Opening Scene | Evaluation Part 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

Music

The style of music we used in the opening scene is quite loud and bold music. We used this type of music to build tension in the scene and also to add to the mystery of the scene. When creating the music we wanted to use quite loud and bold instruments such as drums or the bass guitar. We used these type of instruments to add to the tension and to make the viewer feel nervous about the scene. When editing the opening scene I found that without the music it was very dull and not very intense, but when we added the music it sounded interesting and it definitely helped build tension.

Quite a lot of horror films use loud and bold instruments to build tension. If you watched a horror movie on mute it wouldn't be very exciting and you probably wouldn't be scared or nervous. But when you watch it with the sound on, you immediately feel nervous and tense when watching a scene. This is because the music is a big part in making the scene tense and triggering the viewers reactions. With this in mind we wanted to make our soundtrack as bold and tense as possible.

Other film soundtracks that are quite similar to our soundtrack are 'Psycho' and 'Here's Johnny'.

'Psycho'

The piece of music from this film is very famous and well-known. It starts off with screeching noises and it ends up dipping in and out of the soundtrack. The type of instruments that have been used are string instruments such as the violin. This soundtrack is similar to our soundtrack because the same instruments have been used, and also they have similar tunes. Our soundtrack has a bigger variety of tunes, where as this soundtrack is more straight forward and basic as it uses the same instruments and has the same sort of tune to it throughout the whole thing. I like this soundtrack because although it is quite basic and they only use one instrument it is still very tense and makes the scene that little bit more scary.

'Here's Johnny'

The piece of music from this film isn't as famous as the other one but the same type of tune is used in quite a few horror movies. The soundtrack is very screechy and high pitched but it builds a lot of tension in the scene. The instruments in this soundtrack are mainly violins but there a few sound effects in it as well. This soundtrack is similar to our soundtrack because the same instruments have been used and also they have very similar tunes. Our soundtrack is made out of a few more instruments but this soundtrack and our soundtrack are similar as they use the same type of instruments in the same way.

Characters - Costumes, Sets and Props

We didn't use a lot of props in our opening scene but we did use a phone, a bag, a fake knife, and fake blood. We used them because we needed to show someone being stabbed also we used phones to make the teenage girl stereotype effect. We filmed outside on a street and in an alleyway because we wanted to build tension and make it into a mystery type scene. The costumes we used were casual everyday wear. Also for the murderer we wanted her to wear all black to emphasise the fact that she was a murderer.

The different characters we had were: Teenage girl - quite stereotypical and the person that gets murdered. 

Murderer - stereotypical villain wearing all black

Two teenage girls - stereotypical teenagers.