Proposal: First Idea

Here is the hand-out we gave out to the cless that went along with our presentation. It offers additional information we may not of covered in the presentation and it gives us the key point to genre, target audience, synopsis and character.

OUR OPINIONS

Ciara:Today we presented our proposal for our final idea. I think it went well perhaps we should have focused on how we were going to structure the proposal more. I talked about the synopsis of the opening sequence and about the target audience

James: I think our presentation went well, we covered all the main topics, including genre, characteristics (OCD), actors/location and the target audience. In my opinion we could of delivered the presentation better, what we were talking about was good but our presentation wasn't structured enough.

Spencer: Today we presented our initial proposal. I think the presentation went well, however we could have included more information on the character and location. Also i feel that we did not elaborate on the plot enough and explain the style of shooting we would use.

India: I thought the way we delivered the presentation was good as wel covered every aspect we needed to, also i think that our handout (see above) was good and it explained everything clealy.

Casting

Distressed Girl, Girl Number 3: Ciara

• Ciara will be playing the distressed girl locked in the shed
• She has won an oscar at an early age
• She achieved an A* in GCSE drama
• She loves acting and is looking forward to taking up her role
• She is convient because she is in our group so she will be there at all times when shooting is taking place; eliminating the chance of delayed shooting due to unreliability

Charlie Smiles: James 

• James is a keen actor
• He likes acting and volunteering to act in our sequence immediately
• Like Ciara he is part of our filming group so he will be reliable and available 
• He is looking forward to getting into his role 

Shooting Location: Orginal Idea

Here are the stills from our First Idea's chosen shooting location. It gives a variety of shots from the four main locations, kitchen, hallway, garden and shed.
However, the quality of some of the shots are not very good as they were shot in the dark. But we will be shooting in the day so lighting problems should be resolved.
Also, the location is still fairly messy, due to it being lived in, but we hope to tidy the location prior to shooting in order to get across the OCD symptoms of our main character.
I have attempted to organize the photos from the location as a walk through plan. Starting at the bottom with the house front, and working your way up, everything is placed roughly where it would be in the actual location.

Planning: Costume

Costumes 

Girl number 3

• Clothing 
• Loose clothing, black or white long strap top; she needs to look vulnerable
• Look
• She should look slightly dirty, as if she has been trapped in this shed a while; in order to achieve this we could rub coal on her and her clothes. This will give the affect that she is dirty 
• We want her wrists (where the ropes have been tied) to look red and sore, this will suggest a struggle. In order to achieve this we will experiment with make up and only consider it when shooting if it looks realistic 
• Make up
• We want her look washed out. In order to achieve this we will ;
• use a lighter powder than our actress would usually use and no blusher. 
• We also will use a light-nude lipstick or lip colouring, we want it too appear that she has little or no make up on. 
• We want her eye make up to be much heavier however, we want her mascara and eyeliner smudged to look as if she has been crying
• Her eyes should be bloodshot, this will add to the idea she has been crying 

Charlie Smiles

• Clothing
• Smart clothing, plain black suit with white shirt and coloured tie. Everything should be really neat to reflect the neatness of his character (see picture of suit)
• Glasses
• Look
• incredibly neat, everything looks smart (top button done up, shirt tucked in, tie perfectly done up etc...)
• Hair slicked back with gel (see picture of Simon from Misfits)
• Nails should be clean 

Target Audience

Primary Audience

• Males aged between 22-30
• The film certificate would be an 18 therefore we have decided to target the young adults
• Most 18 year olds are more interested in a horrific slasher or a great action film therefore we have decided to target males slightly older then 18
• Enjoy watching horror films
• We are using a male as predominant character therefore attracts men more then girls
• Enjoys watching films, going out, socialising
• Well educated males therefore understand what OCD is and can understand the symptoms and signs for it.

Secondary Audience

• Females aged between 22-30
• Also enjoy horror film aswell as chik flicks etc
• Females that can withstand scares and frightening scenes
• Well educated

Research on Audience

Group Meeting 2: Refining of ideas

• 
  
  I've typed up our idea from the second group meeting. The idea should hopefully work well, we need to work on audience and get a set idea of who they will be apart from that we have a good understanding of genre character and narrative.
  
  

Research on Titles

When thinking about the placement of credits you have three main options:

• The first is to have basic, bold credits in the middle of the screen, this is the formal option to pretty much get the credits over and done with.
• The second is you could have the credits co-opirated into the actually film, e.g in a poster or replection on a window, this is a more modern way.
• The third is to have them on screen when introducing the actors/actresses, so we know which actors plays which role.

A good example of the first technique to place the credits is 'silence of the lambs'.





As you can see from this video the words are big and bold and right in the middle of the screen, this tells us that what is going ojn in the background isn't that important as they wouldn't be covering up anything that has any significance to the story.


A good example of the second technique is 'Panic Room'.





As you can see from the video the credits are in-corperated into the scene, this is more interesting than the third option and it tells us that the film is likely to either be clever or modern.


A good example of the third technique is 'Diagnosis Murder'





In this example the names of the actors only appear when you can see their faces, when it moves on to other actors then the names change. This is commonly done in dramas.


Conclusion


From the research we have done on the placement of credits we have decided to go with the first technique as it suites a horror film more than the others, technique no. 2 suits action or comedy films and technique no.3 suits TV dramas more than films. However we will not have the words in the middle of the scene as the audience needs to be focusing on what is going on in the opening sequence.

Characterisation

Characterisation

• neat
• hair slicked back, top button done up, shirt tucked in
• time plays an important part
• everything has its place in his house
• slightly geeky
• smart suit, just come home from work
• We hope to combine these two typical stero-types to create our character. We want him to be percieved as normal by people around him, but slightly weird also.

Seven

The mood is suggested in the opening section. The long shot forces the audience to feel distant from the man in the frame. The shot lingers on Morgan Freeman's character, this highlights and establishes the distance and suggests something about his character. In our opening sequence it would perhaps be a good idea to start with a similar idea.

We then see this character getting ready, CU of him doing up his tie reinforce the idea that his character is very set in his ways, neat and particular. The long CU of his things arranged neatly on the table suggest his obsession for tidiness. Our character will display traits similar to Morgan Freeman's character.

Research on Editing

House scene

In this clip, before the man is cutting his toast he is removing his cutlery from the plastic bag. A series of jump cuts are used here. This looks extremely effective and contradicts the idea that everything is perfect. It highlights what he is doing and reinforces that what he is doing is extremely strange.

Shed Scene
Psyco Shower Scene


Similarly here, a series of jump cuts are used but for a slightly different effect. The jump cuts here make the audience feel uneasy and add to the scariness of the scene. The editing style is effective. We could use this technique in the shed scene to add to the idea of the girl feeling disorientated and scared.
We realise as Media students that using jump cuts could be quite risky as our examiner may not realise that we used them to add to the effect of the piece, and instead think that it is just poor editing. We will use the test editing time to see how effective these jump cuts are and use them if they look good and professional.


Vacancy

Vacancy, Section 8: Slow reveal of female victim

The first two minutes of this section of the movie uses a similar style of editing that we want to use in the first section of our sequence. Not much is giving away, we see CUs of her face, and her surrounding but and no long shots are used. In doing this we aim to achieve a sense of mystery, we want to hold something back from the audience so that they want to continue on to watch the film. 

The pace of this section here is also slow, we want to use this idea of a slow reveal to create a sense of long suffering pain and misery. At the same time, we want to show a lot in this section, we need to reveal to the audience elements of the story but at the same time be cautious not to give too much away. 

Other effects 

When editing we also what to create the effect that this girl, who has been captured, feels lost, uneasy and disorientated. In order to achieve this we want to use 

• blurring out shots to give us a sense of her surroundings from her point of view. 

The second picture of the first row could be similar to a shot we shoot. This still seems slightly blurred. This will add to her sense of disorientation, making the audience feel uneasy. 

• jump cuts as mentioned before
• blank screens. A blank screen would add to the sense of disorientation and again make the audience feel uneasy. It could be as if we are seeing everything from her point of view, and at this point she is blinking. 

Opening Sequences

• This opening sequence is conventional of most horror based films. The setting is dark and gloomy, there is a eery silent throughout. 
• we want to recreate something similar to this in the second half of our opening. 
• Genre signifiers are especially apparent in this sequence; dark house, grand, victim young and pretty, minimum light (lit by candle light), weather suggests the mood (thunder and lightening all add to scary effect)

Old style horror movie

• We want to use the idea of a radio playing in the background of our villains house. 
• The radio broadcast is the opening of this sequence, we aim to use a similar idea
• The music in this horror opening sequence is also not conventional. We want to use a mixture of conventional music and music which challenges the genre stereo-types. 

Panic Room

• Here suspense is suggested by the music. 
• The mood set is mysterious and as an audience we are drawn in.
•  The sequence is 1minute 51 seconds long yet not much actually happens. 
• This fits in with keeping the idea simple.
•  A tone for the movie is set, eery and mysterious. 
• We could use a similar idea for our opening sequence and base the storyline around a cleverly selected piece of music. 
• We could see the man going about his normal day but put on eery music to suggest something bad is about to happen. 
• this will help to build up the suspense we want to create
• We also think the idea of uses silences is important as we feel this will add to the eeriness of the situation and raise questions about what is actually about to happen and what secrets the character is hiding. 

Children

• This clip again uses conventional horror signifiers. 
• The MES set up here is dark, gloomy and there is a suggestion something bad is going to happen
• Typical a child is perceived as innocent, young etc... and so therefore vulnerable, this opening sequence plays on that. The binary opposite is used of innocents verses evil. The tone created by lighting and music suggest the evil, while the CU and LS of the toys suggests the innocence of a child. 

Confessions of a dangerous mind

• This is an idea for the opening titles
• The tone set is eery and spooky, this is enforced by the music 
• the close up of the book, with its blood stains suggests something horrific has happened
• we also get a CU of an X-ray, this suggests what has happened previously. It is interesting and draws the audience in. 

OCD

• This clip in the first half has good shots that we can use
• There is a shot of a clock ticking to a ceratin time which we could use in our piece
• The kitchen scene shows a way in which people with OCD cope with the disorder eg: all plates and cups etc in plastic clear bags. The way in which he cuts his food is in a certain pattern.
• The way in which he walks could give an indication into what he suffers with
• Everything in the film is very timed and he does everything by the clock.

This could help us in our drama to get the charactersation of the man with the disorder to look really realistic.

Research on Genre

The genre we are portraying is horror/slasher, wikipedia's definition of a horror film is 'movies that strive to elicit emotions of fear, horror and terror from viewers'. Horror is extremely popular with people aged 15-30 of both sex's, this is because this age group likes to have a good time and live life on the edge, there is a sense that they like to prove themselves and show they are not weak, so horror/slasher films are a good way to prove this.

Films of the horror genre use alot of different themes to make the film more scary, these include

• mentally ill male capturers
• female victims
• sex slaves
• imprisonment in dark places
• blood and goar
• kidnapping

Our film sequence will include all 6 of these themes. we will have an OCD capturer, we will have a young pretty female victim who will be held against her will as a sex slave, and we will tie her up and put fake blood on her to show that some sort of violence has been shown towards her.

There will be a dungeon/captivity scene in our opening sequence where one or more girls who will be tied up as a sex slave.The theme of dungeons is portrayed in many horror films, it is a favourite with producers as it catches on to the female victim and male capturer.

We have taken some ideas from the popular horror 'Silence of the lambs', in this horror a freaky, mentally disturbed man kidnapps a young female and imprisons hers. Which has simularities to our film idea.In silence of the Lambs the male capturer is mentally disturbed, in our film idea we have selected a mentally ill man to be the kidnapper. This capturer has a strong relationship with the pet dog, we have also decided to show a relationship like this also choosing a dog.

Another horror film that focuses on the female victim is 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' This film is about a family who kidnapps a young lady, women are usually used as they are thought to be more 'helpless' and need protecting. In this clip you can see the woman is gagged and tied up, this will be simular to the Mes En scene for our film.

In this clip there are odd things that the males capturers do, they choose to eat at the table with the woman, this is an odd thing to do as she has been kidnapped by them, so why would she want to sit down at the table with them? This technique is comonly used in horrors, the odd rituals that happen make the film alot more spooky, with have taken ideas from the scirpt of this film. we have decided that the man will talk to the tied up girl like they are husband and wife, saying things like 'honey im home' and 'have you had a nice day today?', these lines and the whole attitude that he feels he treats the girl well will make the opening sequence alot scarrier.

Group Meeting 1: Inital Ideas

•  Forest
• Celler
• Man in car holding photos of girls
• Lightning-either early morning or just as it begins to get dark
• Headlights on car gives most lighting
• Hand held shots of girl waking up in forest and running
• Window of the car drawn up slowly and the girl appraoches
• photos all over a wall
• Girl tied up in corner of room
• Girl really rough and hurt
• Guy looking at watch timing everything
• Guy extremely creepy/scary
• Pervert
• Cigarette in mans hand
• Audience-Horror fans, boys and girl age of 15-30
• man with tools
• Photographs of different girls

Main Idea:
Young girl wakes up in forest she scared afraid she begins to run and sees two headlights brightly shining on a car. While we see this we see small clips of a man flicking through a folder of photos with all different girls and some have crosses through them with blood. She begins to run to the car for help however this man is the kidnapper/murderer who is sitting just waiting for her he times it prefectly adding to the creepiness. she bangs on the window and he slowly rolls down the window and we see how weird he is. The last shot is hand whack the window inside the car with blood all over it and slowly slides it down the window.