AOTT evaluation

1. Summarise your film idea. Provide a brief synopsis and outline what happens in your film opening.
   
   In our film opening Ela has to stay behind after school to meet with her mentor but the school is empty. The mentor (Mario) turns out to be a psychopath killing all his mentees through different forms of torture but in the opening sequence you only see him kill Ela with a compass. He then washes his hands in the toilets as if it's a normal act. This is quite sinister and scary.
   
2. What kind of information has been included in your film opening?
   
   - Credits, eg. starring Mario Louka
   - Antagonist
   - Title
   - The main shots that will give the audience a clear idea of the genre
   - Protagonist
   - Setting
   - Genre signifiers
   
   
3. How do the titles link to the main film idea
   
   The titles are in a typewriter kind of font which is common in many horror films and it's almost always recognisable for the audience so they can figure out what genre the film is. The positioning of the titles means it doesn't cover any of the action and doesn't take away from the focus being on the shots.  title itself, we thought was very sinister as a mentor is someone you trust to help you through but in this case it's the opposite so we're going against stereotypes in order to make the film more scary.
   
   
4. Summarise the expected audience reaction. What should the audience be thinking by the end of your opening? Is your opening clear or ambiguous?
   
   We want the audience to be in suspense as our grid is quite enigmatic as they can't really tell the whole story from the images. By the end out our opening the audience should be thinking what will happen next and whether or not Mario will get away with it. Their heads should be full of unanswered questions about the plot so that they have the interest to carry on watching it. However, the genre is clearly connoted through the typeface, blurred image of his eyes, the blood on the compass and the low key lighting. Our grid connotes the genre well and since there is a picture of Ela it also suggests that Mario had something to do with her killing. I think our opening is therefore pretty clear.
   
5. Identify three things that you included in your grid that are important in the construction of an opening sequence and explain their role in understanding the film?
   
   - Introducing the main characters. This is important so that the audience know who to focus on and who the action is based around. In this case we have used binary opposites to illustrate that Mario is the antagonist and Ela is the protagonist.
   
   - Setting the genre. The genre needs to be established very early on as it plays a vital part in the way   the film pans out and if the genre is not clearly established in the opening few scenes then the audience are going to be confused.
   
   - Setting the scene. This is also very important as the audience need to know where the action is unfolding and here we can clearly see that it is a school location.
   
6. How effective is your project as a film opening? Explain your answer.
   I think our film opening is quite effective because it connotes the genre of horror really well and the audience can piece the shots together to figure out what happens in the opening sequence of this film. The blurred eyes of the protagonist in the middle draws all the attention to him highlighting to us that he is one of the main characters and the fact that it as extreme close up of his eyes and blurred signifies the fear of the unknown and connotes the genre really well. The blood dripping off the compass, the dead body, typeface, washing blood away are all genre signifiers as well. We edited the images so that they are low key lit and sort of in the shadows to further hint at the genre. Overall I think our film opening works really well.