I had to make a film for the midterm project, and it had to be at least two minutes long. The film was the opening to a horror movie, and it had to start with someone inside a nightmare. For the sound in my film there is very minimal dialogue, it is mostly just sound effects and background music. The film was not allowed to have any long takes so all my clips are a very short length. I had to include three crosscuts in the film between the nightmare and the person sleeping having the nightmare. In the film I had to utilize multiple different types of shots. Some of those shots were the high angle, low angle, match cut, and one track shot etc... finally I had to put any background filter on the movie to make it look like a dream. 

 

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I think I got suspense in my movie very successfully by the correct music and audio. 

I think the acting was very bad in my film and next time I should get better actors.

1: The first two minutes are in the eyes of a killer who is stalking a couple who are very unsuspecting of him. The masked person kills the girl and then continues throughout the house. The opening scene ends by the masked killer being revealed to be a child. 

What is the genre and who is the target audience for this film? 

2: The genre of this film is horror. The target audience would be teenagers and middle-aged people. This is not a film for older people. 

 Describe the opening credits and title sequences, including any company logos or idents. When do they appear? What color/font are they using? How does it "align" with the opening of the film? Anything else you notice? 

3: The font of the credits is in a traditional bold thick letter. The letters are orange and sometimes red which match the theme of Halloween. The background of the credits is all black. On the left side there is a Jack-O-Lantern that gets progressively closer as the credits go on. All of these factors align with the theme of Halloween and horror. 

Describe it visually -- a shot by shot breakdown that includes type of shot/movement, if any. 

4: The entire opening scene is filmed in a pov shot. The entire time we are in the eyes of the killer, it is slow paced and nothing is rushed or fast. The only time it goes out of pov is right at the end when we see a close up of the child when he takes off his mask. 

Describe the sound -- a "sound by sound" analysis of the entire first two minutes.   

5:In the beginning of the first two minutes, you hear a couple talking to each other with occasional footsteps of the killer. Eventually the killer gets in the house, and someone leaves so it's just the girl, we hear her humming as the killer walks up to her room. Once the killer gets there she starts screaming as she gets stabbed. The rest is just heavy breathing.  

Describe how you felt at the end of the two minutes. Did you want to know more? What was left hanging, if anything? What questions do you still have? 

6: I would have liked to know why there was a kid behind the mask and what was making him kill someone. The camera pans out of the kid and the scene leaving a cliffhanger to  what was happening, so I felt curious on what it could have been. 

How did these first two minutes adhere to conventions? 

7: The first two minutes adhered to conventions by first having the couple making out together before getting killed by the killer. Also the music when the girl got killed is common in many movies. 

How did these first two minutes break with conventions? 

8: It broke conventions because of the pov shot throughout the entire opening scene. That isn't normal and is the first time I've see anything like that before. 

How did these first two minutes represent social groups or people or issues? 

9: An issue this represented was the problem of murder and breaking in. 

Why do you think this film was originally distributed in the way that it was? 

10: Back then the most popular way of distributing movies was putting it in theaters. This movie was advertised and distributed into theaters. 

Any other thoughts or comments or realizations you had about film openings after viewing this clip? 

11: The fact that it was a pov shot caught me off-guard when the killer was killing the girl. It made it more chilling to watch as he stabbed her with the knife. 
 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 
 

 

For lighting effects, we are going to use streetlights, as well as a small flashlight to create the desired lighting effects for the movie. For on set sounds, we’ll use sounds like nighttime ambiance and a stinger sound made by mixens noises from the neighborhood into an effective stinger sound. 

 

Shot list 

1.Establishing shot of neighborhood setting (Saturnina lakes) 

2.Medium-wide shot of actor rushing towards his home. 

3.Medium close-up shot of actor rushing towards his home. 

4.Dolly backwards/lack focus long take from main actor towards antagonist. 

5.Continued long take of antagonist approaching protagonist. 

6.Wide shot of protagonist entering his house. 

7.Medium-wide of protagonist catching his breath 

8.Extreme close of protagonist looking through keyhole 

9.Medium wide shot of protagonist backing away from keyhole and bumping into antagonist. 

 

2.The name of our movie is “The Melodic Maniac” this title fits our movie because of the music used in the film along with the murder who is a maniac in the film. The title and the film would be aimed at teenagers and maybe people in their 20’-30’s. The genera of the film is horror and the title of the film fits the genera. 

 

3.“Here the music....run” 

 

4.The target audience is people aged 13-25, our movie fits young people who want to go to the movies and scare themselves. The type of people that would come to watch our movie are darker people who normally dress in black and keep to themselves. They probably like Halloween and goth stuff. These people will watch the movies in their house most likely because they don’t go out much. But the movie could also appeal to people who are outgoing and just want to have a good time and scare themselves. 

 

5.I would use those social media sites because most of the people using those sites are teenagers and it will expose my movie to the correct audience. 

 

6.I would try and make the trailer as catchy as possible, also I would put specific adds on snapchat where it says “swipe up to see trailer” or something like that. Also on YouTube I would leave cliffhangers in the trailer and make it seem as scary and as sketchy as possible. 

 

7.To attract the right audience for my film I would use dark lighting throughout the film. If the film wasn’t dark it would pull the target audience away from the movie and less people would watch it. All the text will be in a “scary” font and everything in the background will be for making a uneasy setting. The colors would dark which would combine with the foreground to make a scary setting. 

During the production process of our film, I learned many things as a cinematographer. I learned how to use a Boom stick and work audio equipment, I also learned the type of environment I need to hear good audio and not have to much background noise. The overall feedback on the film was that it was good, but my group and I could have used better lighting during some scenes. In the rough cut to the second cut we changed the last scene.