Genre research - The Purge (2013)

The purge is an american horror thriller, initially release to an american audience on the 7^th november 2013. On its opening weekend in the us, the film grossed a total box office of $34,000,000. By August, the film had a total box office gross of $64,000,000, which is over 21X that of the original budger, which was $3,000,000. Due to the films popularity, there was another purge released the following year called ‘The Purge: Anarchy’.

The trailer overall ises low key lighting. This is a mojour fitting of the codes and conventions of the genre of film, being in this case, horror. This is as the low key lighing helps to set a general tone for the rest of the film, which in the horror genres case is to set a generally mysterious and slightly scary feel to it.

The low key lighting also helps with the aggressive mise en scene that is presented in the opening of this film.

The next notable thing about the opening would be the characters (antagonists) costumes. In this case, the characters appeard to be all wearing dark coloured clothes, with intimidating mastks. This could be a thing to consider when creating our opening sequence, as the common connotation of the antagonist in this genre will be aggressive and dark, which can be initially presented with the characters costumes.

Another notable fature will be the editing of the shots. The opening sequence appeared to be fast and up beat, due to the quick change between camera angles, giving a more frantic connotation, which can give the feeling of anxiety and panic, as it could help to represent the vulnerablility of the protagonist, or the innocent. It als is a way to keep the audiences intreseted right from the beginning, as without this the audience could easily become bored if presented with long stationary shots, whereas they are kepped gripped when the editing speed is high paced.

Genre research - A Nightmare on elm street (1984)

A Nightmare on elm street (1984)

 A nightmare on Elm Street is an American slasher horror that was originally released on the 16^th of November 1984. The film was extremely successful with a total of 10 films being carried on as a sequence following the popularity of the original. The total box office for the film was $26,505,000, which for its time was a hug amount, especially with the film having just a budget of $1,800,000. The movie was written and directed by highly acclaimed horror film director, Wes Craven. The film was also produced by ‘new line cinema’.

The narrative of the opening follows the antagonist of the film and the appearance of an innocent character. The antagonist is seen creating some form of weapon in an unknown location. Shortly after, we are presented with an innocent woman who is viably scared. The main narrative follows the pair around as the antagonist grows increasing close to the girl while she runs and screams for her life around the location that is acting like a maze. It isn’t until the end of the sequence that we are shown that the whole scene was in fact a nightmare from the girl, but to represent how realistic the nightmare was, the girl grabs the cross off her wall and holds it tight.

The way the characters are presented are on of the main codes and conventions of the horror genre. The antagonist is dressed in dark clothes, with appeared bloodstains on them, while the innocent on the other hand was dressed in a spotless, pale, long flowing dress. This helps for the audience to establish who is who between the characters, and by having a contrast between the dark and light costumes, it made it easier, which is another notable code and convention of the horror genre in the way that the characters are dressed.

The next conventional element that can be seen in the scene will be the lighting in the location and the location in general. In this case, the lighting is very low key with an appeared red filter over the top. This is noticeable amongst many horrors as the red can give a connotation of blood and help carry on the dark mise en scene that is regularly seen in horror opening. The location in this opening is mysterious as we are never presented with an establishing shot, but instead tracking shots following the two characters around. This is effective in the way that it gets the audience gripped as they are left wondering what the location was, and will the film ever return to the same location later on?

In the opening for a nightmare on elm street, many sound, both diegetic and non-diegetic were incorporated. For example, the diegetic sounds from the location were incorporated, these being sounds such as gas piping through tubes and the sound of metal banging. But also non- diegetic sounds were also added. An example of this would be the very heavy breathing that can be heard at the beginning of the opening. This is conventional of the genre as the though of hearing the antagonists’ heavy breathing can create tension as they’re growing in intimidation which increases fear for both the character in the film, and the audience watching at home. Another one of the most obvious code and convention that is used in almost every single horror will be the dramatic non-diegetic soundtrack added as soon as something is going to happen, as the soundtrack help to create a tension with the audience, as they know something is going to happen, they just have the anticipation of not knowing when.

Many props can be seen throughout the opening, which are to help with the general mise en scene of the film. The general conventional mise en scene of a horror would simply be danger. Examples in this opening representing the danger aspect would be things like the knives that the antagonist can be seen hammering into at the beginning, as well as the location with it appearing not safe and high up, implying the sense of danger to the viewer.

Finally, there was a range of camera shots implemented into the opening, with the changing from fixed shots to tracking shots, and from extreme close ups to long shots. The pace of the transitions were high which helped with the crating of the atmosphere as it gave it a more tense dramatic sense to the actions of the antagonist, as well as inducing more fear while the girl is being chased.

Genre research - Carrie (2013)

Carrie (2013)

Carrie (2013) is the third remake of the classic horror released in 1976. The story line is highly popular in the horror genre, this is shown in the fact that the same film has been remade a three times, and the latest remake still had a total gross of over $30,000,000 in its first month of release, being the 18^th of October, 2013.

The main narrative of the opening scene shows us a character on a bed, giving birth. The character spends the first minute of the opening giving birth, only to attempt to murder the newborn immediately after the birth has taken place. However the mum gets a matter of inches away from the face of the newborn before stopping herself. From this opening, we can see that the ‘evil’ in the opening is either the woman or the new born, as either the woman has a metal issue or is being possessed of some kind, or the new born is some evil spirit/demon that the woman is going to rid, but cant have the heart to do that to her new born. This right away establishes the story line of evil in one of the characters, and the main characters are presented right in the opening.

The first notable convention of horrors we see in the opening scene of Carrie will be the use of sound. The sounds we hear are screams of pain, which is diegetic from the woman who is laid on the bed. This is setting an unsettling atmosphere for the rest of the film, and sets the tone for what the viewers can expect for the duration of the film. The sound in the opening is somewhat simplistic with only two types of sound being heard, the screams from the woman on the bed, and the ambient sounds while and after she has given birth. This is a mix of both diegetic and non-diegetic sounds. This is a fast contrast, which is also notable for my opening as one second the character is screaming at her loudest, and immediately she stops and the ambient sound comes in.

Another notable element seen in this opening would be the fast transition from the various shots. This meaning that the first shot we can see is a close up areal shot moving along the bed to the character, then the shot quickly changes to a mid shot from the side, before returning to an areal shot. This same sequence is repeated a number of times in the first minute, all from different angles around the woman, ranging in distance from close up to long shot. This creates a frantic mood to the opening, where the audience can begin feeling tension, as the scene gets more and more manic as they don’t know what to expect to happen.

Also, the initial representation of the character is important. In this case, the character was laid on a bed, surrounded by blood while screaming and crying. This instantly removes all ‘glamour’ from the character, representing the genre as not being a happy lighthearted genre, but a more dark and sinister movie. Also the lack of dialogue leaves the audience in mystery, as the only thing hard in the opening can be the screaming of the character. Screaming is another commonly used code and convention of horror films.

The general mise en scene of the room represented a traumatic experience as there was a lack of help being seen in the clip, and there was a lot of blood that was presented around the room. The room was also well lit but the camera was in low-key lighting, following through with the mise on scene or darkness and trauma.

At the very end of the opening, were presented with iconography of the title of the film. The title is in a blood red colour, on top of a black background. These are common colours that can be seen in the horror genre with the black representing that of darkness, and the red giving the impression of blood. The blood was represented in the title as the letters began to drip as if they were representing a person who was being killed.

My chosen genre

My chosen genre

The genre I have chosen for my short film opening will he the horror genre. I chose this genre for a number of reasons, those of which including; horrors can be effectively hade on a little to no budget, the time of the year means that we will have many dark and cold days which will be effective in the creating of the low key lighting, and finally horrors can be more easily pulled off by students, whereas other genres such as comedies will not probe to be effective by our age due t the lack of the script needed for the horror genre.

Here is a mood board showing the repertoire of elements in the horror genre: 

The mood board above shows many of the codes and conventions that are commonly seen amongst films in the horror genre. The most noticeable convention of all these horror images is the darkness; this is created by both the lack of colour and low-key lighting. This is something notable that I will have to take into consideration as in none of these images are bright colours such as pinks and yellows in either the characters costumes or the location around the characters. The mood board also suggests that I should involve some kind of aggression to my opening, whether its self inflicted or causation from another character, but in almost all these images, there is either a character who is viably terrified, or a character has some for of blood on them.

Horror is a genre that is created to cause a negative reaction from its audience by playing off parts of the publics fears at any given time period. Horrors often feature people’s deep fears and worries of the unknown to cause fear when watching the film. The common story lines that are featured in horror films often involve ordinary people facing the effect of an evil force, event or personage. These are usually of a supernatural origin. The common antagonists featured in horrors include: Witches, Monsters, Demons, Zombies, Vampires, Aliens, Killers and Ghosts. And the protagonist in the films is usually just a stereotypically ordinary family.

Technical codes of horrors

Common technical codes in horror films include many different things. Camera angles are usually very expressive, as a low angle can play up to fears by making something appear to be a lot taller and daunting than it is in reality. Also the lighting in horrors is usually high contrast and low key, this gives more of a dark mood to the films. A common shot that cam be seen in horrors will be point of view shots. This is used to make the audience feel more at one with the character in the film and these usually occur when the character can be seen running away from some form of evil. Many non-diegetic sounds are added such as the characters heartbeat, and a more dramatic tone is made from the diegetic sounds such as footsteps to make more of an impact into the unknown, which in turn cuases more tension with the audience watching the film.

Common themes seen in horrors would include:

o   Religion

o   Insanity

o   Revenge

o   Good vs Evil

o   Envy

o   Beyond death

o   Nightmares

o   Apocalype

o   Madness

o   Childhood issues

o   Killing

o   Science

o   Experiments

o   Depression

o   Supernatural