Horror Film Openings

Horror film openings have elements that are included to enhance the scariness of the film and to keep the audience engaged, and also so the audience can recognise that the genre is horror.

These are the elements that are used to make a good horror film opening:

• Questions - A question at the beginning of the film that will be answered later in the film, this keeps the audience engaged and want to watch on to see what happens.
• Suspense - The storyline should go slowly to create tension.
• Dark - The lighting should be dark to create a eerie atmosphere.
• Jumpy - They should have elements that make you jump to keep the audience interested.
• Music - This plays an important part in horror films as it creates the right mood and tension.
• Background - Something that happened before the beginning of the film.
• Mystery - So the viewer is not sure what's going happen next.  

Analysing Film Openings

For our next topic we will be making our own film opening with whatever genre, time period and storyline we want. To prepare us for this we have been analysing different film openings of different genres. This is how to analyse a film opening and what to look out for.

Title
Font - what type of font have they used? How does this follow our expectations of the genre?
Colours - why?
Length of titles - short or long? Why?
Billing or no billing - Why?

Codes and Conventions
Mise-en-scene - How does it reveal the era, plot, characters, genre, ect.
Sound - Diegetic or non-diegetic? What does this reveal? Mood, tone?
Lighting
Character - Facial expression, body language, costume?

Camera Angles
What do they reveal to us?

• Establishing shots
• Medium shot
• Close-up
• Extreme close-up
• Panning
• Over-the-shoulder shot 

When are they used? Why?
The length of time of the shot - what does this add?

Dialogue and Script
Plot - How much of the plot is revealed, and how is it revealed?
Foreshadowing/teasers - How we can link elements to the rest of the film
Characters - Personality, occupation?

Finished Video

This is our finished video, enjoy!

http://issyhill.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/finished-video.html