Heath check - Analyse your film opening with regards to genre

At the beginning of the year, we created a film opening. We used the genre of horror, as a group we decided that this would be a good choice as the codes and conventions were easier to follow than that of comedy or adventure.

We started filming around four o'clock as it was starting to get dark in the winter, we did this in order to use dark lighting and the weather also contributed as it was raining and cold. However this did work in regards to following the conventions of horror, but some shots are hard to see and are unclear.

In regards of location, we used a childrens park. The park was surrounded by a field and a wood, this created a isolated area, making the characters more vulnerable. The fact we used a childrens park adds a 'creepy' aspect to our film opening, as we had research many horror films had used the theme of children to give a sense of inncoence and vulnerability. The real life doll, who was the threat in our film tied in well with the children theme as this was apart of her background story, however we did not use this in our film opening. This follows Mcquell's 1987 theory, and lives up to the audiences expectations. 

The age of our characters were primarily teenagers, of the ages of 16 and 17. They are shown drinking alcohol illegally in a park as they are under age, there is a danger shown here which may foreshadow future events. As we had a target audience of 15-20+ the majority of the audience were teengers, therefore they could almost identify with the characters, we also added a wide variet of personaitys in to appeal to a bigger audience, this allowed the audience to relate and put themselves in that position, which creates mire fright in the audience. Although this was a good starting point to show the audience a danger at the start of the film opening, i think we gave too much information away, as we used a flash forward to show the coming events. We decided to do this to keep the audience interested in the film and watch it until the end however, we would have lost the suspense of our film because of revealing to much in the opening. 

To improve on this I would, change the narrative of our film opening, and surround it around our main character of the doll. As mentioned before we had thought of her background story, and we could have incorporated this into our film opening, many horror films rely on history to scare the audience. Also in order to keep the suspense of the film I would not give as mucho of the story line away, therefore I wouldn't use a flashforward, but instead a flashback to show the history of the doll. I think we could also use Neale's 1980 theory of using the same and changing conventions, as genre is instances of reptition and difference.