For this shot we used a slight pan across the alley to show that the antagonist is no longer following her from behind so for a second the main character may believe she is safe. We also used this shot to allow the viewer to see the entire setting and to try and highlight how sinister the alley looks and shows how secluded and closed in it is. We thought using this alley was a good idea because a very common convention of horrors is to be isolated and to have no escape and as this is a narrow alley with only two directions to run in, that feeling of no escape would hit the viewer when watching the opening because they can see that the main character has nowhere else to run.

This reaction shot is particularly significant within the opening as it is the first time she notices something happen she hears a band and glances round to see what it was, but theres nothing there. This shot was also useful because she shows some fear in the expression she is using which obviously implies that what just happened is a bit out of the ordinary. We also wanted to use this shot as women being portrayed as the weak victims is a very big convention of horror films and this shot implies that she is going to be the damsel in distress.

This close up on the main characters feet was inspired from a shot we saw in the opening of the film The Ring in which there is a close up of someones bare feet walking through a small puddle of water(3). We decided it would be a good idea to include this shot because it would add some more diverse camera work to our piece.

This shot is a Point-of-view (POV) shot of the main character running up the alley, this shot reinforces the idea of isolation because we can see that there is nowhere to run but further into the alley. We also used this shot because it allows the viewer to feel like theyre also being chased by putting them in the same position as the main character. POV shots are used very often in horror films, for example in the film Halloween the start of the film includes a long POV shot(5) however this POV shot is from the killers perspective whereas in our film it is from the protagonists POV.

This was shot in a playground and is a shot of the swing beginning to move on its own. We used this shot because its in a playground and in horror films children are often found scary because their innocence is often revoked or destroyed and replaced by something evil so using a playground was a convenient horror convention to play on. Also the fact that the swing moves is portentous of that there is a presence in or around the playground.

In this shot we used what is commonly known as dramatic irony which means the viewer can see or knows of something on screen and the main character doesnt know. We have done this by having the antagonist stood in the background with the main girl walking obliviously in the foreground. We saw this kind of dramatic irony when looking into The Woman in Black as there are several shots where the woman can be seen on the screen but not by the main character(4). In this shot you can also see the characters full attire; we had her dress like that because we wanted her to look like she had just been to a party and was dressed up for it.

The title of our film opening is New Years Eve. We chose this title because as it is a simple title it sounds rather ominous especially because New Years Eve is often a happy and fun occasion and the fact that the viewer will know its a horror means they will know that something bad is going to happen. We got the idea of using a popular holiday as the title from films such as Halloween, however, we used New Years Eve which doesnt have many connotations with horror which meant we had to try and make the narrative as strong as possible to portray that it was a horror. Originally we didnt use this font but we made the last minute decision to change it because the rest of the title screens we used were in this font and figured it may look better if all the title screens were in the same font. We also thought that the simplicity of this font enhanced the fear factor we wanted to put across.

In this shot there is a conversation between the main character and someone from the party and they are talking about her leaving the party. To film this we got all the lines the character had to say in one recording and then during the editing process split the clips up and arranged them in the order the conversation needed to be in, this made filming much easier and more convenient. We used over shoulder shots for this conversation because it allows the viewer to see who is speaking and who is being spoken to and lets them see any reactions etc. that may occur. This kind of shot is used for most conversations in all genres of films and we saw it in the conjuring (2) however, when it was used in the conjuring it was a very on-edge scene but ours is a much more casual scene.

This shot is one of the first shots of the opening and is a close up in a party scene. We originally didnt have this scene in the film but decided the narrative of our opening was a bit weak and thought it would be a good idea to add. We drew inspiration from several party scenes in films we had seen in the past like Wolf of Wall Street and Beerfest(1), these films arent horror films but both include party scenes where there is alcohol consumption etc. so from this we decided to include shots of people drinking at an implied party.

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