The title of the film is 'Judgement of the People' this title is strong, short and attention grabbing. This title represents immediately that the genre of the film is horror/ thriller. It also does not give too much about the storyline away and therefore will encourage people to watch the film rather than look at the title and immediately write it off or decide that it is something they definitely don't want to see.
THE SETTING OF THE FILM
The setting of this film is mostly in and around the main characters house, the first 4 still shots are set in the characters house, stills 5-8 are set on the driveway of the main character's house, and the 9th still is set in a laboratory. The locations we used for these scenes were:
- The inside of the character's house (stills 1-4) - Mercedes' house, some scenes were shot from outside the window, and some from inside the house.
- The driveway of the character's house (stills 5-8) - My house, the driveway of my house is long which gave us a lot of space to work with and use in order to help with our editing later in the process. It also is quite secluded, which demonstrates one of the typical conventions of a horror film, next to fields and so we thought this would be a good location to shoot the opening scene of our horror film.
- The laboratory (still 9) - A classroom in the school. The white board in the background and plain white breeze block walls made this location a good place to shoot our laboratory scene, with the uncompliacated surroundings, it makes the room feel clinical which is exactly what we aimed for.
In the opening scene of this film, we needed to achieve an everyday feel and appearance to the film. Therefore, we wanted our characters to be wearing everyday clothes. Mercedes (the main character) wore jeans, a hooded jumper and ugg boots, which is a very reguler everyday outfit for a girl of the main character's age. Michael, Leo and Andre (the surviving people) wore clothes such as jeans or jogging bottoms; trainers or loafers; and hooded jumpers or coats. They all wore their hoods up in the first scene in which they are introduced because we wanted to hide their faces from the viewer to retain an air of mystery about the characters and who they were. There were not many props used in our opening scene, we used some fake blood in the second still to show Mercede's character had been attacked, we then used some red contact lenses to put in Mercede's eyes, in order to show she had changed, the red eyes are conventional of vampire/zombie based horror films and exentuate the evil/danger within the character. Andre's car was also used in still 8 in which they bundled Mercede's character into the car. This was to show she was being taken against her will. We also used a whiteboard in the background of still 9 to write things like 'disease' and 'infectious' to show that these people who had taken her were investigating a disease they had discovered.
CAMERAWORK AND EDITING
In our opening scene, we used various camera angles and shots. Still 1 is a medium shot showing Mercedes looking at her phone, we filmed this from outside her window; still 2 is also a medium shot, but her hand slides down throughout the shot, this was also filmed from outside her window; still 3 was mainly long shots, showing Mercedes lying on the floor, we then used jump cuts to make it appear as if Mercedes was moving very quickly and suddenly towards the camera; still 4 is an extreme close up of Mercedes eye; still 5 is the establishing shot, we moved the camera slwoly from left to right to show the extent of isolation in the setting, another convention of the horror genre; still 6 is the first scene in which Michael, Andre and leo's characters are seen, we used a long shot but we then put in some jump cuts to increase the dramatic effect; still 7 begins as a medium shot of Mercedes which then becomes a long shot as she runs away from Andre, we also cut in and out between the long shot, and a shot filmed from Mercedes' eye view. At the end of still 7, the camera (from Mercedes eye view) falls to the floor and blacks out, this was to show Mercedes had fallen, when the 'eyes' open again, Andre's feet begin to walk toward the camera, the camera then sees Mercedes being dragged away; still 8 is a medium shot of characters around the car and Mercedes being bundled into it, the car then drives away, becoming a long shot; still 9, the final scene is a medium shot of Andre standing over Mercedes.
TITLE FONT AND STYLE
The font we used for the title was a thin, threatening style that inplied very well that this was a horror/thriller style film. We decided that the font would be red because it is symbolic of danger, fear, blood and anger. The red also associated with the extreme close up of Mercedes' eye, and the blood on the window.
STORY AND HOW THE OPENING SETS IT UP
The story of the film we shot the opening scene for, is that there is an infectious disease that has spread throughout the UK and a group of 3 people who are still alive and uninfected, are trying to contain the virus and prevent anymore spreading. The opening of the story shows clearly that Andre is the main character and that he is the leader of the group of people trying to fight the disease.
HOW THE CHARACTERS ARE INTRODUCED
Mercedes character is introduced by a view fo her through the window, you see her bitten by an infected person. Andre, Leo and Michael's characters are introduced as they walk down the drive after Mercedes, which immediately indicates there is something wrong and after seeing Mercedes' introduction, we know that the problem is with her therefore showing that Andre, Leo and Michael's characters are good chracters.
SPECIAL EFFECTS
We started the scene by lowering the colour brightness and increasing the contrast, this gave the scene a more creepy feel and helped to achieve the 'horror' look. We also sped up the movement of Mercedes coming toward the camera to make her appear unnatural. In the scenes outside with on the drive, we added a fog effect and made it darker to make the time of day appear later than it was when we filmed it. It also created an eerie feeling which is in keeping with our genre. We also used slow motion for certain parts of the scene to increase dramatic effect.
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