Film Institutions Research

I decided to research the top grossing horror films to find out which film institutions have the most successful repertoire. Doing this helped me to realise which is most likely to produce, exhibit and distribute my film. I narrowed my research down to the top 5 institutions, which are:

Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures is an American film studio founded in 1912, and is one of the 'Big Six' film studios in Hollywood. Universal Pictures are not renowned for their horror films, producing more hit films in the adventure, drama and romance genres. Examples of these are Lost In Translation (2003), King Kong (2005) and The Bourne Ultimatum (2007). Universal Pictures haven't had huge amounts of success with their more recent horror movies, however, films such as Jaws (1975), Dracula (1931), The Wolf Man (1941) and The Mummy (1932) were huge box office hits- Jaws being the 9th highest grossing film of all time (according to the chart below, found on Wikipedia).

20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox is another of the 'Big Six' Hollywood film studios. Founded in 1935, it has become the most recognised film institution in the world. Their most successful film is Avatar (2009), which raked in over $2 billion in the box office. They have produced some horror films, however, like Universal Pictures, they tend to stick to their more profitable film genres- comedy, family, and fantasy. Horror films they have made include Alien (1979), The Omen (1979), and Shutter (2008).

Warner Bros
Warner Bros is another widely known film institution, based in New York and California. They produce and distribute films from a wide range of different genres, and appear to have had more success with modern horror films than Universal Pictures and 20th Century Fox. They create, produce, distribute, license and market all of their own content. Successful horror films Warner Bros have created include Orphan (2009) and Sweeny Todd (2007).

Lionsgate
Most of the films that Lionsgate have produced belong to the action, drama, or thriller genres, which are much more relevant to horror than the genres that 20th Century Fox and Universal Pictures focus on. Lionsgate's most successful films according to box office results are in the form of young adult franchises such as The Hunger Games franchise (2012-present) and the Divergent franchise (2014-present). Lionsgate are also responsible for several horror films, including the widely known Saw franchise (2004-2010), My Bloody Valentine (2009) and The Last Exorcism (2010). Compared to Universal Pictures, Lionsgate does not have much experience in creating horror movies- they have only released a few and they are all quite recent releases. However, Lionsgate has also had huge box office success with franchises, so if our film was to be part of a series, this would probably be the company we would choose.

Hammer Films
Hammer Films is a notable British company founded in 1934 who are best known for their work with Gothic Horror movies in the 1950s-1970s. In this time period they released classic horror films such as Dracula (1958), The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), The Mummy (1959) and The Phantom of the Opera (1962). Due to the saturation of the horror film market by competitors, Hammer lost their American funding in the late 1960s and 1970s. This led to the company ceasing to produce films in the mid 1980s.
Hammer Films was bought and revived in 2000, and began producing films again several years later. This new era of Hammer films includes horrors such as Let Me In (2010)- a film I studied here , and The Woman In Black (2012)- a film I have studied here. This shows Hammer's diversity and understanding of the Horror market as they have managed to make a successful comeback after over 20 years.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I believe that the best film institution to represent our film would be Hammer Films. They are a company that is most well known for producing horror films, and has had great success in doing so. As they have experience in working with horror films, the people working on our film would have an extensive knowledge about props, costume, lighting and editing horror films. This would help to make our film the best it could be and ensure it embraces the typical conventions of horror films. Hammer is a fairly small film company, meaning that a collaboration with another company would be likely. This would help our film to be more successful as the companies would be able to share ideas and we could get a wider range of opinions on various aspects of creating the film.
 

Shot List and Shooting Script

We plan on using 6 different camera shots in our film opening. They are:

• Tracking Shot
• Match-on-Action
• Close up
• Shot/Reverse Shot
• Low Angle
• Panning

We also plan to use the 180 degree rule in our video in order to ensure a continuous effect that is not disorientating for the audience to watch.

Tracking Shots will be used when our main character is walking down the lane. This is a very effective type of shot often used in Horror films as it can be used to show the audience when a character is being followed. The suspense builds as the audience is left wondering whether a character is safe or about to be brutally murdered. Match-on-Action will also be used in this part of our film opening to ensure continuity when the tracking shots are shown from different angles.

Close up shots will also be used in our film opening. These are important within the Horror genre as they can be used to show the emotion in a character's facial expression and to capture their reactions to events. It can also be used to focus on certain details in a scene that the audience might miss otherwise.

We will be using Shot/Reverse Shot when one character is looking at another. For this, we will have to ensure that the 180 degree rule is in place so that all of our shots match up.

A Low Angle shot will be used in our opening scene when the killer is stabbing the victim. This type of shot is effective for showing the dominance one character has over another, and can also make the audience feel intimidated by a character, which is what we are aiming for with the killer in our film opening.

Our final scene will include a panning shot from the main character's dead body to the killer walking away. The screen will then go black.

This is my shooting script:

Casting

 

We decided to cast Ellie as the main character in the opening of our film. We wanted our victim to look typically feminine, vulnerable and innocent, and we all agreed that she would be the best for the role. Ellie's appearance fitted the character well as her hair is blonde and she is quite petite, both characteristics of a stereotypical female victim in a horror film.

 

We decided to cast our friend Kayleigh as the killer in our film opening. We asked her as we know she enjoys participating in drama, and she was very enthusiastic to be involved with our video. She owns appropriate clothing for the part we asked her to play, which is also very convenient.

Risk Assessment

We decided to film our opening sequence around an isolated lane surrounded by trees. There aren't many serious risks in this area.
If it has rained recently, however, the ground will be muddy and may cause us to slip and injure ourselves. We are filming our opening next to our school so if anyone was seriously injured we would be able to get help easily. We will all wear suitable shoes to make us less likely to slip in the mud.

Another issue is the weather. If it rains while we are filming, it could damage our camera equipment and could make the ground dangerous. We could also have to stop halfway through filming, which would be inconvenient. To try and prevent these things from happening, we will check the weather forecast before deciding when to film our video.

The area that we are filming in is a public footpath, so people will probably walk past us with dogs off lead. This could be dangerous as the dogs could harm our cast and crew, so we will make sure that we move out of the way when anyone walks past us. There is also a field next to the lane we are filming on which is home to a variety of wildlife- we will need to be mindful of this when we film.

Filming Locations

Me and my group went out around and outside the school grounds to look for a suitable location to shoot our film opening in. The main criteria for our location was that it had to be isolated and surrounded by foliage. We found two possible locations that we could use.


This was the first location we found. The lane is very isolated and is surrounded by trees, which we thought looked very effective and could work well in our film. This area is a public footpath so I don't think we would need any authorisation to film here.

 

 

This is the second location we found. There isn't really a clear footpath through these woods, just a clearing, which wouldn't really work for our film opening. This location doesn't seem as isolated as the first one we found, however, we think it would look creepier in the dark than the first location would. I wasn't sure whether we would need authorisation to film here as the sign says that it is a private road.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We have decided to use the first location to shoot our film opening as it is more isolated and has a clear footpath. It would make more sense for our main character to be walking along a path than just wandering in the woods.

Film Opening Storyboard

Sound Research

After researching Horror film openings, we decided that we should use backing music and foley sounds in our own film opening. We looked at quite a variety of different sounds that we could potentially use, however, we may not use most of them when editing our film opening.

We found a piece of backing music that could use as the main character of our film opening is walking down an isolated lane. The piece is called 'Don't Walk Into The Woods' and would fit extremely well this particular scene. (Found at http://www.audiosparx.com/sa/links/horror-music.cfm ) There were certain parts of this piece of music that wouldn't really work with the scene, so Ellie used Garageband to edit them out. There was also a piece on Garageband called 'Woods 2' played on classic electric piano which we thought might work well.

There was also another piece of music on audiosparx.com that we could use when the main character turns around. It would be perfect to build suspense and let the audience know that something is about to happen. Another sound that could work in our film somewhere is http://www.freesound.org/people/klankbeeld/sounds/192489 .

Perfect/Typical Audience Member

I used a website (http://tribes.channel4.com/) to research what a typical member of the target audience of our film would be like. To do this, I answered the quiz on the website in the same way my typical audience member would.

 

 

After taking the quiz as one of my typical audience members, the result I got was 'Indie Scenester'. I looked at http://www.uktribes.com/ to find out more information about this tribe. I learned that people from this tribe live a 'life of excess' and are always discovering things before they become mainstream- they are motivated by being ahead of the curve. This is a perfect match for our ideal audience member as they would love the thrill of watching horror films, and be determined to watch any new releases (i.e. our film) before they become popular.

 

Indie Scenesters pride themselves in their individuality- trying to avoid mainstream brands of clothing at all costs. Style idols include people such as Alexa Chung and Nina Nesbitt.

 

 

With these people in mind, I have put together an outfit using Polyvore that our Indie Scenester typical audience member might wear:

 

 

Bailey and Ellie (the other members of my group) also did this quiz as one of our typical audience members. Ellie got the result 'Townie' and Bailey got 'Trendie' which shows diversity within our typical target audience, meaning a variety of different people would be interested in our film opening.

 

 

Narrative Theories

After researching these 4 narrative theories, I've learned Kubrick's theory fits our film opening best. Our plot does not contain most of the characters mentioned in Propp's theory, and Barthes' theory does not apply to our film opening as there are no clear puzzles for the audience to solve. Our film opening contains elements of Levi-Strauss' theory, as the two characters featured in it are opposites- the victim is good and the killer is evil, however, the narrative of the entire film would not be structured around this. Kubrick's theory fits our work best as we are using sounds, costumes, camera shots and settings to make our film memorable to the audience.

Film Opening Synopsis

The main character of our film will be walking down an isolated lane alone when she suddenly hears a noise from behind her. She turns around, but nobody is there. When she turns back, there is a dead and bloodied version of herself standing in front of her. She tries to run, but the other version of herself stops her. The other version of herself reaches out slowly and puts its hand on the main character's shoulder, looking into the distance behind her. A suspicious figure is standing in the dead version of the main character's line of sight. The other version of the main character disappears, and the girl is attacked by the suspicious character.