Jess - Main Female Role

  Age: 19

Jess is the daredevil of the group. She loves to show off in front of the guys and would be considered as one of the lads. She has a stable family and gets everything she wants. She is loud and proud; she doesn’t mind saying what she thinks even if it means hurting her friends. In that way, she is selfish. She enjoys playing with people’s emotions and is currently playing off Nicole and Nancy against each other for her friendship. She is also best friends with Josh. Jess is the main victim of the stalker so is picked off last by him. Because she is such a horrible character I wanted her to be the main victim.   

Played by: Charlotte Heaps.

Charlotte has quite a loud personality, she doesn't care what people think. She isn't a girly girl. All these things add up to make the perfect person to play the character Jess.

 

 

Costume, Hair and Makeup

Red is usually a colour people associate with danger. I personally associate the colour red with something needing to stand out and see it as quite a confident colour. For these reasons I want Jess to wear mostly red orrientated clothing.

Costume: Red beanie, denim shirt, black jeans or leggings, cream converse with the red rim to match the red theme and a few rings on her fingers.

Hair: Curled hair because it matches well with a beanie

Makeup: Bright red lipstick to make her stand out because that is the kind of personality she has and simple eye makeup because i don't want her to come across to heavily focused on her looks

 

 

Refined Story Line

The basic story line is a group of friends go away on holiday because they really want a break from college. They find a nice looking place away from everything and the real world however the holiday cost turns out to be really cheap. They think they may be being scammed but as they are students they haven’t got a load of money anyway so chose to go with this holiday. After turning up at the house in the middle of nowhere, the pictures they saw on the website turn out to be old pictures of the house before it was neglected by the owner. The house isn’t completely run down just not as peaceful and beautiful as it looked on the website. After traveling hours to get to the house the students decide to sleep the journey off. Weird things begin to happen, like items of clothing going missing, doors being left open and things being seen moving in the back garden of the house that leads on to a forest. What the students or the audience don’t know is that there is actually someone living in the forest behind the house that gets a thrill out of stalking people. The students begin to get emotionally terrorized by the person in the woods to the point where the girly girl of the group goes insanely paranoid on the rest of the group thinking that it’s them playing a trick on her. They later find out that no one actually owns the house they are staying in and discover an unimaginable record of deaths from the forest surrounding the house. One evening after no terrorising has happened and everything seems back to normal, the students decide to loosen up a bit and have a couple of drinks. After a game of truth or dare, one of the girls (the tomboyish one who loves to show off) dares one of the guys to walk to the edge of the back garden/forest. Not wanting to seem like a coward, he obliges. The students all watch him through the back kitchen window walk out to the edge of the forest and after a blistering scream from the girly girl, the students all turn to look at her, look back and the boy has gone. A huge search party takes place in the woods to find the boy. During the search, after discovering an abandoned shack covered in pictures of them from the holiday and from back at their homes, each student gets picked off one by one by the person in the woods. At the end, the main character (the tomboyish one who loves to show off) is chased, she trips, sees the man from the woods for the first come towards her and then she passes out. She wakes up in a hospital bed surrounded by the rest of the students. Everything is fine, they are all alive, asking her how she is and then she flashes back to the face coming towards her. The screen blacks out and there is the loudest scream.

The filming is done on both handheld camera by the students and studio camera by the crew.

Character Ideas

 

Name: Jess

Age: 19

Favourite colour: Red

 

Name: Nancy

Age: 20

Favourite colour: Green

Name: Nicole

Age: 19

Favourite colour: Pink

Target Audience

15-25 Year old's

I would say the age group that generally look for thrills and adrenaline rushes. People who like to do extreme things like bungee jumping and sky diving, Adrenaline seekers.

The gender that typically go to watch horror films are male because females get scared more easily whereas guys like to be scared to show they are manly and can honestly put up with horror films better then women can.

Whenever I think of someone who likes horror films, I think of dark clothing and piercings however I do find that a wide range of people got to see horror movies however those ideas are pulled from the stereotypes of Emo's and Goth's.



 

Film Title Ideas

I did a brainstorm in order to start thinking about Names for my film but still haven't yet decided.

My Initial Ideas

I did a brainstorm to try and get a few intial ideas together.

The Genre Of Horror

Things I Associate With Horror

 

I did a mind map of things I would associate with Horror to start to help me get ideas for my film opening

The ideas I liked the most are the words I have highlighted in pink:

Group of friends

Happy at the beginning

Old

Phsycho

Dark

Believable

Lost

Alone

Forest

Deserted

 

 

Women In Black & Jeepers Creepers

My first film beginning analysis for the horror genre is Women in Black

Usually in a horror film there is silence when something bad is going to happen. This was evident when the girls jump out of the window at the end of the first scene in Women in Black. You know that something terrible is about to happen because suddenly the music stops. The sound in the scene made by the girls playing is very muffle which gives it a feel of the past. Also it creates an eerie feel to the scene not being able to clearly hear the girls.

Near the end of the first scene, there is a point of view shot of the women in black however not yet seeing the character creates a mysterious atmosphere and not yet knowing who this character is makes the audience fearful of what’s to come. There are a lot of close ups of the china dolls looking emotionless, most people have Pediophobia (fear of dolls) which is why they are heavily associated with horror films. At the very end of the scene, there is an over the shoulder shot of the women in black which only shows her black veil. The fact that we weren't entirely sure there was a character watching the girls, this shot confirms that there is someone there manipulating the girls. This shows us that the film is a horror because of the mystery and the suicide of the girls.

The scene is set in a creepy old house with the girls wearing dirty, old fashioned clothes. This is a typical setting for a ghostly horror movie; you usually see this kind of location associated with haunted houses. The colours throughout the scene are dark and dull which create a sad, sinister atmosphere throughout. The props used are china dolls, which are associated with Pediophobia, and old china sets which are typical to children’s play in the olden days. This scene shows the girls being very happy, playing and having fun as friends, which is why the audience is so shocked when they jump out the window. This is usually what happens in horror movies, the characters are all very, overly happy and then something terrible happens. The audience can usually tell that something bad is about to happen because the characters overplay their happiness.

JEEPERS CREEPERS

In this opening scene of Jeepers Creepers everything is happy and jolly with the characters very chatty and excited. This portrays an almost overly happy atmosphere, leaving the audience to anticipate something bad about to happen. The sound of the van is very loud and overpowers the rest of the scene causing the audience to jump because the sound is so unexpected. I’ve noticed a lot that the opening shot of a horror movie is usually an establishing shot. In Jeepers Creepers the establishing shot is of a long twisting road, surrounded by empty fields. The location is very much in the middle of nowhere, suggesting that if something bad was to happen there would be no one to help them.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off Film Opening

Today we looked at the film opening of Ferris Bueller's day off to try and see what made the film a comedy from the opening. We used the four technical elements; Mise-en-scene, Cinematography, sound and editing.

Starting with the mise-en-scene. all the colours used were bright, which showed us that it was a happy film. The lighting was high key throughout which also suggested a happy mood whereas if it had been a horror the lighting would have been low key. The actor’s performances were very over the top, exaggerated and unreal which suggested a comical element to the film. Also after Ferris's parents left he broke the fourth wall by talking to directly to the camera. This isn't something you usually see out of the genre of a comedy film.

Secondly cinematography. There were a lot of close up shots of Bueller's face showing us his complete overreaction of his illness, this showed us from the word go that he was faking it. There was a an establishing shot of the family’s fancy house, a house you wouldn't necessarily see in a western or sci-fi film, it was the perfect location for a comedy.

Thirdly sound. The diegetic sound of the radio was very chirpy and happy. Also the man used a funny voice to present the radio giving the sound a comical effect. There was an extreme contrast between the background music whilst the parents were in the room and the music when the parents left suggesting a non-serious, atmospheric film.

Finally editing. The text on the screen that came up whilst he was listing his 'illness' was random and projecting his words to make them more clear to the audience, yet again the highlighted him breaking the fourth wall. The montage used was happy and chirpy and full of the most random of things. This erratic editing suggests yet again a non-serious film, a comedy film.

 

Short Prelim Evaluation

 Overall I am pleased with the way my preliminary task turned out eventhough it isnt as long as I hoped it would be, I still managed to include all the technical aspects needed; match on action, 180 degree rule and shot reverse shot.

 I got both of my audio clips from youtube. The first one used is called vengence, I really wanted to create an intense atmosphere of added suspense as if something terrible was about to happen. I feel as if I should have faded this audio clip in as it started because the sound is a bit sudden  The second clip used is called happy times. I used this music to create a contrast between Sarah's worried feelings and Megan's ignorance. I wanted it to seem as if Megan didn't care what her friend was worried about and that she didnt quite understand the significance of what had just happened. I really feel that this music takes the audience from the panic atmosphere in Sarah's world to the easy going world of Megan. 

 I have used all three technical apects throughout my preliminary task. The aspect I am most happy with is match on action, especially the part where Sarah crawls out from under the table and runs out the door. I really feel like these shots flow well from one to the other.
  To improve in my future tasks, I need to concentrate on manual focusing and background noise. I didn't 100% stick to my script but I feel that the dialogue worked out overall.

THE THING

Starring
Lydia Barba
Eva Konczak

Director & Camera
Ellie Shea-Graff

I used this audio to create suspense in my Preliminary task. I also found this on youtube.

This is the audio used at the end of my Preliminary task, I found it on youtube and felt like it fitted in with careless mood of my character.

The Script

The thing script from sheagraffe

Prelim Intro

AS Media preliminary task : my idea is called "The Thing"