Mood Board of mise en scene

Psychological Horror Moodboard

Pitch for film opening ideas

I am working with on other person in my group, and we have decided to make our two-minute film opening for the end of this year based on the sub-genre of psychological horror. The concept of this film opening is that we will have three people dressed up as creepy dolls, and they will be revealed in certain lighting, with flashlights and torches for the first quarter of the opening, until they are shown in full lighting at the end then the titles will be showed, with loud, creepy non-diagetic music to scare the audience. They will then be seen walking, and following a victim, and these will also be shown in certain light until they are fully shown, and then the chase scene will be well made to scare the audience. They will also then pull up into an isolated area. As they speed up, the cameras will follow them, to then see that they are chasing after a victim. The lighting will mainly be quite dark and with maybe a few flashlights, to scare the audience.

The target audience that this film would attract would be fans of psychological horror, which is generally quite young people, ranging from their mid teens to their mid twenties. The primary target audience will be anyone wanting to watch this and either get audience pleasures because they enjoy watching films of that genre, or they are watching this film with the intention of getting scared. There will be a dual narrative of this, because at some points in the opening you will be shown what the victim does normally in his everyday life, then the other narrative you will be shown is the people chasing the victim into an isolated area, and then the opening finishes and leaves the audience on a cliffhanger. By doing this, you keep the audience interested and keep them wondering what will actually happen to the person who is being chased, because they are shown being chased and being tracked down in certain lighting, but what actually happens to them is not shown so it keeps the viewers on the edge of their seat.

The aim of this film opening, when finished, will be to keep the audience on the edge of their seat and make them suspicious as to what will happen to the victim. The mise en scene used will all contribute to the overall aim of the opening, and the sound, both diagetic, and non-diagetic will be full of suspense and will also contribute to the aims. The non-diagetic sound will be things like a soundtrack, maybe a voiceover of heavy breathing and other things like that. The diagetic sound will be things such as loud footsteps when the feet are being shown, the sound of the victim out of breath when trying to run away, and maybe the voices of the people dressed up. The camera angles will be very varied. There will be some extra long shots, when showing what is happening fully. There will also be some low angle and high angle shots, and some close-ups and over-the-shoulder shots.

The mise en scene used in this opening will be the people dressed up in their certain outfits and their makeup. The lighting and props used will be for a specific purpose, and that purpose is to scare the audience. The iconography is the people, because they are very iconic and stay in the viewer's minds long after the scene is over, which is why this is in the genre of psychological horror. The lighting will be made up of flashlights at the start, and then will turn to full on lighting, which could probably be borrowed from school. If not, we could probably get some cheap from the internet or borrow some lighting off a friend. The title scene, which will be after thirty seconds into the opening, will have very loud non-diagetic music being played and the title will be like one in a typical psychological horror- big and loud, trying to scare the audience. The primary audience would be the same as the target audience- people who are fans of this certain type of sub-genre or like to be scared by a film opening.

The logistics of being able to make this is quite good, we will use serious actors and people who took drama for A-levels, then that means they are less likely to be distracted by each other because they are used to being in an environment like that, because they have been used to film before. The location used would probably be some quite dark woods, it would be around the time of sunset so it would be quite dark, and as it gets darker we will continue filming so we can get the bits of lighting with the flashlights and things like that. Shooting days will probably be at the weekend, because we wouldn't be able to do it in school or out of school because it gets dark so early, and we wouldn't be able to do it in the evenings because for some points of shooting we still need some daylight. This will be okay because me and hannah will be able to do saturdays, to film maybe over a few weeks. The actors used will be our friends that took drama and are good at acting, and the scripting will be written by me and hannah both in our media lessons and outside of school because we can do that after school in the media room.

Between us both, we should be able to manage both filming and editing both in media lessons and outside of school, maybe in our free lessons or after school on some days. We will arrange time management between us so we will do a few hours each a week until we get to the time where the video needs to uploaded onto it. We will attempt to share the workload as equally as we can, for example one week we may do two hours worth of editing each, so four more hours have been added onto the work and we only have to do a couple of hours each. We will take it in turns filming. It has been predicted that it will take around two days to film, so one of us will direct one of the days and the other person will film, then the next day one of us will film and the other one direct. We will probably have to use a weekend free to film, so we will both need to book time off work.

Storyboard for first bit of 'Finding Nemo'.

0-10 seconds:

camera pans across to the coral that it then focuses on, and starts to zoom in on. Sound is diagetic, and is the main characters talking.

10-20 seconds:

pans to an extra long shot, where the main character swims closer to the camera. Also, non-diagetic soundtrack and diagetic sound of the characters talking. One of the main characters is shown in the background.

20-30 seconds:

changes to a long shot, focuses on the main characters in conversation. Diagetic and non-diagetic sound can be heard. Camera starts to follow the main characters which star to swim up.

30-40 seconds:

camera finishes following the characters, then shows what they can see. A lot more diagetic sound can be heard and the extra-long shot shows many characters. 

40-50 seconds:

goes back to the main characters in a long shot, showing their faces. Only non-diagetic soundtrack can be heard. Diagetic sound can then be heard of the characters conversing. 

50-60 seconds:

Camera angle changes to an extra long shot. and you can see the characters moving in the background. Changes to an over-the shoulder shot. Non-diagetic and diagetic sound can be heard and camera angles change quite a lot.

60-70 seconds:

Camera zooms down to show the main character talking. Changes to another over-the-shoulder shot so you can see what the main character is in view of. Then, the camera angles change another couple of times to show multiple things.

70-80 seconds:

Shows the view of what the children can see of their parents looking over them fondly, and diagetic and non-diagetic sound can be heard. Zooms in to a close-up of the eggs that the parents are looking over proudly and you can hear them.

80-90 seconds:

Long shot of the main characters looking over their eggs, diagetic music turns louder and non-diagetic music goes softer. Turns to a close-up of the main characters at a low angle so you can see from below them. 

90-100 seconds:

long shot continues, of main characters. Focuses on them talking, diagetic sound.

100-110 seconds:

long shot continues, changes to an extra-long shot and focuses on the characters in the background. Changes to a close-up eye level shot of the main character. Only diagetic sound.

110-120 seconds:

switches from shot to shot of the characters conversing. Then, changes to a long shot of the main characters together and conversing. Only diagetic sound.

120-130 seconds:

long shot continues, to then go to another long shot of only one of the main characters. Changes to extra-long shot of the background. zooms out of the main character to show one of the others.

130-140 seconds:

extra-long shot, in the background you can see a scary fish. The main chcracters are shown in a close-up with a look of shock on their face. Then, it changes to an over-the-shoulder view of the scary fish. 

140-150 seconds:

Only sound is diagetic and of the main characters. The scene ends and the camera angles change quite a bit.

This opening fits for the genre because it is typically happy for most of it, then something goes wrong near the end. This is normal for a disney film, as the same kind of thing happens in both bambi and the lion king. The target audience for this film would be young children, so typically nothign awful happens apart from maybe one of the main characters dying. The audience would expect to see a lot of happy scenes, because usually with animates disney films everyone is happy and it is very rare to see something bad happen throughout the whole film.

'Insidious' Genre Analysis

'Insidious' is a 2011 psychological horror. The opening of this film is typical of one for that of its genre- everything from the mise en scene to the non-diagetic soundtrack fits with the expectations of that of the genre of this film. The titles and the non-diagetic music that goes with them also fits with the codes and conventions of this sub-genre. The main target audience, like I have mentioned in some of my previous posts, would be people of a similar age to those typically displayed in this type of film- usually young, ranging from mid teens to mid twenties. The narrative of this film fits in with the expectations of the genre. Typically, the narrative would be a young person who is put into some sort of danger, and along the narrative some less important characters to the narrative die, along with a couple of characters who may be important to the narrative. In this film, someone who is very important to the narrative dies near the end, which is what is normally expected when you go to watch a film like this. The audience get their audience pleasures because they are going to watch this film for a certain reason- they want to see what they are expecting to see, so when they do see what they are expecting they get a feeling of satisfaction and that is why you tend to get the same target audience whenever you release a film similar to this in the same genre or sub-genre of this film.

The non-diagetic soundtrack plays a big role in fitting the codes and conventions of this genre. The music is eerily high-pitched violins and piano noises at the start of the film when the credits are being shown. Typically, this type of music would be played to scare the audience because they are aware something bad will happen because the music is full of suspense and tension. The diagetic sound is quite a lot less noisy, and doesn't play a big part in what the audience can hear at the start of this film. Again, this fits in with the codes and conventions of this genre, because most of the music will be a non-diagetic soundtrack or voiceover. At the start of some films like this, there could be a voice over explaining parts of the movie or something like that. Although this film doesn't contain that, a lot similar to it made by similar companies have that in the opening of films of the same genre.

'The Black Swan' Genre analysis

Black Swan


Black Swan is a 2010 American psychological thriller and horror film. The narrative of the film 

centers around a female ballet dancer Nina Sayers that wins the lead role of 'swan lake' who is perfect

for the role of the 'white swan', although she feels her role is being snatched from her when a new 

dancer Lily (Mila Kunis) joins the cast of the show, who seems to be grabbing the attention of the 

dance teacher who Nina is in love with, this causes an issue and Nina starts to believe that Lily is

after her and her role and slowly loses her mind as she gets into the character more and more, 

becoming 'the black swan', leading to her to psychologically going mental. In which case this film 

links to it's genre extremely well. The way the film creates the mental awareness of the main 

character, shows exactly why this film is a psychological horror

Nina would be seen as the protagonist throughout the film as she is shown to be just a sweet and 

innocent ballet dancer at the beginning. The character is desperate to be the best and perfecting 

herself, but throughout the film she becomes in danger of herself because she starts to get injured and 

losing focus, which shows the audience she is in peril. There are scenes such as after her 

performances in part 1 of swan lake, where she goes into her dressing room to find Lily in there who

teases her about how she performed. Then, in anger she throws her against the mirror. This shows

her weakness in the film. However, stereotypical mind games are portrayed when Nina had actually

stabbed herself and not Lily who she had imagined to be there. Which relies on the characters' fears 

and emotional instability to build tension.

'Scream' opening genre analysis

This film opening is typical to the genre of psychological horror. The narrative, which contains someone dressed up in a mask going round killing young people, is very stereo typically a psychological horror. Someone who is a fan of this sub-genre would generally expect something creepy to happen to either a single young person or a group of young people, then for many of the young people to die and a couple to survive. This would be stereotypical for the story line for a film of this sub-genre. This narrative follows the repertoire of elements that fit the sub-genre. The stock characters are of the same age as expected for this genre- mid teens to mid twenties, which is the age of the main victim of this film. The location in these kind of films is normally somewhere quite isolated, and dark, which is like where this film is set. The audience would watch this film sometimes for a sense of familiarity, so to watch this film has a very similar story line to many films similar to it, but a slightly different story line so the audience don't get bored watching the same thing all the time. The main surviving character of this film is a female, which also fits in with the repertoire of elements.  This film doesn't have a lot of gore and blood and guts like many other horrors, this is a sub-genre of horror so the film focuses more on scaring the audience rather than showing them lots of the insides of humans.

The non-diagetic soundtrack is very tense and creates a sound to make the audience scared. By creating a suspense, it makes the film have an atmosphere of eeriness and makes the audience satisfied because they came to  watch that kind of thing. The mise en scene, which contains quite obvious windows which are open and not covered, make the audience focus on them because during the narrative of the opening you follow a young babysitter trying to find someone who is watching her. You can see that the mise en scene was set up specifically like that to make the audience automatically look to places like that to look for the person who is watching the young babysitter. The audience get their pleasures from not knowing where the murderer is, because it creates a feeling of suspense for them. The editing also fits into the repertoire of elements expected for this sub-genre, because when the opening finishes the titles of the film come up in quite bold non-animated typography, which makes the audience scared because it is very tense writing. These all fit the codes ans conventions of the genre, because the film is meant to scare the audience and make them relate it to a real-life situation, so by putting it in an everyday house it seems very realistic and that is how this film opening fits the codes and conventions of the sub-genre of horror.