2. Is the Form of
our Opening
Conventional?
• Our opening follows conventions usually
seen in the supernatural and slasher
subgenres.
• The titles follow convention using a
unique font which is typical of most
horror films.
• The supernatural ideas behind our villain
are similar to how films such as
Nightmare on Elm Street (Craven, 1984)
portray their characters.
• We have less conventional plot ideas
however following a male protagonist and
being shot in the daytime.
• We created an enigma around our villain
by giving him undefined motives at the
start and giving him recognisable features
like the suit and top hat.
3. Character
•Jack’s character is given recognisable
clothing in the form of a top hat and suit
to differentiate him from the other
characters and establish enigma around
the character similar to slashers like
Halloween (Carpenter, 1978).
•Dan’s character is less conventional being
a young man for the main protagonist
going against the usual conventions of the
genre where female leads are prevulant
like Nightmare on Elm Street.
4. • Our plot is less conventional with a
very unique antagonist in which
the killer, TopHat, uses
supernatural powers to stalk the
victim in their own home driving
them crazy before killing them. We
convey TopHat’s actions through
premonitions had by Dan using a
concept based on the dreams in
Nightmare on Elm Street.
Plot
5. • We differentiated the characters through their clothing
and actions.
• Dan’s character wears relatively normal clothing in the
form of a jumper, a shirt and jeans makes him come
across as an average guy making him relatable.
• Jack’s character wears a suit and top hat making him
unusual as well as connoting class and control through
dominant ideologies about the upper classes.
• The house the opening is set in looks fairly large and
makes the protagonist appear middle class with
reasonable wealth. This is further emphasised by the
use of an iPhone when he is called by TopHat.
• When the note is pinned against the wall the knife used
creates a sense of danger as knives are a conventionally
used weapons in horror films.
• The slow lift of the duvet signifies the fear the
protagonist feels as he is scared to confront TopHat.
• Dan’s character is kept in centre frame for a majority of
the film showing his importance as a character, however
there is a transition at the end of the chase suggesting
TopHat is in control of the situation.
Mis-en-scene
6. • The sound mix was mainly diagetic
and the non diagetic soundtrack.
• Most of the background music was
kept quiet to create a sense of
discomfort.
• We made the sound build in
volume when we wanted to make
a scene feel more tense which is a
strong convention used n horror
films and is used well in Alien.
• We decided to keep as much of our
sound as diagetic as possible
following sound design from
Halloween.
Sound
7. • We used a varied range of shots mostly
relying on static camerawork.
• Most of the films we looked at used close
ups which we used to help make the film
feel more claustrophobic and conveys a
strong sense of fear from the protagonist.
• As our opening took place in a house we
used an establishing shot to show off the
location of the film to the audience
borrowing the concept from Amityville
Horror (Douglas, 2005).
• The shot we are most proud of is the final
tracking shot of the chase down the
street as it is smooth and shows great
technical excellence whilst also being a
unique feature of our opening.
Camerawork
8. • In the final cut we had a fairly fast
editing style typical of more
modern horrors where the faster
cuts makes the film feels more
intense.
• We used continuity editing to
make the film flow from one scene
to the next whilst using cross-fades
with to make the audience
associate what was happening
with the flashbacks in the film.
Editing style
9. • We decided to use different fonts for the
title credits and the Main title in order to
draw attention to the main title.
• All the titles are kept off centre which is a
convention used by many films. This
meant we could place them in the least
cluttered parts of the shots to make them
easier to read.
• The main title at the end is positioned in
the centre to demonstrate it’s greater
importance over the other titles in the
film and make it clearly the film’s title.
• The titles were simply animated with a
fade in and fade out as to make them less
distracting.
• Serif fonts were used in the title as serif
gives connotations of formality and class
which is in fitting with the villain of the
film who is seen as upper class.
Typography
10. • A majority of our film has
unaltered colours and is as shot, to
make it feel more natural and
realistic and is typical of low
budget horrors.
• We did however change this for
one shot where we tried to make
the shot darker around TopHat in
the bedroom scene to appear later
in the day than was filmed.
• To signify the dream scenes, each
scene transition was spliced over
with Dan talking to the psychiatrist
to make it clearer to the audience.
Colour
