The British Film Industry and Hollywood

Films with British dimensions usually have enormous worldwide success. The top seven highest-grossing films worldwide of all time have had some British historical/cultural involvement e.g. ‘Titanic’, ‘Lord of the Rings’, ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’, ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Star Wars’. This shows that a lot of Hollywood’s films use the UK to set their film or get British stars to star in their films to attract more of an audience to the film. The British cinema market is too small for the British film industry to successfully produce Hollywood style blockbusters. Hollywood provides work for British directors, actors, writers, production crew and studios. Hollywood production companies like Fox Entertainment Group, Paramount Motion Pictures Group, DreamWorks SKG, Sony Pictures Entertainment, MGM Holdings, Inc., NBC Universal, Time Warner, Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, as well as independent companies help the UK to make films as it is hard for the UK to make successful films by itself. British film studios like, Gate Studios, British National Studios, MGM-British Studios, Paint Shop Studios and Camberwell Studios all have to try their hardest to make films a success as there is so much competition from Hollywood studios.

Emma Jopson

Opening Titles

The title sequence is the method where a film will present its title, production and cast members, visuals and sound. It will list the most important members of the production and actors involved in the film. They are usually shown as text on a blank screen or static pictures, but mostly over the opening sequence. There may or may not be music along with these texts. The font of the titles should go along with the genre of the film so that it does not confuse the audience with the different genre types. Titles in opening sequences usually consist of, the name of the studio that is distributing the film and may or may not have produced it, the name of the production company that actually made the film, the director's and producers, the name of the film and the featured actors.We will have to do all of these things in our opening sequence as the text will have to create an atmosphere that will suit the genre of horror, and we will want to keep the titles the same as other films.

Emma Jopson.

Genre Conventions

Films are put into categories, these are called genres. A genre should attract certain audiences as not all people will like all genres. Some genres have a built-in-audience which means that they would watch the film just because of its genre. The audience should be told what the genre of the film is in the trailers/advertisements and also in the first few minutes of the film so that the audience are immediately attracted to the film.

Emma Jopson

Film Synopsis

Our film will start off with a girl getting ready for a night out. Obviously nothing graphic will be seen, she will be doing her a make-up. Then while the girl is getting ready, there will be a news report of a killing in the area. The girl will totally blank out the report and head out for a night. The girl is having a good time out and the scenes fast forward with her having a good time up unitl she decidews to leave. When she leaves the club/bar/party the girl walks alone and eventually tension is built and you can see the girl become more frightened. Music is playing which fits in with the scene. Then at one point a hand will approach her shoulder (the music suddenely comes to a halt after builing up). The girl will turn around in shock, to see a man standing in front of her with her purse (which she had left at the party/club/bar). She laughs in relief and freaks out a bit hitting the guy because she was scared. While they are talking there is a close up shot on the guy and whats in the background. A shadow is seen for a split second ( the music had resumed playing at this point) then the guy is stabbed in the back. The girl screams and runs. The camera is on her running and then she falls over. As she is about to get up and look behind her while she is on her knees. She notices whatever is chasing her in front of her a screams. The shots blacks out and a stabbing/slashing sound is heard. Then the name of the film is shown on a black screen. A news report is heard reporting the death of a girl and a man Whilst opening credits are playing.
Alix Sampford

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNImIEQlP0c

The film i chose to analyse is See No Evil. This film is presented by Lionsgate and WWE Films. The film opnes up with multiple shots of run down trailer. There is moderatly eary music playing in back ground while it moves from shot to shot, this is used to create of sense of tension. This also creates enigmas asking were is that and who is that person briefly seen in shots. This enigma is created by it not showing the actors entire face in the shots. It just briefly shows his eyes in one shot and his ears in another. While looking at these body parts you can see that the character seems to be dirty aswell as frightened. The shots revolvnig around this character dont seem to be clear but you get a sense of pity towards him because you can assume that something has happened to this character to make him this way even though its only shown a few quick shots. These shots flcik around the trailer we assume him to be in, we see an old dusty doll. We see the actor sat on a chair in the corner of a room nacked. By showing a scared young boy sitting in a corner we see that there must be some sort of problem, enabling it to create a sense of tension. At this stage the title of the film is on screen with the actor in the background.

The screen the fades in t a police car with its siren on pulling up to (to show a sense of emergency) We can hear the sound of car pulling up and the polices officers feet getting out of the car. As soon as the shot of the police officers feet getting out of the car ends, a sound of children singing begins to play. At this moment it has only just begone so therefore you can bareky hear it. You can see that the police officers look concerned as they look up at the house when they enter the garden. The music volume has slightly increased at this stage where they are heading to the door of the house. There is a shot of the police men heading of the steps and then it goes to a shot of the house. Music can be heard while the police men are going up the steps but when it cuts to a shot of the house that music cant be heard as much but when it cuts back to the men that same song is now louder. This shows that the song maybe being played from inside the house and as police get closer the music become louder. The police men knock on the door and there is a shot of the hand knocking. Nothing happens so they knock again. After the second knock a scream is heard. The song remains as it is and both policemen look at each other a grab there gun from their holsters. By the policemen looking at each other a sesnse of emergence is created.

The policemen enter the house and house is extremely dark. This use of low key light fits with the scene because a creates a sense of unknown territory. Both the audience and the policement dont know whats in side this house (creating enigmas of whats inside the house and who screamed). Eary sounds start to be heard as the policemen walk further down the corridor. A patch of blood is seen on the wall. More eary sounds are introduced. The camera work becomes more hectic quickly changing angles (from left to right) repeatedly. The music is slowly picking up volume as look around. When they approach a door they put there flashlights on it, and unexpectedly a scream is heard from inside the room. The police rush into the room with a sense of urgency. They see a women on the floor crying. One goes to see if she is alright and when he sees her face, he looks shocked. (the audience dont see her face at this time so this creates another enigma).The other officer goes into another room and is attacked, before he realises. The girl screams and the other officer is attacked(he has a part of his arm cut off). The officer manges to shoot at the attacker and he goes away.

There is alot of low key light used. When the officer sees the girl her face is in the dark. This creates a sense of mystery because the characters know something the audience doesnt. Also when the officer is attacked the attacker can be seen but his face cant be seen because of the darkness. Again creating a sense of mystery because we cant see who the attacker is. The music still has the song playing along with eary sound effects to create more tension.The police officer is down and reports his status through his communicater.The arm of the police men holds a torch in it and it shines in the face of the girl. She is seen on the light and it is revealed that she has no eyes. The camera slowly zooms in and it seems to enter her eyes. The scence fades out and then goes to a crime scence with police around investigating and news reporters talking abot whats happened.

Alix Sampford

Feedback 6.12.09

Hi guys,

I know you are working on storyboards at the moment so as soon as they are complete you should upload them. However, you should each have analysed at least one opening film sequence each and discussed genre conventions as well as opening sequence conventions. I also need you to post a synopsis of your film (what it's about) and how you want the audience to feel when they watch your sequence. Suggest how you'll make them scared etc through the media language. I need to see location shots, casting shots, costume/props etc. Also post your schedules for filming here to show how you work together during production. You should be out filming by now!

Mrs A

Equipment/technologies to be used.

Camera- For recording purposes, we will need this to record all footage for our film.

Tripod- A tripod will be essential for making a film for making steady shots.

Digital Camera- We will need a digital camera for taking shots of possible locations. Eventually when we have enough photos of different destinations for the film to take place we will decide on the most suitable venue. Specific things like builings, street lights, roads, pavements, room sizes and how busy the area will be at certain times, will all be taken into consideration.

The Internet- We use the internet for blogger, allowing us to upload all the research we have gathered, youtube which we used to analyse clips.

I Movie- This will be vital for creating our film because we will need it to edit all shots taken and add music and possible dub voices.
Alix Sampford

Top 20 Horror Films (according to Boston.com)

This is our research of the Top 20 Horror Films

We can use these films by watching some of them to see what is included in some horror/ thriller films. When we watch these films it can give us insparation to include these in our sequence. This allows us to involve more ideas with the creation of our film.

Alix Sampford and Emma Jopson.

Top 20 Box Office Figures (according to IMDB.com)

This is our research on the Top 20 Worldwide Box Office Figures Alix Sampford and Emma Jopson

Questionnaire

This our questionnaire that we made in order to gather information from and for our target audience. As you can see there a selection of questions related to horror films and questions which allow is to further our research e.g the name of a film which target audience thought was scary. We found that people find the darkness and the music most effective within a horror a film and we found out what exactly do some people want in an opening sequence of a film. This allows to get a range of ideas which will help in the making and editing of the film.

Alix Sampford, Emma Jopson, Aamir Shah.

Conventions of Opening Sequences

Opening sequences have to grab the audience’s attention as they have to make the audience want to watch more of the film. A horror film has to have; low key lighting, tensional music, death, blood, screams, stabbings, isolation and mystery. An opening sequence should tell the audience that the film is a horror film without actually having to tell them.

Opening sequences usually set up enigmas to make the audience interested. It should introduce and establish main characters. The audience will already have expectations of what they want the film to be about so the producers have to fulfil these expectations so that the audience will not be disappointed. They should set up an equilibrium, however horror/thriller films usually start with a disruption as they have flashbacks in them. The opening credits should have text that fits in with the genre so that the audience have an idea of the type of genre they are going to watch.

An opening sequence should establish a place and time so that the audience know where they are. However in a horror film this is not needed as it is a good idea that the audience have no sense to where they are or when it is, this adds to the mystery in a horror/thriller film. All these conventions are needed so that the audience have an idea that it is a horror/thriller film, also because it is what the audience expect of the film.

These conventions gave the producer a guideline to work with as they know that the target audience like these things. We watched opening sequences from; 'Halloween', 'Saw 1', 'See No Evil' and 'Psycho (1998)', to find out what is involved in most opening sequences and also to get ideas of how we could make our opening sequence. We will use these conventions as we will find out that people do expect these things to be in horror/thriller films by doing a questionnaire. If our questionnaire results are what we expect then we will have a clear idea of what we can put in our main opening sequences.
Emma Jopson

Feedback 24.11.09

Well done guys on the preliminary task and the reflection - it is very thorough! You now need to get working on your research. You need to outline the conventions of the horror genre and upload and analyse a film opening each. Don't forget to discuss the conventions of opening sequences in general also. What is the purpose of them? Consider how you might use some of these conventions in your own film. Make sure you each analyse one clip each at least, You also need to do some primary audience research - questionnaire. 5-10 questions, mainly closed questions to yield quantitative data and present this as graphs etc with a summary of your findings. See checklists for further guidance.

Mrs A

The Preliminary Task

For our preliminary task we were asked to film and edit a character, opening a door, crossing a room opposite another character and exchanging a couple of lines of dialogue, we had to demonstrate a match on action, a shot reverse shot and the 180 degree rule.

We first planned our task using a storyboard, our basic plan was a person walking down a corridor, going to open a door, coming through the door, walking across the room, talking to someone and then walking back out. By using a storyboard we were able to quickly record our preliminary task in a short period of time, this was helpful because we now know for our AS media main task, that plotting and planning is beneficial to the overall film produced.
At the start we were taught how to correctly operate the camera and how to set up the tripods. We were told about the different camera shots and that effects that they give.

Our first mistake was at the beginning as there was background sound that was not supposed to be there however when we added the audio music the unwanted sound goes more unnoticed than it would if there was no audio music, this has taught us that when filming the main task we will have to make sure that there is no unwanted sounds. To make sure that our preliminary task was going to be good we took two or three shots of each scene so that we could pick out the best bits when editing. We used a different range of camera shots including extreme close ups, to make the clip more interesting and dramatic.

We made the decision to have a thumb war between the two characters, to add humour to the clip. However we decided to a western type build up by doing extreme close ups of the two characters eyebrows to give the scene tension but also so more humour. We were taught how to use the iMac’s on an editing tutorial before we were allowed to edit our actual preliminary task this gave us knowledge of how to use the iMac’s, how to edit our work and how we could make it better by using things like titles, audios and transitions etc. Because we took two or three shots of the scenes, it was easier to edit into a clip, we will do this for our main task so that we are able to edit our clip quicker.

We realised that we should have shown a close up of the door handle to draw more attention to the match on action in the clip. We did not break the 180 degree rule and we managed to use the shot reverse shot successfully. Unfortunately the room was not lit properly so at some points during the clip it has low key lighting which made it hard to see the characters face clearly. Therefore we will make sure that we light the scenes properly when doing out main task we feel that we should have had more dialogue and spoken more clearly and loudly as it was sometimes hard to hear what the character was saying. We also feel that we could have included a shot of Alix lead on the floor at the end of the clip to show the audience the effect of what happened to him. When making our main task we will need to take all of these things into consideration to make our clip as good as it can be.
Emma Jopson and Alix Sampford

Preliminary Task

This is our preliminary task. (Hope You Enjoy!)

Initial Ideas

As a group we have decided to create a horror /thriller film for our AS media project. Our target audience for the film is young adult, teenagers. because this is the type of film that would appeal to them, and to back this up we will carry out investigations. Our preliminary task will give us a further understanding of things we will need to take in consideration. As a group we have chosen horror because this is one of our favorite genres.
Alix Sampford, Emma Jopson, Aamir Shah