The opening horror sequence. Group work

Film title: Axiom
Film idea: Heather Schreuder



The film starts from the frame of sleeping 17 years old girl and camera slightly moves from the right to the left horizontally as a Pan technique. During these movements, three flashbacks sparks. All flashbacks are shown in black and white and a bit green light with kind of white noise on the screen to create a perception that all these events were performed in the past. We also added a white noise to give flashbacks frames more mystery because all these scenes are in girl's mind so they must represent that the girl is unconscious. Camera moves to the left and first flashback appear. In the first one we can see the scene of argument of two adults (girl's father and mother) who are shouting at each other then we can use either fade out or the similar spark to move rapidly from a flashback to girl in a bed and camera will still move horizontally to her head. After few seconds of pan another spark appears getting us back to the argument of two adults and suddenly the male grabs a knife and stab the female. After first strike cut to a little girl who is watching behind the wall on this scene then cut to the knife and in moment of second strike - cut to girl who is scared and frightened because, as we can understand, the male is the father of this girl and right now he is killing his wife and girl's mother. When the father finishes he work we want to use an allude which will predict next events so the father just throws the knife under the cupboard. (Later, the grown girl comes to her old house to find out any evidences or hints why she sees these flashbacks and her father guilt). One more spark or fade out, camera almost films the girl's head. Spark back to the last episode of flashback where the father goes to girl's room and trying to find her but she hides under a bed and then he rapidly bended under the bed. After this scene all sequence gains a great speed and the frame surface from girl's eye and she suddenly wakes up with thrilled face. Our group decided to use as a main location Hurtwood main building and its boarding house because we need two rooms with beds (where little girl hidden and where grown girl slept because there must be two different rooms). And also we will use one room which looks like a living room where the scene of argument will be filmed. The little girl and the living room will be lightened by key light for making it more harsh, aggressive and exciting because of the presence of villain and another bedroom with adult girl will be just a bit dark because she wakes up at night. Regarding the characters we are planning to take in a film one 7 year old girl with a permission of parents and her willing to play and also take two or three A2 students who will play the father, the mother and the adult one girl who slept. The murderer will have an appearance of good and kind father, may be a bit skinny with kind eyes to twist the stereotype about the killer must be looked like big, masculine and scary guy to our advantage because nobody expect to see a really 'good father' as a murderer. We decided to wear the father mostly in black clothes because black colour always represents an evil or danger and the mother, in opposite, will be wear in white clothes to underline her innocence and the role of victim.

Plan of my horror film

Plan Of The Film Sequence

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What is a horror film?

A horror film serves lots of purposes and there are the main of them:

1) Personal - the audiences own identification with the fears or threats of the narrative - tapping into primal fears of:

- The creature/other in the darkness. Body being ripped/mutilated. These are the basic tricks of horror films where presence of more powerful villain and a few killed victims is one of the main rules.
- Emergence of terror but from a safe (vicarious) distance and viewer understands that all sequence on the screen is unreal.



2) Ideological - the implicit (hidden) or explicit (obvious) messages embedded in the narrative. Themes of punishment/redemption and/or revulsion at any subject which deviates from correct 'thinking'.
Beginning from the 'basic' textual messages, for example, the 'virgin and innocent' young girl (primarily blond one to underline her innocence by the hair color). She can be one of the first victims if there is the same innocent but much smarter girl who survives at the end of the film. Because the death of such character will get us more excited and make us against the villain who kills innocent people.

Example of typical victims from the 'Scream' movie trailer:




3) Financial and Industrial is one of the most significant part of continually re-invent and exploit that is why horror franchises are the most popular and the same characters can appear in five or even more part, for example, SAW franchise, Halloween, Friday 13th, Nightmare on the Elm street, etc.
This thing works because in all horror films there are basical tricks which woke up one of our fears despite how many times we watched the similar films. The main thing in horror film is an idea of the villain so if he was created with animalistic/mysterious/superstitious signs who might wear a mask (if villain is a human) to multiply our perception that this character is not like we are and if he wears a mask it creates another fear of something unknown because we don't know what is under the mask and we even can associate this character with demons. In addition from year to year the modern technologies gives directors opportunities for filming even more horrible film than a previous re-make.


Comparison of original Friday 13th and the last re-make.

Friday 13th (1980)



Friday 13th (2009)

Intro to stills camera

Because photography and all images have their own meaning and atmosphere we must to know and understand the language of pictures (eg. shapes, shadows and different shades from light to dark, textures, patterns, lines, colors) and know how to use it to deliver the exact information to viewer that we want. Just as we planning to write a speech we should use the basic laws to make our photographs and still frames understandable.
Composition means arrangement: so we should put together of parts to make a unified whole, make a composition as an intuitive act.
There are several rules and principles that govern the way visual elements behave and interact with them and combine in four borders of a photograph.
Once we have used these ideas and even sharpened our vision, we will have an opportunity to make a photo more exciting and effective that ever before.


One of basic rules is a Rule of Thirds.

This rule is useful not only photographers but amongst artists too.
It works like we are drawing imaginary lines dividing an image into three both vertically and horizontally.
You should place the most important object(s) where these lines intersect.
Using this rule helps to create a balanced picture with important objects with more clear vision because they are exactly on the lines and support objects on all free space where no lines are so they can look blur and this will underline their second role.
The last thing about Rule of Thirds is the tome being.
You may want to brake this rule as soon as possible and it’s okay because the main purpose of this rule is just to teach young people to see objects in these frames to recognise main and support objects and how to place them. After we learnt and used it, we can even break it to make our frame more unusual and sometimes surreal to create more exciting picture which will make the viewer to think why this picture is not as usual as others.

Intro to video camera

On the first half-term we had an intro to video camera in which our teacher showed us the basics of using video camera, how to make a primitive shots and how to use tripod correctly.
First of all we were presented how to set up camera correctly not damaging the lens and then turn it on. So, the camera almost ready to shoot but then we were presented for the pan handle and special levers to make the camera movement steady and smooth or in opposite fast and harsh.
Then we learnt how to 'bubble' the tripod which means the process to establish the tripod in exactly right position for this particular frame and we can know about it by an indicator on tripod which shows us the rights position when the bubble is right in the centre of the circle.
After we learnt these basics the camera was connected to TV to show us what we can see on camera display and to know their meaning.
For example, our teacher represented us Db indicator which show us the level of artificial light and we don't have an extreme need in it, the level of Db's should be always zero.
When the microphone was attached to camera, teacher told us that its omni directional so all sounds around this mic will be recorded so we should be really careful when filming to avoid unnecessary sounds on the background of film.
There are different filters to balance the light in the shot and the most popular and used are four of them:
1 3200k indoor
2 5600k outdoor with 1/4 Nd
3 5600k outdoor clear
4 5600k outdoor with 1/6 Nd
Finally, the last thing which was presented to us were an angles which can captured by camera. They can be wide or standard and it mostly depend on what screen you are going to watch this film because the standards of 80-90s TVs was a standard frame and the new one which becomes more and more popular is a wide screen.
With this knowledge we are ready to start filming and up to this time we already tried ourselves in a roles of directors, cameramen, actors and, mainly, generators of ideas and scenarios how to make our realisation of storyboard exemplar the best.

Preliminary post production task

Our media teacher presented us a short storyboard according to it we must make a short film on the preliminary task and next week we had an introduction lesson of Final Cut Pro application and video editing in it.
So, we access the roll footage from Final Cut proxy and started to edit our film. Firstly, we cut from the original sequence the separate files of long-shot, where all sequence was filmed in long-shot position and we did exactly the same with all positions: mid-shot, close-up and extreme close-up. We did it by watching the video for several times and then cut episodes with appropriate shots by Final Cut option 'Make the sub-clip' and then sent it to special log bin in which were the frames which we used in the final sequence after.

We did it do ease out task in next mixing the different shots for final sequence and create the story because exactly different shots can help film-makers to tell a story to spectators. Also, to force the audience to identify with the rights characters and to make sure the story makes sense to the audience.
We selected the appropriate shots carefully to create really sensible story and it means that our story started, according to film laws, from the long established shot and then change shots to most suitable to find the 'best fit' to show our characters in right positions.
Our storyboard was a big hint for us because there were necessary shots for each frame already so our task was to choose the right angle for camera and other factors (eg. lighting). Because of our sequence, we put the audience to the side of girl who was a victim and we showed it by using high angles of camera and, in opposite, the boy who had a dominance position always was showed in low angles. Also we used several Cut-away shots: firstly, trembling fingers of the girl that meant she is nervous and when the boy started pushing her, we made a cut-away to his mouth when he said 'Do it!' to make an atmosphere a great domination of the boy and girl's helpless.

We combined these shots in our timeline and, of course, the main thing in editing - we always had a talking character in the frame so, when girl said that she 'can't do it', she was in the frame and when the boy replied - he was in the frame.

To avoid the trouble when we started to mix shots about the repeated sounds, we just moved the video-tracks of one particular shot for exact timeline where it must be and cut other inappropriate frames, so after necessary episode of, for example, long shot, we move to mid-shot slightly but the sound-track is only one through all sequence so we hear words and sounds of film only once.

After all, from technical side we received much more developed product because it was a complete sequence which had mush less capacity in comparison with the analogue cassette version because the digital one has almost the same quality but it takes not so many capacity sources of computer.

At the end, I'd like to place a Final Cut video tutorial and with its help, I think, everyone can make a short film as our group did.

Preliminary task Evaluation

The location for our preliminary film task was a classroom and this location was used to show the regular place where lots of grown-ups have their debates, problems and so on.
My role in this task was a participation of plan development and discussion with other members of the group what camera trick shall we use in a particular frame.
Our group used hard key lighting to show the conflict between two characters and make the negative older girl stricter. This trick was effective because with help of the light we created a contrast even on the face of the character where one part of it was on the light and the second one shadowed.
Our group set up camera correctly and 'bubbled' or check tripod level each time when the camera was moved to another place and it means that tripod bubble indicator was always in the centre of the cirlce. The camera was framed correctly each time and one of the main aspects - none of the lighting and the camera equipment won't in the frame.
We discussed a lot about the angles which were necessary to use in particular shots and, firstly, we started from long establishing shot which showed us the place where the action will perform. Secondly, all close-ups and mid-shots of the older negative sister from the low angle to show her dominance on the youngest one who in opposite was showed in all close-ups and mid-shots from the high angle which symbolise her misery. We also thought about soft light which theoretically might give an additional degree of innocence to this girl but this idea had no effect on practice, so we dropped it. Also close-ups itself were used to show emotional condition of two characters and mid-shots were used to be more familiar with character.
Our group didn't break the 180 degree rule so in all sequence actors who stayed on the right side didn't swap immediately and stay on the right side, so we didn't confuse the viewer.
All terminology (eg. 'Stand by', 'Rolling', 'Action', etc.) was well-known by our group and used it in all task so everybody knew the meaning of these words and actions which follow after.
In addition, we used a special trick of 5 seconds after word 'Rolling' and only after these seconds, we can say 'Action'. The situation repeated at the end when the action ended only after 5 seconds director can say 'Cut'. It was performed to have an additional material on the editing board if we need to cut more seconds than we expected. It's called lead-in and lead-out, in addition there were colour bars at the start of the sequence. They also were used to prevent loss of important frame at the beginning.
So from that preliminary task and especially from two days plan development before we learnt about 180 degree rule which shouldn't be broken to not confuse the spectator, we learnt basics of light work and how source of the light can influence to the character role, we repeated all basics about frames of the camera and, finally, we practiced all this tricks which we knew only in theory before.

All work was performed in Adobe Photoshop. I decided to transform Charlotte's artistic snapture into retro-horror film poster so, firstly, I made all background darker and used a burn tool to create cloudy sky as a symbol of sorrow and pain and I used a stereotypical trick that such scary creatures appears only in bad weather when all normal people sit in their homes and watching TV and nobody can see appearance of this character. To create an evil spirit of this poster and prepare the spectators for demonic movie, I used a pentagram from which Charlotte is raise because this star illustartes dark magic (i.e. voodoo, etc), flames which goes from her hands and thunders which strikes to flame pillar. It shows us that the creature that created this flames and pentagram is supernatural and because of dark background which symbolise mystery and fear because we can't fight with the darkness and even a wide variety of sounds which you don't bother at daytime are imagine as dangerous at night. Flames, which symbolise destruction and insatiable, and, finally, the name of film 'Hell's Angel' tell us that this person is evil.
To increase the supernatural atmosphere, I used a filter which changed a back ground to sepia-style as an old because it's retro-horror and the slight blur of this character tell us about it's superstition nature.
Our team used high angle of photo to show the domination of character on audience because this character is stronger, angrier and very dangerous so all people must run in panic from her.