Horror Movie Research - Let Me In (2010)

Let Me In, directed by Matt Reeves, is about a bullied young boy that befriends a young female vampire who lives in secrecy with her guardian.
I chose this film because the soundtrack to the opening of this film drew me in and stood out as a good exaple of a horror movie. I thought that the sounds used were quite threatening and the shots used were interesting as they leave the viewer guessing and making up stories in their heads as to what's happening in the film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjL7VEFvOxM

While the producer credits are shown on the screen by fading in at the very beginning, an echoing choir is singing in one tone that gradually becomes clearer and louder. Ontop of this, a harp is very slowly playing in a minor tone making the atmosphere sad. The plucks of the harp strings echo so that they end up combining into the sound of the chior singing. The sound drifts off into a minor scale which makes the chior sound haunting almost as it comes across as harsh and drifting out of tone. The sounds put together enhance a scary surrounding making the viewer feel tense and adds to the scary affect making it seem like something is wrong but they don't know what yet so it keeps the viewers guessing the worst.

A black screen is shown and the chior becomes quieter and a fade in of each word of the title is shown in big, bold letters, written in red. The colour red is often reffered to blood and death as it is written infront of a black screen. This may give the viewer an image that death may occur in the film. After the title has fully appeared, the chior fades out into nothing aswell as the title which fades out into blackness once again.

A loud booming drum breaks the silence which repeats while a place and date appears on the screen (Los Alamos, New Mexico, March 1983) which can scare the viewer as this relates more to real life.
The sound of wind builds up before a picture is shown on the screen. The wind gets louder and a low brass instrument accompanies the drum, playing the same haunting note over and over.

A small, orange light is show in the middle of the screen is zoomed into it to see that it's an establishing shot of an ambulance and a few police cars going round a winding road surrounded by some trees. Sirens fade in and become louder as the camera nears closer to re-enforce the audience that they are police cars. This shot can make the viewer interested in what's happening but nervous at the same time as the sirens are on so something must have happened and they're surrounded by trees on a winding road so they could be far away from a safe place.
A factor of mise-en-scene is that this scene is filmed at night as it's pitch black which can scare people as some people are afraid of the dark and most bad things happen at night. I can also be quite threatening as you can't see whats lurking in the dark, if there is anything there or not.

A traking shot of the police cars and an ambulance is shown from in the trees and the sound of the veichles is emphasised to show that they are driving quickly, building suspense to show that they need to get to the desitnation quickly.

A shot shown from the inside the police car is of the front of the window showing that it's snowing heavily as the window-wipers are moving quickly.

 A straight edit to a shot of the radio which has a radio transmission of a man asking for them to reply in code. The voise is stereotypically a man's voice as he must be a police man and this role is stereotypically carried out by a man as they are known to be the braver and stronger gender.

The next straight edit is blurry and isn't very clear as to what it's showing. It seems to show a trolley bed as the camera moves to show the bottom of  the foot of a person that is laying down on the bed. The camera is quite shaky so suggest that it's shot inside of the ambulance. To add to the fact that they're moving quickly, creaking and shaking of the bed and things in the abulance are cluttering noisily.

Scissors are shown cutting the material, supposedly belonging to the person's on the bed showing that he must be injured, leaving the viewers with no idea of what's going on making them wonder how they got there? Who he/ she is with? What's wrong with them? etc.

The hand of the person reaches up and grabs one of the uniformed men who tries to stop him/her. The uniformed man is stereotypically male as it seems they're dealing with something majour and women aren't seen to be able to handle too much pressure and blood.

Another straight edit changes to show the radio again and the voice replying, inside the ambulance describes the 'male' that is injured in the ambulance. This is typical for the person lying on the bed to be a male as they tend to get up to no good and misbehave more than women.

Different shots are shown to be helping the man on the bed  but faces haven't been shown yet so this also adds to the curiosity of the viewers as it leaves things unkown.

Sounds of the patient being sick and making strange noises may freak the viewers out, still not fully understanding whay's happening. The report on the radio said that he had swallowed acid so this could link in which can gross the viewers out and feel his pain almost.

All the while, the brass instrument and drum had been playing quietly in the background, unoticably yet still haunting like.

All sounds come to a sharp, high pitched sound and all is quiet. A straight edit is shown of the back of a man in what looks like a hospital.

 

                                                                                                                                                        

Horror Movie Research - Blackwoods (2007)

Non-diagetic sound is used in the opening of the film. It’s an upbeat rock song which may be used to forebode what type of film it’s going to be.

The filming has been sped up throughout the opening of this film.

This clips starts with a fade in tilt shot upwards of the trees, making the viewer feel small. Also the camera spins whilst looking up which creates a sense of confusion and may make the viewer feel dizzy. 

Fog is used as a part of the mise-en-scene which can add to the sense of location and whereabouts.

The shot changes by flickering like an old television or CCTV filming that’s faulty. Creating a sense that something might be wrong

This then carry’s on to a straight edit of a tilt shot down of a mountain.

This is quite contrasting as the mountains are peaceful places where as the music is heavy metal which disturbs and contrasts with one another. Also the flickering of the screens and sped up filming contrasts with it too.

 

The next shot flickers quickly to a long shot of someone walking down a hall way quickly, not showing his face. This may suggest that the person is up to no good.

The screen flicks off too quickly, not giving enough time for the viewer to take in exactly what the man looks like.

 

A straight edit is used to show another establishing shot of some more mountains which is pannedd across with the producers credits on it.

 

The screen jitters to a close up of the same man walking but not showing his face giving him a sense of mystery

The next shot used contains two clips at the same time, one in the background and one in the foreground slightly faded. The background clip is of mountains and the other clip is of a skull flickering. These two images contrast as the mountains show peace and nature where as a skull shows death.

The skull adds to the mise-en-scene as it helps add to the effect of the genre of the film.

A shot of candles quickly flicks on and off the screen, creating a spooky affect

A sped up sun rise is shown, flicking closer and further away like a faulty camera.

The sun rise also contributes to a peaceful feeling and contrasts with the music being played.

This screen also has more production credits on it.

A dead fox is shown and the rotting process of it is sped up to gross the viewers out and make them worried as to what will happen in the film

A straight edit is then used to show a snarling wolf, showing it’s teeth showing anger and aggression

Another straight edit is used which shows a cross with the name and date of ‘Willie Lahaye 1886’. The cross is representing that this person has died and is long gone. May make the viewers question how he died.

The film name ‘Backwoods’ straight edits in front of the cross

The next screen continues showing the ‘Backwood’ title, giving time for the viewers to read it. In the background behind the title shows a boy who looks like he could be from the country in a past time maybe. He seems to look scared by something and looks stereotypically uneducated.

The title still shows in the next screen which has a zooming in shot of an older man with long messy hair.

A bow and arrow is shown being pointed at something but you can’t see what it’s being pointed at or who’s shooting it

The next couple of shots may seem random as there may be a link between them and the film or there may not be.

The next shot is of as dead deer so viewers could think that the bow and arrow has killed the deer

There is a clip of a hand and finger pointing over a map around a ‘Military Reservation’. Credits are shown on the page whilst the clip is being played and the same music is being played

This may suggest that the film has something to do with the military

A ‘No Trespassing’ sign is shown on the floor so it’s probably been ripped off the fence or ignored maybe suggesting that it’s going into the military reservation .

This screen also carry’s on showing more credits

Weapons are being fired in the next short clip suggesting death as this could kill a person or animal

Feedback Reviews From Our Target Audience

I uploaded my group's preliminary task onto Facebook and YouTube and got the feedback shown below:


"There's a green book in your hand, you go through the door and it's blue! what's up with that dude??"

"I agree, the book is a big one and it's quite obvious. Also being really in depth, the clock on the back wall towards the end, jumps from 2.35 to 3."

"Its good!, But you seem to go in one room and end up in another, Other than that..!"

" Well done hon, remind me never to get on the wrong side of miss Bullen!!!! just a few things like people have said above but its good"

"This video is very entertaining to watch. From an editing point if view, this is very good! The chosen camera angles are perfect, and the shots have been put together really well; an example of where this is applied particularly well is the scene where the paper is tossed near to the bin. Great job!"

I will take this feedback constructively for my final film product.

Preliminary task

This is our completed preliminary task. It took some time for us all to get used to working with a camera but found it enjoyable and had to laugh when things weren't going as planned. We stuck to our storyboard and script which we had created before hand. This made the process of filming the clip quicker for us as we knew what we were doing without having to discuss what to do next after each shot.

We went out of our way to get the task completed which wasn't a problem as we wanted to get as much experience with the camera before starting on our final clip to make it the best as we possibly can.

A few technical issues occured when trying to transfer each shot onto the Apple Mac but overcame these after some time.

After putting the shots in order onto iMovie we edited in appropriate sounds and transitions throughout the clip, and a title and credits fitted in at the beggining and end.

Overall I think we've done very well for the first time using a camera and have enjoyed it on a high level.

I had fun working together with my group (Jodi Lee, Chelsea Neil and myself) whilst filming and edditing the clip and experimenting with the different sounds and transitions that could be used.

Doing this preliminary task, I think, has been a very good learning curve and I'm sure we would be able to complete it again at a quicker pace if we repeated this task.

Preliminary Task Script

This is the preliminary task script that we came up with and stuck to throughout the filming of this task.
As a group we had different thoughts of how the student and teacher are shown separately with how they act and their attitudes towards each other. We queried whether the student should come across as having attitude or being a shy character and feeling guilty if something they've done is wrong. We thought that the clip would be more interesting if the character had attitude and wasn't too bothered about what the teacher was saying to link in with what a stereotypical teenaged girl acts like.
For the teacher we all agreed that she should come across as strict and quite snobby to give the viewers a clearer understanding of who's in charge of the conversation. As this is shown as a stereotypical teacher, viewers wouldn't suspect that the conversation would backfire on the teacher as the attitude of the teenager pushes her buttons, especially when the student walks out of the room ignoring her.

Preliminary Storyboard

This is the storyboard for my group's preliminary task. We created this to help us gain an understanding of what we were going to do before we started filming. We had many ideas of how it was going to be put together but found it difficult when trying to show the different transitions and how the camera moved.

Together we came up with the idea of doing a detention scene of a teacher and a badly behaved student. We decided this so we could include different camera angles showing that the teacher is more powerful than the student.

CANDIDATE NAME: AMARA BULLEN
CANDIDATE NUMBER: 3075
CENTRE NUMBER: 22321

AS Media Studies Foundation Portfolio -
To create a Film opening no more than 2 minutes long.