Genre
It is the first thing that the audience see in a film. The audience via props, music, recognise the type of genre the film is of. Our opening sequence is of psychological horror, it is a sub-genre of horror fiction, film and video games. A psychological horror film mainly relies on the charactes' fears and emotionsl instability to build the tension. It is quite known for its suspense and the dark atmosphere, playing with the audiences minds.
Characters
The female characters are seen as the weaker sex in horror films as we think that they can make a perfect way to build up the tension that is needed for the audiences. In some of the psychological horror films the threat are shown to the audience without the charactes knowing (halfway through the film) and in some they aren't shown untill the end. For example, in Scream. So, in our opening sequence our character was a teenage girl who didn't see the threat until the very last scene.
Events that take place
The most typical event that occurs is that someone gets killed. In our sequence there's an idea of being killed in the end. The threat following her while she's locked in the school. To build up the tension we made the threat nearly meet the character until the very end. It went like this:-
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Introducing the character
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Showing the location of the place
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Shows the threat
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Makes the audience get different ideas as to what the threat will do
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Builds a little tension as the threat grabs the character
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Makes the audiences see from threat's point of view as it attacks her...
Themes
Typical themes that we used:-
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The threat
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Supernatural (as the threat disappers into thin air)
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Nightmares (dream about her getting killed)
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Consciousness (confused as to question oneself what's real what's not)
Iconography
Lighting, Mise-en-scene and Setting
Composition - we used dark and creepy music as to set the mood.
Sets - we did it in the school's old science building
Props - it is a key factor in most of the horror films as the characters depend on it, we only had a few props the mobile phone which does not work.
Costumes - the character was dressed as a teenager going to school and the threat wore black as it represents danger during the night more.
Originally we thought of using a large scissor as our muder weapon but then we removed it as it didn't work with our genre.
Our opening sequence's title as it is about a girl being locked in the school
Our opening sequence's title as it is about a girl being locked in the school