QUESTION 5 HOW DID YOU

AT T R A C T Y O U R A U D I E N C E ?
MEDIA AS EVALUATION

CONSTRUCTION
The main thing my group and I wanted to create was tension,
which was created though mystery, suspense, gore, terror and
shock. To begin building this tension we started constructing a
sound that we wanted to play throughout our opening scene. We
felt that the importance of sound in horror films is very high, as
it creates a certain atmosphere, setting the scene as being quite
deep and emotional. Another thing we took into consideration
was that we wanted a specific sound that showcased the pain of
an individual, or the fear and anger in a scene.

SOUND
At the very beginning of the opening scene, we got a sound effect that consisted of a slow
cello being gently played. It was exactly what we needed as the sound had a certain slow
screech that really intensified our opening titles. To get an even more specific sound effect that
would attract a wider range of audience we put up a questionnaire on the website
SurveyMonkey.co.uk. Our question was What sound scares you most? We had 5 sounds as
our options, whispering quietly, screams of torture, feverish laughing, and childrens nursery
rhyme/lullaby and creep instrumental music. Our most popular choice was whispering as it had
the highest general vote 5/13. When we started editing and put all the scenes in order, we
picked a whispering sound and added it to the scene we felt it blended in well with.
Unfortunately when we viewed the whole opening scene we felt as if the whispering sound did
not really do the specific scene any favours and was very unnecessary. From the end of the
opening credits onwards, we used an orchestra playlist, which included very dramatic fast
paced instruments playing such as violins and cellos. We took inspiration from various horror
films that use this type of sound to really intensify their scenes.

EFFECTIVE SHOTS

The idea of horror movies is the product of curiosity and

fascination. Horror exits outside the everyday existence of
normal behaviour. In the opening we used various shots to keep
and increase the tension that the audience should be
experiencing. About one minute into the opening scene, we used
a shot where the camera was behind the characters shoulder
focusing on the mystery box. This was efficient and effective as it
gave the audience an enigma and created a chill because the
audience will have started to uncover the secrecy behind the
box. The unveiling mystery behind this box will further intrigue
the audience and would make the audience tremble at the edge
of their seats.

INFLUENTIAL
MOVIES
We also took inspiration from a wide range of films. To find these films we added a
question in our questionnaire which consisted of Previous horror films you have seen?.
This question helped us massively as it gave us an insight into the different mise-en-scene
and cinematography that our audience have already viewed when watching other horror
films. Some of the techniques that we got as feedback, we used in our opening scene,
such as features from the film Annabelle. This film appeared three times in our feedback.
The feedback consisted of the people giving comments stating that we should definitely
use a doll, as not many horror movies have used this object in their context, meaning that
the rarity of our opening scene would attract more people to view the film.

H O W H AV E T H E S E T E C H N I Q U E S B E E N E F F E C T I V E

Overall I believe that we used various amounts of

techniques and sounds to further extend our
audience and I believe that our editing skills
further showcased each individual technique well. I
feel as the sound was the main factor in creating
tension in the opening scene, as it really showed
just how much shock and grief the character was in
the situation. The suspense of this further intrigued
the fascination of the audience.