Initial Idea No.1

Horror Opening

The groups initial idea was a horror film opening, inspired by the extremely popular Netflix series American Horror Story. We particularly took inspiration from the directors use of quick, constantly changing cinematography of each small scene. The American Horror Story opening for the Murder House and Asylum series both begin with the credits accompanied with eerie mis en scene, cinematography,                                

sound and editing - combined this creates an extremely scary theme

for the audience.

 Features of mis en scene, such as clothing/make-up and background are vital within a horror film or series as it is one of the first things that an audience will be exposed to. For our opening, we plan to film in a dark, dingy set, as well as this, make up will be minimalistic and very washed out, hopefully this will create a horror film atmosphere and will make the audience feel scared and intrigued.

Cinematography during American Horror Story is sharp and well thought out. There are a range of different camera angles but the most effective for the audience were the tracking, POV and pan shots. After analysing the opening of American horror story, my group and I decided to specifically attempt the tracking, POV and pan shots, as well as our other shot plans. By using the correct camera angles the film opening will look professional and will have the correct effect on the audience.

AHS POV shot

AHS Tracking shot

AHS Mid-shot

The American Horror Story opening credits has non-diegetic music playing over the top of all imagery, it also had diegetic sound which could be considered as parallel sound. The non-diegetic sound was music, the music was very layered at some points but at other times it was just a simple knocking sound. This created tension for me and made me feel like something interesting was going to happen. Diegetic sound was also used, for example when lightning and thunder struck. This informed me that sound is a huge factor of setting the atmosphere within the first couple of minutes of an opening. For our opening I think we should incorporate diegetic and non-diegetic sound to complete the eerie atmosphere.

The editing in the opening of American Horror Story (S1-Murder house and S3-Asylum) is extremely sharp. It has no real storyline at this point in the episode. The use of quick transitions from scene-to-scene infers that the genre is an action-horror, as well as this, the scenes are very dimly lit but their is a varying white object in most of the scenes which the audience's eyes are drawn to. I am inspired by the range of transitions from each scene and I am going to incorporate this into my own work as I believe it is a very effective use of editing.