Podcast 4

Front Cover Magazine Cover Research.

Personalising Stories.

'Hang it on a person' Think how you can appeal it the cover to an audience. To help research look at doing interviews about the topic.

Basic Elements. 

- Text

- Headlines

- Photgraphs - text should support image.

- Captions

- Text boxes.

Layout Options.

What is the text to image ratio? How will you entice your audience for example how formal will it be, will it use symmetry? Paragraphs? How will images be displayed on paper? And text font and size?

Dont be afraid of white blank space.

Stay away from the edge it looks more professional.

 

Podcast 3

Podcast 1

Audience Feedback.

-Use female items for killing for example straighteners and hair dryer 
-Link in one male stereotypically going out with a blonde which shows she's sexually active and most likley to get killed
-Male could appear as killer but is actually the  final boy this gives the audience some narrative enigma. Accidental death others run off but not actually dead thats why she gets revenge. 

-Link to 'I know what you did last summer' 

When shooting the footage we thought our lighting would of been correct for viewing but once we had uploaded it and showed it the audience they thought it was too dark even though it was a horror genre, it was unclear to see characters.


The audience all said they really like the under water shot they said it worked well and signified there was more scary aspects to come.


Once we had done the sink shot with the killer coming behind the girl who hits her head on the mirror, the audience thought it would work better if the shots were cut more for example you would see an arm then the girls face and then the killers body coming across.


Also another shot that could be made better is the car scene instead of one long shot have the action of being grabbed round the neck and then a close up of the neck or the girls emotion to empathise fear.

-Longer moon shot 

-When dare appears on screen music kicks in

-Shots too quick

-Long note on pov shot before running starts

-Needs more exposition before running, expecting audience to know characters too early.

-Show the link between 5 years for example using black and white then fading into colour when there older

-Link suspicious boy with mask

-End shot needs to be a medium shot with girl running to camera to create a close up and a scream

-When the girl is 'dead' have a high angle shot of the girls looking down at her.

- Voice over from young girls scared of what they have done

- High angle shot of girls seeing zoe

- Before see girl killed pov shot of running with voice over using footsteps for sound.

-Show hand reaching for a knife

-Fade in to when zoe says dare with music and transition

-Use still and fade on POV with movement

-Too fast shots another still and cut to black with a scream using the flash effect. After the push freeze frame then bring in title even if used twice its a good marketing device.

-Also put in reviews to add to the timing.

-Zoe moves when she should be 'dead' use a still 

-Make sure the story is clear why when she comes back 5 years later dont her friends recognise her.

-Heartbeat would add effect to the visual motif with the mask.

-Cut when closing the locker

-TAGLINE - 3 shots, 3 words.

-Frans shot is too long sped of 3 shots need to be similar 

-End shot emily in the bath

-Breif takes although confusing gives the sense of violence.

38 sects to 58 cut and make a fast montage 15secs

-Zoe's mid shot at the beginning 

-Audio of girls needs to come in earlier

-Stills need to come after the action

-Dissolve into 5 years later.

-Review something better 'the new danny boyle' 'best british  horror...'

-Ambient sound of emily be aware

-More audio needed for both clips eg her name 

-even quicker montage 

- last sound needs to be loud and effective 

- voice over 

Podcast 2

Logo And Production Company.

We chose the name for our production company because it shows the genre of our movie. I used photoshop to create the image and add text to it. I think it will be easily recognized to our audience for the future movies we produce.

Props.

We want the killer to have a significant weapon e.g. a knife to give inter-textual links to other films such as Halloween and Prom Night.


We will also need props to show the difference in time. When the girls are younger maybe have an older camera and when the girls have aged 5 years maybe have a mobile phone to show the progression of technology.

Finally, we will need things such as a campfire and sleeping bags and tents to anchor that they are going into the woods to camp.

Pre-Production Scheduale

We need to do a casting as we need to find two different age groups of girls 13-14 and 17-18. We will also have to include stereotypical character types to fit with the regular codes and conventions. E.g. Blonde girl and final girl.

Another thing we need to do is find good locations for filming. We need quite a few locations as the trailer needs to show different parts of the film- woods, houses and school. We  need to take practice footage of different locations to check the lighting and sound.

Soundtrack.

We want to create Juxtaposition with the music, to build up the tension and then drops continuously until the final scare. Part of the soundtrack we are going to record is of a child singing, which is going to be the main anchorage for the story line. The main soundtrack will be originally composed to fit with our genre and synopsis and work together with the footage. There is an  inter-textual link to Nightmare on Elm Street as there is a young child singing at the start of the film.

Hardware And Software.

The hardware we will be using is the canon MD205 camera which we have previously used on our coursework last year and preliminary task prior to that. There are many things you can do on the camera for example change the lighting with white balance and zoom in and out to get different shot types. Another piece of equipment we will be using is the tripod. We will use this when we need a steady shot which is not achievable by hand, and gave a smoother shot. The final piece we will use is the boom mike this is a new piece of equipment we haven't used before and will be useful when needing a quiet
surrounding and only wanting to hear the dialogue; we will need some practice with this to get the hang of where it needs to be placed and to make sure it isn't seen in shots.

The software we are using is Final Cut Express, this is a new software as we used imovie HD previously. We have had a practice on this software and doing the task to get the hang of it. This software has more effects and will give us a better chance at adding different effects and edits in the footage. This software looks more complex, but you will be able to see everything you are doing all on screen. Also we will be using photoshop to create the posters and magazine articles to go with the film. We have previously used this software making our poster and magazine articles. This will help us edit different photos and bring them together to show what happens in our film. Finally we will be using the blogs to record all our work and our progress with our coursework as we go along with the task. We are able to use the blogs as we used them for our coursework in AS.

Horror Genre Research.

Todorov's Narrative Theory.

Russian theorist, Tzvetan Todorov, suggests that all narratives follow a three part structure. They begin with equilibrium, where everything is balanced, progress as something comes along to disrupt that equilibrium, and finally reach a resolution, when equilibrium is restored.

This simple formula can be applied to virtually all narratives - it is a more formal way of thinking about the beginning, middle and end, and it takes into account Aristotle's theory that all drama is conflict ie there is a disequilibrium at the heart of every narrative.

                                                                                                            


Horror films are move that strive to gain the emotion of fear, horror and terror from the viewers. Their plots frequently involve themes of death, the supernatural or mental illness. Many horror movies also include a central villain.

oes are largely based on classic literature of the genre of horror. Examples such as Dracula, Frankenstein and The phantom of the Opera.Horror genre has changed in violence throughout the years, early horror m

In contrast recent horrors often draw insecurities of life after World War II, which give three distinct but related, sub-genres; the horror-of-personality psycho film, the horror of armageddon (Invasion of the Body Snatchers film) and the horror of the demonic (The Exorcist film) 

Furthermore horror films have been dismissed as violent, low budgets B movies and exploitation films. On the other hand all the major studios and many respected directors including Alfred Hitchcock, Roman Polanski and Stanley Kubrick have made their forays into the genre.

Serious critics have analyzed horror films through the prisms of genre theory and theauteur theory. Some horror films incorprate element of other genres (hybrid genre) such as sci fi, fantasy, mockumentary, black comedy and thrillers.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horror_film 

 'Horror Films are unsettling films designed to frighten and panic, cause dread and alarm, and to invoke our hidden worst fears, often in a terrifying, shocking finale, while captivating and entertaining us at the same time in a cathartic experience. Horror films effectively center on the dark side of life, the forbidden, and strange and alarming events. They deal with our most primal nature and its fears: our nightmares, our vulnerability, our alienation, our revulsions, our terror of the unknown, our fear of death and dismemberment, loss of identity, or fear of sexuality.'  
http://www.filmsite.org/horrorfilms.html  





Legacy of Blood - Book
The Killer
The killer nearly always has a trademark Freddy Kruger in Nightmare on Elm Street has finger knives, striped jumper and crumpled hat. The trademark is what is important not the person wearing it.
The gender of the killer is nearly always male. But there are some films with female killer e.g. scream 2 and Urban Legends. Most killers appear to act alone without accomplishes.
There are two types of killers. One is not a 'complete' human being, and is seen as outside of society. The second group appears as a regular human being, which helps them go undetected. The second type is the most common.
The most common motive is revenge and this is usually obvious in the film. They don't always kill the person who caused the anger they may kill others who get in their way to the main person.



Location
Most horrors are set in one of three places - campus, wilderness and urban, and most of the action takes place here. Not all films use just one location, they could use more than one category. The most common way to leave the final girl alone is to kill off everyone else. Normally it will see her close friends killed in the last half hour of the film, to leave her alone at the end.



Narritive.
Horror Genre is a story in which the focus is on creating a feeling of fear. Such tales are of ancient origin and form a substantial part of the body of folk literature. They can feature supernatural elements such as ghosts, witches, or vampires, or they can address more realistic psychological fears. In Western literature the literary cultivation of fear and curiosity for its own sake began to emerge in the 18th-century pre-Romantic era with the Gothic novel. The genre was invented by Horace Walpole, whose Castle of Otranto (1765) may be said to have founded the horror story as a legitimate literary form. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley introduced pseudoscience into the genre in her famous novel Frankenstein (1818), about the creation of a monster that ultimately destroys its creator.

Horror/Slasher Films

Ten Things to Avoid

A paranoid guide to surviving a slasher scenario

1) Asking stupid questions. Top on any survivors list. If you find yourself having to ask the question ''whos there?'' in a darkened environment, the chances are that you really don't want to hang around for the answer.

2) Snapping twigs. Usually a preamble to certain death.

3) Windows. Anyone near a window will either end up dragged through it or have something dead thrown through it at them.

4) Cats. Movie cats can lock themselves inside closets in order to leap out at you just when things are at their most tense. They can also calm the most jittery- natured character to a point where they no longer remember that they've just received a menacting phone call, been followed by strange figures, have a dark secret in their past etc. and thus make them easy prey for the bulky figure about to launch themselves from out of the shadows.

5) Cars. Cars never work. If they are working they will break down as far away from civilization as it is possible to be. Starting a car when being chased is pointless as the engine will constantly fail to turn over. And if it does, check the back seat, there will probably be a maniac in it. If not, he will be on the roof.

6) Telephones. You'll be cut off mid sentence. Or someone will strangle you with the cord.

 7) Bathrooms, showers, toilets. Humans are generally at their most vulnerable when naked. Likewise, outside toilets with thin walls, allowing pointed objects to be thrust through them. Inside toilets usually have a nasty habit of concealing severed heads. When told that Psycho had deterred one viewers wife from ever showering again - Hitchcock suggested he sent her to be dry cleaned.

8) Playing practical jokes. No one ever finds them funny and they usually backfire resulting in bloody revenge four, six, ten years later.

9) Drugs, rock music and premarital sex.

10) Finally...Always give a wide berth to any kind of anniversary or significant date on the calender, hospitals with no patients, boiler rooms, basements and heavily wooded areas.   

 

Costume

As we are starting the film in the early 2000's, 5 years before now. So the clothing will have to fit that time.
So the children we are using will have to dress in that way, in clothes such as; denim jackets, 3 quarter length trousers, crop tops, hooch/bench/goldigga brands which were popular then. What each of them wear will also have to fit with the stereotypes they fit when 18.

The main characters 5 years on will have to wear up to date clothes. The stereotypical blonde girl will have to wear revealing/provocative clothes to signify she is sexually available. The brunette will wear simple, plain clothing which will connote she is quiet/timid and not sexually available.

Anamatic

Cast.

We have chosen to use five 12 to 13 year old girls (this means we needed consent from the parents/guardians of the actors) at the beginning of the movie, this helps to create tension for the audience as the cast will be vulnerable and naive. We are using different stereotypes to show common codes and conventions.
Then to show the change in time and that her mind had being taken over we use the age of 17 also her general appearance will of changed, she will have brown hair this can show the stereotype of power and death.