Our film opening uses many of the common forms and conventions usually found in horror films. All horror films have a main killer/monster killing off the characters throughout the film in specific ways, such as the killer in ‘Scream’, and our film opening also has this. Even though the killer is not seen during our opening they are introduced through the shots of newspapers declaring the killings and the character Will's mention on the "suspicious deaths".

The monster/killer

The killer from scream.

Picture of will by CCTV and newspapers.

We showed a group of people from our target audience the opening of our film and asked them to give us feedback. Many of the replies we received said that our opening had lots of suspense and made them want to watch the rest on the film. This is another convention of horror films that we have used in our opening as many horror films create tension and suspense to keep their audience and edge and make them want to continue watching the rest of the film.

Suspense and tension

Pictures of feedback sheets and maybe group of people.

Many horror films will use dark lighting to add to the atmosphere of suspense and fear created throughout their story lines and our film opening also does this. Our opening is set in a forest meaning it will be naturally dark but it is also meant to be late at night as this makes it more interesting for our audience as well as creating tension. We used this convention in our opening as well but as we filmed during the early evening this meant that many of our clips were too bright. To overcome this we darkened our clips while editing to increase the atmosphere of fear in our opening. Darkness increases the audiences fear and confusion as they not have a clear picture of what is happening which is why many films use this convention.

Lighting

Pictures of clips before and after post production darkening.

A clip from The Descent

Horror films usually have very traditional characters such as a male hero and a female damsel in distress and we have chosen to use this convention in our opening. Both of our male characters are represented in traditional ways and the character Will is the hero of our film. He is shown to be strong and brave where he dismisses the stories of the previous deaths in the park and many horror film heroes are also portrayed in this manner. Our character Serena is the damsel in our film as she is represented in a traditional manner and shown to be scared and constantly looking for reassurance. However we also challenge this convention as our other female character, Maria, is brave and represented in a modern manner as she is not scared of anything supernatural and does not mind being in the woods at night.

Traditional Characters

Pictures of all characters.

Some horror films, such as ‘Cloverfield’ and ‘The Blair Witch Project’ will use hand held filming as their method of filming and we also chose to do this to match conventions of low budget horrors. Many low budget horror films will use hand held filming as it means that their filming costs will remain low as they only need one or two cameras and the acting can be more ‘natural’ to give the audience the impression that the events they are watching are real. We thought this style of filming would be best for us as it means our film opening would be more like that of others in this genre.

Filming Techniques

A shot from ‘Cloverfield’ A shot from ‘The Blair Witch Project’

Mainly in horror films the main characters will be a group of friends who are killed off one by one until the hero is left alone or they are all killed. Our film opening uses this convention as our main characters are a group of four friends. None of our characters are killed in the first two minutes of opening but later in the film they will be killed off one by one by the killer in the woods.

Characters involved

Group of friends from ‘Wrong Turn’

Picture of group.