My own film sequence

The intention for my film sequence was to scare the audience as I decided to chose the horror genre. I wanted them to be freaked out, so I chose scary shots and used creepy non-diegetic sound effects. As I only had 8 shots,  I started the scene with a medium of the victim, showing her and foreshadowing that something is going to happen to her. I used an extreme close up of her feet walking, because I wanted to show that she is walking, getting closer to the killer. I then used a long shot to show the killer, to show the distance between the characters and to show he is the only person there, showing danger. I decided to use 2 close ups using a matching on action editing. This was to show how scared the victim is, and to show how scary and dangerous the main villain is. I used a high angle close up of the victim, showing danger and she looks weak and vulnerable. I used a low angle close up of the killer to make him look dominant and in control, and that he is dangerous. I used a long tracking shot of them both running, to show the action and so the audience gets to see them from far away. It's like the audience is there watching the action, but can't do anything. I also used an over the shoulder, 2 point medium shot to show the victim punch her in the face. This is because I wanted us to feel like we are there watching him do this horrible thing. It also shows the punch quite close, so we can also see her fall and how it effects her. I ended the scene with a close up of the killer, to show how scary he is, and what he might do next and to others. I used scary sound effects in post production, to make the scene even more scary and to create tension and a spooky atmosphere. Unfortunately, in a few of the shots, you can hear voices. We didn't have enough time to edit them out. If I was to do this again, I would edit the voices out to make it better.


My target audience was people around my age of higher (15+). This is because the scene does contain violence and the killer uses creepy faces to scare the audience. Therefore, I wouldn't let younger people see the film as it might affect them badly. However, 15 years or older would enjoy this and be freaked out. This is because young people like being scared, so young people would watch this scene.


I do use some conventions/ clichés of horror. Firstly, I used a killer. I also had a young blonde as the victim of my scene, like many horrors do. I also used the killer killing people in the first scene (like Scream etc.). In addition to this, I used creepy sound effects (non-diegetic music) in post production to scare the audience even more. I also used close up of the victim and killer to show how scary the killer is.

Film sequence- Only God Forgives

The film sequence I am explaining is the fight scene between Julian and Chang in Only God Forgives. The theme of this sequence is death and loss. The mood of the sequence is dark, dangerous and there is great tension between the two characters. The sequence starts with a long tracking shot of Julian and his girlfriend walking towards a red chair. They are both walking slowly, almost in slow motion. I believe they are walking slowly because they are scared of Chang, and Julian thinks that he could lose. We then see a long shot of Chang in the centre of the stage. He isn’t getting warmed up for the fight, instead he is staring at Julian. Chang is ready to fight Julian and he is waiting for him. If you look at Julian’s girlfriend, she is clearly scared of Chang. This is because she knows how good a Thai fighter he is, and she is worried for Julian in case he loses.  We then see Chang’s friends who are the complete opposite. They are both seating back, confident that Chang will win and they are not worrying. Next, we get a long shot of Chang waiting for Julian. In this shot, we can talk about the mise-en-scene. Behind Chang is a big dragon. I believe this is there to show Thai/Chinese culture. On the other hand, because it’s behind Chang, it could be a metaphor for Chang’s fighting ability. Chang could be as quite, powerful and dangerous as a tiger is. In this shot we can also a lot of red. I think this is warning us of danger and death, one of these characters will die soon. On the other hand, others think this could be love. If Julian beats Chang, his mother will finally love him because he has avenged his brother’s death. After all, throughout the film he wants his mum to love him as much as she loved his brother. We can also boxer statue, but I will talk about this later on. As Julian is walking into the shot music suddenly plays. This is non-diegetic sound. This is being played because it gives the beat and tempo of the fight. The music is also warning us that the fight is about to begin.

 

The camera then pans around Chang. There is no emotion on him, he is unfazed by Julian and he is ready to fight. Throughout the shot, Julian doesn’t even move, he just stands there staring at Julian, trying to make him feel scared. This then cuts to a tracking medium shot of Julian walking, undoing his clifflings. Although Julian also does show any emotion, you can tell he is scared of Chang, hence why he is moving around instead of standing still. We get a eye-level medium-close up shot of Chang. There is low key lighting used, indicating danger, darkness and mystery. After we see them staring at each other, we get a birds-eye angle looking down on them both. This is done for a number of reasons. Firstly, to give us a view on both of them before they fight. Secondly, and most importantly, it’s like God is looking down on them both. He’s watching the fight. This is a clear link to the title of the film, Only God Forgives. We see the fight on a long shot. This is to show how both characters are fighting, we can see their techniques. If they used a close up shaky cam shot, this would be bad because we couldn’t see what is happening. Throughout the fight, Julian lands no punches on Chang. It cuts to Julian’s girlfriend who looks shocked, showing she didn’t know how good Chang. It then cuts to Chang’s friends who look the exact same. They knew that Chang would win, so they aren’t shocked. When Julian falls to the ground, it cuts to a long shot of Julian’s mum walking towards the camera. Once again, she is also emotionless. When it cuts back to the fight, Chang is heavily beating Julian and there is nothing Julian can do. After kicking him down several times, it shows Julian’s mum. Instead of looking concerned for her son, she doesn’t care. It almost looks like she wants it to happen to Julian, as she doesn’t love him. The camera then zooms into Chang. He then pulls a stance which Julian similarly used earlier.  It then cuts to the boxer statue which uses the same stance which Chang is using. This is used symbolically. It’s clear that Julian wants to be a good fighter like the statue, hence why he uses the same stance as him. However, he isn’t a good fighter. Whereas, Chang is and he uses the same stance correctly. When Julian gets back up, the music dies down, so you can the diegetic sounds as well as the soundtrack in the background. You can hear Julian’s heavy breathing meaning he’s hurt and can’t fight much longer. It then cuts back up to the birds-eye shot again, where we can see Julian missing all of his punches. Once again, this shows us that God is watching and he is forgiving Julian yet. As Chang beats more and more into Julian, it shows the statue again. This is again showing us the boxer Julian wants to be, but isn’t because of how good Chang is. When Julian is finally down, we see both his mum and his girlfriend walk away. This is surprising because you would have thought they want to look after him and be concerned about him, but they aren’t. Or, it could be because they are scared of Chang that they have to leave quickly. When Julian’s girlfriend walks away to the door, it’s almost like she is walking out of his life for good. She will never see her again. The sequence ends with a defeated Julian on the floor. Clearly, after taking a beating, God has finally forgave Julian. In many ways, Chang is God, beating him up and taking revenge from Julian. He could be God and now he is forgive.     

The Horror Genre

 

The horror genre is one the longest serving genres in film and every year, a couple of new Hollywood horror films come out. This is because horror films are very easy and cheap to make. Horrors are designed to make the audience feel scared, creped out and thrilled. They deliver thrills and scares which are designed to bring fear into the audience and to release a rush of adrenalin. Horror films also tell disturbing stories about villains who are different, horrific, terrifying and enjoy killing innocent people. Horrors are made to have the audience on the edge of their seat, and make them jump and be freaked out. Different films also make audiences scared for different reasons. Film’s like the Shining and Silence of the Lambs are scary because of their direction, performances, music and cinematography. They don’t have a scary monster in them, but instead have a human. This makes it scary because it seems more realistic and it could actually happen to us, whereas a monster is not going to happen. These people probably exist and are among us, which is a scary thought. The actors play the killers so well, that we believe they are actually killers and become horrified by them. They don’t have jump scares, but in fact let the actors performance and music scare you more. In fact, it is scarier than a monster jumping out, because it creates tension and suspense, and you don’t know what the killer is going to do next. However, horror films like the Saw franchise and The Hostel franchise use torture to humans as their horror. Both of them come up with lots of different ways of killing innocent people who have been captured. In these films, they want to make the audience scared but also grossed out by the torture given to the people. In many ways, they actually want the audience look way because they are so grossed out by it. These films use diegetic sounds to make you feel like you are actually there watching them torture the people. They also use low key lighting to indicate danger and death. They often use close up of the victims and zoom to show their discomfort and how much it is hurting them. These particular franchises don’t use much special effect, they make the traps and body parts themselves using the art department. This is because they want it to look more realistic and that they are actually torturing the victims. Finally, films like Scream and Cabin In The Woods are actually horror comedies. They make jokes about the horror clichés like ‘don’t say you're coming back’, ‘you need to kill the killer twice’, jump stares, young adults being the stars of the movie and so on. These movies are good because instead of using them clichés, they don’t and actually joke about them. But as well as being funny, they are both horrors as well, providing scary moments in the film.  

My favourite horror film that I have seen is Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. This movie really terrified me without using the typical horror movie clichés such as jump scares. This particular film builds suspense and creates a really scary, uneasy tension, using non-diegetic sounds and brilliant direction and cinematography. It is also a brilliant story, showing how an good father can turn insane being alone for a long time. The movie is also very unpredictable which gives you the impression that anything could happen at any time, which is scary in itself. There are many key moments in this film- the famous axe/ here’s johnny scene and the 2 young girls scene and the maze scene and so on. The axe scene is filmed very well. The non-diegetic music leading up to the axe scene is terrifying and loud and the fact it is non-diegetic means it is making it scarier for us to watch it. The director uses medium-long shots to reveal all of his body and to show the axe and his limp whilst walking. Jack Nicholson’s performance is also scary, walking with a limp and he has a big smile on his face, despite what he is going to do is horrible, he is enjoying it. The close up shot is at a eye-level angle, making him dominant and more powerful than her and shows us how insane he looks. It also reveals how scary and insane he looks. When he knocks on the door it makes us scared at what he is going to do next. When he starts saying the little pigs story, we are shocked because it’s not we expect him to say and shows he is still human and he is clearly enjoying what he is doing. He is also trying to make his wife even more scared by saying the story, telling her that he will get in just the got in the pigs house. When he starts axing the door down, the camera moves with the axe, back and forth, giving us a sense that we too are knocking the door down with him. We also become more scared for the women when it keeps cutting to her because she is crying and knows she is going to die because she can’t get out of the window. It’s also more scary that we see her when the axe is going into the door, because it shows he is getting closer to her and there's nothing she can do. The distance between them both is getting shorter and shorter. The close up when he reaches the door saying ‘here’s johnny’ is brilliant because it shows how terrifying he is and that he is going to get her now after breaking the door down. You are also shocked that he says johnny, simply because he’s name is actually Jack. However, it is a pop culture reference from that time. But, it also shows how insane he is and that he isn’t stable and has gone mad, because he doesn’t even know his own name.  It makes us more scared for her and want her go quickly and escape from him. When she stabs him and eventually escapes, we are happy and relieved for her because he was just about to kill her. Throughout the scene, the lighting is neutral, making it seem normal and realistic, meaning this could happen to anyone. They also use non-diegetic sounds to make it scarier for us the audience watching it.

My favourite film of the summer

 

My favourite film of the summer is Dawn of the planet of the apes. This is the sequel to the 2011 film, Rise of the Planet of the apes. Dawn of the planet of the apes stars Andy Serkis, Jason Clarke, Gary Oldman, Keri Russell and Toby Kebbell.

It  starts 8 years after the first movie, and after having a war, both the apes and the humans live away from each other. However, a few humans go into the forest which the apes live in, searching for a dam for power/energy. Caesar understands and allows the humans to work on the generator, as long as they surround their guns. Koba, doesn’t like this and starts having an arguement with him which resulted in Caesar badly hurting Koba. Later on, Koba shots Caesar and Caesar sees him do it. Then, Koba starts a war with the humans, destroying the city and killing unarmed humans. Eventually, Caesar and Koba meet onto of a tower, meanwhile Gary Oldman’s character Dreyfus blows a C4 bomb on the tower, trying to protect the humans. Caesar kills Koba despite this going against his principle of not killing other apes. Malcolm, Jason Clarke’s character, warns Caesar of an attack from a military warship. The film then ends.

I loved this film for so many reasons. Firstly, I love the dynamic between Koba and Caesar, the main 2 apes. They are the polar opposites of each other.  Caesar believes that the humans are good and is willing to let them use the dam. This is because Caesar knows that there is good in the humans, because he was raised by a good man in the previous film.  However, Koba believes that humans are evil and that the apes should start a war on them. This is because Koba has only ever seen the bad  in humans, when they were in a war. This is why he is wary and doesn’t like the humans. And in effect, both of them are correct, there is both good and bad in humans. These characters are similar to batman and the Joker in the Dark Knight, where they also are 2 complete opposites, believing in different things.

The second reason why I enjoyed this film is because of Andy Serkis’ performance. Although Caesar is a CGI ape, you believe and care for him. This is all because of his  brilliant motion capture performance. Caesar has so many different emotions throughout the film, and we feel every emotion. Although he is an ape, we care for him as much as we would if he was a human.In addition to this, Gary Oldman’s character Malcolm is brilliantly written and performed as well. We understand and indeed sympathise with him even know he wants the apes. Malcolm wants to kill the apes to protect the remaining humans and because he lost his family. Therefore, we connect with him and understand why he wants to kill them. He isn’t your average 2D villain, he has layers and great character depth, unlike villains in other similar movies like Avatar’s villain.   

Another reason why I like the movie is how it’s written and directed. It’s directed brilliantly, giving us excellent visuals of a destroyed, battered earth in the future. In addition to this, there are brilliant action scenes, which are tense and well done with both CGI and practical stunts making it look epic but also realistic and it could happen in real life. I particularly like the final battle between Koba and Caesar on the tower. It’s darkly lit implying that a death is going to happen, and we all don’t want it to be Caesar. It’s made even more epic knowing that the tower is going to blow up, meaning both of them could die. The film is also written very well, it makes us care for both the apes and the humans in the film. Also, the writer makes the apes realistic and makes them grounded, making us believe in them.

I also enjoy the ending of the film. If you listen closely, you can hear breathing and something moving things. I believe this could be Koba and he has in fact surived the massive fall. This would be brilliant because we could see him again in the third movie. The third movie should happen because the film has made a massive profit and is loved by critics and fans.

How did the fault in our stars become a box office success?

The fault in our stars made $48 million dollars on it’s opening weekend in America, coming 1st in the box office that weekend beating out Tom Cruise’s Edge of Tomorrow (which was in it’s first weekend as well). In addition to this, it has currently grossed $220,175,703 worldwide as I am writing this. This is brilliant as it was only made for $12 million and doesn’t have any big name, A List actors in it. So, why has the fault in our stars became a box office blockbuster?

Firstly, it is based on the popular, best selling novel written by John Green of the same name. The novel is very good and as a result it has a large fan base, mostly made up of

young women. Therefore, when they hear that one of their favourite novels is getting adapted into a film, they will go and see it in it’s opening weekend, no matter what because they are a fan of the novel. So, this is clearly a big reason why it became a box office success, because it  already has a big fan base/audience who are going to see the film because they are fans of the novels.

In addition to this, the author of the novel John Green has a huge fan base himself, with 2.82 million followers on Twitter and his Youtube channel (which he shares with his brother) has 2.2 million subscribers on it. Therefore, when John promotes the film on his twitter and Youtube, all of them people will know and become interested in the film and maybe even go and see it. They can also tell their friends, meaning more people will know about the film and so more people will potentially go and see the movie due John’s large social media audience and the big word of mouth from this.

Thirdly, 5 Instagram users helped to promote the film. 20th Century Fox, the studio who financed the film, selected 5 users to attend an early screening of the film based on the likelihood of them liking the film. The 5 Instagram users clearly enjoyed the movie, and used one movie-related hashtag which was used in 1.6 million posts, while another accounted for 20,000 posts. In all, this campaign saw 350,000 engagements on Instagram and reached 16 million people. Therefore, more new people heard positive things from the film and therefore more people are likely to see and want to see the film after hearing good things about it and everyone talking about it on a big social networking platform.   

Fourthly, the film has a women in the leading role. This is important because at the time of it’s release, the World Cup was on. This meant that football dominated the TV channels, meaning that there wasn’t  much for women to watch on TV at home. However, they can watch this film instead. This is because this film centres around a young women with cancer, meaning that women could go and watch the film and feel sorry for her and watch her story. They will be able to connect with her and her ideas and decisions she makes throughout the film due to being the same gender. In addition to this, women could also watch the film simply because there isn’t much for them to watch on TV with the World Cup being on.

Another reason why the fault in our stars was a box office success is because of Shailene Woodley. Although the actress isn’t an A List actor she has got a large fan base due to her being the lead character in Divergent. This has got her a fan base because Divergent is also based of a young teen novel like the fault in our stars, with most of it’s fans being teen girls. Therefore, because Woodley is in the film, they will want to see it because they like the actress due to her in Divergent. Divergent also performed simply to the fault in our stars, opened 1st in it’s opening weekend with $54,607,747 with it grossing $274,945,239 worldwide in total. Therefore, you can clearly see that Woodley has got a fan base because the fault in our stars grossed similar numbers with Divergent where she was also the lead.