could represent the dark nature of the being/person behind it. From 1:36 onwards the eerie music builds from earlier in the sequence. The knocking that you hear at 1:59 is a lot more human like and less mencing, but the audience would find it hard to differentiate between the two. The shriek in the main characters voice shows her despertness and want for normality. The music on the record player slowly increases in volume before abruptly cutting out.

Creating sounds

We could use the creaky chair as a diegetic noise in our film as we have the main character being tied a chair. The noise could show her struggle. The heaving breathing would be useful in the forest scenes as we want to show her to be very agitated. We could also use the wind blowing to give an eerie feel to the woods scenes layering the sounds over each other would work well. I would also like to use a high pitch sound but would need to find an online sound for this. We would also need to make sure that the sounds would be able to be converted from sound cloud into a format that final cut pro can use.

The film title

We decided to do a survey to our target audience (15-22 years old) to decide what the title to the opening of our film should be. All of the titles we had under consideration had some link with the supernatural element and/or religion. We looked at other supernatural horrors to gain inspiration and used the title to put in thesaurus.com. We posted it on social media with four options and were able to decide on a title from this. All the members of our group were happy with each possible option, this means that our film title is the ritual.

Woman in black deconstruction

The scene starts with a high pitch neighing sound of a horse which puts the audience on edge as a common convention of supernatural horrors is that animals have a sixth sense. You can see that Mr Kipps is agitated and the audience empathise with him. It is very dark in the house as it set at night, with only the the light of candles as in the time period there would not be electrical lamps. The fact that Mr Kipps has a axe with him suggests that he is afraid. His loud footsteps are parallel to the silence that you hear which makes them seem more pronounced and harsher.  The house is very large and quite dirty which is a common convention of supernatural horrors. 

The weather is contrapuntal to the scene as there are occasional booms of thunder and the rain reflects the emotions of Mr Kipps throughout the whole film. When the high pitch non-diegetic sound starts the sound of the rain decreases, this means that the audience focus more on this sound. It is unnerving because Mr Kipps can see something mysterious in the distance. 

The scream that you hear is not expected which makes the audience jump. The sound is very short but sounds quite pained. The heavy breathing of Mr Kipps also foreshadows this. As the figure gets closer the non-diegetic high pitch sound builds in volume.   

The barking of the dog is very worrying and keeps the tension high. The metal doorknob banging together is quite ominous. There is also a low pitched non-diegetic sound which adds to the drama. Mr Kipps tone of voice is very agitated. 

Opening scene typography deconstruction

Drag me to hell

Drag me to hell uses lots of different fonts in the opening of their film. The first one that you see except for the standard universal logo is this. The smaller production company name. The name of this production company goes well with the film that you are about to see because it  has demonic spirits in. 

 There are lots of different fronts used throughout the film and this is the main one. The colours contrast greatly as the black background makes the text stand out quite a lot. The text has quite Gothic edges which is a convention as old school horrors used this same type of writing.You can also see that there are cracks in the text which are like the crack you see in the floor when the little boy is being dragged to hell. This is a very subtle hint to the audience which is very effective.

 This standard large font is used which quite looks like the font on news headlines. This is to make you think that what you are seeing is true. This is the complete opposite to the text before as it is outside and in a very light spacious place which is unusual for horror films.  

 In title you can see the pronounced Gothic edges and the cracks in the words more clearly than previously, though it is still quite subtle.

In this image you can see what looks like to be some black dust but it is actually some type of smoke from which the font appears. This has spiritual connotations as you see this darkness moving through the opening title scene. 

Overall the typography in drag me to hell is very effective and some aspects we could possibly use in our own film film opening. it would be relatively easy to put some cracks in the font or make the edges slightly Gothic.  But the smoke would be very hard to replicate.

Lighting check

The purpose of this practical was to see how light it would be with the candles in the a room in which we are going to film in. We want to just use candles as they have religious connotations. 

First I tried putting all the candles together in one place which looked very effective close up. But as you can see in this picture, there is too much light concentrated in one area and it does not look very professional the camera was focusing on it and it just looks like a torch is shining there.

But as you can see in this picture there is too much light concentrated in one area which makes it look very unprofessional. It just looks like a blur of light which does not even light the room as much. 

After this I moved the candles so they were not just in one place. You can see the room better in this picture as there isn't just one source of light. This gives the room a glow which would look very good on camera. Some of the room is still in darkness which is good as we wouldn't want to make it look too light. These pictures were taken at 6pm so it is pitch black outside. 

Creating suspence with sound

I created this clip using iMovie. Originally I tried to use the effects that come with imovie but you could not elongate the clip or have it appear more than once in the video, I had to use sound clips downloaded from the internet. I downloaded the effects and dragged and dropped just dropped them over the top of the video file. I then adjusted the audio clips: how much they faded in or out and the volume which they moved towards. I then just copied and pasted the sound clips to where they were supposed to be, to make the sound seamless you overlap the clips and get rid of the fade in and out so that it sounds like one continuous sound all the way through. To get rid of background sound you select the clip and go the inspect and the audio settings and put the background sound to 0%. This means that you can film with background sound and it will not appear in your sequence which will make it very professional.

House at the end of the street deconstruction

 

This scene contrasts with the rest of the film as it is light and bright. It is very summery and the choice of colour means that it liiks very happy.

There is lots of soft light used in this shot and the child is wearing white to show innocence again.

There is a teddy bear use here which convey's innocence and all the colours are pastels which are very soft and synonomous with children.

The colours are very light and warm which creates a very welcoming room. The netting in front of the windows could portray the idea of privacy being an issue.

The child's costume conforms to stereotypes as she is young as in s  long white nightie to show her innocence and purity. The nightie is still very clean which portrays the idea that she has not always worn it otherwise it would be dirtier. this contrasts with the image of her holding a knife as that is not something a young girl should have. When the audience see the knife they know that something is not right with the girl.