Location: The Coronet

Next, we decided to carry on researching abandoned buildings in the hope of finding one that would be suitable to film our horror opening at.
We found a few potential locations including abandoned mills and hospitals but our favourite was The Coronet Cinema in Eltham. The cinema opened in the 1930s as an Odeon, but was closed in 2000.
We thought this would be a good location as although it is not a mental asylum which was our original idea, it is an uncanny setting that is now derelict and decayed and so adds to the fear factor.
I visited the Coronet after finding a friend who had looked around it previously, but it was surrounded by boards. We later found that the site had gained planning permission for an auditorium, restaurant and apartments, so we decided to carry on our search for a location.


Here is a picture of it from the outside and inside the cinema:

Location: Cane Hill

Cane Hill was our first idea for a location and it also helped us with the idea of our horror film. Cane Hill was a psychiatric hospital in Coulsdon in the London Borough of Croydon.  It Was completed in 1882 and at its peak it held a maximum of 2000 patients.


We decided that it was the perfect filming location because of its crumbling walls and decaying structure. It gave us the main idea for our film in that we decided to set it in an asylum because of the scary nature of asylums. We have thus decided to call our horror film Cane Hill as we think it is a good name however we are no longer able to film there because as of 13th November 2010 a fire took place destroying most of the building.

Costumes

For our costumes, we decided to wear light, mostly denim casual clothes so that the audience can relate to the characters, to make it seem realistic, and to contrast with the darkness of the plotline and mise en scene. In particular, we focused on the victims costume and decided on a white dress as it represents purity, vulnerability and innocence, and also highlights the red of blood.

Test shots

These are the test shots for our horror film, we practiced the shots during our media lesson. We followed the shots from the storyboard. This will help us when we come to actually film the real thing.

Props: newspaper montage

For the opening section of our film we decided to incorporate newspaper articles to foreshadow the deaths that signify the end of the opening, and introduce the villian to the rest of the film. This would also give us a chance to create opening credits which are common conventions of film openings.

I began by cutting out newspaper articles and sticking them to a piece of cardboard. I then cut out relevant words and phrases such as 'death' and 'missing', and then I used the photos' Summer took of us, imitating mortuary photos. I then edited these to increase the contrast so there were more shadows, and then printed them out and added them to the montage. I then filmed a pan of the montage and uploaded it.

Photos

we decided to take some photos to uses for our opening. we needed photos showing us as dead patients s we experimented with a combination of lights, torches, and powder to create a pale effect.

Here are the photos we took:

Props: fake blood

After an unsuccessful attempt to buy fake blood, we decided to make our own.
We researched the materials we would need: golden syrup, plain flour, red food colouring and blue food colouring, and then made the fake blood.
At first, the consistency was too thin, but after adding more syrup and flour, it started to look more realistic.

Props

We deliberated and decided that in order to film our horror opening, we would need:
-a white dress
-fake blood
-torches
-a white sheet
-newspaper articles
-photographs of us including normal and 'mortuary' photos
-face wipes

Storyboarding

We thought about the chronological plotline of our horror film opening and came up with a rough draft of the development of events:
newspaper articles, radio report
quick flash of train
flash to the sign of the mental hospital: 'Cane Hill'
walk into the asylum, look around
Stephen jumps out and scares Alex- red herring
Alex storms off
the others continue looking around
they hear a scream and run to find Alex
Alex is sitting on the floor with her back turned, rocking
Alex lifts her head, turns around, and points at Stephen, covered in blood
everyone begins to back off and then start running away as Alex crawls after them
the camera is dropped and the last shot is a view of the teenagers running away, screaming, whilst Alex's fingers twitch

Knowing this, we decided to produce a more in-depth storyboard so that we had a good idea of what shots we wanted to include.

Horror Film Ideas

We started to think about ideas for our horror film opening by individually coming up with ideas and then discussing them as a group.

Zara's ideas

• psychological
• creepy setting
• mystery
• young cast possibly a big group

Alex's ideas

• use of lights
• maybe someone is trapped and one escapes
• writing on a bathroom mirror and a reflection behind
• someones see someone getting attacked but it is a clone of them
• cliff hanger

Stephen's ideas

• clown mannequin
• use of lighting-when its light everything is fine then it flashes dark and things start to move

Summer's ideas

• asylum
• flash back in to the past
• teenagers break in and try brink back the dead
• someone storms off and found dead

We then started to develop our ideas and bring them together, we all agreed that there should be an element of mystery and that you should not see the killer, also that it should be psychological rather than gore. We then agreed on:

• group of friends
• use of hand held
• abandoned warehouse
• friends think its funny

We then expanded on this and began to develop a basic plot:

• it would be a group of friends that our looking to have fun and mess around
• they talk about the rumours of where they are going which starts to scare some people
• someone goes missing when the lights go off and we start to panic

We decided we would open with various articles and pictures of the abandoned location we are going to. The ending we decided would be of us all running away and the camera would be left on the floor to see our feet run away. We decided that it would be all hand held but then decided that hand held would not show off our potential and convey the right meaning so we decided to use a range of shots.

We then thought about what is normally included in the opening of horror film so that we know what to include and decided we needed:

• introduction of main characters
• setting of location
• credits of actors, directors, producers, production company
• genre through conventions e.g music
• engage the audience to keep watching

Questionnaire

We recently went to the sixth form centre at our school to enquire what sort of horror films are the most thrilling, which shouldn't even be classed as "horror" and also what sort of features scared them the most.

We asked:
What is your favourite horror film, and why?
What is your least favourite horror film, and why?
What is your biggest fear?
Are you more scared of physical or psychological horror?

The results we got were as expected. The results showed that psychological horror is 3 times more popular than physical horror, with 12 votes to 4. This may be due to the mental after effect that thrills the audience.

The most popular horror film was the Japanese version of 'The Ring', and ironically, the American version was the least favourite.

Fears included drowning, darkness, spiders, being alone, rape, kidnap, death, suffocation and clowns. The biggest fear was torture followed by clowns and spiders equally.

Light testing

We tested lighting and textures to see which would be most and least effective in our horror film. We tested mixtures of natural, mobile phone, torch, natural light and darkness, using purple cellophane and bin bags.

We found that a flashing torch was the most effective light source because it included elements of darkness which is a common convention of horror films. We also found that the bin bag gave an interesting, dirty-looking texture, which gave the effect of blurred and distorted vision. 

1980s/90s horror

Popular horror films of the 80s

•Friday the 13th (1980)

•The Shining (1981)

•A Nightmare of Elm Street (1984)

•Aliens (1986)

•Hellraiser (1987)

•Childs Play (1988)

Popular horror films of the 90s

•Silence of the Lambs (1991)

•Candyman (1992)

•Scream (1996)

•The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Popular conventions of the time

The 80s saw excellence in special effects, and along with the materialistic culture that consumed the era, effects were made more realistic by using improved make-up and effects. As a result of these advancements, aliens, ghosts and wolves were used frequently: each as grotesque-looking as the next. Masks were common, for example, Freddy Krueger. Films became very visually graphic during this era.

Many popular films of the 1980s were re-made in the 1990s, such as Friday the 13th and Halloween, continuing the graphic development of the genre. Stephen King’s books were adapted into horror films in the 1990s, with good reception from audiences. Splatter films were also created in these years, but were often exaggerated for comedic effect.

How the genre developed

Popular directors include Wes Craven and John Carpenter.

Slasher films- known for featuring psychopathic killers performing violent murders, peaked in the 1980s. But soon, viewers became less interested in gore and serial killings, and moved on to more technologically sound films due to the increased use of the computer.

The development of horror: 1940s to the present day

1940/50s
WWII had a big impact on horror films, as millons died, most citizens experienced real fear and death. The Roswell UFO incident also occured in 1947, and influenced films around this time.
FIlms were referred to at this time as B-movies as they were often low budget.

Wolfman (1941)
Godzilla (1954)
Dracula (1958)

The key conventions of this era include monsters and disease, as shown in the J-movie, 'Godzilla' and 'Wolfman'.

1960/70s
Censorship decreased and so there was a rise in splatter films in the 60s, popularised by film-maker, Herschell Gordon Lewis, and slasher films in the 70s.

Psycho (1960)
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
The Excorcist (1973)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
Halloween (1978)

The key conventions of this era include death, gore, violence, murders and childhood fears. However, from the beginning of the era, the number of deaths decreased in films.

2000s
Re-makes were popular in this era, including Halloween, as directors wished to repeat the commercial success of the original film. There was a rise in new technology, which was portrayed in films such as 'Cloverfield', and there was also an increased use in special effects. Boundaries were also pushed between horror and comedy, such as in Final Destination.

Final Destination (2000)
28 Days Later (2002)
Dawn of the Dead (2004)
[REC] (2007)

The key conventions of this era include gore and torture, such as in 'Saw'. Teenagers became to be used a lot more as they were stereotypically vulnerable.

'Scream' analysis

We watched the opening of the infamous horror film 'Scream', and I analysed the use of sound in the clip and the representations of gender within the scene.


In the 'Scream' clip, diegetic and non-diegetic sound represents a mostly negative view of men and a largely sympathetic view of women from the audience. 
The phone begins to ring and the protagonist picks it up, which becomes a recurring symbol of tension, signalling to the audience the girls' vulnerability as she continuously responds to the anonymous phone call. The girls' voice is high pitched with a relaxed tone, showing her to be possibly naive, as the man on the phone has an extremely calm and deep voice as he says "I'm sorry, I guess I dialled the wrong number". The girl then begins to make popcorn, which becomes louder and pops more aggressively building tension within the girls' otherwise quiet and serene home. As the man says "I want to know who I'm looking at", a diegetic score begins: a slow, minor piano, suggesting that the girl is beginning to feel exposed and under threat. The eerie sound becomes louder as the girl shouts "listen..." and drums sound as the girl runs down her hallway, which suggests that she is trying to gain control over him. Hostility increases as the girl peers outside her front door, breathing heavily due to her fear. The male character could seem mysterious as the room is silent, but then the doorbell rings and the girl screams hysterically, "who's there? Who's there?", whilst crying, suggesting that the male antagonist is leaving her defenseless as she questions him. As the girl cries, the phone rings again and she jumps and sobs, answering the phone, further implying his male dominance over her. The girl whispers "how do you know his name?". Her questioning the anonymous male character could represent her worry and fear. It is then silent for a few seconds and then drums beat as she shouts "he's big, and he plays football, and he'll kick the s**t out of you!", her voice breaking with anxiety. This portrays a possible stereotype of gender as the female feels that she will be protected by her male partner. However, after the girl is commanded to turn on the patio lights, again showing female weakness, her boyfriend Steve is outside, silently strapped to a chair, which could portray an alternate view of men: as weak, as one has been controlled by another. 
Mise en scene potentially shows females as vulnerable and innocent which could be seen as positive or negative from the audiences' position. Males could also be seen as protective and loyal, or weak, depending on the audiences' point of view. The girl has light blonde hair and fair skin which could symbolise innocence and perhaps naivety, emphasised by her youthful age. She is wearing a cream jumper and pale blue pyjama bottoms, showing that she is perhaps comfortable but also unprepared and unknowing of any danger. Her house is relatively large, with white walls and bright lights on which could highlight the symbol of purity and youth, and thus making her seem less able to defend herself and more sensitive to attack. Props are used effectively as the girl walks over to her popcorn in the kitchen, and then to some knives on the counter which could forshadow her susceptible position and also symbolise the controlling male stranger as dangerous. As she looks outside at her boyfriend Steve, he may hold alternate connotations as he is wearing a stereotypically masculine varsity jacket and jeans, but he is tied to a chair, which could portray the preferred view of weakness, or oppositional view of bravery and loyalty, comparing vastly to the other male antagonist.

Horror Film Openings

Today as a class we were all set the task of researching our personal choice of a film opening and ask to make an analysis of it which we were then asked to present to the class.

I (Summer) chose House of Wax which i found quite interesting as its use of an uncanny setting in both the modern day part and the 1974 section which as it opens with what appears to be a normal family home based in a kitchen, a place that potentially has many dangers in, where a young child an  mother are having breakfast. the opening to house of wax is not particularly frightening but it's odd as it uses to scenarios which at the time seem totally unrelated.
We feel sympathy for the family in beginning as it shows a young boy being restrained and see as quite a pain to his family as this seems like an everyday process for this family. The combination of diegetic and non diegetic sound was well used as it helped to show us the difference in times as well as area, the most interest part of the opening is that even though we seen at least 4 minuets of a family home we never see any of the families faces we only ever see below the shoulders regardless of the high angle shots.

Alex chose Donnie Darko as she found it to be fairly unsettling as the opening goes straight into the story line which begins to seem quite simple like just a slightly strange family who don't really get alone whereas other horrors typically show something slightly more devious however the tension does get built slightly later this is indicated where the usual diegetic sound of conversations suddenly changes as we begin to hear a piano score over the top. The opening lulls us into a false sense of security as it seems to us to be quite normal until we realise that there is something a bit different about this particular family mainly the leading protagonist Donnie.

Steven chose Halloween which he found that he the opening which shows the young boy wearing a mask which causes a lot of controversy amongst his house hold. Steven found that the mask seems to be the key item in this opening scene which helps with the unravelling of the film as we instantly realise that the young boy & this mask is going to be the focal point of the film as a lot of attention is paid to it especially when the young boy (Michael) is wearing in the mirror wearing the mask and the camera is slightly blurred and at a canted angle which helps show the confusion and the fear that lies within the mask.