AS Media Studies

Title sequence evaluation

We had thought about what we wanted to produce with our title sequence and we agreed that we all wanted to go with the Horror genre although it focuses on the more supernatural and psychological factors and it is similar to the woman in black as we done some research within that film and it is very near the same as the way we wanted our film to be as it has a very on-going paranormal element to it, at the beginning we did come up the name ‘Orphanage’ as our film is based around a haunted orphanage, although when we gave our pitch to the class we were told that the name had already been used so we had to make another one so we settled on ‘Abandoned’ as we thought it suited well, our plot was about children being in an orphanage as they were abandoned by their parents when they were young.

At the beginning of our title sequence the production company comes up ‘Hammer’ you are able to hear a running stream whilst these appear and then the first shot of our sequence is that of the stream itself. Then begins an eerie music in the background of the stream and it then cuts to our next shot of when we are showing the audience the baby pictures on the wall, this is then showing the children featured in this film. There are four images shown of children during that shot there is a quick cut to a shot of a dirty, creepy looking hand grabbing onto a tree. It then carrys onto the panning shot of the baby photos.

As our title sequence is within the horror genre, I think that our sequence managed to use the correct codes and conventions withing the genre as we had done three attempts and then we finally got the right sequence together, as our first attempt we decided that we were going to have our typography in a deep red colour to foreshadow blood although when we pitched it to the class we had been told that it wasn’t a good choice of writing or colour as the typography itself was appearing as too blurry for the audience to see. So we went off and done some more research for different typogrpahy’s and we then settled on one called ‘An Unfortunate Event’ as we felt like it still fitted in with the eerie effect of our title sequence. We also change the colour of the font so it was more able to see within our title sequence as you weren’t really able to see the red font within the backgrounds of our title sequence, we felt like white was a more natural colour and that it was much easier for the audience to read whilst viewing our title sequence.

We went to do our filming in some woods as we felt like that would fit in more with the horror genre than if we were to film it anywhere else, we decided that we were going to go out and do the shooting of our title sequence around midday as we didn’t want it to be too light or too dark, although you can see in our shots it is still rather light whilst we were filming, we did have some issues within filming parts of our sequence as there was a few jolts within the shots as it wasn’t easy shooting in the stream. We then went back to a friends house with permission from her parents to do the burning of the dolls house, this was foreshadowing the ending of our film as we said during our pitch. We also have shots of the baby photos being burnt, this is then foreshadowing the goings on within the film itself. We didn’t feature anyone in our title sequence as we felt like it wasn’t needed within our type of sequence. During the shots of the burning photos there is a muffled nursey rhymne being sung within the sequence, this is to create more of the eerie effect within our sequence, the burning of the baby photos foreshadows that our film may include children dying.

We decided that we were going to go with the ‘Hammer Films’ production as they were also used for ‘The woman in black’ and that is what we were basing our film around so we felt like this was a suitable media institution to go for as it is very well known with the horror genre of film. Due to similarities we felt as if hammer films were our best option to go with.

We said that our target audience would be ranged from young 12-25 male and female as we didn’t want it to be restricted so that anyone could go and see it. Our target audience would be more of the people whom of that like to go and see the horror type films and that like the eerie concept within the film. The film is for anyone that would like to go see it, as it isn’t just aimed at specific people. Although as part of our pre-production, we did a survey to find out what our target audience’s interests were. Our target audience were lower/middle class teenagers. The horror genre is more aimed towards the male audience so we thought that females would be our primary audience and the males would be our secondary audience.

We addressed our audience within our title sequence as we gave them the insight of the goings on within the film itself and we made them feel as if they were in the sequence themselves as of when we were filming the part whilst walking in the lake and the way that it has been shot makes you feel as if you are the one filming that part. We had also had many screenings of our title sequence once we had made a few adjustments within the sequence to see what the audience thought of our sequence and we asked for criticised feedback so we knew what was good and what could have been better within the sequence. The most common positive feedback we got was about the sound that we used within the sequece, we had been told that we had used the correct type of eerie music to give the audince the eerie effect whilst watching our sequence.

Whilst making this sequence I have learnt a lot more about editing as I didn’t know much to do with editing a whole sequence together. I learnt how to put text within a sequence as all of this stuff was new to me but whilst doing this task it has taught me how to do so. Although whilst using final cut bro at times it was rather challenging as it would freeze and sometimes wouldn’t do what we wanted it to do but we got there in the end. Although I wasn’t the one in charge of editing I did learn the basics on how to cut down a clip and amend them to places where they needed to be. I also learnt how the sound is very key within the sequence as it can affect the tone/mood of the film itself. We learnt that even if we didn’t find parts of the sound good it gave our sequence that little bit more of the eerie atmosphere within the sequence itself. In our title sequence we had used a lot of non-digetic sound, we added in some foley sound from when we had the shot of the stream as then we were able to adjust the volume and the effects the sound had within the title sequence. We also used sound from a copyright free website, we decided on a track that would then make the audience feel a little uncomfortable whilst they were watching it.

I have gained many skills since then that I had never come across before. I have now realised that the storyboards are a very important within the shooting of the title sequence as it determines the exact shots you need to produce within the time and it is your guideline to help you get the best shots you can.

Overall I think that our title sequence came out very successful and I am pleased with the outcome and the pre-production was very well done and that us making our dolls house was very good and paid off after them hours of making it and the burning of the house was very successful that was the one part we were worried about as we had built the whole house and if it didn’t burn well or not how we wanted too then we wouldn’t of had any other way to use them shots in our sequence. However, we have learnt that we should always use a tripod whilst filming no matter what kind of position you are in as it can effect really bad on your clips.