Research film openings and institutions

Paranormal Activity was our main source of inspiration for our opening film. The conventions in theis film that you would expect from the supernatural genre include: equilibrium at the beginning, a 'normal-seeming couple', most of the activity takes place at night,  main characters are persued/ terrified, and finally one of the main characters are skeptical as to what is going in i.e. the woman being possessed by a demon.

In the opening two minutes are very straightforward. The main couple who appear throughout the film are doing their weekly shopping and bringing it into their house. Their house looks like a typical suburban house, suggesting the couple, who are young, are quite well off. The seem at first to not have children. The couple chat, note it is daytime. The most interesting point of this opening is the camera angles. The husband is holding the camera throughout and following his wife. He is doing this because she is skeptical something is in the house and he is trying to prove her wrong. This makes the audience confused and I personally did not like this. It made the film seem mellow and half expected what would happen next. Although this film is popular and has elements that make you jump is is not the most clever or inspired films. This helped us for our opening 2 minutes as we realised that the jumpiness/ mellow opening is one of the main conventions of the genre.

At the start of Sinister it foreshadows part of the film in an extracted clip. The clip shows the reasons behind the film itself. The male character is a crime writer who lives in a haunted house with his whole family and we see a tree beforehand but not the house and the audience is able to piece together that he has moved into a house that is haunted. The house is where a previous family/ ghost have been hung.

For both openings the titles fit into the conventions. The wording itself gives the audience an understanding of the content of the film. The font in 'Sinister' looks like blood is dripping from it, this links to the film because he creates the horror and sets the tone. The cracks behind the title suggest cracks in the relationship of the family and also in the mind of the deity. The sub title suggests that there is no hope in the film, it also relates to the film because the image reflects the deity and interestingly the audience sees the image which means they are impicit in the action too, they too could end up with the same fate.

The insitutions for both films are Paramount and Summit respectively. They are both established institutions. Both institutions are quite mass market with Summit releasing the Twilight saga as well, and Paramount released Cloverfield, The Devil Inside and Friday the 13th. All of which were very popular with audiences. Both instititions would be aware of the value of this genre and also the ability to draw audiences in and generate money.