gothika

the film that i am going to be comparing to my own opening title sequence is Gothika by Matthew Kassovitz . the genre of this film is horror. the film is about a psycharist named miranda who is involved in a road accident when she swerves in the road to prevent running over a young girl. when miranda goes over to the girl she relizes shes a ghost miranda goes to touch her hand and the girl sets her on fire. waking up miranda relizes she in her work place but as a patient, shes being held there as her husband was murdered and they beleive it was her. the ghost possessess miranda and its up to her to prove shes not insane, and to find out what really happened that night.

the typeface that the director has used for gothika is a sharp edgey title which gives the sense that this is a horror film as it has block daggered writing. the sharp edges gives the feeling of horror as a lot of murdering weapons are sharp and the belief that if you touch or are hit with something which is sharp you are going to be hurt.

the word gothika means a situation where someone feels or sees things that no one else can which leads to the people who cant see or feel them beleiving they are crazy. the meaning to the word gothika is exactly what the film is about which also gives the hint that it is a horror film.

the colours used in the opening sequences are mainly blue black grey and white, these colours are fairly plain and some dark colours. the colour black is strongly asscoiated with death and isolation, which are key issues within the film.

within the first few seconds of the film the location is set which is in a mental institution, which automatically gives the clue that the genre is thriller/horror. the dialogue which is used is very echoey, you get the feel that this is a lonely and depressing place to be. although people are speaking instead of music the fact that the background is silent creates a mysterious effect you almost expect something bad is going to happen.

along with the typefaceand dialogue, the camera movememnts add to the suspense of the film. in the opening sequence when their talking a pan movement is used throughout most of it, this creates suspense as its as if someone is watching in from the outside, almost as if you were there watching. it also gives the same feeling of isolation, whilst setting the scenery for the scene and letting us know that the two characters are isolated in an empty dark place.

the plot for this film is set from the beginning we know it is about someone who sees or feels things that know one else can, we also know two character descriptions one from miranda who is a psycharist and her patient chloe.

i also beleive the lighting techniques that were used really created a sense of horror and added to the feel of the film. in the opening sequence the room is very dark and the light is mainly aimes at the two characters from an angle, again this tells us that this film is likely to be a horror and again created the frightening suspense and feeling of isolation. this is a good technqiue as it pinpoints the two main characters and gives specific detail of what they want us to focus on without giving to much detail of anything else away.

the target audience for this film is 15- 24 year olds i think it is manily aimed at the female sex as it has very popular leading female actresses in it, also it includes issues that genereally affect women more then men such mental illness and rape. when looking at audience reviews for the film i found that they were mostly written by teenagers of both sex however girls gave higher grades then boys.

the trailer to gothika was released in britain realeasing streamline ads on msn hotmail the target audience for the film was 15 -24 year olds in britain, this enables them to measure how many people viewed it from beginning to end so they could tell what they needed to do to ensure it was better and weither it was good enough already. (reference adverblog.com)

although i beleive the title opening sequence and all the features are brilliant and really make up the elements which are need for a horror film i dislike the way in which the names and title of the film are presented. unlike a lot of films were they appear during the moving shots and the title at the end the wording in gothika appears first on a dark blackground with gothika presented last then the film starts. i dont like this and wont be using this technique as it runs up a lot of time and doesnt look very entertaining. the technique doesnt add everything to the film like all the other effects and technqiues they have used have. i beleive that if the wording had appeared during the moving images then it would of created better effects and would keep the viewers fixated on the film and made the sharp egdy writing more effective, instead of waiting for the film to start. its uncommon for horror films to start this way now they usually start straightaway with the wording appearing during the opening sequence and the film title coming up after the title opening sequence has finished and the film really beigns.