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This is our questionnaire that we have put together to try and find out what the audiences are more interested in. We have come up with a list of questions that we will feel give us a good idea of what age group and gender will prefer our film. We are going to give this questionnaire out to random members of the public to make our results more likely to be fair.

Questionnaire

To find out a bit more about the audiences that we want to show our film too, we have come up with a questionnaire to find out who our film will most likely appeal too. We included questions to give us information about the people taking part in the survey and see if there is any link between them. For example, if we find that males aged 25-34 are interested mostly in horror films. But females aged 45+ are not interested at all in horror films. We know to advertise our film to men aged between 25-34, and we can use this to help with the advertisement of our film.

Terminator 2

In the opening sequence of the film, a number of credits are superimposed onto the screen as we are introduced into a new main character. This then breaks out into a war, we are introduced to the main character in the film played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. There is a narrator talking throughout the opening sequence telling the story before the film and setting up the story of the film. This shows the setting where one of the main battles will take place. After this there are a number of credits imposed onto the screen on a background showing destruction from what a previous war has caused. The character that is out to kill the terminator and another young boy in the film is introduced to the screen, in an evil way. With the head of the robot coming through a fire, with a facial expression similar to an evil grin. There are a number of close up and action/reaction shots in the opening sequence, along with a gliding establishing shot of the area that the war is taking place in. The editing in the opening sequence is quite slow paced considering the drama that is taking place, but it slowly tells you the story. As this goes with the sound of the narration in the back ground, where a softly spoken voice is telling the story of the film. This is quite typical of a thriller/horror film in the fact that it shows you some characters, but doesn't reveal all in the first few minutes. The opening sequence asks a lot of questions, which are left to be answered by the film in the following parts. This not only leads up to the future points of the film, it creates tension slowly for a big finish.

Preliminary Sequences

We used a few sheets of paper to determine what shots we were going to use as a template to our short film. On this we chose locations, shot length and camera shots we would use. We drew small diagrams to show what the shot would look like. This took about 45 minutes to complete a short guideline for what we were shooting. We were originally going to shoot our video in the area outside the geography rooms as it would give us a good location to get a dark room as well as a long corridor, which was what we needed. But other reasons meant we couldn’t shoot at the geography rooms so we decided to shoot our video in the other block. Outside the maths corridor and inside one of the rooms. This was a good place to shoot and was easy enough to shoot in, so the initial problem of not being able to shoot in our preferred place was overcome. We chose this location with the thought that we could video someone walking down a corridor and entering a room to talk to someone else. So we needed a location that we could see the whole corridor and then a room with a small amount of lighting. We haven’t used a lot of equipment as we were acting in our school clothes, the only initial equipment to video and capture the sequence was a small digital camera, but to edit the video we are using a program on the Apple Mac book Pro called Final Cut Express. This program has a number of tools and effects that you can imply into your video, we took advantage of this and input slow motion into our video at a certain point. We had originally filmed a video, but it wasn’t as we planned and we decided to start again, but what went well was the videoing. We didn’t need to edit our video as much as some others as we didn’t take too many faulty cuts. The acting in the video went quite well and we transferred it onto the laptop for editing easily. Another thing that went well was the editing. As none of us had used the program before we picked it up quite quickly and we made changes to our video within one lesson. I was pleased with how the sequence went. If I had to change something about our sequence, I would have chose a better location to shoot from, and we would have taken longer to shoot the sequence, as we broke the 180 degree rule at one point. We were lucky however as this is not as noticeable as it could have been.

Analysis of The Strangers

Analysis of Opening Sequence

The Strangers - (2008, Directed by Bryan Bertino)
Featuring - (Liv Tyler, Scott Speedman)

As the film starts, a black background emerges on the screen as a number of film companies, and other such credits are superimposed onto the screen, whilst this is being presented to the audience, a non-diegetic sound is played in the background. The sound is of a slow tempo, and brings suspence and drama. This is typical of horror films, and many films use this to create a feeling in the audience of suspence. It is also used to lead up to moments, and then relieve the tension by having a totally normal following scene. This is used to tease audiences in horror films. Shortly after the sound ends, a mans voice is heard, as he is reading out the font that is shown to the viewer. This is informing the audience of the storyline of the film being taken from a real life occurance. This will only bring more suspence and reality to the film. After this we are taken to a point of view shot, tracking out of a car window. This is showing the car going past a number of houses, before eventually the screen is darkened out. Following the darkened screen is a non diegetic sound of a phone call happening between a lady and a police officer. The lady appears to be very scared, confused and upset by what she has found. Whilst we here the conversation that is happening between them, and number of shots are taken, of a house. With the door open, and a number of objects inside. The camera shows a number of close ups, one most notably on a knife covered in blood, and another with blood smeered across a brightly coloured wall. This works in correspondence with the sound of the phone call, as the lady is describing the place being shown to the viewers whilst she is in a state of panic on the phone. After this, the screen appears to go black again, and in the same font as the other superimposed text that was on the screen previously, The Strangers (title of the film) comes onto the screen.

The viewers are not introduced to any main characters by image, but they are introduced to a lady by her voice on the phone. This asks questions to the viewer that they may want to find out. What the lady looks like? Where is she? Why and How did she get there? This is quite common in horror films, with giving small answers but asking more questions at the same time. The only other person we know about is the lady on the other end of the phone.

As the characters in the film have not been totally shown to the audience. It is hard to say how they are constructed by image. But the phone call that occurs shows the deep insecurity of the lady on the phone, and where she is. She sounds scared and upset. This makes the viewer want to get to know what has happened for her to be in this state. But it also shows that she is most probably under threat from something or someone close by. This could possibly lead to a dramatic scene.

The opening sequence doesnt reveal too much about the setting, but almost reveals enough for the viewer to understand that the setting is quite private and kept away from other houses. The house seems quite a big house for whoever lives there. But with the blood and other objects that are covered in blood lying around. The house is shown to have had something bad happen inside it.

The only real editing used in the opening sequence was the superimposed text that was inserted into the film. This is done well and is used efficiently to introduce the film name, and a number of actors and directors involved in making the film. This is also used in telling the audience the backstory of the film. So they can easily understand the circumstances of the characters, therefore understanding the characters and the reason they are who they are.

The sound used in the starting sequence of the film is typical of a horror film, with very tense and nervous music that leads up to the credits being shown at the start of the film. Also in the film start a narrators voice is used to talk about the situation the people find themselves in. The voice used is quite a stern and could come across as a scary voice. This is used to build up tension in the audience.

The opening credits in the film are presented quite quickly, but are simple enough to understand as the film is promoting it's directors and main actors. This is all presented in the same font and on a black background, which is a simple but professional way to do so. The transitions in the opening credits doesn't speed up, or slow down. It maintains a steady pace.

The films start overall, is pretty balanced and typically what a horror film's opening sequence should be like. Not to many clues are given, a lot of questions are asked , and tense sounds and other small techniques to make the audience nervous are used. This is a solid opening sequence to a horror film.

This is the first 10 minutes from "The Strangers," it shows the opening sequence for you all to take a look at.