This shot is one of the first shots

of the opening and is a close up

in a party scene. We originally
didnt have this scene in the film
but decided the narrative of our
opening was a bit weak and
thought it would be a good idea
to add. We drew inspiration from
several party scenes in films we
had seen in the past like Wolf of
Wall Street and Beerfest(1),
these films arent horror films
but both include party scenes
where there is alcohol
consumption etc. so from this
we decided to include shots of
people drinking at an implied
party.

In this shot there is a conversation between the main character and someone
from the party and they are talking about her leaving the party. To film this we
got all the lines the character had to say in one recording and then during the
editing process split the clips up and arranged them in the order the
conversation needed to be in, this made filming much easier and more
convenient. We used over shoulder shots for this conversation because it
allows the viewer to see who is speaking and who is being spoken to and lets
them see any reactions etc. that may occur. This kind of shot is used for most
conversations in all genres of films and we saw it in the conjuring (2) however,
when it was used in the conjuring it was a very on-edge scene but ours is a
much more casual scene.

This was shot in a playground and is a shot of the

swing beginning to move on its own. We used this
shot because its in a playground and in horror
films children are often found scary because their
innocence is often revoked or destroyed and
replaced by something evil so using a playground
was a convenient horror convention to play on.
Also the fact that the swing moves is portentous
of that there is a presence in or around the
playground.

In this shot we used what is

commonly known as dramatic irony
which means the viewer can see or
knows of something on screen and
the main character doesnt know. We
have done this by having the
antagonist stood in the background
with the main girl walking obliviously
in the foreground. We saw this kind
of dramatic irony when looking into
The Woman in Black as there are
several shots where the woman can
be seen on the screen but not by the
main character(4). In this shot you
can also see the characters full
attire; we had her dress like that
because we wanted her to look like
she had just been to a party and was
dressed up for it.

This close up on the main

characters feet was
inspired from a shot we
saw in the opening of the
film The Ring in which
there is a close up of
someones bare feet
walking through a small
puddle of water(3). We
decided it would be a
good idea to include this
shot because it would
add some more diverse
camera work to our
piece.

For this shot we used a slight pan across the alley to

show that the antagonist is no longer following her
from behind so for a second the main character may
believe she is safe. We also used this shot to allow the
viewer to see the entire setting and to try and highlight
how sinister the alley looks and shows how secluded
and closed in it is. We thought using this alley was a
good idea because a very common convention of
horrors is to be isolated and to have no escape and as
this is a narrow alley with only two directions to run in,
that feeling of no escape would hit the viewer when
watching the opening because they can see that the
main character has nowhere else to run.

This reaction shot is particularly

significant within the opening as
it is the first time she notices
something happen she hears a
band and glances round to see
what it was, but theres nothing
there. This shot was also useful
because she shows some fear in
the expression she is using which
obviously implies that what just
happened is a bit out of the
ordinary. We also wanted to use
this shot as women being
portrayed as the weak victims is
a very big convention of horror
films and this shot implies that
she is going to be the damsel in
distress.

This shot is a Point-of-view (POV) shot of the main

character running up the alley, this shot reinforces the
idea of isolation because we can see that there is nowhere
to run but further into the alley. We also used this shot
because it allows the viewer to feel like theyre also being
chased by putting them in the same position as the main
character. POV shots are used very often in horror films,
for example in the film Halloween the start of the film
includes a long POV shot(5) however this POV shot is from
the killers perspective whereas in our film it is from the
protagonists POV.

The title of our film opening is New Years Eve. We chose this title
because as it is a simple title it sounds rather ominous especially
because New Years Eve is often a happy and fun occasion and the
fact that the viewer will know its a horror means they will know that
something bad is going to happen. We got the idea of using a
popular holiday as the title from films such as Halloween, however,
we used New Years Eve which doesnt have many connotations with
horror which meant we had to try and make the narrative as strong
as possible to portray that it was a horror. Originally we didnt use
this font but we made the last minute decision to change it because
the rest of the title screens we used were in this font and figured it
may look better if all the title screens were in the same font. We also
thought that the simplicity of this font enhanced the fear factor we
wanted to put across.

3.

2.

5.