Location

In the first actual shot of the first 2 minutes there is a shot taken in a cupboard.

StoryBoard Animatic

This is our basic storyboard animatic.

Story Board

Horror Film Production Companies

Horror Film Specialists


Hammer Film Productions

Hammer films is a small British Horror film company, it was founded in 1934, and mostly helped produce Gothic like films, but in later years diversified into the whole market including Action and even comedy. Hammer films helped produced many famous films such as the Mummy, Dracula and Frankenstein. A benefit of having a Horror specific company is that they would have expertise in the area and know how to excite the audience and keep the scenes tense, this may be better than using a company that diversifies as they may be larger and can produce more technological films but they may lack the expertise of a specialist company to produce a great Horror film.





Non-Horror Specialists


There are many production companies that do not diversify in a certain genre and they do vary in size. Although they are not specific many of them have created many famous and successful Horror films.


Dimension Films

Dimension films has created many very successful Horror films such as Scream 1, Scream 2, Scream 3, Halloween, Children of Corn, Mimic and Hell raiser. As you can see Dimension has created many well known Horror films, but it has also created many other famous films such as Sharkboy and Lavagirl, Starsky & Hutch, Spy Kids and Bad Santa.

New Line Cinema

 New line cinema also doesnt specifiy in just Horror films but they have many successful films including, Nightmare on Elm Street, Final Destination, Friday the 13th and se7en. This shows that companies do not have to specify in a specific genre to create good films.

Below is a list of the top twenty grossing films and their main production company.

1. What Lies Beneath -  20th Century Fox

2. Gremlins - Warner Bro Pictures

3. Blair Witch Project - Haxan Films

4. A Christmas Carol -  Hallmark Entertainment  

5. Godzilla - Centropolis Film Productions

6. The Ring - Dreamworks SKG

7. The Grudge - Columbia Pictures

8. Paranormal Activity - BlumHouse Productions

9. Paranormal Activity 3 - BlumHouse Productions

10. Scream - Dimension Films

11. Scream 2 - Dimension Films

12. Sleepy Hollow - Paramount Pictures

13. The Haunting -Argyle Enterprises

14. Scream 3 -Dimension Films

15. Saw 2 - Twisted Pictures

16. Amityville Horror - Dimension Films

17. Paranormal Activity 2 - BlumHouse Productions

18. The X Files - 20th Century Fox 

19. Dracula - Hammer Films

20. Freddy vs Jason - New line Cinema

Review of the First 2 minutes of Wrong Turn

Wrong Turn is a Horror film produced in 2002 by Rob Schmidt, it is about a group of 6 people who get trapped in a remote forrest, and hunted down by mad deformed psychedelic mountain men and killed. It stars Eliza Dushku, Jeremy Sisto, Emmanuelle Chriqui and others, and gained an approximate 10 million dollars from its box office.

The first two minutes starts off with a summit entertainment title shot and then a Constantin Film shot. They show this to let the audience know who helped produce the film. The first actual footage of the film is at 00:24, this is an establishing shot, showing miles of forrest with only 1 road on it, this shows to the audience the area in which the film will take place. This shot allows the audience to see how remote the location is, this is one of the cliches of Horror films, that the location is very remote. Over the top of this the name of the 2 production companies are shown again. The shot is still going, but the camera is pointing at the floor, this shows a darker side to the forrest as there are many shadows. Also many of the trees have been flattened, showing destruction. The shot then slows and stops above a cliff face, with 2 climbers on. One male climber and one female, they both look quite young. Having these actors allow the target audience, 15-30 year olds both male and female to connect to the characters, so when they are killed this makes the audience more scared as they think that it could be them. The man gets to the top of the cliff and the camera switches so it is looking up at him. Usually this shows power within a shot, but the camera is looking up to show how vulnerable the girl is, as the camera is from her point of view. The camera zooms in on the mans face to show his expression, which is happy as he believes he is in no danger and he has just completed the wall. The next shot is from his perspective and it is a shot out into the forrest, showing the beauty of it. A small amount of conversation occurs between the 2 characters and you see the man walk out of shot. You then see the woman struggling to climb the wall. The girl then falls due to poor fitting. This makes the audience jump as you think she is going to die, but her harness saves her. The man then talks to her, saying how they are 50 miles from the closest people, this allows the audience to know that the area is deserted. You then hear a deep drum beat at 01:43 and then an bird call out. This could signal something bad happen as vultures usually cluster around death. you then hear another drum beat this time, it is accompanied by a grunt, which sounds like the male climber. This suggests to the audience that the man has been killed and as you cannot see it, it raises tension. You then see a shot of the wall from afar, allowing you to see the woman stuck halfway up and the man is no-where to be seen, strengthening the audiences assumption that the man has been killed, this again raises tension. You hear the female climber say something, which sounds more panicky than how she was talking before. And then you see the mans head lying down over the edge of the cliff. Showing the audience that he is dead. This shows to the audience that it is a horror film as he has been killed off very early on in the film. This is quite common of Horror films to kill an actor off very early as it gains the attention of the audience and can help strengthen the plot. This is a good first 2 minutes as it sets the scene very well with the establishing shot and gives the audience enough background information for them to understand and then it also builds tension well as someone is killed but you cannot see how or who did it. 

The Grudge : Review of the first 2 minutes

The Grudge is the first film of 3 in a series of Japanese Horrors; the target audience is 15-30 year olds as the rating is a 15, allowing the main Horror fan audience to see the film. The storyline is about a American nurse living in Tokyo is exposed to a curse which locks onto a person in a powerful rage before claiming there life in a painful way and then moving onto the next victim. It was directed by Takashi Shimizu and stars Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jason Behr and Clea DuVall.

The first 2 minutes stars with the Columbia statute panning into the shot, with some slow eerie music in the background. This then fades to black, a door then fades in, it looks old and rusty. The sort you would expect to see in a Horror film. It then shuts by itself, you know this as you can see both handles due to the angle it the zooms in on the keyhole for a skeletons head to be visible on the other side and the title Ghost House Pictures appears, this allows the audience to know that they are watching a Horror film, as Ghost House production does specialize in Horror films. This then fades to black again the music is still audible but it is quiet. A line comes onto the screen, it helps explain about the curse which features in the film. This then fades out but the word curse stays there and turns red then fades out. This is very symbolic, without even seeing the film the audience already know that the film is going to be about a curse, and the red color suggests that it is going to be the killer in the film. Another line then comes onto screen, explaining about how the curse will gather in the place of death of the person who was killed by hatred. This time instead of the word Curse staying on screen, the word Death does, this suggests to the reader that people are going to die in the film. A third line appears on the screen after this one, this one talks about how the fury will overcome its victim. And the word fury stays this time. This strengthens the fact that the curse is born of anger. 

At 01:05 the first actual footage fades in. It fades in on a civilized area, which is quite populated  suggesting that it is the suburbs. It helps set the scene by, letting the audience it is set in Japan as an oriental boat is seen on the river and it gives the audience a basic knowledge of where the film is going to take place. A character then pans into shot. A white ginger male, with probable British ethnicity. The creepy music is no longer playing; all you can hear is the sound of the cars driving, which is visible in the background. The man is on a balcony and his facial expression shows some distress. The camera then cuts to another shot of his face, and a woman in the bed is visible behind him, and she calls the name Peter. She asks if he is okay but he does not reply this suggests to the audience that Peter is not all right and he is distressed in some way. She try’s to have a conversation with him by saying how he is up early. He turns round to look at her but doesn’t say anything. This is weird and is there to Creep out the audience. He then turns back out and swings himself over the balcony. The way he does it shows resistance but he is the only person by the balcony. Suggesting to the audience that the Curse is at work. The camera then goes to his perspective and you fall to the ground to hear a splatting sort of noise. You then see the shock on the woman’s face in the next shot. You see her peer over the balcony at  the body. Which is on the floor with the limbs spread out to each side. Creepy piano music then begins. The first to 2 minutes of the film then ends.

Locations

We are filming one of the shots in this Cupboard which is meant to be an interrorgation room, we are filing the shot where the survivor is having to tell the police what has happened.

Preliminary Task

Original Version

We have created a Preliminary task in which a boy walks into a room, by opening a door, and says a few lines. In the scene, we stick to several rules, including the 180 rule, match on action and shot reverse shot. The scene turned out like I wanted it to except for the editing, as the computer we edited on didnt have sound we repeated a clip which doesnt look proffesional, I will re-edit the footage so that it looks professional and clean. To begin with you see a  title shot with the producers, directors and actors names, this allows the audience to know what they are watching and who is in it and produced it.The next shot is that of a boy walking down the corridor, this allows the audience to understand where the scene is being set and who the main charcter is. It then cuts to the next shot of him walking down the corridor, this time you see a door to the left of the shot. This is where we use match on action. The boy pushes down the handle and it has another shot, close up when he does this. The next shot is of the boy walking into the room. As the boy walks past the camera it does not pan at all. It flicks to the next which is facing a boy who is sitting down, the boy who walked through the door walks past the camera into shot. An alternate editing method instead of just cutting from one shot to another, you could of panned the camera, making a smoother finish. But usually panning the camera results in camera wobble, which can produce a non-proffesional finish.The boy sits down in a chair and the camera cuts to a close up of his face. He says "Hello, How are you?" and the boy replies, "I'm good thanks, but why are you so late?" In this conversation, i stuck to the 180 rule, which means stick to one side of the action, this helps keep continuity and makes the scene believable for the audience. It then also shows one more shot of the boy who walked through the door and it ends. If i was to redo it, I would of used a computer with sound so that the dialogue followed correctly and the scene flowed in order. 

Production Titles

I tryed to make some Production titles in Abode Flash, but we have decieded that they are not suitable for the Genre of film we are making, so we are not going to use these for our film. Below is the titles that were not suitable

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So I created another more suitable Horror Genre Production title. In this we use some cliches such as a grave stone and lightning. The colour of the font is Red to signify blood.  We have decieded to use this title as it seems suitible for our film.

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