Typography

Horror movies usually have some 'horrific' typography for the opening and closing credits. 'Conventional' horror movie typography has evolved over time.

1931

1960

 1963

1968

1973

1976

1978

1980

1981

 1984

 1986

 1990

 1995

1999

2005

Horror movie fonts get scarier as they evolve through the years.

The saw 3 poster looks like this:

Production Companies

A lot of thought needs to be put into which production company we should use for our film opening. It needs to be appropriate to our genre, which is horror.

One option would be NEW LINE CINEMA, who have produced several horror films such as:

A Nightmare On Elm Street

Se7en

Final Destination

 

 

Another option might be DIMENSION FILMS, who produced 'Scream'.



 

 

Blumhouse Productions was another contender, they produced film such as:

Insidious

The Purge

 

 

Or TWISTED PICTURES who made the 7 'Saw' films.

 

 

After discussion, we have chosen Twisted Pictures, as it has a very 'horror' tone to it, making it immediately clear what genre our opening is.



Character Profiles

KILLER- Steven Roberts

Man, Caucasian
aged 39
married with 2 kids
policeman
takes justice into his own hands when he believes the justice system to be wrong

VICTIM- Chloe Wu

Woman, Chinese
aged 18
single, after dating two boys simultaneously
cocaine addict, money thief
stole money from both boyfriends to pay for cocaine addiction, but was not prosecuted

Film trailers vs Film openings

Film Trailers VS Film Openings

Typically film trailers, are a collection of all the best parts of a film, collated into a montage. They explain the story line vaguely and have the job of persuading you to watch the movie.

This is evident in 'The Conjuring' film trailer.

The Conjuring opening:

Film openings are usually much more slow tempo. For example, The Conjuring opening leaves lots of unanswered questions and doesn't give too much away. Most of the scariest parts happen later on in the film.



HOWEVER, there are some horror films that start straight off with a big, 'horrific' scene.

Saw Movie Opening:

There are two main types of horror movie openings. They either start off slow, nothing scary- but the audience can guess the characters' fate. Or there is immediately a scary scene- automatically appealing to the audience (presumably fans of the horror genre.)

Deconstruction of The Call

Deconstruction of the opening of ‘The Call’

At first, the screen is black, with the opening credits still displayed. The diegetic sound of a phone ringing. When the phone is answered, the voice of a 911 phone operator is heard, before a collation of 911 calls. This suggests the film genre is a crime thriller set in the US. The off-screen diegetic sound is accompanied by a bird’s eye view of a city at night, with lots of lights and cars to show the number of people 911 aims to protect. The non-diegetic percussion music builds suspense, until a close up of a phone operator’s mouth is on the screen- when the music and voices stop. As the audience see lots of phone operators, the camera pans and tracks the room (and the dark music starts again) - while straight cuts are also used to show the busy, hectic atmosphere that is involved with this job. Voices constantly overlap to emphasise this point. Just before the audience are introduced to the protagonist, there is a zoom to a long shot of the office in which all the workers are listening to calls.

           When the suspenseful music stops, the protagonist, Jordan Turner, appears on screen answering a call. Shots of TV screens framed in the foreground and her in the background create an eerie feeling as if someone is watching her. Close ups of her face and the computer screen she is using show the intense atmosphere and inform the audience of how phone operators work. The music begins again, getting louder as the calls become more extreme. As CALL DISCONNECTED flashes on the screen the music slows, which is parallel to Jordan’s frustrated expression on screen.

          However, the mood of the atmosphere lightens again when a friendly voice is heard, on the phone- one of Jordan’s friends. This calms the audience and this continues when medium shots of Jordan kissing her boyfriend are shown. Close ups provide tension whereas medium shots show the audience more and are more relaxed. As Jordan shares jokes with her colleagues in a seemingly more relaxed environment, shots of her smiling and laughing are shown.

          As Jordan answers the next call, an off-screen voice is heard crying hysterically as she says a man is trying to break into her house. Jordan’s relaxed facial expression and body language stiffens immediately and non-diegetic strings music builds suspense. This is combined with the sound of a police car speeding up and sirens in the background. 

Our choices of colour

COLOUR

The colours used in horror movies, often have significant importance to the plot and the characters.

Although our victim does not have the qualities of a 'final girl', and this is not a slasher- she is going to wear white, signifying her weakness in contrast to the killer.

Since white insinuates purity, and our character is not pure- she will wear dark red nail varnish as a small detail to remind the audience of this.

The killer, whose identity will remain unknown, will wear black to represent his dominance and cold-blooded nature. His inner darkness is shown in his dark clothes.

The two main colours we are using - black and white- are binary opposites, and contrast to show the different motives of the characters.

Mise en Scene

Research on mise en scene 

We did a lot of detailed research on mise en scene in similar films and series, such as truth or dare, (a film from the horror genre) pretty little liars and the mentalist (mystery/crime series). We looked at police boards in particular as we incorporated a similar idea into our opening. This was altered to make it appear more appropriate to a stalker rather than a police investigation.

In our movie opening, the killer has been stalking the victim for weeks, finding out intel about her. He then sticks the photos on his wall, above where he plans to kill her.

We also looked at a variety of calling cards, and decided that the most effective and realistic one to do for our opening would be similar to Red John's on the mentalist, however we have changed it to three lines on the wall, as this number is significant to our plot.  

Costume

Our film opening consists of one girl, being murdered by an unknown killer.
The girl is going to be dressed provocatively, conforming to the stereotype of the first girl to be killed in a conventional slasher.

These are examples of girls that are often the first to die in horror films:

 Scary Movie 3

Scream 4

Nightmare On Elm Street

Cabin in the Woods

'Slutty' girls in horror movies are traditionally blonde, white, confident, dumb and really pretty. However in ours the victim will be Asian to defy the audience's expectations, but she will fit the other conventions.

Here are a few outfits we put together to make our character fit this convention