Psycho Opening Titles:
I analysed the opening titles of the film Psycho which made me think about the way we could have done the titles for our horror film. We couldn't have had the titles lasting 2 minutes as we had a maximum time slot of 5 minutes but we could have used some of the techniques that Hitchcock used in his film. Similarly to Psycho, our film started off with the film company that made the film. This is good because it gives the audience an idea of what to expect most of the time as even if a film company doesn't normally produce that genre of film, their logo normally changes to fit in with the film that it has produced.
I analysed the opening of a Nightmare on Elm Street and put all the key points of that into a timeline shown below.
I looked at the best 100 horror films on www.timeout.com that had 100 experts including Simon Pegg to voting them.
They were:
1) The Exorcist (1973)
2) The Shining (1980)
3) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
4) Psycho (1960)
5) Alien (1979)
6) The Thing (1982)
7) Rosemary's Baby (1968)
8) Halloween (1978)
9) Suspiria (1976)
10) Dawn of the Dead (1978)
From this I can tell that we should have made our title have 'The' in it as that is what the top 3 best horror films have in the title, showing that it makes the film scarier and more appealing to the audience. I also think that we should have looked at more horror films around the 1970's to make our film the same style as those as all of the top ten horror films were made around the 1970's.
Freddy Krueger Chant Analysis:
I decided to analyse this chant because when coming up with ideas for our production piece, we all had a vague idea of some famous child-like chant but couldn't remember exactly how it went. We decided not to look it up as normally if you are going to do something similar, when viewing the original it can sometimes make you unable to think of anything else. We decided to make our chant in 3's as it was an odd number and would hopefully make it a little more odd and creepy and also allowed Emma to say ten once possessed to show that she had been caught and changed.
My analysis is below:
Horror Film Score Analysis:
I analysed the opening score of Sweeney Todd to get an idea of what to include in the music in our film. Comparing our score to this one, they both use repetitive melodies and low notes. My analysis of Sweeney Todd is below:
Alfred Hitchcock Interview:
I looked up an interview on Alfred Hitchcock on YouTube and this section had the most important bits in it that we can learn from.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGxJ7pla48U&feature=relmfu
He talks about how religion hasn't made an impact on his films where as we know from other horror films it has, like The Exorcism. From looking at the Top Ten Horror Films list I did; we can see that a film that plays on religious fears is considered more scary than one that doesn't. This may be because the religious ones have more connotations with hell and even if someone isn't religious, they may be open to the idea and so it still scares them.
Two minutes in; they talk about taking Latin at school. I believe that this probably helped him come up with some ideas for all of his films even if he only took very slight details from it. They also mention how it helped their English skills which of course are very important for films.
They then talk about how he is a calm man and not a stereotypical Director that "shouts and waves his arms around". This shows Alfred Hitchcock in a good light and also that he is not only a brilliant Director but also a good man. The reason why he is so good and successful may be down to this and that all of the people working for him respect him a lot more because he treats them well. It also might show that if you remain calm, then you remain focused and can then produce better films. From this we can take that we should take our time, be calm and patient with each other when making our film.
At 4:45, Hitchcock mentions that hates to see someone get the details wrong as they are very important. We know from analysing Psycho that he has excellent sets, props and continuity and we should aspire for our film to be like that as well.
At 7:00, Alfred Hitchcock reveals one thing he regrets after a discussion on the media and how communication has change. He doesn't think that it is that good as some of it gets copied and unfortunately he found out 2 years after his film 'Foreign Correspondant' came out, the scene where the famous Politician gets assassinated by a photography pretending to take his picture got done in Terhan. From this we can take that we should be careful what we put in our film to make sure that people won't try to copy it and potentially harm someone and also to make sure it has a suitable certificate as children are more likely to copy something they see as they might not know differently.
At about 8:30, he talks about audiences and how people only read bad news and that they like to watch his films because it scares them. From this we can take that audiences enjoy being scared and knowing about bad things because it is shocking but therefore interesting to them. People are curious and interested which drives their desire to access different media to what they know and normally see. In our film we can apply this by having something happen that is different to normal life and that is also scary to engage our audience more.
From looking at Alfred Hitchcock's film Psycho; we decided to also use voyeurism as we thought it was a good effect and made the audience more on edge. We thought about the mise-en-scene and making sure the continuity was good as Hitchcock said above it was important. We think that if there are any mistakes, then it looses the feel of being real to the audience and wouldn't scare them and they wouldn't enjoy it as much.
Villian and Victim in Psycho:
From looking at this shot; we can tell that Norman is the villain because it is a low shot of him, showing that he has the power. He is set to one side of the screen, showing the distance between him and Marion and that he is observing her from a distance. He is predominantly in shadow, showing that he is a bad character. There is a little bit of light on his face which links him to the eagle in the background as that also has bits of light on it. This link could mean that he is like the eagle and Marion is his prey. The eagle has a shadow cast behind it which could represent the shadow Norman has of his mother always being with him. There is another bird behind Norman's head, also implying the fact that Norman is a bird preying on Marion. The pictures in the background are stepped, adding to the countdown feeling that was implied when he was picking the room for Marion to stay in. The walls are two different colours, which could represent the two different personalities that Norman has.
From looking at this shot; we can tell that she is the victim as she is shown with a very slight high angle, showing that she is vulnerable. She is playing with something in her hand, something people normally do when they are nervous. She has a lot of light on her face, showing that she is a good person. She has homely items surrounding her which shows that she is a homely and good person. On the lamp there are some small birds, showing that she is a small bird compared to Norman who is a big eagle.
Production Companies:
Here is a video I found of all the production company logos used in the film Sweeney Todd:
From watching this video, I can see that the production companies do not change their logo very much to go with the film but possibly make it slightly darker. I think that we should maybe included a big production company to support our smaller company in our opening so then it would make sense that we have changed our logo to go with genre.
Most of these production companies are more about the logo and animation than the text which I think supports our production company logo idea. We decided to have a cage forming around the name Cage and even though we put thought into the font choice, it was more about the animation.
If a production company were to market our film it would probably be Warner Brother as they produced films like The Exorcist and all the ones in that series of films. I think that the story of a teenage girl getting possessed is similar to ours and so they would be able to produce it well.
Evaluation:
I analysed our piece as I have has analysed other film openings to get an insight as to what other might see when watching it.
The link is below:
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