possible location setting

Final Product

Hey guys. So our film is finally complete: edited, sound, finished! :) So you are free to watch it online and let us know what you think! We're near on 200 views in total, which is great, the more the merrier!

Our final film is called "anonymous" - to keep the identity of the killer a secret.

You can find the video on:

http://www.youtube.com/user/missylex
http://www.youtube.com/user/kiaandherguitar
http://www.youngdirectors.co.uk - go into "categories" - "openings" and ours is listed there.

Lauren Final Costume

This is a still from our final product. We chose to dress Lauren in jeans, a white starred t-shirt, heels, and a red cardigan. We chose to use jeans, the eyebrow piercing and a plain starred top so that her character was identifyable as a teen girl but not a stereotypical teen or a typical blonde bombshell/damsel in distress victim. This also shows part of her character which would be revealed later on in the film. The red cardigan, low cut t-shirt and high heels suggest sexual awareness in Lauren's character and also are signifiers that suggest that she could be in danger. The colour red is reccuring in our film opening.

"How To" Videos and Experiments

Here are examples of where we experimented with garage band and the mac computers to help us to create effective sound/ music for our coursework. We also watched "how to" videos on youtube and listened to clips of music from other horror films. From this we learnt skills such as how to extract sound from our video clips and noticed that in other film music, stringed instruments and pianos were used frequently.

Primary Research Results

Q.10 Describe ONE image in a film that you've seen that frightened you:

A face appearing out of nowhere
A ghost living in a doll that jumped out.
A girl coming out of the tv
A pale face in the dark in an attic in the grudge
An unkown figure suddenly appearing!
Candyman: girl in the mirror repeating words
Child turning in to a poltergeist, speaking with another voice, in exorcist
Clown masks
Face appearing through steam in a mirror
Face in bath water
Faceless shadow
Flash of light revealing a face in a darkened room
Gillotine
Girl coming out from tv, hideo nakatas classic
Girl crawling out of the tv.. (the ring)
Girl sticking finger into bulletwound in head
Head being ripped off
Hero running up stairs with killer chasing
In a movie called dead girl, it was a quick flash
Jaws
Monster emerging without warning
Nun strapped in chair went mental
Person appearing out of nowhere
Scary
Shadow passing by a window at night
She wakes up to fine the golems creeping at her
Sudden appearance of the villain
The grudge in the security camera
The grudge-when the girl is coming down the stairs
The red-coated creature in don't look now - nic roeg
The trap/games in the saw films
The 'victim' being watched by the killer
The woman under the water in what lies beneath
When a face appearrs in a bathroom window
When a figure moves closer to the screen quickly
When someone is tied down and tortured
Woman watching as her bedroom door handle turns

Q.11 Name FIVE things that you would associate with a horror film. (followed by the number of people that said this)

Blood
Darkness
Death
Tension
Knife
Dark
Isolation
Killer
Scary music
Screaming 4
Fear 3
Music 3
Screams 3
Shadows 3
Suspense 3
Chainsaw 2
Creepy music 2
Gore 2
Knives 2
Mystery 2
Sex 2
Supernatural 2
Villan 2
Violence 2
Amputation 1
Anticipation 1
Axe 1
Based on truth 1
Being chased 1
Blades 1
Blood and horror 1
Bodies 1
Build up of tension 1
Carrot killings 1
Chase 1
Close up faces 1
Creepy score 1
Dislocation of limbs 1
Empty building 1
Everyday items used in a thretening way 1
Female 1
Female victim 1
Forests/woods 1
Ghosts 1
Girl 1
Glimpses of something 1
Horror scenes 1
Killers 1
Lonely 1
Look behind you 1
Main protagonist who makes it out alive 1
Make u not want to look 1
Makes you jump 1
Masked villain 1
Masks 1
Monsters 1
Morbid 1
Murder 1
Nudity 1
Outside normality 1
Pain 1
Parallel music/sound 1
Paranormal 1
Party 1
Phone ringing 1
Possession by the devil 1
Pretty young girl/s 1
Quick movement 1
Reflective stuff e.g. mirrors 1
Remote location 1
Running 1
Scream,ing 1
Screaming/heart beating 1
Shocks 1
Spooky weather 1
Stalker 1
Strange items used to kill people 1
Stress 1
Sudden shocks 1
Supernatural elements 1
Tense music 1
Tension/suspension 1
The elephant man 1
Torture 1
Trees and wind 1
Twist of events 1
Ulterior motive 1
Weapon 1
Weapons 1
Victim 1
Villain 1
Villanous eyes 1
Young people 1
Zombies 1

Q.12 What, to you, makes a horror film good?

A clever plot with twists and turns and surprises
A good story line, something that makes me paranoid
A new concept with traditional rules.
A solid story, good atmosphere, realistic effects,
A story that begins to unfold letting me find the villain!
Ability to tap into our innermost fears
An unambiguously frightening experience
Being scared out of my wit
'believable' villain
Creepy killings unknown killer till end odd plot
Darkness scary music or no music tension seeing things the character doesn’t
Enough with the killers....need better ghost story
Good characters
Good plot- keeps you guessing, suspense, scary
Great characters and interesting story
Horror mainly
It has to have tension building
It must be scary right from the beginning
It needs a good ending, not predictable not absurd
Jumpiness
Just watch harpers bay and you will inderstand
Makes you jump and feel scared after watching
Making the audience jump
Not knowing who the villan is to the end
Psychological creepiness that is realistic
Psychological fear. music. camera angles.
Right amount of tension (created by music)
Suspense
Suspense.
T n a and blood
Tension
Tension and a plot that keeps you interested/twist
Tension the unseen darkness unsettling noises and occurrences David lynch the lost highway is a great example
Tension, acting, reality
Tension, good idea, something new...
Tension, twist of events
Tension. good story built upon suspense and fear
-the music -fear of the unknown -tension
Too scared to watch but having to see it through

Q.13 What is your most memorable horror film opening and why? (followed by the number of people that answered this)

“inside"-it sets up the story as to why she kills 1
28 days later. first film i saw on return from Iraq 1
Alien 1 1
Amityville horror 1
Because it was shocking 1
Candy man 1
Can't remember any. 1
Can't say... most start out pretty easy. 1
Don't know 1
Exorcist - i never forgot it. 1
Ghost ship 1
Hell raiser because of the amount of blood used 1
Horror films are terrible i haven’t liked any 1
House of 100 corpses, love that movies 1
Never seen one 1
Not sure.. haven’t seen many ^^ 1
One missed call girl being dragged into water 1
Opening of Halloween, it is unexpected 1
Pitch black, a scream. Left in suspense rest o film 1
Saw 1
Saw - terror and disgust from outset 1
Saw, seeing the dead victims 1
Scream- uses all the conventions but with a twist 1
Scream, 1
Scream-it made me jump 1
Seven - the snapshots 1
Sixth sense grudge 1
Texas chainsaw- it starts really normal and then goes scary the original tobe hooper not the remake 1
The grudge - tension suspense darkness 1
The grudge, something exciting happens. but tense 1
The omen - loved premise of the film 1
The omen...movies about the devil are really creepy 1
The ring, it was the scariest thing ever! 1
The shining - good use of music and shot of scene 1
Too many to choose from 1
When darkness falls; suburban setting to nightmare 1
When i saw the dream child with Robert Englund 1
Zombie land straight into the action

Certificates (BBFC)

Sound

Kia is currently looking at different sound effects we can make with and without the help of Garage band.

Kia is in charge of sound and has been looking at songs to use in our film opening, and has also been looking at soundtracks from popular horror and slasher films.

Current progress

We started filming out film opening on Saturday the 30th of January.
We have uploaded the filming we did from this day onto the mac at school and we have learnt a lot from this filming day. We have decided not to use most of the footage we filmed on this saturday as most of the time we felt we could improve what we had filmed. Filming on saturday gave us a good idea of lighting, sound and where we want everything to be in our film opening.

Since then we have filmed on Monday the 1st, Tuesday the 2nd, Thu the 4th and we are hoping to film the very last part of our film opening on Mon the 8th.

All the footage we have filmed so far has been uploaded onto the mac and we are in the process of editing.

prop research

As a group we were looking into how to portray to the audience of our film opening that the main characters boyfriend is dead.

We looked into a cutting from a paper but decided that we did not like this idea as it was not personal enough and we came up with the idea of having a sympathy card sent from someone to the main character.

Costume

We decided that our villan would be dressed all in black as that is stereotypical of a horror/slasher movie. We also decided that our villan would have a mask as this is a common feature in slasher movies.

We decided that our main character (lauren) would be wearing blue jeans, a white top, a red cardigan and black high heeled shoes.

We also decided that she would have simple make up and have her hair down.

we decided to use someone from our own group to be our actor as they are more reliable.

We decided our main character would be a young woman aged 16/17

Kia and Alix took photgraphs of themselves in different costumes as did lauren, and as a group we dicided lauren would be our main character.

Films to be watched

As a group we have decided that our film opening also contains codes and conventions of the slasher genre.

As a group we researched slasher films and compiled a list. We then chose a couple of films each that we are in the process of deconstructing.

Kia has also researced the codes and conventions of the slasher genre.

Alix then did some research into the characters in slasher films.

Ideas from deconstructions

Film Deconstructions

deconstruction of Hide and Seek (first 4 mins) by Alix

Specific focus on flashbacks within Gothika was also done by Alix

Deconstruction of Gothika (first 1o mins) by Alix

Some quick deconstructions of film trailers containing flashbacks were done.

As we decided we wanted to have flashbacks in our film, we looked up films that contained flashbacks and each person in our group noted down a couple of films that they could deconstruct.

Films we have watched so far are: 28 weeks later, Saw, When A Stranger Calls, Hide and Seek, Gothika, The Grudge and The Strangers.

Film opening plan

Some editing of the plan took place and Lauren has drawn up a 46 square storyboard and Adam has written the details of the shots under each shot on the storyboard.

Kia and Alix have written a shooting script.

Alix drew up a 55 bullet point plan of our film opening idea and highlighted the key areas (lighting, camera work and sound)

Location

After deciding that our location would be set in a house, our group drew floor plans of our houses.

As a group we decided that Laurens house would be the best house to use as it is modern and spacious and this was something we noticed was common in horror films.

Lauren then took photographs of the bottom floor of her house so the rest of the group could understand the layout of her house to make out film opening work around this.

We decided to have an alley featured in out film opening and this is located opposite Lauren's house.

Initial research

Our initial idea for our film opening was to create a horror movie.

The first piece of research we did was to look into popular horror films.

We then discussed as a group whether anyone had seen any of these films and whether there was anything specifically that people thought was effective in these films and why.

From this we then came up with a list of initial ideas for our film opening.

Our group has also been looking at 'how to's ' on Youtube to learn how to use the camera and how to work with lighting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcMX1RcNRYA&feature=related the above is three point lighting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rwq5O0U88QI&feature=channel the above is cheap lighting techniques

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1japIhKU9I the above is filming techniques, interesting angles and basic shots

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwr0VQJyYro&feature=related the above is film techniques

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxCY3IHYjnU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b3vj-xgxm4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChiUb-B16rs&feature=related

the above are poker adverts, that have very interesting camera angles, that we would like to try and include some of in out film opeining.

As a group we all looked at the different effects we can use on iMovie and how they could work well in out film opening.

Tracking shot device

This was our second design used to create our tracking shot.

We placed the camera on the tri-pod and pulled the rug backwards as our main character walked towrds the camera to create a tracking shot.