When a Stranger Calls Opening (Analysis of Titles)

I used this clip from "When a Stranger Calls" to observe the sequence of the titles and used it as a reference when we made our opening.

For the opening of this film, when there is no action on screen the film makers have chosen to place large titles in the centre which we have also done in our film opening. Then throughout, there are smaller titles placed on the edge of the frame. For the film "When a Stranger Calls" the first large titles to be shown are the actors however in our piece the actors are not well known and we decided the director and screenplay credits were more important industry wise. Like this opening, we also have titles in the beginning part of the clip and then they stop to let the action ensue without any distractions.

Costume

The factors we took into account when deciding Violet's costume were:

• Plainness - Not to distract or confuse the audience.
• Realism - Something Violet would actually wear while reading in bed.
• Practical - To not get in the way of any rapid movement Violet may need to do.

We decided this would be the best thing for Raagavi to wear as Violet as we feel it achieves everything above.

Things to Reshoot on our Back-Up Shoot

We made a list of things we felt needed to be re-shot at our back up shoot. * marks the important ones

• *Slow pan up in bed while reading then stopping the pan whilst hearing the knock and looking at the clock (all in one shot)
• *The outside of the house with the curtains OPEN
• V*oyeuristic walking down the stairs with the lights on- do not pan
• *Voyeuristic kitchen master- make sure no cars are passing by
• Cut to Violet putting the water back in the fridge
• *Driveway- make sure there are no lights are in other houses/car out of view
• 5-10 seconds of looking into the spy hole
• *End conversation without the blue light
• Run into closet without the big lights
• Establishing shot of house should change into POV shot

Animatic

We created an animatic of our film which is like an animated storyboard. On our practice shoot we took stills of each shot and then made it into an animatic (shown below).

Practice Shoot

We used a practice shoot before our main shoot to be able to see roughly how our opening sequence would play out. Also, this way, we would be more confident in our main shoot as we have already tried using the camera.

For our practice shoot we brought along our storyboard and took stills of the images we had drawn in the storyboard. As it was our first shoot we were unable to get the lighting exactly how we wanted it in our final piece, however we got the angles and framing correct. When we put the stills into the animatic, we were able to see how to time each shot effectively and so that it would last up until the required amount of time.

From the practice shoot to our final shoot we have changed some key aspects. For example, we were originally going to have Violet sleeping and then waking up to a knocking sound but after looking at it practically we decided it would be better to have her reading and hearing the knock. This saved some time. We also saved time by cutting down the kitchen scene as it was too long and would lose the reader's interest. In the end, we changed the phone call in the closet to Violet reaching Dale's voice mail as it would make more sense since he is at night shift.

Our biggest problem that we faced in the practice shoot was lighting. Many of our shots were grainy and it was hard to see. We wanted there to be a blue-ish hue to our shots which we couldn't achieve in our practice shoot. We sorted this out by using a lighting kit for our main shoot. Our footage from the real shoot is of a lot more quality.

Improved Shot List

This is the final shot list that we decided on as a group.

1.       MS Drawing cut to

2.       CU Drawing fade to black

3.       Establishing room shot without showing drawing backdrop

4.       MCU Fade from black – Violet wakes up panting

5.       LS from end of bed revealing her drawings behind her

6.       CU Alarm clock – 3:07am and Violet getting out of bed

7.       CU Violet getting into shot of window

8.       XLS Empty driveway from across the street

9.       CU Girl reacting confused and moving back out of shot

10.       MLS Voyeuristic from outside of staircase window – Violet walking downstairs

11.   LS from staircase to kitchen of Violet walking into kitchen

12.   MLS Voyeuristic from outside of kitchen window (LS too)

13.   MS side-shot track upwards - putting water filter jug back in the fridge when knocks are heard again.

14.   CU of picking up knife

15.   MS OTS Violet slowly going towards door

16.   CU of Violet’s expression

17.   MS Violet going to look through spyhole

18.   Fish-eye lens empty drive way

19.   Fish-eye lens Violet’s eye frantically looking around

20.   MS Violet looking through spyhole when 3 really loud knocks occur. Violet jumps back extremely scared and drops knife, then turns to her right and runs towards staircase

21.   MLS Voyeuristic shot (setup from 9) Violet hurryingly running up stairs

22.   MS to LS Going in bedroom, picking up phone and closing herself in the closet

23.   CU Black screen with her heavy breathing.  She presses on her phone making it light up her face. She calls her dad and pus the phone to her ear. He answers ‘do you know…’ and she replies… She suddenly stops and looks ahead with terror in her eyes. She turns the phone around so…

24.   CU … it illuminates the closet door. You hear faint scratching and 3 faint knocks.

25. Violet’s terrified expression

Rough Shot List

This is what we have as a starting shot list.

1.       MS Drawing cut to

2.       CU Drawing fade to black

3.       MCU Fade from black – Violet wakes up panting

4.   LS from end of bed revealing her drawings behind her

5.       CU Alarm clock – 3:07am

6.       CU Violet getting into shot of window

7.       XLS Empty driveway from across the street

8.       CU Girl reacting confused

9.       MLS Voyeuristic from outside of staircase window

10.   LS from staircase to kitchen

11.   MLS Voyeuristic from outside of kitchen window

12.   MS side-shot putting water filter jug back in the fridge when knocks are heard again.

13.   CU of picking up knife

14.   MS Violet slowly going towards door

15.   CU of Violet’s expression

16.   MS Violet going to look through spyhole

17.   Fish-eye lens empty drive way

18.   Fish-eye lens Violet’s eye frantically looking around

19.   MS Violet looking through spyhole when 3 really loud knocks occur. Violet jumps back extremely scared and drops knife, then turns to her right and runs towards staircase

20.   MLS Voyeuristic shot (setup from 9)  Violet hurryingly running up stairs

21.   MS to LS Going in bedroom, picking up phone and closing herself in the closet

22.   CU Black screen with her heavy breathing.  She presses on her phone making it light up her face. She calls her dad and pus the phone to her ear. He answers ‘do you know…’ and she replies… She suddenly stops and looks ahead with terror in her eyes. She turns the phone around so…

23.   CU … it illuminates the closet door. You hear faint scratching and 3 faint knocks.

Feedback on Presentation

After giving the presentation, our teacher gave us our feedback. We had a light system: green light meant we were good to go, amber light meant it is almost ready but a few changes need to be made and red light meant there were a lot of problems that needed fixing. Our group received a green light with certain conditions which was pleasing. From our feedback session this is what we gathered:

What we did well	What we need to improve on
·         Excellent research on target and secondary audience. ·         Excellent research on institutions. ·         Solid research on representation of social groups and characters. ·         Good analysis on how we want to attract TA through opening sequence. ·         Good use of film making techniques and technologies.	·         Improve intro conversation between doctor and dad so not too much is revealed and there is a loss of enigma. ·         Develop how we want to represent the setting. ·         Include more characters on film as a whole. (false villains etc) ·         Think about music more and how we intend to use it.

Updated Script

From our feedback, we were told that the conversation between the doctor and dad at the beginning reveals too much of the narrative. To fix this, we would need to change the conversation to being simply between Violet and Dale. This would allow the audience to be introduced to characters and narrative without revealing important information.

*As the distribution credits are shown, a conversation between two people can be heard. No background music just their voices. This conversation is between Violet and Dale.*

Violet: Dad where are you it's getting late.

Dad: I got a later shift at work so I'll be home early in the morning, don't wait up.

Violet: Ughhhhhhh you always do this!

Dad: I promise you I'll make up for it, Violet, but I really have to go now I'll see you in the morning.

Violet: Dad pleas- *phone hangs up*

*Opening starts with a girl waking up from her bed, panting heavily. Her bedroom wall is covered in distressing drawings of creatures of sorts. There are 3 knocks on the door causing her to jerk her head. As she looks towards the alarm clock she sees that it is very late, 2am. Warily she gets up and peeks through the window to see the driveway and no one is there. As she is up, she decides to go downstairs and get a glass of water. Whilst doing this, she hears the 3 knocks again. They're louder this time. In fright, she grabs a knife from the kitchen and prepares herself to peer through the peep hole. The 3 knocks sound again, louder and more violent. Just a split second after the 3rd knock, she looks through expecting something/someone terrifying to be there but is greeted by an empty driveway and a seemingly calm night. Feeling more frightened than ever, she runs upstairs and hides in her closet from where she phones her dad. He picks up after a few rings.*

Dad: (voice through the phone) Violet do you know wha ti-
Girl: (breathing heavily and speaking in a rushed manner but in a whisper) Dad, I need you to come home right now. I think someone's trying to get in. I don't know. Please just come, I-

*Suddenly her head turns towards the closet door and she hears faint scratching. Her dad can be heard yelling through the phone, asking her questions. Then faintly but clearly the 3 knocks sound on the closet door. The title "hurting" appears.*

Hurting Presentation Slideshow

This was our film pitch that went with our handouts to the class and our teachers. Here we explained why we chose to do a horror film and how we plan to go about it. It also includes examples of other films we used as inspirations.

Hurting from latymermedia

Handout

One of our tasks was to create a handout to give to our class and teachers to explain our film in more depth and how we came to make certain decisions about the film. This is accompanied by a presentation that will go into the summarised points on the sheet in depth. This is the first side of the handout.

This is the second side of the handout:

Sound

SOUND

We want the music in our opening to be eerie and to leave people "on the edge of their seats". These are some of the films that used music excellently to create a scary atmosphere.

Psycho- high pitched string instruments like in the shower scene. Maybe not exactly as intense as the violin is at the beginning but we could possibly go for the lower pitch type of violin sound that is at the end of the clip.

Friday the 13th- a killer after an innocent victim. Whenever the killer approaches very unnerving music is playing. Click here to hear a sample. This could be used as the other wordly creature/ghost/killer gets into the house or when the protagonist is running. 

Halloween- Also has the plot of a mad killer. However in this the music when he approaches is an unsettling 3 note piano melody plays in the background (composed by Alan Howarth). Click here to listen to it. We could maintain an eerie melody/lullaby like music piece through out some of the opening scene.

We're also planning to make a lot of use of simply silence. The lack of sound will make the audience really zone into each specific detail on screen furthermore it will be a lot creepier and leave them tense. The beginning of this track named "An Eerie Silence" would work well with our clip as it gives this build up of expectation. Click here to listen to it.

Here is a list of other types of sound/music that would fit in well with our opening:

Mysterious Slowness - click here to listen to it. We can use this for when the conversation between the dad and the doctor is happening at the beginning.


We can use the sound at 00:08 to 00:14 for when Violet looks into the peep-hole to discover nothing on the other side.

As our clip is based around the 'knock' sound to create the illusion of an entity trying to get the girl without showing the entity itself, our clip must focus on that sound without losing it with using many non-diegetic sounds. For this reason, we will try and use very small amounts of non-diegetic sounds as possible.

The sound at 00:25 can be used when the title is shown at the end.

We had to ensure the music was royalty free music, so there was no copyright on the music. That way there would be no piracy involved. The links to music clips we have provided are all from copyright free sites such as Jamendo. Some YouTubers also uploaded their own sounds are made it clear in their video that they do not mind other people using their sounds.

Prompt Questions

We used these questions to explore our opening sequence choices in detail.

1) The action: identify the event your idea is based around; what actually happens?

• A girl, who is defined as mentally disturbed, wakes up in the middle of the night to some knocking. She looks  through the window to see that no one is there. As she is awake, she decides to go to get a glass of water. As she does the knocking sounds again so she panics, grabs a weapon and looks through the peep hole to see nothing. Then she runs to her room and hides in her closet. She phones her dad for help but half way through the call she stops to hear scratching on the closet door which proceeds to three faint knocks on the closet door.

2) The theme(s): what should it make the audience think about or feel? What 'issues' will it raise?

• One of the issues being raised is mental illness/psychotic behaviour. It should make the audience feel uneasy through out the clip. 
• The fact that the audience can see, through certain iconography that the girl is mentally disturbed, should make them question what's real and what isn't. Is a 'monster' actually there trying to get her?

3) The narrative and structure: what happens? Will there be dialogue? What about diegetic/non-diegetic sound?

• There will be dialogue in the beginning when two voices are discussing the main character's mental health. You only here the voices whilst the screen is black. Our opening is very sound based so there will be a mix of diegetic and non-diegetic sound. We will use non-diegetic sound to set the mood of the opening and create certain levels of tension. Sudden uneasy sounds will create a sense of fear etc. The 'entity' that is intruding the house will be shown through the sound of knocking. 

4) The character(s): who are they, identify their roles, what are their characteristics, including gender, appearance etc?

• There is only one character shown in the opening which is the girl who is the main character throughout the film. She is the protagonist, who was initially a victim. She is an older teen with an asian heritage. She draws disturbing images that she places around her room.

5) The setting and choice of location: where is it set?

• It is set in the main character's house and that is where all the action takes place.

6) The mise-en-scene: identify colours, lighting, dress codes, the overall visual look.

• The grading of our film is going to involve many blues, blacks and whites. This is to give an eerie feel to the movie. The lighting is going to be quite low key. 
• The protagonist will be wearing very plain clothes, with dark colours to not distract the viewer from her expressions.

7) The camera work: the style you are aiming for.

• We hope to create a sense of uneasiness and tension with many close-ups and similar shots to create a sense of claustrophobia. This will be helped by the fact that some shots are shot inside a closet.
• There will be some voyeuristic shots to portray that she isn't alone, and make her look like a victim. 

8) The editing: How will you tell the story? Will it be constructed in real-time, as one continuous sequence? What kind of visual style are you planning? How will the graphics/credits fit into the sequence, and what will they look like?

• A lot of the credits will appear at the beginning when the drawings are being shown.

9) What are the influences behind your area?

• Films that have influenced our idea is: The Woman In Black, The Others, 28 Weeks Later, Scream.
• Characters that have influenced our protagonist: Sydney (Scream), Wendy (The Shining)

10) Has your idea been 'tested' against the 8 questions on page that outlines The Brief?

• Is it practical? - Yes, one location, one actor, simple narrative.
• Is it an idea that works to the strengths of the group? - Yes, familiar with horror genre.
• Will it show off the skills you have learnt so far on the course? - Yes, closed location allows for many set-ups to be used. Continuity can be seen as everything is real-time..
• Is it something you can reasonably shoot and edit in the time available? - Yes
• Can you get access/ permission to shoot in the chosen location at the chosen times? - Yes, inside a home that we can access whenever we need, even outside chosen times.
• Can you organize lighting to use in that location? - Yes, inside a home allows for easy movement and placement of lighting equipment without worry.
• Have you included dialogue? - Yes, effective use that will introduce the audience to the narrative and protagonist, and also at the end create tension and fear.
• Do you have guaranteed reliable actors? Yes - all actors needed are inside our group.

Film Treatment

 1. Who is your chosen target audience (both core and secondary markets)?

Target Audience: 16-24 M/F
Secondary Audience: Supernatural Horror fans            --->   The fact that we chose a supernatural/
                                   Suspense fans                                       psychological theme rather than gore
                                   Horror fans in general                          horror attracts many female/teen 
                                                                                                audiences that would otherwise be turned
                                                                                                off by gore elements.

2. Who is the media institution responsible for the distribution of your production?

Lionsgate - Distributes many horror films successfully (Texas Chainsaw, Saw films, Silent Hill etc)
                - Familiar with audience expectations for horror genre. 
                - Able to distribute globally. 

3. Describe your chosen genre and film idea.

• Genre: Horror
• Sub-genre: Supernatural/ Psychological

• Log line: After losing her sense of reality, a mentally disturbed British girl is forced to deal with her fears, which in turn become more real and more frightening than she could ever imagine.

4. How do you plan to represent social groups in your sequence (eg gender, ethnicity, ability, class and status etc)? You may want to focus on one or two of these as your key representations.

• We're planning to tackle gender stereotypes, mainly on the female gender. Already by portraying the main character as psychologically disturbed we are showing that she isn't the typical "innocent" victim. Although she's seen as vulnerable in our sequence, as to keep to some conventions so the audience can instantly familiarize with the character and genre, in terms of mise-en-scene, making her room reflect her personality with disturbing pictures would help make the audience think what we want them to think.
• Also we are challenging stereotypes by using an actress who is from a different ethnic background to what is usually portrayed in horror movies. The audience don't usually see an Asian main female protagonist so it will be something fresh and new for them.

5. Explain the intended style and form of your opening sequence, including the conventions you intend to use, develop or challenge. This could include genre conventions, as well as the typical features expected in a film opening sequence.

• Young girl is initially a victim (uses horror convention of a powerless girl being a victim) but then evolves into trying to fight mentally what it is that is trying to get her. This challenges the convention and develops the initial idea of a female victim into something new and interesting for an audience that has become accustomed to the convention. This way, we are also not changing it so much that it will become confusing and unappealing.
• We want to keep the atmosphere of the opening quite tense and enigmatic as many horror openings do to grab a hold of the audience's attention as soon as it begins. This is something successful openings should do.
• Using a house as a location is very conventional in horrors that are associated with hauntings. This will also assist us in being able to create an eerie and voyeuristic atmosphere as there will be a variety of places to film e.g from outside of the house looking inside. The grading of our opening is going to involve lots of dark blues and whites. 

6.  How will your film opening sequence attract/address your target audience?

• Our opening sequence is going to shock the audience and create suspense. There will be a sense of danger as the girl is home alone and strange things are happening in her house. To build on this effect we will make use of conventional horror sounds and a shaky, chaotic filming style. Our main character/victim will appeal to our target audience a lot, because she is quite vulnerable but brave. In order to attract our secondary audience of horror fans, we will incorporate a lot of genre conventions and use elements of other horror films such as The Others and Paranormal Activity which they can relate to. 

7. What kinds of film making techniques and technologies do you wish to use in the construction of your opening sequence?

• We will try and have continuity throughout the clip. For example when the girl is walking or running the shots of her should fit together smoothly and in time. 
• We're going to use a fish eye lens effect in one of our shots to make it seem realistic when the girl looks through the spy hole on the door.
• Our filming style is going to be voyeuristic to build suspense and suggest that some                                                                        one or something is in the house with her. 

8. How do your plans draw on work completed last term - both theory and practice.

• First of all we are going to try to apply the principles of continuity editing which is a new concept that we discovered and studied last term. In order to achieve a continuous sequence we will create a story board and script, then group shots that are in the same location, which will also save some time and make our shooting more efficient. 
• Last term we did a lot of work on genre conventions. We want the opening to have many conventions of the horror genre, as well as building on them and creating something new which will still be familiar to the audience.
• In the Post-Production stage we will be using Adobe Premiere Pro to edit the sequence since we already have some experience with it. This will also help us with grading to achieve the low-key horror look.
• Our knowledge of institutions was also important when deciding on our target audience and distributor. As we have learnt we targeted a primary audience (Males/Females aged 16-24) and a secondary (Horror fans).

Conventions of Horror Films

For our audience to be able to instantly connect with our horror film, we looked at different conventions of horror films that have been successful in the past.

Our opening scene is going to be set in a house. This is very common for many horror films as using a setting that the audience are familiar to will make them feel very uneasy. Films such as Paranormal Activity (2007), The Others (2001) and The Woman in Black (2012) all use a house as their main location. When a film is set in a house, one of the first impulses is for the audience to expect some form of exploration or hiding within the house.

(Paranormal Activity)

In a part of our opening sequence the girl is going to run up the stairs to escape the entity that she believes is in the house. This is often done in horror films and is effective as the stairs act as obstacle making the character's escape a lot more difficult. 

The film The Woman in Black (2012) has many conventions and signifiers that we are drawing inspiration from. It is focal on a presence that is haunting the house. One of the key symbols in the film is the sound of the rocking chair, hitting the ground repeatedly and creaking- it shows that the entity is present. But at first you don't see a visual of the chair. We have used this technique as in our opening scene, the knocking is symbolic. Again, the audience hear the audio of the knocks but they are unable to see who is responsible for it which make it a lot more enigmatic. Furthermore (as demonstrated by the clip below) the sound of the rocking chair starts off as faint then becomes louder and louder increasing the tension and fright in the audience. We're going to make the 3 knocks on the door get louder each time to have the similar build up of tension.

Script

This is our original script for our opening which may or may not be changed.

*As the distribution credits are shown, a conversation between two people can be heard. No background music just their voices. One is a man sounding worried and upset and the other is a doctor trying to assure him.*

Man/Dad: Doctor...I need to know what's wrong with her.

Doctor: Ma'am I'm really sorry but we have no idea-

Man/Dad: (sounding more frantic) I want to help her! I need to help her! She needs help! She's...she's. Her drawings. She has these drawings. Her-

Doctor: (trying to comfort the man) Don't worry about it sir, just rest.

*Opening starts with a girl waking up from her bed, panting heavily. Her bedroom wall is covered in distressing drawings of creatures of sorts. There are 3 knocks on the door causing her to jerk her head. As she looks towards the alarm clock she sees that it is very late, 2am. Warily she gets up and peeks through the window to see the driveway and no one is there. As she is up, she decides to go downstairs and get a glass of water. Whilst doing this, she hears the 3 knocks again. They're louder this time. In fright, she grabs a knife from the kitchen and prepares herself to peer through the peep hole. The 3 knocks sound again, louder and more violent. Just a split second after the 3rd knock, she looks through expecting something/someone terrifying to be there but is greeted by an empty driveway and a seemingly calm night. Feeling more frightened than ever, she runs upstairs and hides in her closet from where she phones her dad. He picks up after a few rings.*

Dad: (voice through the phone) What's the matter? Why are you calling at this ti-

Girl: (breathing heavily and speaking in a rushed manner but in a whisper) Dad, I need you to come home right now. I think someone's trying to get in. I don't know. Please just come, I-

*Suddenly her head turns towards the closet door and she hears faint scratching. Her dad can be heard yelling through the phone, asking her questions. Then faintly but clearly the 3 knocks sound on the closet door. The title "After Dark" appears.*

The Others Opening Scene Analysis

I decided to look into the opening of "The Others" as our group drew a lot of inspiration from it.

The opening scene for the movie "The Others" starts by naming the production company which is "Dimension Films". The movie studios have produced many other horror films such as "Halloween", "Darkness" and the "Scream" movies. However the font and colour of how the name has been shown has changed over the years. The picture below is how the company was introduced in the movie "Scream 4":

For the first part of the opening it is black with a female voice over, presumably from the main character. This creates an enigmatic feel to the film. We were thinking of doing this but the voices you would hear were possibly a concerned father conferring with someone about how he was worried about his daughter's state of mind. By doing this, it creates suspense but also let's the audience have a feeling of what could happen through out the film. Then an image flickers in, as if it is being lit by candle light, we might like to mirror the flickering effect too. It gives the audience the feel of being in shadows, half knowing and half not knowing. It creates a sense of anticipation.

Before the title of the film is revealed, the main star is given the credit. This is suggestive of the fact that having a well known actress will make more people be inclined to watch it. However we do not have that advantage as we are using unknown actors/actresses in our opening sequence.

Then the title of the film is revealed. The font is quite plain and is white to contrast with the dark brown/black background that it is being shown on. The simplicity of the font is almost mystifying as it does not reveal anything about the movie. It is also pleasant to the eyes and clear to read. Furthermore it gives the audience a chance to focus on the background of where the text has been placed- on a drawing.

Then for the rest of the opening we are shown different drawings as the voice over keeps talking. This draws in the readers' attention to detail. Our idea was for our main character to have many different drawings of possible entities/monsters/etc. and have them showing as the opening credits come up. The camera would pan to the different drawings hung up on the wall, similarly to what is happening in the opening of "The Others". However the drawings would be a lot more sketchy and unnatural, to show her psychologically disturbed state of mind, but possibly of the same sepia tone sort of colour to them. These are the examples of some of the drawings in the opening scene (they could possibly be telling the story through that type of visual aid, leaving the audience hints about what the narration will follow):

This is the full opening scene: