Friday, 30 January 2009
Thursday, 29 January 2009
Coursework, so far :-)
So far, me and Coop have decided on our genre (horror) and have proceeded to research into this and have written our treatment etc.
We chose our genre by doing a survey of our friends, as our target audience is young people aged 15-26.
We have also looked into the music, mise en scene and setting etc of other horror films to help influence our decisions.
We will be filming very soon as we have written our shot list etc and so are ready to attempt making our opening! :-)
We chose our genre by doing a survey of our friends, as our target audience is young people aged 15-26.
We have also looked into the music, mise en scene and setting etc of other horror films to help influence our decisions.
We will be filming very soon as we have written our shot list etc and so are ready to attempt making our opening! :-)
Friday, 23 January 2009
'Gothika' opening analysis.
The opening of 'Gothika', I felt, didn't include alot of the typical horror/thriller genre iconography etc or even camera work.
The title sequence was very dark and eerie, with a black background and wispy, white text, almost giving the impression of the supernatural and ghosts.
The mise en scene is dark and grimy, with lots of greys and metal items, creating a cold atmosphere which was relevant to the genre, as the setting was a mental health hospital and so it seems threatening and unpleasant, however, there is very little iconography used in the opening.
There was simple over the shoulder/perspective camera work used for an interview, which got boring and was only improved by a pan from behind some railings, creating that creepy feel so often used in horror films of being watched by someone unknown, but then returned to the straight forward perspective shots.
The railings could be seen as iconography of a horror film, as the 'victim' is normally trapped and the railings were almost cage like and so created this feeling of being trapped and enclosed.
The sound used for the titles was a very low, minor key piece which sounded quite menacing and mostly diagetic sound was used for the action after the first lot of titles. I rather liked the mix of diagetic and non-diagetic sound for the first lot of titles in the opening, as it split the atmosphere. The music sounded tragic and sad, with lots of higher pitched notes on violins, but with the screams from one prisoner being heard over this music the blend created quite a chilling atmosphere and only added to the tragedy of her situation.
Dark Castle Entertainment are known for their horror films as they are a company wanting to pay homage to classic horror filmmaker, William Castle, and so it makes sense that they were involved, as well as Columbia Pictures Corporation, Warner Bros. Pictures.
I don't think any representations were shown in the opening scene.
The title sequence was very dark and eerie, with a black background and wispy, white text, almost giving the impression of the supernatural and ghosts.
The mise en scene is dark and grimy, with lots of greys and metal items, creating a cold atmosphere which was relevant to the genre, as the setting was a mental health hospital and so it seems threatening and unpleasant, however, there is very little iconography used in the opening.
There was simple over the shoulder/perspective camera work used for an interview, which got boring and was only improved by a pan from behind some railings, creating that creepy feel so often used in horror films of being watched by someone unknown, but then returned to the straight forward perspective shots.
The railings could be seen as iconography of a horror film, as the 'victim' is normally trapped and the railings were almost cage like and so created this feeling of being trapped and enclosed.
The sound used for the titles was a very low, minor key piece which sounded quite menacing and mostly diagetic sound was used for the action after the first lot of titles. I rather liked the mix of diagetic and non-diagetic sound for the first lot of titles in the opening, as it split the atmosphere. The music sounded tragic and sad, with lots of higher pitched notes on violins, but with the screams from one prisoner being heard over this music the blend created quite a chilling atmosphere and only added to the tragedy of her situation.
Dark Castle Entertainment are known for their horror films as they are a company wanting to pay homage to classic horror filmmaker, William Castle, and so it makes sense that they were involved, as well as Columbia Pictures Corporation, Warner Bros. Pictures.
I don't think any representations were shown in the opening scene.
Mine && Coop's Coursework Treatment :-)
Treatment – I Found You
This film is based around people paying for their sins – in this instance it is parents paying the price for neglecting their child, missing all 7 of his birthdays due to work commitments or just forgetting altogether. We can tell straight away that the film is going to be a horror due to the tension building music and iconography.
Throughout the first sequence, leading to the title, we can hear slow tempo music in the background – resembling that of a fairground. We can also hear a child’s song, being sung by a young girl, that is sung slowly until the close up of an eye at the end – the song is sung…’1, 2, I’m coming for you, 3, 4, better lock your door, 5, 6, pick up sticks, 7, 8, stay up late, 9 , 10, never sleep again’. The first shot we see is of the back of a house, where it appears that something or someone is lurking in the dark watching – from this angle, we see a young girl closing the curtains in a room and then turning the light off. From here the camera follows a shadowed figure to the door of the house, showing him creeping through doors to the lower landing. As he creeps up the stairs we see a shot of the young girl leaving the room – by a worm’s eye shot – she is a babysitter. As the figure enters the room, which later turns out to be a child’s room, the camera cuts to the babysitter in another room who can hear something happening. She is just about to leave the room to check on the child when she sees the figure walking out of the room; in a panic she closes the door. We are now viewing things from the figures perspective as he enters the room.
The babysitter is sat in a closet trying to contain herself, but can’t help but to breathe heavily. She can see the figure stalk past the slit in the door, then a loud bang is heard and the music slows down. Still from the babysitter’s perspective, we see the figure walk back and look through the slit. As he says ‘I found you’ there is a close up of his eye, through the door, then a cut to the main title – I Found You.
After the title sequence we see a car pull up to the house and two adults stepping out and approaching the house. They walk in to find the murderer sat in their living room waiting for them. He explains that he has taken their son and put him somewhere later to be revealed. He describes the hardship their son has faced due to their neglecting and tells them that they must par-take in 7 tasks if they are to see him again. As reasoning, the murderer decries how the parents have been neglecting their son for his entire life, missing all 7 of his birthdays – and for this they must pay.
The first task the murderer sets them on is to destroy all their technologies, because the source of all their problems lies within their being able to be contacted – they focus more on their work than on their child. To their horror, there is a bomb planted in the power line of the houses electric that, if they do not disable everything, will explode causing the house to burn and them along with it.
The second task starts to get a little more twisted as they are asked to skin their family dog alive. The dog receives more attention and love than the son and so by killing it, they are taking away the main distraction from their son. We see the parents hang their dog, by the legs, above a bath tub; where they skin him and drain all the blood – this task in particular takes the parents a long time to start and finish.
The third task is one that benefits the murderer. We see him ask the parents to cut open their son’s rabbit and re-stuff his insides with cocaine – the rabbit is a gift for their son after they forget his 4th birthday. We see them being forced to drive the rabbit to the airport and set it aboard a plane – all the time, the tasks are taking their tole on the parents and they already look as though they have been through a life time of struggles.
The fourth task is for the work-a-holics to torture and murder their boss, who has been bound and gagged in the boot of the parent’s car – much to their surprise. The murderer takes the parents and the boss down to the basement where he has set up a wheel, where the parents are forced to place their boss and spin him till he regurgitates. We then see them place him on top of a spike; they are then forced to pull on either side of him until he starts to move down the spike –screaming in agony. We do not actually see the death of the boss but are led to believe that he is dead due to the screams; cries of the parents then utter silence.
The 5th task they are to under-take is to cut up the babysitter the murderer killed and cook her. It is then served as a dish to them and we see them being forced to eat it all. The killer reasons that this is because the parents have never cooked a proper meal for their son or the babysitter when she has been round.
The penultimate task is not for them to do. The murderer brings in a very frightened paediatrician and takes him and the parents to the other end of the basement, where there are two chairs set up with retraining straps, next thing the audience sees is the murderer letting some form of gas go into the room then a fade out. During the fade we can hear mumbles and screams and sounds of people trying to get free. It fades back in for us to find the parents restrained but bleeding from their reproductive areas – the paediatrician has performed hysterectomies on them both as he claims that they neglect their child so therefore do not deserve to be able to have another.
After much needed calming tactics to get the mother to stop crying, we hear the murderer tell the parents that the final task will get them their son back. He informs them that he is trapped somewhere with a bomb strapped to his chest that is going to detonate. He gives them a riddle, after he plays them a recording of children singing ‘1, 2, I’m coming for you, 3, 4 etc…’ the riddle reads ‘Cries of abandonment, cries that you’ve caused. Find the cries, find the child’. To help the hysterical parents along he informs them that because they took so long to perform each task, they only have fifteen minutes left until the bomb explodes – killing their child.
After five panic stricken minutes, the parents figure out the riddle; their son is at his nursery. They leave in a hurry and rush down to save their son, but as they arrive they find the door is locked. Being unable to work out how to get to him they bang on the door, shouting and screaming his name, trying to reassure him that they’re here and that everything is going to be okay, while doing this, they turn and realise the only way in is to smash a window. After doing so, the father struggles his way in and retrieves his son, then passes him through the broken glass to his mother. (‘I found you’).
There is then a fade out and when the focus returns the area is crawling with police and fire fighters, who are sorting the wreckage of the nursery.
When they return home, they try to apologise to their son, but as their emotions rise the police knock at the door and arrest the parents for the drug smuggling, murders and destruction. So in the end, the parents lose their son for good as they are put into prison.
The child is sent to live with his Aunt in the backstreets of Birmingham, but he sadly still has a poor home life.
A fade shows an ellipsis to then show the child as a successful adult with a high flying job, but he is unfortunately not as successful socially. He doesn’t interact with other people much and pretty much focuses on his job.
We then cut to a scenario mirroring the first scene, with the camera behind some railings focussing on another house, looking into a window. A light switches off and then all goes dark.
This film is based around people paying for their sins – in this instance it is parents paying the price for neglecting their child, missing all 7 of his birthdays due to work commitments or just forgetting altogether. We can tell straight away that the film is going to be a horror due to the tension building music and iconography.
Throughout the first sequence, leading to the title, we can hear slow tempo music in the background – resembling that of a fairground. We can also hear a child’s song, being sung by a young girl, that is sung slowly until the close up of an eye at the end – the song is sung…’1, 2, I’m coming for you, 3, 4, better lock your door, 5, 6, pick up sticks, 7, 8, stay up late, 9 , 10, never sleep again’. The first shot we see is of the back of a house, where it appears that something or someone is lurking in the dark watching – from this angle, we see a young girl closing the curtains in a room and then turning the light off. From here the camera follows a shadowed figure to the door of the house, showing him creeping through doors to the lower landing. As he creeps up the stairs we see a shot of the young girl leaving the room – by a worm’s eye shot – she is a babysitter. As the figure enters the room, which later turns out to be a child’s room, the camera cuts to the babysitter in another room who can hear something happening. She is just about to leave the room to check on the child when she sees the figure walking out of the room; in a panic she closes the door. We are now viewing things from the figures perspective as he enters the room.
The babysitter is sat in a closet trying to contain herself, but can’t help but to breathe heavily. She can see the figure stalk past the slit in the door, then a loud bang is heard and the music slows down. Still from the babysitter’s perspective, we see the figure walk back and look through the slit. As he says ‘I found you’ there is a close up of his eye, through the door, then a cut to the main title – I Found You.
After the title sequence we see a car pull up to the house and two adults stepping out and approaching the house. They walk in to find the murderer sat in their living room waiting for them. He explains that he has taken their son and put him somewhere later to be revealed. He describes the hardship their son has faced due to their neglecting and tells them that they must par-take in 7 tasks if they are to see him again. As reasoning, the murderer decries how the parents have been neglecting their son for his entire life, missing all 7 of his birthdays – and for this they must pay.
The first task the murderer sets them on is to destroy all their technologies, because the source of all their problems lies within their being able to be contacted – they focus more on their work than on their child. To their horror, there is a bomb planted in the power line of the houses electric that, if they do not disable everything, will explode causing the house to burn and them along with it.
The second task starts to get a little more twisted as they are asked to skin their family dog alive. The dog receives more attention and love than the son and so by killing it, they are taking away the main distraction from their son. We see the parents hang their dog, by the legs, above a bath tub; where they skin him and drain all the blood – this task in particular takes the parents a long time to start and finish.
The third task is one that benefits the murderer. We see him ask the parents to cut open their son’s rabbit and re-stuff his insides with cocaine – the rabbit is a gift for their son after they forget his 4th birthday. We see them being forced to drive the rabbit to the airport and set it aboard a plane – all the time, the tasks are taking their tole on the parents and they already look as though they have been through a life time of struggles.
The fourth task is for the work-a-holics to torture and murder their boss, who has been bound and gagged in the boot of the parent’s car – much to their surprise. The murderer takes the parents and the boss down to the basement where he has set up a wheel, where the parents are forced to place their boss and spin him till he regurgitates. We then see them place him on top of a spike; they are then forced to pull on either side of him until he starts to move down the spike –screaming in agony. We do not actually see the death of the boss but are led to believe that he is dead due to the screams; cries of the parents then utter silence.
The 5th task they are to under-take is to cut up the babysitter the murderer killed and cook her. It is then served as a dish to them and we see them being forced to eat it all. The killer reasons that this is because the parents have never cooked a proper meal for their son or the babysitter when she has been round.
The penultimate task is not for them to do. The murderer brings in a very frightened paediatrician and takes him and the parents to the other end of the basement, where there are two chairs set up with retraining straps, next thing the audience sees is the murderer letting some form of gas go into the room then a fade out. During the fade we can hear mumbles and screams and sounds of people trying to get free. It fades back in for us to find the parents restrained but bleeding from their reproductive areas – the paediatrician has performed hysterectomies on them both as he claims that they neglect their child so therefore do not deserve to be able to have another.
After much needed calming tactics to get the mother to stop crying, we hear the murderer tell the parents that the final task will get them their son back. He informs them that he is trapped somewhere with a bomb strapped to his chest that is going to detonate. He gives them a riddle, after he plays them a recording of children singing ‘1, 2, I’m coming for you, 3, 4 etc…’ the riddle reads ‘Cries of abandonment, cries that you’ve caused. Find the cries, find the child’. To help the hysterical parents along he informs them that because they took so long to perform each task, they only have fifteen minutes left until the bomb explodes – killing their child.
After five panic stricken minutes, the parents figure out the riddle; their son is at his nursery. They leave in a hurry and rush down to save their son, but as they arrive they find the door is locked. Being unable to work out how to get to him they bang on the door, shouting and screaming his name, trying to reassure him that they’re here and that everything is going to be okay, while doing this, they turn and realise the only way in is to smash a window. After doing so, the father struggles his way in and retrieves his son, then passes him through the broken glass to his mother. (‘I found you’).
There is then a fade out and when the focus returns the area is crawling with police and fire fighters, who are sorting the wreckage of the nursery.
When they return home, they try to apologise to their son, but as their emotions rise the police knock at the door and arrest the parents for the drug smuggling, murders and destruction. So in the end, the parents lose their son for good as they are put into prison.
The child is sent to live with his Aunt in the backstreets of Birmingham, but he sadly still has a poor home life.
A fade shows an ellipsis to then show the child as a successful adult with a high flying job, but he is unfortunately not as successful socially. He doesn’t interact with other people much and pretty much focuses on his job.
We then cut to a scenario mirroring the first scene, with the camera behind some railings focussing on another house, looking into a window. A light switches off and then all goes dark.
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