4. The Title of the Film
The title of the film we created took a lot of thought as it is a very
important aspect of the film itself. The title gives the audience first
impressions of the film so they can decide whether they want to watch it
or not. We needed a title which would fit in with the genre of our film and
create a spooky, mysterious atmosphere, so the audience would be
questioning it and wondering what it’s all about. By comparing it to ‘The
Shining’ both titles contain ‘the’, I think that by having ‘the’ before the
main word of the title, makes it more powerful and meaningful. It also fits
in with the horror film genre, a few examples are ‘The Thing’, ‘The Fly’,
‘The Ring’, ‘The Exorcist’ and ‘The Haunting’, these are all popular horror
films and therefore we thought it would make it clear of the genre.
5. The Setting
Our film is set in the countryside, which is similar to ‘The Shining’, having a
horror film set in the countryside might seem unusual as it all looks very
pretty and peaceful. However, as it is in the middle of nowhere, it makes it
more creepy, mysterious and deserted. Having it in the countryside also
makes it look more realistic and relatable, it is very important to have realistic
elements to horror films so that the audience can feel scared and get hooked to
watching it. The countryside is a very isolated location and usually horror
films will focus on the fact that there is noone else around, for example in The
Shining there is one car driving on the country roads and it uses bird eye view
shots, and extreme long shots to emphasise that they are alone. We do a
similar thing in our film, we use a lot of establishing shots to show how
isolated and abandoned it is, and focus the attention on the one girl.
6. Costumes
As there is no costume used in the opening of ‘The Shining’, it is difficult to
compare our two products. However, we decided to use everyday, normal
clothes that you would expect the average teenager to wear. Costume is an
important factor of addressing and relating to the audience, we chose our
character to wear normal looking clothes so that our target audience can relate
to the character, and feel more emotions towards her. We decided she should
wear a vest top and leggings, this is a neutral sort of outfit which many
teenage girls wear and therefore can relate to. A lot of horror films try to make
it look like normal everyday life and therefore use normal looking costumes,
however for their ‘scary’ characters they may opt for a more dark, gloomy,
frightening costume.
7. Camerawork and Editing
The camerawork used in our film and in The Shining are very similar. As
both of the films are set in an important location, both of them use a lot of
establishing shots to begin with. The Shining uses birds eye view and high
angle shots, whereas we have a lot of panning shots. Using establishing
shots sets the location and gives the audience knowledge of where abouts
the film is taking place. It also shows how isolated and in the middle of
nowhere the location is, which is the case for both our film and The Shining.
The Shining follows this one car driving along the road, whereas ours is
setting the scene before the sudden action happens. Our running section
took a lot of different camera shots and a lot of editing it all together, there
are low angle shots, close ups, midshots, over the shoulder shots, point of
view shots, long shots, tracking shots etc. When we edited we had to make
sure it all matched up, we used match on action and therefore it was
important that it was exactly right.
8. Font and Style
Font is also very important when it comes to setting the atmosphere of the film
opening. After comparing our font to the font used in The Shining, I feel that the
font we used fitted with the genre better and created a creepier effect. The font
used in The Shining is quite plain and basic which doesn’t create much of an
atmosphere and doesn’t really match up with the music. However, the font we
used makes the music even scarier and creates a really scary title sequence. We
looked through a lot of different fonts before finding the perfect one which fitted
in with our opening. We also created our own effect for it, so that it flickers which
makes it even creepier, however The Shining uses a scrolling effect which is fairly
boring and doesn’t really exaggerate the genre of the film or make it clear to the
audience.
9. Story/Narrative
The storyline of The Shining is very similar to the storyline of our film. They
both are about a supernatural presence, they also both involve killings. Many
horror films have similar storylines but are approached in different ways, to
create a terrifying atmosphere for the audience to keep them drawn in. Here
are the storylines for both our film (The Presence) and the popular 1980 horror
‘The Shining’.
The Presence The Shining
Lucy is being haunted by a ghostly presence, however ‘A man, his son and wife become the
nobody else believes her about it, they think she’s making winter caretakers of an isolated hotel where
it up and it’s just in her head. Her friends and family Danny, the son, sees disturbing visions of
then start to mysteriously die, she knows it is something the hotel's past using a telepathic gift
to do with the ghost. She then finds an old woman who known as "The Shining". The father, Jack
has experienced the same thing, who tells her to have an Torrance, is underway in a writing project
exorcism. The exorcism goes wrong and the ghost goes when he slowly slips into insanity as a
inside Lucy’s body and she becomes possessed. She goes result of cabin fever and former guests of
mental, attacks her boyfriend, trashes the house and kills the hotel's ghosts. After being convinced
the old woman who tried to help her. She then gets by a waiter's ghost to "correct" the family,
another exorcism and everything seems alright, until she Jack goes completely insane. The only thing
starts to lash out again. Lucy’s boyfriend decides to kill that can save Danny and his mother is
Lucy, as she is possessed and it’s the only thing he can "The Shining".’
do, when Lucy is killed the ghost dies too. Or does is?.. (http://www.imdb.co.uk/title/tt0081505/)
10. Genre
In the opening sequence of The Shining, the genre is not obvious. It is showing
establishing shots of a beautiful looking place in the countryside, the sun is
shining and it looks like it is people going on holiday. However, the score used
makes it slightly disorientating and unnatural, as you wouldn’t expect deep,
dramatic, tense music to be playing whilst showing this beautiful scenery. The
start of our opening is very similar to this, however because of our creepy font
and dramatic music, it makes it clear to the audience the genre of our film.
Also, the fast editing used in our opening, makes it more tense and
disorientating which adds to the creepiness, showing the viewers that it is a
horror film. In The Shining, the only part which makes the genre noticeable is
the score, other than that the audience are unaware, this may be a good thing as
it adds mystery and questioning to the audience.
11. Characters
The characters portrayed in our film and The Shining are also similar. The
protagonist in our film is called Lucy, we used a young girl for the main
character because it shows vulnerability and makes it even more frightening
because girls are seen as being weaker and more fragile. However, The
Shining has a middle aged man as the protagonist, this is quite unusual for a
horror film, and subverts the stereotype that men are strong, tough people,
and portrays him to be weak and vulnerable. However, he then kills his
family, which makes him the bad one in the film, which is also strange to
have the protagonist being the villain. There is also a young boy, this is to
make the audience feel sorry for him and feel emotions towards him, as
young boys are portrayed to be innocent and vulnerable. In our film, we also
have a teenage boy playing Lucy’s boyfriend, this is to show a sense of
reality and let the audience connect to the characters. We also have an old
woman, who Lucy eventually kills, using an old woman also portrays
vulnerability as old women are stereotyped to be weak.
