Location Scouting - Lucy Clark Re-sit

The opening two minutes of our horror film requires a variety of different locations, including inside a house and several outdoors. We are looking mainly around the Broomfield area, because it is local to our actors and so will be easier for them to make it to filming dates. It also means that we can get more done each day of filming because we are cutting out excessive travelling.

For several of the scenes we need to film inside a house, and believed it would be best to film in one of our own to avoid an invasion of someone else's privacy. We decided to film these scenes at Emmaline's house because it is close to all of our other possible locations and so will be easy during filming. We considered several different rooms in the house to film in, including the kitchen (as is used in "Scream" to good effect) but decided on the bedroom. The reason behind this choice is that it is a very personal room, and so boundaries are pushed even further by the antagonists.

(a still taken from "Scream")

This was a final choice of bedroom to shoot our victim in because it's a light colour reflecting the innocence of our actress. It will also be easier to have someone hide in this room as there is also another room attatched. The double bed may also make the charactar seem more realistic and imply she is the only resident in this household, whereas single beds seem more child like.

For another of our locations, we looked at filming by some derelict looking garages by Church Road in Broomfield. The reason we think that this is a good place to film is because it looks very empty and makes the lone female protaganist look very vulnerable as she walks through the area. They are dark and the moss and grass outside of them is overgrown. The idea of derelict buildings being used in horror films is a fairly common convention, where normally it is an old "haunted" house that is used.

These are the woods that are located right by Chelmer Valley and Broomfield Hospital. The reason we're looking into filming here is because there is a footpath that runs through them and the tree's are quite sparse, and so it looks as if it is simply a short cut to her house. The woods are quiet as well so there wont be much background noise, which again complies with typical horror films, because the victims vulnerability is played on. A film that makes use of filming in the woods is "The Blair Witch Project" filmed entirely on handheld cameras and it a very good example of a film that makes the audience feel uneasy and scared in this type of location.

(photo from http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowldc/nbcs-version-of-the-blair-witch-project_b24462 )

This is Court Road. We like this location because it is quite a wide, open road, and there isn't many parked cars or houses along the sides, which gives the impression of being totally alone. Also, the street lamps are quite spaced out, therefore when it is dark, you can only see the part of the road that the street lamps light up. This means that we can work with shadows and people hiding in the darkness, giving the audience a sense of unease. Because however, it does get dark quickly, we would have to work out a filming schedule that fits in with the lighting, to ensure that it isn't too dark to film, but dark enough that the effect we are looking for is achieved.

We are aiming to shoot the majority of our film during late afternoon/early evening, because the darkness will aid us in trying to create an eerie environment and make the audience feel uneasy.

First Draft Script - Lucy Clark Re-sit

Me and Emmaline have been working on writing a script for our film recently. The only real dialogue is right at the very start of our film when the screen is blank and so the script itself has to be very believable and able to stand alone without video to go with it. Even though there is very little dialogue, we created a script so that the actors could see how we wanted the trailer to come across. The girl we cast as our female protagonist in particular needs to know how we want her to act during the title sequence, which is when this script will be used.

I looked into how scripts are set out as well, in order to make our production as professional as possible. This is the website I used.

http://interceptfilm.co.nz/pdfs/short_intercept_correct_script.pdf
Script

Film Brief Lucy Clark Re-sit

Our brief is to create the two minute opening of a horror movie, including a title sequence and the institution logo. We will need to make a film production company name and the logo to go with it.

Horror films in particular use their openings very effectively; normally within the first few minutes, the over all plot is hinted at and the viewer is aware of what is to come later on. Another way the openings attract viewers is that, especially in thrillers, the audience is given a series of clues which help them reach the overall conclusion of what will happen. In "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" the ending on the film is shown first, which captivates the audience because they want to know how and why that ending was reached.

The over all plot of our film revolves around stalking. The film would see six young women being stalked in various places and ways by hooded or masked men. The women would be seemingly unconnected, apart from the fact that they are being stalked by presumably the same men. The reason we chose six young women is to comply with Laura Mulvey's "Male Gaze Theory" where the assumption is that the audience is male. By using young women, they appear vulnerable and weak and men will want to protect them. Havng male antagonists, it denotes that they will be superior in strength, once again making the women look vulnerable.

All the women, once caught, would be taken to the same remote location in the countryside, which is down long and winding roads, creating a sense of foreboding for the audience. The exact location is never shown for the same reasons. It can also be seen as mirroring and connoting the anonimousity of the stalkers themselves.

The idea behind the plot is that each member of the "stalking group" are targeting their victims not only for a slightly erotic reason but are sycophantic; all females own something they require/desire. i.e a body part (such as limbs, eyes, hair). The antagonists are a group of psychotic scientists aiming to create their perfect being and relentlessly killing any object of their desire along the way. As the film itself progresses, the women will be seen together, laying unconscious with big, bold, black crosses marking various aspects of their body. This will highlight to the audience the body parts the scientists require from that particular person, and reiterate their final goal of creating the perfect person from various bodies. This idea is reminiscent of the novel "Frankenstein" and although the idea of creating the perfect person from different bodies is explored in the novel, the method and the over all production is entirely different.

Our opening 2 minutes shows an example of one of the characters attack on her way home from an unknown destination. The audience are made aware during her journey that she is being followed although she is not. We view her walk away and every so often the camera flicks forward in time for a short loud burst of the attack on her that is yet to take place. The camera will then switch back to her journey home. The flashes will become more regular throughout the two minute opening, becoming shorter and quicker to give a flickering film reel effect, detailing exactly how the woman was caught and subsequently tortured. The film flashes show her with the antagonists inside her house and eventually attacking her. The forward flashes become quicker until the present time zone catches up with the beginning of the flashes as the female goes to let herself in her house.

We hope this will leave our audience in suspense, questioning what the marks on the bodies mean. We plan to give no clear indication of the state of the females and how many there are to keep the audience questioning the scene. It will not become apparent until right at the end that one of the women survives, and which woman it is. The audience becomes aware of this when she is telling her story in a court room after she escapes. The antagonists will be seen for the first time unmasked, where they look completely normal and unassuming, making the audience feel unease because this highlights that stalkers and murderers could be anyone, and you can never tell. The sharp frames we hope will shock the audience but also indicate whats in store throughout the rest of the film. The main idea of our opening is not a clear cut version of events but clues and hints that firstly may make little sense but as they come together create more answers, yet more anticipation.

G321 Lucy Clark Re-sit

I will be re-sitting my G321 course work and so will be ammending posts on this group blog. Any changes will be in bold and blue so it is easy to see what has been improved.