Richard-textual analysis-A nightmare on Elm street

We only see parts of the threat at the beginning as we only see a pair of hands creating a weapon. This engages the audience as we want to know what the threat looks like. The victim is shown in a long and empty hallway. This shows that she cam be easily seen by us, and possibly the threat.
When we see the threat creating the weapon, it is very dark. There are also alot of objects in the room and on the table where he is making it, this creates alot of shadows. This creates a sense of mystery to the threat. When the victim is shown, it is very bright, this also suggests that the victim can be easily seen.
At the very beginning we can hear the threat banging together pieces of metal to make his weapon, and when the victim appears we hear a strong gust of wind. Both of these elements bring a sense of mystery to the opening.
The setting in which the threat is creating his weapon appears to be a small dark room filled with scrap metal and tools. This creates a sense of danger which then creates a sense of fear.The victim is in an empty hallway which shows that she is vulnerable and can be attacked at any moment.
The camera focus' our attention to the weapon that the threat is creating. This is done to create a sense of fear and anticipation as we want to know how and why he is making it and how and why he will use it.
A threat with a blade-based weapon, a group of teenagers in an empty house and a foolish blonde girl are all conventions of a slasher film, and they can all be found in the film 'A nightmare on Elm street'.
I think that the scariest part of this film is when the girl is being killed in her sleep. The chase scene within the nightmare really puts you into the nightmare with her. The dark lighting, use of fake blood and screaming adds up to create a terrifying scene altogether.

HALLOWEEN

Intentions for our film

I (Jake) last week watched the horror film Halloween and Richard watched A Nightmare on Elm Street. Both of these horror films are slasher films and in both of them there is a powerful killer who can't be stopped and they both where some sort of mask. In Halloween the killer wears a type of clown mask and in Nightmare on Elm Street the killer wears a mask that makes his face look scarred.

Both of these killers are males who look like they are middle-age men. In the opening to our film we would like our killer character to be a male teenager. In the opening to our film, we want a female actor to be cradling a baby crying, in the corner of a room. We then want to see her placing the baby somewhere in a wooded area with a clown mask and wrapped in some shorts. And then, in the future (when the baby has grown into a teenager) we would like to have the victim (the mother) being stalked through the woods by the stealthy killer who wants revenge on his mother for leaving him in the woods. For our costumes, we want our killer to be wearing a clown mask and tattered and torn shorts. Also, we want the female actor to be wearing scruffy clothes to suggest that she is poor, therefore she cannot look after the child.

At the very beggining of the opening, we want it to be set in a shack or some sort of abbandoned home, and then we want it to be mostly set in the woods. Throughout the opening sequence we want the lighting to be fairly dark.

Horror Wordle

This is a horror wordle that I (Jake) created on a horror film that I watched last week, Halloween.

this is a wordle of the description of the horror film that I watched, A nightmare on elm street.

Title sequence

These are a few ideas we could use for our title sequence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz341nWtW1Q

Slasher mindmap

This is our mind-map showing what we think are some of the typical conventions included in a slasher film. We have done this because we have decided that we would like to do a slasher film for our final project and this mind-map will help give us an idea of what to include in our film so that our audience will be able to identify what type of film they're watching.

final coursework group

Me (Richard) and Jake are still in the same group to make our final coursework video. We will be creating a slasher film of our own.

Richards evaluation

Our finished video shows that we can hold a shot steady, as we used the tripod. We can also frame a shot properly, for example there was always enough head room. We used a variety of shot types, but we could have used more in some parts if the film. The composition techniques were just copied from the original film, I think that we did this quite well.

Our film shows that we can apply the rules of continuity editing.We had trouble with this in the past, but with some practice we have improved on this alot. Although the continuity is not perfect, for example Jake skips a few steps whilst he is walking up the stairs.

Our film has appropriate costume, make up and props as it was a slasher. So we used dark clothes for the killer, the props were a knife and fake blood. We came to the decision that we should film our 40 seconds at my house as it has a similar layout to the house in the original film. We chose the actors positions based on who we thought would be best at each role.

To help plan out the making of our 40 seconds, I drew the storyboard whilst talking to Jake about ideas. I also took some photos of my house, as did Jake so that we could decide where we should film our 40 seconds. I then wrote a shotlist, and the uploaded the storyboard, photos and shotlist onto our blog. During the filming of our 40 seconds, I positioned the camera and filmed most of our film. I also acted as the murderer in the film. I provided a place to shoot the film, the costume to the boy who was acting as the dead person in the film and the props such as the knife and fake blood. I applied the fake blood to the clothes to achieve the same effect in the original film. During the editing porcess, I helped trim the film down, get rid of parts that we did not need, and I helped put the finished pieces together so that the continuity was correct. I then uploaded the finished video to our blog.

The improvements that could be made are the lighting, as some parts if the film were too dark, and the viewer cannot see what is happening. We could have also improved the script, as our actors did not say exactly the same thing that the actors in the original film did. The continuity could have been made better during the actual filming. We could have done this by filming the same shots from different angles. When it comes to filming our final coursework film, I will plan it better by writing and drawing more onto the storyboard, I will also plan costume and props better and more in advance to filming. I will also try to improve on continuity during filming and editing, and improve on using lighting. I will also try to find better actors to act in this film and a script will be newly written  instead of copied from another film. I will also try to find a better location to shoot the film.