Film Synopsis

Lily, an average seventeen year old girl, falls asleep during her lesson one day and wakes up to find that she is alone in an abandoned school. She searches for a way out but is locked inside the school and runs into three other people in her year that are not particularly nice to her. The four of them know that someone else is in the building and they find notes posted around the school giving them directions on how to get out of the school. The directions are brutal and eventually the three classmates die, leaving Lily alone to escape the school and run to a nearby woods where she is followed by whoever was behind this.

Lily is chased around the woods and finally faces a woman she recognised as her mother's client who's baby died recently (Lily's mother, a midwife, phones her before she goes to her lesson and falls asleep to tell her that she will be taking care of a client out of town) and wants to get revenge for her baby's death. After some more running through the woods trying to kill Lily, the woman accidentally kills herself, leaving Lily to escape.

Target Audience

Our opening scene sequence is the beginning of a horror movie. We feel our film is more targeted at males than females. The reason for this is that a horror movie aims to scare the audience and therefore builds adrenaline within the body. Studies show that males like this feeling more than females hence the reason why more males play and enjoy sports than females. Although in recent years more and more females are starting to show this similar trait.

We also think that our film will target the age group of 15 – 25. This is because of a similar reason. Younger people tend to find scaring themselves and adrenaline more fun and exciting than the older generations. Our film will also targeted this age group because our film is set in a school and has a cast of young people. This would encourage more people of the same age group to be interest in our film because they would feel it relates to them more.

Our horror film is more likely to target white people than any other race. This is because we are filming our film in the U.K which is a predominately white country. Our film is also set in the area of Bromley which is also a predominately white area, and therefore will attract white people because they will also feel they can relate to the film. However our movie will also target black people. This is because our main actor ‘Elly’ is of black ethnicity and therefore will appeal to this ethnic group.

We do not feel our horror movie has a specific class that it targets, but if it was to target one class more than another it would target the middle and working class. This is because our film is set in an area of this class and the cast of our film also represents these two classes.

Office Space Analysis - Opening Scene

The opening sequence to Office Space includes a lot of establishing shots. They use these so that the audience can have a clear understanding of the environment the film is based. The environment this film is based in is a busy, hectic, city lifestyle.

They also use colourful and unusual title credits. They use this to signify to the audience that the film is light-hearted and meant to be fun. Where as if they used black coloured text and an every day font such as ‘Times New Roman’. This would have given the audience the impression the film has more serious issues involved in it.

To continue the element of fun on the audience. In the opening sequence they use upbeat jazz music. This further signifies that the film is going to be fun to the audience.

In the opening sequence the director shows a white man singing to stereotypical, harsh black music. This is very funny to the audience because it is unexpected. This gives them an insight into the type of content in the rest of the film.

The direct also uses a lot of close up shots on one character in this opening scene. This shows that this person is going to be a main character throughout the film.

Influence Three - Eden Lake Oppening Scene

The third influence for our film is called 'Eden Lake'. The opening sequence for this film is the most influential for us as it begins with a flash forward. The flash forward is very short clips that flash between the credits of a woman who is screaming and crying - clearly being tortured. The flash forward was in total about ten seconds then immediately went to the present day of that same woman teaching a class of young children. From the first few seconds of the film, the audience immediately know that this film is a horror by the flash forward and even the opening credits as the font style was quite bulky and red - a common colour used to foreshadow danger or horrors.

Influence Two - Halloween Opening Scene

The second influence is the opening sequence of Halloween.Like our film Halloween is a horror film. The film begins with a point of view shot using a handheld camera to create suspense and mystery. We are contemplating using these two elements in our film. The music is also a great influence as it again creates suspense and establishes the mood for the horror film

Influence One - Kill Bill Opening Scene

Kill Bill's opening sequence is an influence for our thoughts on our own opening sequence. Kill Bill begins with a flashback in black and white to distinctly show it is not in the present setting. By using the diegetic sound of the woman's heavy breathing to create tension and suspense which can be very useful for our own production as we are creating horror movie and these elements can be included.

Preliminary Task

For our preliminary task, we had to film a scene that contained an action-match, use of shot-reverse shot and the 180 degree rule. Our group had achieved this and we think that the action-match (when 'William' walks into the psychiatrist's room and the crying girl runs out) in particular went very well. One thing that we would like to improve is the sound, since we did not use a microphone, the conversation between the "psychopath" and Dr. Bea is too low therefore the audience are not able to comprehend as easily as they should do. Furthermore, due to the fact that it was filmed during school hours and there were other lessons taking place, there is unwanted noise in the background of our production (when 'William' walks down the corridor).

Assignment Brief

The set brief for our Video project is to create the titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes. This blog will document the pre-production, production and evaluation stages of this project.