Video Production- Two Minute Opening Analysis

For our project we have chosen the genre Horror- slasher/stalker. We have analysed the two minute opening to 'When a Stranger Calls' and this is what we will use to help us chose important details to our films such as the genre features. When a stranger calls was produced by Davis Entertainment and Screen Gems and was distributed by Columbria and Sony Pictures. This will have been as quite a few films with the same genre have similar distributers due to them knowing how to target their audiences. Our target audience are teens/late teens, C2, yet our film will be targetted towards a mainstream audience, and as a rating it would be '15' this is because there will be quite disturbing scenes which younger children would not be able to manage with. The teens would probably be people who look for gory films with low age ratings for them to go watch. Our characters are also quite young so this would appeal to them. We have recognised certain genre features such as the darkness and the empty dark house. There are also children laughing and screaming and a fayre ground which is usually linked to clowns- something which in the correct context can connote horror. The only narration in the two minute opening was a woman saying 'hello, who is this?' on the phone. You cannot see her, or the phone therefore this is non-diegetic. However there is diegetic sound coming from the children and the fayre ground. We may use non-diegetic sound as this creates confusion as the audience do not know who the conversation is between, until later on it the film. There are many fast paced edits throughout the opening. This is a good way to create tension and excitement during the first two minutes therefore we will probably use this technique in our opening. There are uses of enigma codes which also makes the audience unsure of what is happening. Narrative consists of the girl on the phone who is suggested as the victim; later on we will eventually find out the villain. Our film will contain enigma codes also as there will be a slight suspicion as who the villain is yet it will not be certain.