We have decided to film and then edit our identification short productions as this will maximize he quality of what we aim to achieve.
For 'Jagged Edge Productions' we have chosen to film a knife either going across the camera at a quick speed, with the words 'Jagged Edge' either following or being placed on the knife so the audience can blatantly see the title, or we will be using a knife with blood dripping off it, and with one of the drips it will hit a surface and spread, with 'Jagged Edge" inside the droplet.
'Hawk Eye Distributions' will contain an eye, and when the eye blinks, it will no longer contain it's pupil, it will contain the distribution title, 'Hawk Eye'.
After filming these we will upload the footage and customize them through Garageband, Livetype and possibly even Final Cut.
From Halloween To Scream, the most recognisable slasher killers (Michael Myers off Halloween, Ghostface off Scream and many others), an average kitchen knife is the killers' choice of weapon.
The above picture is very similar to the knife we use in our production, we used it because Halloween and Scream are the two most influential slasher movies to us, and the choice of weapon from our killer needs to adhere to their codes and conventions.
"In John Carpenter’s era-defining slasher movie, the weapon is just your average, run-of-the-mill kitchen knife. Nothing out of the ordinary. But in the hands of a crazed mental patient in a William Shatner mask it becomes oh so much more." - Quote taken from http://www.scene-stealers.com/top-10s/top-10-instruments-of-death-in-slasher-films/
For our soundtrack, we will be using some music from Jem's (group members) band The Feedback, with himself giving permission for us to use this. This music will be played from the music player, when it mysteriously begins to play as our character, Amelia, is about to go to bed
We chose this music because it is typical, popular teenage music so it would represent a true music taste.
Also, Jem is currently designing the score to our film, as he has excessive musical talent, and although he is yet to actually record it, he does have ideas in mind.
In our production we only need several props, however they all of extreme importance.
The first, and most important prop is a knife, which is what the killer will use to murder his victim. We had to be careful whilst filming however as this was a real knife and we did not want to harm cast members.
The second prop we need is a mask for the killer, as we intend for his identity to be revealed. We have evidence that this technique will be successful as it has already become a proven method for narrative enigma, in films such as Scream and Halloween.
The third prop we need is several alcohol bottles to imply that the couple in our production has been drinking, which is a sin and also points toward sexual activity, which is also regarded as another sin.
The fourth prop we require is a music player as a key scene in our film is when music is mysteriously playing from the music player, this is a scene that is paying homage to The Strangers, although in our production, the music is only mysteriously playing, not caught in a loop to show how the scene is frantic, like in The Strangers.
Lighting is another aspect of mise-en scene in our film, as we require some lighting, although there are scenes when there is intentionally no light. In on scene we even differ from light, to no light, to act as a scare to the girl, named Amelia in our production.
Finally, we will be using typical clothing, with the female wearing some slightly 'smutty' clothing to represent the sin of sexual activity to incorporate verisimilitude, with even the killer wearing only a mask outside of typical teenage clothing,although he will be wearing dark clothing to represent he is evil so people will believe that our plot could actually take place.
As you can see we our previous deadline was Friday 21st January, however we have now changed this to Wednesday 26th January and hope to get he whole production filmed in one session.
Our Cast is as follows:
Amelia: Mary newton
Carl: James Crowther
Killer: Jem Whitehead (This should work as the killer's identity will be hidden due to his face being covered by a plain white mask)
If we fail to meet this deadline then we shall all remaining footage on Thursday 27th January
The Saw Franchise is hugely successful, with a wide range of products for their fan base including creating 7 films, 2 video games, many recognizable music scores and 3 amusement park rides. The franchise is so successful that they were able to create a reality television show namedScream Queensin which the winner would win a role in the latest and final film of the series, Saw 3D
The opening sequence is very basic until around 1 minute in, in which we see a character named Adam emerging from underwater. This opening minute is very basic as all we can see is an object floating around in water, with an extreme lack of both diegetic and non-diegetic sound, almost to signify the importance of sound when there is some.
He then procedes to get out of the bath he was placed in, whilst the object, which appears to be a key, goes down the drain as with the water. The room is still in the think of darkness so all we can do is listen to Adam's cries of confusion, until another voice, this time from a man named Lawrence explains the situation to him, before finding a light switch.
The camera then pans across each light as it illuminates, with a heavy bang for each one as it turns on, blinding both men momentarily. the camera zooms out from a mid shot of Lawrence to a possible POV from his perspective, looking at Adam, the camera then looks down to reveal a body, with the skull covered in blood, in the middle of the room. The first real aspect of non-diegetic sound comes into play here as a crashing loud, high pitched noise is played almost to represent both character's crashing realisation that they are in a horrible predicament.
(Adam inside the infamous 'Bathroom')
Quick cuts then show close up of the dead man's bloodied skull, a tape cassette player and a gun, respectively. As both characters try to move forward another quick cut show they are chained to some of the piping system in the bathroom. The opening ends with Adam yelling whilst yanking at the chain around his ankle with more fast paced quick cuts and rising music showing him failing in his attempts, before Lawrence tells him to 'Calm down', although he is almost talking to the audience as well as if to calm their nerves before the rest of the film, and the intricate plot kicks in
One aspect of this opening that we are inspired by is the key use of 2 single props, the gun and the tape player. The fact that there is only 2 props seen in the opening highlights the significance of them, as they both prove pivotal to Adam and Lawrence's futures in the bathroom. The second aspect is the use of mise-en-scene in the sense of the body and the blood and wound that makes it look so realistic. We may have to shoot a short clip in our production that will show the wound, although it is doubtful, so seeing this is helpful as it will give our group more knowledge on how much of the fake blood to use, the strength of the colour and the thickness, due to how real it looks, which could be argued is a form of verisimilitude.
Year Of Release: 1984 Director: Wes Craven
Budget: $1.8m (Estimated)
Gross/Box Office: $10.8m (USA)
A Nightmare On Elm Streetwas released in a period that is widely considered the end of the slasher genre's boom, and managed to breathe new life into the genre. The film was very successful and many remakes and sequels have been attempted, sparking a franchise.
The opening credits are played as we see what appears to be in basic terms, a glove with blades on the end., being created. This was later known as the 'claw' of Freddy Krueger's and is pivotal to the film. After that we see a young woman in front of a white backdrop, possibly to suggest a dream sequence, in a close up. An eerie non-diegetic backing score is continuously played so we know everything is not well for the girl.
The next shot is an extreme long shot of the girl running towards the camera down a large dark corridor, and the location is hard to discover at this point. The shot becomes a mid shot of the girl before the angle changes to a quick close up, then back to the mid shot. The credits are still rolling albeit on the right hand side of the shot, possibly to attract attention to the fact they are in white lettering, placed in front a large part of darkness in the corridor. Darkness is a common convention in slasher and horror films as it gives the audience a sense of unknowing.
A sheep then runs across the path of the girl, giving her and the audience a false scare. In our production false scares are key as to keep the audience guessing, and this one is perfect if you actually analyse carefully. The sheep, although at first seems an extremely odd thing to use as a false scare in that situation, is actually representing a sacrificial lamb in my opinion, showing the audience how the killer thinks of his victims.
The next sequence is of her wandering around what appears to be a boiler room due to the fire and the pipes, and many horror fans will know this scene and location extremely well. The girl ends up at a clearing and then suddenly Freddy's 'claw' rips through a large piece of cloth nearby, from which he emerges from.
The girl is then chased in a shot that is Freddy's POV with a high angle added to show vulnerability. The girl hits a dead end and turns to face Freddy, who quickly walks past the clearing, with a key bit of mise-en-scene, his red and black striped jumper, being revealed. Just when we think that the girl may have got away from him, he jumps up from the ground behind the girl and 'claws' her.
The girl then wakes up, and grabs a crucifix, before praying to God, indicating that Freddy is representative of the devil, or just evil itself.
(The opening scene only lasts for 3:45 of this video)
The film Halloween is another inspirational classic in the slasher genre and contains many of it's genres usual conventions. This film sparked in total 11 more films in the forms of sequels, remakes and even documentaries.
The credits that open the film set the tone for what is a film that could easily be have been a real event. An eerie score that is reminiscent of the music used in the film 'The Exorcist'can be heard whilst the only form of lighting is from a dimly lit pumpkin, with a creepy smile that suggests to the audience this film will not be a family film.
The opening scene could easily be considered as a prologue in many ways due to the fact the rest of the film is set some years later, and the story is based on these events.
After a fade to black from the credits, the film begins. The opening scene is basically one whole shot, with a continuous P-O-V perspective. This angle gives the audience a sense of uneasiness and unbalance, which could represent the killer's state of mind. The unbalance continues as the unidentified killer stalks the house which can be seen (This house also further represents the type of isolation we would like to incorporate in our production). As the killer gets closer 2 people can be seen through the window and begin to engage in some sexual activity. Before they go upstairs, it can be noted that the girl, who is revealed to be the killer's sister, say 'Michael is around somewhere' which, again, gives the audience more mystery to worry about.
(The House Used In The Opening Scene Of Halloween)
A light goes off upstairs indicating the 2 are now engaging in sexual activity and this is when the killer strikes. He sneaks in through an open window, and picks out a knife from a kitchen drawer, and a key point is that the killer knows exactly where to look for the knife. He then wanders upstairs, whilst briefly stopping as the man leaves the house, not noticing the killer in a room close to the door. The killer then progresses up the stairs, and picks up a mask from a room with a lot of toys in(possibly Michael's) and puts it on.This changes the view the audience gets to through the eye-holes of the mask. He then goes into the girl's room slowly, and proceeds to stand behind her. The girl turns and questions the killer with the single word 'Michael?' before the killer unleashes repetitive stabs to her with the knife. This is a key convention as the girl is effectively being punished for performing sexual activity, a common convention being used.
The killer then exits before running into 2 people just exiting a car. The killer is unmasked as the camera changes to a mid shot of the child, and is revealed to be Michael as the camera slowly rises up and widens the view to show a quiet neighbourhood with both Michael's parents staring at him.
A key point of inspiration our group can take from this film is the sense of isolation the house is given due to no non-diegetic sounds being used, and not a lot diegetic sound is needed, giving the audience a sense that they are on their own.
I have been looking through previous posts and realised that although my evaluation of Ben. Gone. Mad (microdrama from beginning of the year) is on the blog, the actual microdrama itself is not on my blog. So, without further ado, here is our microdrama entitled Ben. Gone. Mad
The opening scene is 12minutes and 14seconds long, and the film as a whole can be recognized as one of the most successful slasher movies in it's genre. For most of this opening scene, all we see is the girl(Drew Barrymore) named Casey,who is portrayed as a typical scream queen (blonde and busty) talking to the soon to be killer on the phone. This continues until around 3:30 and all we see is the camera literally track her around the house in a mid shot. Key aspects of mise-en-scene are located during this continuous shot, such as when Casey is playing with a set of kitchen knives which further illustrates the type of genre the film is.
Things begin to get strange from here on in and non-diegetic sound is added with a typical horror type score, as well as more fast paced camera action following Casey as she runs around the house, locking the doors.A moment we have used in our film can be seen at 3:55 where the doorbell rings and Casey jumps out her skin. In or production we will use a succession of bangs instead of the doorbell, but we hope it has the same effect as it does in Scream, making not only the character but the audience also jump out of their seats.
Her boyfriend is revealed to be outside tied up and great suspense is built up around the moment where Casey has to save his life, again with an eerie musical score that allows the audience the discomfort of watching as Casey fails in her task; answering a question wrong in the killer's sick mind games.
A first real prop is used at this stage, aside from the telephone, being a garden chair, which is hurled through the window by the killer. There is a split second of silence before it comes crashing through the set of patio doors, with even diegetic sound at a bare minimum. This will replicate our film as we would like to keep the props we use to a bare minimum, in order to show further significance to the ones that are used, such as the music player which is a key aspect in our film.
The popcorn that Casey is making can also be seen as a superb, subtle key aspect as when things begin to go crazy, the popcorn begins to catch fire, leaving a cloud of smoke in the kitchen. Finally when Casey leaves the house in a bid to escape, the isolation of the house is revealed and we can see that there really is no escape. 'We're out in the middle of nowhere', a remark made by the killer at 3:48 is the best way to describe how lonely and far away Casey is from help.
Some key moments in our production have been inspired from the 2008 film entitled 'The Strangers'.
Director: Bran Bertino (Further Info can be found on the following link: Bryan Bertino: Further Info)
Budget: $10m (Estimated)
Box Office/Gross: £4m (UK). $52.5m (USA)
The first scene of inspiration is from 2:45 to 2:55 in which the main female character, named Kristen, is inside the house and suddenly several loud bangs on the front door can be heard. This prompts her to hurriedly look for her phone in order to ring her partner James as he is currently out buying cigarettes.
We believed this short scene would be a good idea for our production because it provides a lot of suspense and only diegetic sound is needed to communicate this scare. Also, this allows the audience to realise that something is not right and that someone or something is outside disturbing the original equilibrium (The woman being completely OK and about to go to bed).
The second scene we used for inspiration is from 8:52 to the end of the footage (10:00). This scene shows that Kirsten is being harassed by loud banging on the door amongst other things. However, the most important part of this scene that we would be using for inspiration is when the music player suddenly begins playing and is caught in a loop, throughout all the harassment Kirsten endures.
We believed the music being stuck on a loop in this scene would be a good idea for our film as it provides a more sudden, fast paced type of tension, so that it gives the audience a good idea of what it would be like to be in that sort of situation, and how everything would happen in what seemed like a short period of time due to the anxiety and sheer terror Kirsten is in.
As an embed code was not available for the video I chose, here is a link to the video :
We are now filming week commencing: 17th January and aim to finish by Friday 21st January
We are obtaining raw footage and locations shots over 15th -16th January
Jagged Edge Productions We are deciding to use this name because it is an adaptation of a commonly used term 'Cutting Edge' which is used to describe something innovative and new. Also, we chose this because we believe it will be easily recognizable, and finally because a 'Jagged Edge' could be a slang term for a knife or sharp object. A knife will be used a the method of killing the victim in our slasher production 'Oblivious' so 'Jagged Edge' seemed fitting.
Hawk Eye Distributions We decided on this because it can be easy to create a logo for, and the name is also memorable and eye catching. This took little time to decide on as we thought using an animal would give a different spin to our company, and Hawk Eye is recognizably distinct-able.
After much debate and discussion, we have decided that we will use these names for our company idents. A quick bit of research has shown us that neither of these names are currently in use.
Any updates on our company idents will be posted on here.
Firstly we need a young girl aged between 17-19 who is to be killed in the film. This means we will need an actor with a good portrayal of a week character type and can also perform shock in an extremely realistic fashion.
The second character we need is a young man, again aged 17-19 who would play a small role in the film, which would be leaving the girl's house before the killer begins to taunt and scare her. We do not have any real preference for whom we shall cast for this part as it is only a small role and the portrayal will not effect the outcome of our film in any way
The third character we need is the killer. We are planning on masking or hiding the killer's face as this is a typical convention of a horror/slasher film, with the killer being revealed towards the end of the film. Because we are only producing a film opening our killer will remain hidden so the only thing we will be looking for when casting is a tall person so it shows power which is important and another convention in the slasher genre, that the killer has power over his victims.
For our production, we need only one location, a house. The house will be modern and we will be aiming to represent a middle class style of living. It would also help if the house we use is in a rural area as this will hopefully add to the tension and immediately give the characters a sense of isolation.
We will be filming inside the house, so we will be aiming to recreate a typical modern middle class environment with aspects of mise-en-scene including; Electrical appliances, classy looking furniture and a sizeable amount of space in each room.
Finally, we will need to film at a time of day where it is dark out, because this will add suspense and also will not affect our filming as we will be filming inside with light. The reason we need the darkness is to add to the sense of lack of security the woman in our film will try to present which should combine with the rural landscape
This would be the ideal setting for our film as it gives a good sense of isolation, and already looks eerie despite the fact it is presumably only dusk.
We have currently produced a storyboard (showing the basic outline of our story) and we are currently producing a call sheet that will provide us with in-depth information on the shot types we intend to use, the locations, and the order they come in.
We are aiming to film week commencing 10th January - 24th January if needed, however we predict that filming should be finished by the end of the week; January 17th.
Any alterations to our plan will be posted as followed.
In this book Pirie writes about many things involving Gothic cinema, however one thing I found particularly interesting was in Chapter 10, p201. Pirie writes that 'Indeed some of my favourite shots both here (Vampyres) and in Symptoms contains no people at all but are just subjective shots from cars as the headlights pierce rain-soaked wooded drives.'
I believe that these type of shots from these two films could prove to be great inspiration for our own production, titled Oblivious. We intend to begin the production with an establishing shot of a house, where the rest of our production will be set, and I believe using a blank, silent shot of the house in darkness, with only the diegetic sound of rain to be heard would work extremely well in setting the scene and providing an eerie atmosphere. We could also replicate the car headlights, by instead, using a lantern to provide the only lighting seen, aside from lights from inside the house.
This idea would work well in my opinion because the combination of heavy rain, silence and darkness immediately gives an audience a sense of tension and nervousness which would continue throughout the rest of our production. Also, I believe it could work well as an establishing shot as it shows a good view of the whole outer setting of our production, and also sets the tone for the rest of it.
An Updated version: - establishing shot of the household (time allowing may reference 'Halloween' of someone 'walking' towards the house as the opening credits roll on'. - a boy and a girl are alone in a modern household. - there are strong implications that the two are sexually active and have consumed reasonable amounts of alcohol (this is obviously a sin!)
- the boy then abruptly departs, leaving the girl alone in quite a dark house.
- the girl turns everything off, lights, music etc. and decides to go to bed after locking the door.
- the music turns it self back on (seemingly) and gets stuck in a 'loop' - a reference to 'The Strangers'
- she hears a loud knock on the door, creeps up to the door and whispers; "who's there?!"
- another loud bang on the door, girl hesitantly goes to the window to look outside.
- she sees nothing and is rather confused.
- she turns away from the window at pace, and runs right into the 'killer'.
- the scene ends as the girl screams and a POV shot of the knife coming down
We have made several alterations to our original idea because we discovered several flaws in it. Firstly, since we originally mentioned that the girl was going to fall over from shock of seeing her soon to be killer, we realised for this to make full sense. We'd need the girl to hit her head hard on something so that she can become semi-unconsciousness, however this would be very tricky to film and make it seem realistic without hurting our actor. We decided to scrap this, which then meant we had to scrap the rest of the plot because it would not make sense. A second problem we encountered, is if the killer was outside scaring her at the window, how would he be able to be inside to stab her? So for this problem, we decided that we would never have knowledge of the killer being outside or inside the house (hence the title 'Oblivlious'), this will add to the shock when the killer has been in the house for the whole time. Our newly developed plot is above.
Our working title: 'Oblivious' After researching the name 'Oblivious' on imdb, I found out that there are two short films under the name and a TV show that ran in 2001. One short film was released in 2001 and directed by Ozgur Uyanik (given a 4.1 rating on imdb). The second one was released in 2010 and directed by Tomasz Zadurowicz, it does not have a rating on imdb. We have now decided that this will be our working title given that there are no exact matches on imdb or other aspects of media (music, TV series, radio stations etc.) that go under this name. Although, there has been several films under the name of 'Oblivion', this is similar to our name but not as close as too cause a confusion. My group for the coursework consists of Jem, Will and myself. All three of our pitches were for a slasher, so we decided that we would try and combine our three ideas. This way we could develop our idea to it's utmost potential and also could adapt our final idea to suit each of it's creators. Our final, initial idea is; - a boy and a girl are alone in a modern household. - there are strong implications that the two are sexually active and have consumed reasonable amounts of alcohol (this is obviously a sin!) - the boy then abruptly departs, leaving the girl alone in quite a dark house. - the girl turns everything off, lights, music etc. and decides to go to bed. - the music turns it self back on (seemingly) and gets stuck in a 'loop' - this obviously freaks the girl out, she then hears a loud bang/knock on the door, she looks through the window to see who/what is there, using various shot types, a masked face/villain suddenly appears. - this sends the girl into shock and she stumbles backwards, falling over a table or chair and bangs her head, hard on the floor. - she will be then be 'blurring in and out of conciousness' using effects and a POV shot. - the hooded, masked villain who scared her initially, slowly approaches. - he gets closer with every 'blink' as the girl remains to keep conciousness but she is petrified by fear. - the villain is then stood directly over her, holding a long, glistening knife. - the scene ends as a knife comes crashing down towards the girls chest. - it will then cut to black. This is the basic, finalised idea for our coursework, however I'm sure adaptations will be made to make the film better and so that it can be more easily done.
Some of the group decide to go upstairs and take some drugs, in the form of magic mushrooms
One of the drug takers has a bad reaction to the drug and goes to lie down
First-person viewpoint, hand-held shot with effects such as blur and dutch angled view to suggest that something is wrong as the drug taker goes to lie down
Slipping in and out of consciousness, the ill person hears them speaking but sound is distorted and picture is blurred to show he is still under effects of drugs
Suddenly after a long pause an ECU of the ill drug taker’s eyes opening is shown and as he looks around, he realises he has been tied down to the bed, with the lighting giving the room an eerie setting
He hears footsteps as the shot fades to black, the footsteps continue for a short while and then all is silent, until a blood curdling scream can be heard
This would be based on Hostel, whilst also having a loose base to Shrooms due to the drug using in a group of friends
'Hawk Eye Distributions' will contain an eye, and when the eye blinks, it will no longer contain it's pupil, it will contain the distribution title, 'Hawk Eye'.
From Halloween To Scream, the most recognisable slasher killers (Michael Myers off Halloween, Ghostface off Scream and many others), an average kitchen knife is the killers' choice of weapon."In John Carpenter’s era-defining slasher movie, the weapon is just your average, run-of-the-mill kitchen knife. Nothing out of the ordinary. But in the hands of a crazed mental patient in a William Shatner mask it becomes oh so much more." - Quote taken from http://www.scene-stealers.com/top-10s/top-10-instruments-of-death-in-slasher-films/
Also, Jem is currently designing the score to our film, as he has excessive musical talent, and although he is yet to actually record it, he does have ideas in mind.
Director: Wes Craven
Year Of Release: 1978
Year of Release: 1996
