Company Logo

Organization of Actors, Props and Costumes

Jay – Lad 1
Matty – Lad 2
Jamie – Lad 3
Walton – Lad 4
Smart/Casual Clothing for All
Set (Black Path)

Pitch of Ideas

The story line for our sequence is that there is a group of lads coming home from the pub after a night out. Upon the journey home an unknown killer who follows them picks each of the lads off. Being in a drunken state none of the lads believe what is happening. We will use a variety of shots and the killer will remain anonymous through the use of point of view shots. We will have to film our sequence outside of college time, as it will need to be dark in order to get the effect we want. It will start with the lads walking along a dimly lit path. When each one of them stops to pee in a bush or something of that nature. That is the first person to be killed. The second person splits off to walk in the direction he needs to. And that is him gone. There are two lads left and they go back to look for the guy who stopped for a pee when they find his body in the bushes. Horrified they run and call the police, but when one of them stumbles and falls his time is up. That leaves one of them who managed to escape. The final shot will be the survivor sat on his bed at home crying.
Our sequence will appeal to over 18s who enjoy horror/thriller films. It will hopefully be quite a jumpy sequence which we leave people wanting more.
A lot of our camera shots will be a hand cam in order to give the point of view shots for the killer. We will also be using high and low angles to represent who have power in certain situations. This will be an effective method and will hopefully add depth and atmosphere to the sequence. The combination of camera shots will be linked together using a number of appropriate transitions and effects.
For our soundtrack we may use the pre-recorded samples we have available to us on the IMAC soundtrack program. Or we may record our own composition. We are unsure at the minute on what the rules are on recreating a copywriten piece of music so we will do research into that.
The lighting in our sequence will be low key and dim in order to create an “eerie” mood.
We hope that the combination of all these elements together help to create our idea of a horror/thriller.

Mind Map of Initial Ideas

Genre Research

For our opening sequence, we have chosen horror and in order to do this it must be rated either 15 or 18. Rating the scene 15 would limit us to what content we could include. Whereas if it were an 18 then we have a much broader spectrum as to what we can show. I think we will rate our scene an 18 as it means that we can use more realistic props which means that we can base shots around them. In turn this could increase our grade by having a wider variety of shots. There are a lot of good horror films which are rated 18 such as Nightmare on Elm Street and The original Amityville horror. But that is not to say that 15 rated horrors are bad. The body which rates films and games are called the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) They state that 18 rated films are more sexually explicit and violent. They rate films 18 so as to protect children with impressionable minds from violence. Our horror is not gory but is more of a thriller and our ideas have been inspired by other films such as: The Others, Heart Of Darkness and Jeopardy. We have chosen to do thriller as we feel they have a greater effect on the viewer. Thrillers allow the mind to fill in the blanks, whereas slashers leave little to the imagination as there is no subtlety. In our film the killer is never shown as all of its shots are first person. We got this idea from films such as The zodiac Killer. As horror can be such a broad genre we feel we have chosen the correct aspect of it.

Analysis Of The Amityville Horror

I have chosen to analyse the remake of the Amityville horror. The first scene we see is a black screen with the date “ November 13th, 1974” in the bottom left hand corner. The black screen then fades out to a close up of a face in very shallow focus, and is only just recognisable. We then hear a bang, which could be a gunshot or lightening, and we have a cut to a shot of a house during the night in a storm. We then cut back to a shot of the mans face but clearer this time and his eyes are open with a light blue colour to his eyes. After this we have a shot of a TV with a diagram, which is very abstract and what appears to be a Red Indian. A cut zoom towards the TV shows the Indian a lot clearer which is possibly to add an enigma. We then have a close up of the alarm clock moving from 3:14 to 3:15 and then shot reverse shot to a sinister looking man turning to see the alarm cock and we then go back to the clock. During this clip we hear the alarm clock changing time above all other sounds. This use of sound perspective adds significance to the time. We then have a cut zoom out to the bedside table where we see an ashtray and a book which title reads “Evil, Proof, God”. We then have a medium shot behind the man sitting on the bed watching the TV as he picks up a rifle. Match on action then shows him from the front, loading the rifle still watching the TV. All of these elements add to an ever-growing enigma. We then have a cut to a photo of the man in graduate robes, which is lit up by the lightening storm outside. This shows us that the man with the gun hasn’t always been sinister as the image we see is in juxtaposition to what we see him doing. We then jump back to the same shot behind the man sat on the bed, when he stands up he leaves the room rifle in hand.
The lighting throughout this scene is low-key and what we see is frequently lit up by the lightening storm outside. We see the man walking up a flight of stairs a then staring out of a window, once again the shot is lit up by a flash of lightening and it shows his face with a very determined and evil. Throughout this whole clip low strings are being played in order to add tension and a sense of unease. He then walks up more stairs. He then walks into a room and we see a low angle shot of him in the door way aiming the weapon at the people in bed. We then cut to an over the shoulder shot of him shooting them, this happens two more times following the same pattern until he enters the last room. In the last room a little girl is awake and we have a close up of the murders eyes and he sheds a tear before shooting her too. This takes us to the end of the sequence.

Assessment 1, Film Noir Mind Map,

Assessment 1, Horror Mind Map,

Conventions of Horror and Film Noir

Horror films have a lot of characteristics some of which include, blood, tense music, and low-key lighting. The lighting and tense incidental music help add to the atmosphere of the film which creates a better horror effect. A lot of horror films today feature fictional creatures such as zombies and post apocalyptic creatures, but these films are nearly all big budget. We will attempt create this effect with next to no budget at all. Our other option was film Noir which features characteristics such as, a femme fatal, corrupt cops and violence. Below are mind maps which show the typical forms and conventions of film noir and horror.