Evaluation of 'Abandoned' Title sequence

Abandoned evaluation from Rebecca Collins

Evaluation of 'Abandoned' Title sequence

The title sequence for Abandoned was constructed after my group and I had created a film idea. The aim of our title sequence was to create and eerie atmosphere four our audience. The title sequence starts with a tracking shot of a stream with the sound of water loudly trickling, this then cuts to images of children on the wall. The photos previously shown on the wall are later seen violently burning, while the sound of distorted, ghostly children are singing a nursery rhyme is playing.  The title of our film is the last title to be shown; it fades in over the top of a creepy dolls house that is set on fire. We wanted to make sure that the whole title sequence would convey to our audience that the film would be a horror, whist the ghostly singing also shows the sub-genre of our film which is a supernatural horror. We chose this as our sub-genre as we wanted our film to only suggest how people were killed and not show any gore and supernatural films tend to lack gore. The lack of gore also meant that we could lower our target audience age in order to attract a wider audience.

When we were researching, we found that teenagers were most commonly the targeted audience for horror films, so we took in this information and applied it to our horror film. Our primary audience for ‘’Abandoned’’ would be females due to the psychological elements in the film, however it could still entice a male audience as it is still a horror film. Our primary audience is females aged 12-18 whilst our secondary audience are aged from 18-25 as this would cover students and people who could relate to the film as the stars of the film are predominantly children who live in an orphanage. We decided to have ‘’Abandoned’’ as a 12 so we did not restrict our audience, we also researched into ‘The Woman In Black’ whose certificate was also a 12, this film did very well in the cinema so we felt that ‘’Abandoned’’ could follow in the films footsteps.

After conducting a survey on our target audience, we found that the psychographics would be people who enjoy reading, listening to music and for fans of horror. 

We decided that Hammer Films would be the best institute to distribute ‘’Abandoned’’ as they are known for releasing successful horror films each with different sub-genres. Also, we frequently likened our film to ‘The Woman In Black’ which was distributed by Hammer Films. Both ‘Abandoned’ and ‘’The Woman In Black’’ have a supernatural element, so Hammer Films would be the best and most likely institution to distribute ‘Abandoned.

Before we started to even film for our title sequence we watched many title sequences for different genre’s in order for us to realise how important micro elements are. We found that the micro elements are the best way to communicate the genre of our film. Two of the title sequences that we analysed were for the films ‘Zombieland’ and ‘The Ward’ both of these films are horror genres. From viewing the title sequences we were able to pick out that a horror title sequence should have dark, dull colours and also uses some form of eerie music track.  

 We felt that the best way to communicate the genre of our film to our audience would be through the use of the mise-en-scene and we decided that our title sequence should be set in the woods as this is a common setting for a horror film due to the dull lighting and absence of other people. We also did not want to make out title sequence narrative based as we felt that small hints to our film would be more effective in creating a buzz for our audience.

We decided to use many close ups in our title sequence as the close ups show the main focus’ of our film. The majority of close ups used are of children’s pictures, these are firstly shown stuck on the wall and then are later shown burning, this enables our audience to realise the film includes mainly children; the burning also signifies the children’s loss of innocence.

 We also recorded a nursery rhyme in which we distorted in final cut pro, not only does the nursery rhyme work as they are typically associated with children, but the distortion on the song also makes the audience feel uncomfortable, which is another typical element for horror. We made sure that all of our sequence had dull colours by editing the light in the woods in order to create fear for our audience which is also commonly used for horror. We wanted to make sure that the whole of our title sequence demonstrated connotations of horror, we successfully did this by using eerie music, dark colours and the burning of children’s photos and dolls house. At first we had a little trouble with the font and colour of our typography, but we overcame this after watching the title sequence foe se7en, we liked the colour and decided to apply it to our sequence. 

Only one social group has been represented in our title sequence, that being children. ‘Abandoned’ shows that children are innocent at first through the use of a tracking shot showing their happy pictures however it also shows that children can easily lose their innocence. This is shown through the use of a close up of the same photo’s burning. We chose to use children as our target audience can easily relate to them as well as finding the children to be creepy.

I think that we have successfully met our target audience as the feedback we received from our class was positive, they also agreed that our target audience was the correct choice. Also the people who gave us our feedback fell into the primary audience range of 12-18. They also felt that our music was successful as it created an eerie atmosphere. They also pointed out the fact that we didn’t use a tri-pod for filming so some parts were shaky, to overcome this, if we were to re-do the task, we would make sure that a tri-pod was used, however due to the genre being horror, the shakiness may work in our favour as it can disorientate our audience.

We used Final Cut Pro to edit the sequence together, I used this to my advantage as I already had a fairly good understanding on how to use the software so I felt comfortable using it. We used that to out advantage and were able to further explore different effects to use. I learnt many new skills which included the uses for different effects, colour corrector, overlapping videos and how to change how the audio sounded. We used each of these in order to make our title sequence become more eerie. We also used a video camera that had a separate screen so we were able to easily see what we had filmed and we could re shoot straight away if we noticed a problem. From this experience I have also realised how important it is to use a tri-pod when filming, a tri-pod makes sure that all of the clips are straight and steady, another lesson i learnt would be to make sure there are no un-needed objects in a shot as we had filmed some clips in the woods and after looking at them on a mac computer, we realised that there was a Morrison’s plastic bag in the shot, so all of these shots were rendered useless.

Overall, I think that the title sequence for ‘Abandoned’ was very successful due to our research and editing. As our sequence is not jumpy and edited together smoothly whilst our research gave the whole group a good idea as to what needed to be included to meet our target audience as well as communicating what genre ‘Abandoned’ is. We were also able to successfully use micro elements in order to create fear and an eerie atmosphere for our audience. I feel that the production was a weaker point as our clips were not always steady, however, I have gained from this as I will make sure not to make the same mistake again.

Post-production

The past previous times in which we had dedicated to editing, the Macs have either not been working or were freezing too much to be able to edit.
    Although, we have been able to look at and decide on a font which will be used for the titles. We looked on the website dafont in order to find our font as there is a wide variety of many different fonts.
 
The font we decided on is called 'Nervous' we chose this as we felt that it would disorientate the audience and convey that the film is a horror. We also decided that we would make the font red, as the colour has connotations of blood and danger, which could foreshadow what will happen in the film.

This is the font that we decided on, we liked how it had a 'shaking' effect.





Night bird and Feast of Flesh were two other of our possible font choices, but after putting all three fonts together, we decided that these two look like they would fit a slasher film rater than a psychological horror. We felt that the two would not fit our titles and instead may add a comedic element to it.

Working Title films

Working Title

Post-production

We are still experiencing technical difficulties with Final Cut Pro, it is not allowing us to download the clips that we need for the sequence, also the Mac's keep freezing, leaving us unable to continue with the work. However, during the time when the Mac's are not working, we have realised that, although our storyboards were helpful in filming, for editing, we feel that some clips need to be rearranged or changed.

We have also chosen a font called nervous and we have used the colour red to connote blood, danger and fire.

Post production

We are still in the process of editing our sequence together but there are currently technical issues with final cut pro and we are also unable to convert our clips.
Although we have decided that our storyboard did not convey the eerie atmosphere that we wanted, so we are using it as a basic guideline and are editing our clip together to how we feel would be the most effective.

Post-production

We are currently starting to edit our title sequence and at this stage we are also deciding on what music to use throughout the majority of the titles. We have listened to many different typical horror tracks and have pick out four that are possibilities. Also, as our film is based in an orphange, we have decided to use children singing a nursery rhyme, This was tricky to decide on one as many horror films have previously used nursery rhymes.

These are the possible choices, and at this point, each member of the group prefer the first track as we feel it creates the most tension and creates an eerie atmosphere.

https://audionetwork.lgfl.org.uk/production-music/blue-mist_37301.aspx 

https://audionetwork.lgfl.org.uk/production-music/ghostly-child_29571.aspx 

https://audionetwork.lgfl.org.uk/production-music/shadows_35205.aspx 

https://audionetwork.lgfl.org.uk/production-music/barren_32640.aspx 

Day of Shooting for 'ABANDONED'

As planned, set out to film on the 30th December, in a muddy and cold woods.
Due to the group being familiar with the woods we were able to have a rough idea in the area in which we would shoot the river scenes. We knew that, depending on the weather, there may have been little-or no water to film but luckily, it had rained several days before we were due to shoot and therefore there was a substantial amount of water. Although we thought that there would be this water, we still brought along several bottles of water in case it needed enhancing, thankfully we didn't need to do this and instead we used the water to clean our muddy shoes after the day's filming.
    We managed to roughly follow our storyboard and film many different shots of the river, we filmed more shots than we knew we needed as we wanted to prevent the chance of needing to re-shoot, this therefore would leave us enough time to edit.

After filming in the woods, we headed back to our second location on nightfall, to film the burning of the doll's house and photo's. We encountered problems with the filming of this as it was windy outside and the doll's house refused to light but after a sprinkling of white spirit, the house lit and gave us the result we wanted.

Overall, it was a successful day of filming.

Production Plan for Abandoned

Title Credits Research

Order of the credits

•Production Company presents

•"Title"

•Lead Cast

•Supporting Cast

•Casting Director

•Music Composer

•Costume Designer

•Associate Producers

•Editors

•Production Designer

•Director of Photography

•Producer

•Writers

•Director

We have decided to only use the ones in bold, as we feel it would not be right to use all of them due to the length of our title sequence.
We also think that we may use the title at the end of the sequence as this is not uncommon. Hammer films is our chosen production company as they mainly create horror films, therefore this company would be most suited.

Hammer Films

Building the dolls house

Building the dolls house took us around Five lessons to complete, however this was okay as we had anticipated that it would take a while to complete. We wanted to make sure that the dolls house would be complete by the time we broke up for the December half term as this was when we decided we wanted to shoot for our title sequence.

We have currently found a few audio tracks that we like and are currently debating what one would fit best with our title sequence, so we will wait until we have shot and edited footage before we think of the music any further.
We are also looking at font's to use, and so far we have found none but we have decided to have the font red as red is a typical colour in horror.