Writing A Screenplay For Your Opening

'THE HIDDEN NIGHTMARE'

by Tonicha Hughes, Jack Gardner, Jack Stanley and Harrison Coe.

creepy nursery rhyme is playing in the background

family pull up the car on the drive

switch to girl in the attic you cant see her face only her hands she islooking at pictures of families of four

switches back to family who are just opening the doors and jumping out of the car laughing(you cant hear them laughing or talking)

switches back to girl who is scratching the eyes out of people in pictures

goes back to family who are making their way to the boot of the car to get their bags

back to girl who has some sort of organ(heart lungs etc) she will be cutting this up

This is a screenplay of just a section of our opening.

Research: What Is A Screenplay

A screenplay is a piece of writing which has been created to be inserted into a film. The screenplay will include what the audience will both see and hear whilst they're watching the movie. The screenplay isn't always the final piece but a guideline which the directors and producers will follow and input their own ideas. Above is the screenplay from the teen horror movie 'Scream'. Using this I can immediately see the differences between a screenplay and a script. The name of the character is placed in the middle and above the characters speech. The screenplay features far less detail then that of a script as it is just a guideline. The screenplay also features some of the shots such as interior kitchen. This will help us when producing our screenplay because I will know that I don't have to include all the details and can leave more vague then I would a script.

Research: The Importance of Sound in Horror Films

Sound is something which becomes iconic within a horror film. You would be able to identify films without watching them just by identifying the music. For example most people would be able to identify Jaws because of its famous theme tune, likewise with Psycho. Sound in Horror films is most commonly used to show the threat of danger and allows the viewer to identify if there is a threat.

Music in Horror Films contains something called non-linear sounds. This includes distorted notes and sounds similar to blowing too hard into a trumpet. Non linear sounds are used to enhance the emotional impact of scenes. Non Linear sounds can be created when somebody/something is put into a position of danger, this taps into the instinctive fear of the viewers and causes the fear to be created.

Something which has recently been used in horror films is the use of children's nursery rhymes. The nursery rhymes when played slowly can sound quite sinister and give the sense that any age group can be under threat. This shows how much of a part sound plays in horror movies.




The movie clip of above shows just how important that sound can be in horror movies. Without the sound in the clip it wouldn't be as scary, the sound creates all the tension and suspense in the clip as it signals the threat of the shark as it closes in on its prey. This increasing volume of music is probably the most iconic and most frequently used in horror movies.

Violin instruments are also often used in horror movies to create an eerie and tense feeling in the film. This is used in films such as suspiria and exorcist which have become famous since the release. The music in horror film also can determine what genre the film is, for example the opening of The Shining can be interpreted as a different genre if you were to change the music in the opening sequence due to the ambiguity, the sound is what allows people to decode whether it is a specific genre.

A Timeline And Analysis Of The Opening 'Se7en'

For this task we had to watch the opening titles of the psychological thriller 'Se7en'. We had to watch the opening 4 times. The first just to watch the opening to see how we felt, the second to record the titles and the order in which they appeared. The third time was to identify the visuals that appeared on the screen, then we had to listen carefully to any audio that was included in the titles.

This would be helpful for me when completing our main task because it would allow me to see what would need to be included in order to make it as good as level as it could be. By watching and recording things about 'Se7en' I have familiarised myself with what sort of things would appear on the screen whilst completing titles which will only further my knowledge and open up a wider range of openings that could be done

Research: The Importance Of Opening Titles

Opening Titles May Include Some Of The Following

• Film's Title
• Production Company Name
• Actor's names
• Director's name
• Producer's name
• Music by…
• Cinematography by…
• Distribution Company

The Difference Between Opening Titles and Ending Titles/Credits
The opening titles which occur before the film only contain the names of that who have more contribution towards the film for example the director and leading cast members will appear, whereas the end credits contain all the people who have any contribution towards the making of the film or anyone involved in the film. The end credits will include all of the extras and roles such as make-up artists.

This will help us in our project because we are going to be producing the opening two minutes to a teen horror film, so we may need to include titles in our opening therefore this research will aid us in our knowledge of titles and what we should use in the titles we may or may not choose to include.

Writing a Treatment For Your Opening

A treatment is a more detailed idea of what my groups 2 minute opening is going to be, it is done so that not only can the group and other people see in detail the idea but the group can also look back on this treatment after making the 2 minute film opening and say whether it stayed the same or whether ideas were changed throughout the filming process.

The film opening will be two different scenes, these two scenes will be skipped backwards and forwards between throughout the two minutes, the group decided this would be a good idea because this is cross cutting and we thought this would be effective in our film opening and make it look good. Also the two scenes are completely different in the way they are set, edited and the way the characters are so it will be a complete juxtaposition.

The first part of the opening will be a family of 4 pulling up in their car outside a new house that they will be moving into. The car will pull up on the drive and as it does the film will switch to a clip of a young girl in a dark attic like place cutting up various pictures of families, nothing is given away and the audience will not know who the families are. It will then go back to family getting out of the car, laughing and joking but you will not be able to hear the family only see as a song will be playing in the background, after this the little girl in the attic will appear again still with pictures but this time scratching the eyes out of people in the pictures, throughout the whole of this part of the scene you will not be able to see the little girls face properly only her hands which will be grubby and dirty. After a few seconds of this it will be skipped back to the family again getting their bags out of the boot of the car still laughing and joking and this will be dragged on for about 10-20 seconds until going back to the little girl who will now be cutting up a heart that the group will get from the butchers, she will be slowly dissecting it and pulling bits off as if it was a humans heart but the audience will not be aware who's heart it is or even infact if it is a heart or not, they will be completely unaware as to what it is. Back to the family and they will then be walking down the drive with their bags towards the house, and the shot will go back to the girl who at this point will now be cutting (with the same scissors that she was dissecting the heart with so that there is blood on them) a picture of a particular family, only as the camera zooms in it becomes clear that it is the family that are moving in that she is cutting up. At this point it will skip back down to the family who will all be walking through the front door and the camera shot will point down towards the bottom right hand corner of the door before slamming it shut, as the door is shutting the music playing will turn off and the door will bang shut revealing the name of the film in the corner, the shot then goes back to the little girl who will also hear the bang of the door, drop everything she is doing and quickly turn her head towards the attic door, the audience will be unaware as to what will happen next.

We thought this would be a good idea as it is left on a cliff hanger which would make the audience want to watch on.
The music playing throughout the film opening will be a creepy nursery rhyme type of song in which the group will devise on a computer.