Halloween

Halloween is a 1978 American independent horror in the fictional suburban town of Haddofield, Illinois, USA on Halloween.

A psychotic murder institutionalized since childhood escaped on a mindless rampage while his doctor chases him through the streets.

Halloween was produced on a small budget of $320,000 and grossed a massive $47 million at the box office in the USA alone, equivalent to over $150 million as of 2008, becoming one of the most profitable independent films of all times.

Many critics credit the film as the first in a long line of slasher films inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960). The movie originated many cliches found in low budget horror films of the 1980's and 1990's. However, the film contains little graphic, violence and gore.

The text in the title sequence is orange, representing Halloween, gradually turning to red, letting off a negative connotation of blood and danger. There is a black background making it clear to the audience that the film is bounf to include elements of darkness and violence. There is also a pumpkin in the background, an establishing shot first shows the pumpkin in the distance, the slow zoom in towards the pumpkin represents an animal zooming in on its prey, getting ready to attack. The titles constantly fade in and out whilst the music gets louder and faster, sounding as if there is a chase going on. The pitch often changes from high to low within the title sequence, which helps to build tension.

During the opening sequence a subjective point of view shot is used once the person has put the mask on which makes the audience feel as if they are behind the eyes of the killer. We see a knife been picked up and the person moves around the house using a forward dollying shot, as if he's searching for his victim, all the while the music gets higher and louder creating tension, as the audience aren't sure what the knife is about to be used for.

As the killer walks up the stairs you can hear the diegetic sound of the young girl humming, which helps to create a tense atmosphere. The music suddenly changes to a very high pitched sound representing the scream of somebody in grave danger as the killer behing the mask stabs the girl to death.

Unexpectedly, the killers identity is revealed and is infact the girls younger brother. John Carpenter cleverly used the camera angles to trick the audience by protraying the killer to be a lot older and taller than he is.. The entire opening scene is a long take from the killers point of view, up until the very last shot when it cuts and Michael is revealed as the man behind the mask. This could then make the audience believe the film contains many more twists.

180 degree rule

Match on action is a component of seamless editing where a point of action (like handing something to someone) is shot from different angles cut at the point of action creating a macth.



You also have to make sure of eye line match - which is making sure the eyes of both characters from a shot reverse shot match in terms of locations on the screen.

Love Actually

Love Actually is a British film made by Working Titles in 2003. The film follows the lives of eight very different couples in dealing with their love lives in various loosely and interrelated tales all set during a frantic month before Christmas in London, England.



Working titles started off as a very small company gradually building itself up slowly, in 2004 it made a total profit of £17.8 million. Working Titles made the film Four Weddings and a funeral in 1994 which was expected to be unsuccessful. The film was an unexpected success, becoming the highest-grossing British film in cinema history at the time, with worldwide box office in excess of $244 million,with a budget of only $6million. Love Actually had an estimated budget of around £30,000,000 and ended up being a huge success making a gross profit of $247,472,278 worldwide. The main reason for such success was the well known A list actors that starred in the filmsuch as Alan Rickman, Bill Nighy, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Keira Knightley, Rowan Atkinson, Laura Linney, Martine McCutcheon and Lúcia Moniz.

As of 2007 Working Titles films were all distributed by Universal Pictures, whcih owns a 67% stake in the company, whcih then helped them to gain a bigger budget for their future films. The co-producers at Working Title are from Studio Canal, also BBC films & other private investors then own the remaining part of the company.


Hugh Grant has starred in many Biritsh Romantic Comedy's. Aswell as Love Actually he's also starred in:

• Four Weddings and a Funeral




• Notting Hill




• About A Boy




• Bridget Jones's Diary




• Bridget Jones's Diary, The Edge Of Reasons




• Music and Lyrics




• Two Weeks Notice

Love Actually recieved mainly positive feeback, some negative as with every film. Some examples of its positive feedback are:

• Cynics maybe sick, romantics will feed their spirits soar. Richard Curtis returns.




• The writer responsible for the biggest British hits of the last ten years. The film was directed well as a vibrant and romantic comedy, blending ambition with good sense by filling the profuse parts of this multi-storied script with excellent, experimental actors, and rising young stars.

Pre-title sequence for 'Love Actually'

I analysed the pre-title sequence of Love Actually, the shots used during this are in a documentary style and almost looks as if they aren't actors and are real people coming out of an airpost to be reunited with their loved ones. A big proportion of the shots are zoomed in, showing families hugging and been loving towards each other. In terms of distance and framing medium close up and close up shots show the happy, joyful and loving expressions on the peoples faces as they're reunited with the people they love at Heathrow Airport, London. You can easily see by decorations it is Christmas time, there are extreme long shots of different parts in London such as an ice-skating rink and a large Christmas tree in a part of central London. During the pre-title sequence none diegetic sounds are played in the form of a piano,it's very soft, slow and dreamy. Also a voice over is used which is none diegetic speaking about love the whole way through. The titles that appear on the screen are red and white, this symbolises love and purity. Mainly all the shots used jumpcuts from one shot to another and slow motion is also intergrated into these shots which compliments the slow music, it has a dreamy focus to it and seems almost unreal. The entire pre-titled sequence is shot at Heathrow Airport in london showing families been reunited. Most of the actors are white and middle class, you don't tend to see many people of different colour. London is symbolised in these shots as a sparkly and amazing place to be, showing mainly middle class people, and looks very expensive.

Red Dragon (opening sequence)

Red Dragon is a 2003 film directed by Brett Ratner. I analysed the pre title sequence of the film using camera angles, sound, mise en scene and editing to help me break it down. Doctor Hannibal Lector is the main character in this film played by the well known actor Anthony Hopkins.

The pre title sequence is set in a grand theatre, a crane shot of the audience is shown as they are watching an orchestra perform. The camera slowly zooms in on Hannibal, who seems to stand out from the others, which suggests he's an important character in the film. By the way he represents himself, wearing a suit, suggests he may be upper class and an important character within society. The camera zooms in and shows an extreme close up of Hannibal Lectors face. You can see the concentration on his face as he watches and observes the flute player in the orchestra.Shot reverse shots are used between Hannibal and the flute player. He notices a single note of the piece that the flute player has got wrong, the expression on his face shows that Hannibal has notcied, and is very dissapointed as its a song he must love and know very well. He immediately wants revenge upon the flute player.

The music in the pre title sequence starts off very loud portraying aggression, it's very powerful just like Doctor Hannibal Lector. The classical music sounds very cheerful until the flute player gets a note wrong, the tempo then gets a lot faster, creating a sense of danger.

The title sequence for Red Dargon is very similar in many wats to the title sequence for Se7en. Se7en could have inspired Brett Ratner to make his using similar eliments. Like Se7en, a scrapbook has been used, including horrifying and disturbing images mainly of different body parts which suggests this is what the film could be about. There are shots of newspaper articles, with positive stories about Doctor Hannibal Lector, then suddenly the lighting goes down and the music turns to a much lower and more aggressive sound as we see shots of negative stories about Hannibal, he looks pure evil. This shows us the two sides to Hannibal and how he can go from good to bad so easily. There is also an image of a young child with their eyes scratched out which could represent how Hannibal doesn't like people looking at him and seeing him for what he really is.

The titles are red and white, red representing danger and blood, while white could symbolise the better side of hannibal, this could help represent the two sides hannibal has to him, red been his bad and evil side, harming people and white representing his innocence and purity.

Christian Metz model of genre developments

Introducing Metz Theory


Metz's model of development was to recognise the horror genres existance and develop it as much as he could.


Christian Metz in his book Language and Cinema (1974) explored the development of Genre film and suggested that Genre's pass through the four phases of existance.
1.The Experimental films such as The Cabinet of Doctor Claigan (1919) and Nosferatu (1922)
2. The Classic Hollywood films such as Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931) made by Universal Studios.
3. The Parody films such as Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein (1948) Carry On Screaming (1968) and Scary Movie (1998)
4. The Deconstruction films such as Se7en (1995) The Sixth Sense (1999) The Blair Witch Project (1998) and Scream (1998)

Explanation Of The Four Phases

By Experimental we mean the phase of early films with explored and experimented with horror themes in its narratives. They helped formalize the narrative conventions of the horror genre in its earliest phase.

By Classic we mean the phase of films which established the narrative conventions of the horror genre in its most successful and defining period.

By Parody we mean films that have mimicked the horror genre in some comical way.

By Deconstruction we mean films which have taken the generic elements of the horror genre and amalgamated them into varying cub genre.

Here are some examples of Genres combined with generic elements of horror:

Se7en- Psychological Thriller/Horror

The Sixth Sense - Supernatural Thriller/Horror

Blair Witch Project - Documentary film/Horror

Scream - Teen Movie/Horror