Different film openings (relating to my own film)

In order to decide whether to use certain effects and how to portray them in my own film I analysed to movies which used these effects. The movies which I chose to analyse were 'The Amityville Horror' this is because the chase seen used in the woods, with the music created the same affect which I wanted to create for the viewers of my film. Although my own film did not include a chase scene the setting for the opening of the movie was in the woods. By looking at this example of a horror genre film I was able to identify how to create the suspense without making it predictable.
This severely helped me when I was looking to see what sound affects, what lighting and what type of mise en scene aspects are needed to successfully create the feeling of unease in a scene. For my own film the main feeling that needed to be created was the building of tension and fear, gripping the viewer to make them want to watch the rest of the film. The AmityVille Horror was a perfect example of this because the night lighting and flashes of lighting used made the viewer unsure of what exactly was going on and this contributed to the feeling of unease.
Another movie which I looked at was Hide and Seek, this was because this film again included a scene in the woods, but also it had the same type of music as ours. The music in the latter part of the opening starts with a high pitched, wind-up toy sound. This sort of sound was used in Hide and Seek. While analysing this type of music I noticed that in order to create ultimate suspense, the gripping suspense that keeps viewers eyes on the screen, this type of music creates that. The idea of a slow build of before a big beat drops, gives the impression to the viewer that something is going to happen.
While analysing both films, it was evident what conventions we used such as the music and the slow build up before leading onto a bigger action scene. Finally, our film portrays the relationships of adolescents, their way of life and the values. In order to successfully put this across to the viewer it was important to see how other productions had portrayed adolescents in the same way. Our example of this was the first episode of Skins. This was a helpful example because the show is purely based on teenagers and therefore it was easy for us to pick out which traits teenagers have that we will need to use in order correcly portray them in our own film. The adolescent youth was presented in various ways throughout the first episode.
The difference between boys and girls was evident and this was key factor we decided to use for our own film. The dominant male compared to the weaker new love interest, this was not taken from Skins exactly but as an adaptation of 'Tony' being the main character and the dominant friend in the group. Adolescents were also portrayed as sexually deviant, and most being in relationships, the idea of relationshi building amongst teens was another factor which we wanted to put across in our film. The obsession with one another, the lust and consuming feelings that each other feels is the most important theme in our film because teens and adolescents are our target audience.