Horror Film Opening

Character (age, gender, etc):

The character we should use in our film should appear to be older as the victims within the films we watched weren’t usually kids, they tended to be young adults or middle aged. As the majority of people who would feature in our film would be aged 16 – 17 we will have to use someone that appears older and focus a lot on costume and makeup to give them the appearance of age. We believe the gender for the main character should be female as these are stereotypically seen to be the helpless victim within a horror film as they are often seen as weaker. This promotes fear as the audience of our film will be able to recognise who the victim is. An example of female victims is Wendy from The Shining:

                                   

 

Narrative (storyline for the opening):

It is most important for our opening to either introduce the character or the films location (or both). This is because it sets the scene for our film and allows the audience to become familiar with their surroundings and characters. For example, our opening could show visuals of inside woodlands (which is where some of our film will be shot) and use various camera shots to show the full location to the audience.

Costume:

Once again we feel we would need to provide a costume that reflected an older person’s style as the victim we would use wouldn’t be very young. Also, from previous films we have noticed that the characters clothes are quite normal as the most targeted victims are usually normal people that have become under the influence of a supernatural evil. We feel our costumes should represent that the person is a victim or has suffered something in her lifetime, for example we could use a hospital gown to imply that she is mental.

Lighting and Setting:

We feel the lighting should be natural or very little as the films atmosphere is quite dark and tense, this means that no added light should be used as it would be quite unusual to use a lot of light and we want to make our film as realistic as possible. We feel that our film should be set in the evening as the darkness implies that there is a presence nearby and it sets the audience into the horror mind frame as they become prepared for any shocks that may occur. This is represented in psychological horrors such as The Strangers as it is set at night time and the fire and lamps are the only minor sources of light provided.