The Title
We opted to have a very minimalistic title for our film. The title itself, 'The Noise', is very simple and doesn't give too much away about the film. We chose to have the title as the simple white text against a black background in an Arial font.
Genre and how the opening suggests it
Our sequence is a horror and we made sure we followed certain conventions to attempt to establish this. We have a girl in a house by herself which is a very common feature of the genre. There is a mysterious figure which the audience sees only for a brief moment. We used violin music which gets progressively louder and more intense and builds up until Lucy backs into the antagonist for which we used a loud impact sound which is intended to startle the audience. This is known as a 'jump' scene which is very common in conventional horror films
Story and how the opening sets it up
Our opening sequence is quite mysterious because of the torn up pages, the appearance of the antagonist and the strange phone calls. This creates an enigma so the audience would want to continue watching to find out how all of these things are connected. Our sequence is nonlinear with the climax happening at the beginning and then finding out what took place beforehand. This creates a sense of dramatic irony because the audience is then watching the girl knowing that she will be in danger.
How characters are introduced
The protagonist, Lucy, is introduced when she bursts into her bedroom looking anxious. She frantically searches the room and looks worried when she sees the torn up pages scattered on the bed. This should confuse the audience because they do not know why they are there and why she is scared by this. Hopefully, the audience would be intrigued by this and sympathise with her so they would want to carry on watching. The antagonist is introduced in a brief moment where a loud noise is used. Startling the audience when the antagonist appears should make them associate him with an anxious feeling
Setting/Location
Our sequence takes place in an empty house in the evening. We used an exterior shot of the house to establish the setting. The inside of the house is very tidy, bright and decorated with ornaments. This suggests to the family that the protagonist lives a very stable, comfortable life. This room also contrasts the bedroom seen earlier in the sequence (which takes place 2 hours later in the diegesis) which is dimly lit by a red lava lamp. The colour red has connotations of danger which helps make the scene more tense
Costumes/Props
We was careful in deciding on the costumes that would be used in our sequence. The protagonist, Lucy, is dressed casually in a fairly low cut white top, with a cardigan, black leggings and colourful socks. This matches with conventions of horror films because the female characters are meant to look appealing but also likeable so that the audience will actually care about them. The outfit is made of neutral colours such as white and beige which also matches other horror films such as Scream because the lighter colours connote innocence. She is also wearing colourful socks to show that she is still quite young which emphasises her vulnerability. Lucy wears minimal make up and has her hair tied back so that she doesn't look vain which would perhaps provoke less sympathy
The outfit of the mysterious antagonist consisted just of a black hooded coat since we do not get a good view of him. We decided on this outfit because it conceals most of the face which is very common in horror. Hiding the identity of the antagonist makes them more frightening because it could be anyone or anything beneath that hood.
Notable props that we used in the sequence include the book that Lucy is reading. The fact that she is reading suggests that she is intelligent and cultured. The book is also a historical one, featuring pictures of paintings which make Lucy look sophisticated by reading it. There is also a shot of family photo which makes Lucy look like a loving person. Finally, another important prop is the phone which was inspired by the opening of Scream
Camerawork and editing
With the camera work, we made use of close ups and extreme close ups which helps to engage the viewer. This is because the viewer can see Lucy's facial expressions and get a sense of what she is thinking through them. This results in the audience hopefully caring about her. There are some long shots as well which were intended to emphasise Lucy's isolation. We also made sure to use a point of view shot which puts the audience in Lucy's position
The editing of the sequence is quite fast paced in the first section in the dark room. Fast editing makes the sequence exciting for the viewer and keeps their attention. The editing gets faster up until Lucy backs into the antagonist. The use of fast editing means that the audience doesn't get a good view of the antagonist. There is also three close up shots of torn up pages one after another which are accompanied by loud, unsettling non-diegetic sound effects.
In the second half of the sequence which occurs after the '2 hours earlier' text, the editing is at a slower pace. The scenes themselves look fairly calm but we decided to use an eerie soundtrack to suggest that something is not right
Graphics/special effects/colour correction etc.
For the scenes that took place in the bedroom, we used colour correction because they were very dark. We wanted to it to be light enough for the viewer to be able to see what is happening but dark enough for the viewer not to get a good view of the antagonist. We also made the colour red more prominent because of the connotations of danger
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