Mood Board of the Horror genre.

This is a mood board containing images that we have used as inspiration for our opening. 

Shots in filming.

Match on action- 

Match on action (or cutting on action) is an editing technique for continuity editing in which one shot cuts to another shot portraying the action of the subject in the first shot.

180 degrees rule- 
The 180° rule is a filming guideline that participants in a scene should have the same left-right relationship to each other, with filming only taking place within the 180° angle in which this is maintained in a conversation, for example. This allows the audience to have a greater sense of location in the scene in terms of what may be off-screen in some shots, for example in shot reverse shots.

Shot reverse shot-
 Shot reverse shot is a continuity editing technique used in conversations or simply characters looking at each other or objects. A shot showing what the character is supposedly looking at (either a point of view or over the shoulder shot) is followed by a reverse angle shot of the character themselves looking at it, or of the other character looking back at them, for example. Shot reverse shot often ties in with the 180° rule to retain continuity by not distorting the audience’s sense of location of the characters in the shots.
Shot reverse Shot-
Shot reverse shot
30 degree rule-
The 30 degree rule is a basic film editing guideline that states the camera should move at least 30 degrees between shots of the same subject occurring in the succession. If this rule isn't followed a jump cut occurs and there is a risk that the audience starts focusing on the filming technique instead of the story that is being narrated.

Rule of thirds-
The rule of thirds is a concept in video and film production in which the frame is divided into into nine imaginary sections, as illustrated on the right. This creates reference points which act as guides for framing the image.Points (or lines) of interest should occur at 1/3 or 2/3 of the way up (or across) the frame, rather than in the centre. Like many rules of framing, this is not always necessary (or desirable) but it is one of those rules you should understand well before you break it.

Street View of the Abandoned House

This is the Google street view of the house we found on Wednesday before it began to be demolished. The old hotel sits at the end of Maddox Lane in Great Bookham. These street view photos were taken in 2009, five years ago. It was originally a large hotel that looked beautiful.

Filming Attempt 1

On the third of December the three of us, accompanied by three other actors, traveled to our decided filming location. Having found out the day before that we would not be allowed to film at our original choice of location due to security changes, we had to walk two and a half miles to an abandoned house in Bookham, Surrey.

  There are a lot of risks associated with having to find a last minute location. And as far as risks go, turning up and finding the house being renovated is not one we had considered.

  Not letting this step-back stop us, we decided that in an area so densely filled with old buildings, there must be one that we can find permission to film in.

  Sadly, our search was in vein. After walking around for about four hours, we decided to throw in the towel. Our time would be better spent researching a new location and filming a different day.

Draft first script for our opening scene.

Characters 

Matt-Jock
Zoe-Girl
Bill-Average guy
Conor-Darker guy
Billy-Geek
Luke-Monster

Introduction

Independent film making studio's (IFM)
Beginning credits

*Camera pans upwards, revealing setting, main characters walk past the camera and enter the settings doors with the doors shutting behind them, panicked gasps are heard from some members of the group, Bill places hand on door and attempts to open it to no avail*
"Matt: well, there's no turning back now"
*Anxious looks between Billy, Zoe and Billy as they look to Conor for answers*
"Zoe: Whats the plan then"
"Conor: Well......."
*Conor takes a Ouija board out of his bag and reveals it to the group*
"Matt: A Ouija board really?"
*A dim light appears through the darkness from one of the rooms, the group share some uneasy looks and then proceed to head towards the room, camera cuts to the designated room where candles are placed appropriately around the room and on a table*
"Conor: Well here goes nothing"
*Conor places the Ouija board onto the table in the appropriate place*
"Matt: You know what to do guys"
*The group position themselves accordingly around the and place one hand on the pointer* 
"Zoe: are there any spirits here?"
*Pointer moves to yes; as a close-up is shown*
"Conor: Can you tell us what happened to our missing friends"
*A few candles on the outer ring burnout and the pointer points to no*
"Zoe: why not"
*Camera focuses on group (birds eye) as more candles burnout and pointer moves in quick succession of three letters (you)*
"Matt: You? what do you want from us?"
*pointer points to five letters (death), group looks uneasily at each-other, a few close-ups one used and focuses on Billy*
"Bill: death?"
*Ouija board bounces slightly, group gets startled and Bill and Billy step back, Ouija board begins to vibrate violently*
"Matt: whats happening "
*Ambient sound presents spirit presence, which is followed by a birds eye view of the group, each member pushed back into the darkness behind them and the remaining candles go out, shuffling is heard, followed by some heavy breathing*
*Flicks lighter twice before igniting on the third attempt to shown to be distressed and looks around quickly, heavy breathing becomes more apparent and other ambiance stops. A ghostly face appears from the darkness behind Matt s left shoulder, creature becomes angry as shown on its face, the lighter is extinguished and a loud scream is heard*

Costumes for Characters.

We have chosen to have the outfit for the 'Average' character as casual and comfortable clothing so he looks like he is in his everyday attire. This is a stereotypical ordinary teenager.

We have decided the attire for the 'Dark' character will be all black to emphasize on the fact that he is a little quirky and disturbed as he suggests the ouija boars. This is a stereotypical punk teenager.

The geek/wimp's outfit will give off the impression that he is timid and fragile. The superhero themed t-shirt will suggest that he is vulnerable also. This is a stereotypical nerdy teenager.

The girls outfit is a casual but pretty outfit as she is a stereotypical teenage girl, popular and wimpy a little like nerd character.

The jocks outfit is more sporty and casual which shows that he is often the leader of the group and has more power due to the sports training. This is a stereotypical teenage boy.

Make - Up ideas for Characters in our film.

                                                                The Monster - Make Up Ideas.

We have decided to do the monsters make - up like a combination of the two ideas above as we believe that they will look best in the opening we are making. The two ideas combines will also look very creepy in certain lights like natural light and also additional studio lighting if we use it.

Prop ideas for our opening two minutes.

  One of the appeals of a horror films is that, unlike an action film that needs guns and cars, a horror film needs a very minimal number of props. The few props that we need for our scene are face paint, fake blood (both of which could be classified as makeup and not props), a lighter/matches and most importantly to the story, a Ouija board. The matches are essential to the movie plot because the last 15/20 seconds of the film involve Matt holding a match and going round the stage until the monster comes up behind him. The fake blood and face paint is essential for Luke, as he is the monster and therefore needs to look scary, we will use white face paint to make his face completely white and the fake blood will be used around the eyes to add depth and emphasis to the character. The Ouija board is the whole point of the movie and therefore needs to be to a good standard, we got Billy to create his own Ouija board which we'll be using in the film, the pointer we got in the film was made last second but still does the job we want it to do.

Setting Research.

St. Peters mortuary, Chertsey, Surrey

The mortuary, built in the 1940’s, is a small, rectangular building on the outskirts of the main Hospital site and closed in April 2009 when the mortuary relocated to the main hospital building. It is located in Chertsey, Surrey and is an abandoned public place where anyone can go to and search. There is a bit of danger involved because when there has been lots of rain it floods and makes the building deteriorate quicker.

The shot on the left is of the hallway, shot from the front entrance and shows the body storage areas from when the mortuary was in service. The shot on the right is of the dissecting tables they used to extract organ donors organs.  The shot down the bottom left is the outside view of the mortuary which gives it the sense of being abandoned.

West park mental hospital, Epsom, Surrey

The mental hospital closed in the 90’s after its use became limited, since then it has become a place where the locals would go to trash the place. This has led to some complications because the place is not in the best of shapes. It would have been a good place to film our horror film with brain tissue and other personal items labelled and kept on the counter, as well as having a dead decomposing rat in the room will set the setting very well. However unfortunately as of January 2014 there is no longer any of the things which make the setting so perfect as the mental hospital was in a place due for construction so they have taken the first step to demolishing the establishment by removing all the props and items from the floor.

The top left picture is the outside shot of the mental hospital showing it is a rural area with lots of trees in the background which could have made it an eerie setting. The right picture is of the 3 storage bays for bodies because just like the last place it counts as a mortuary as well. The last picture is of one of the rooms where patients would stay once admitted to the mental hospital.

Cane hill hospital

Cane hill hospital was a hospital and mortuary used extensively throughout the late nineteenth century and early 20^thcentury. Since the 70’s it has been in constant decline and therefore the local government officials tried to make it into a heritage site. This however failed and in 2008 the scheduled demolition started and would be finished by 2010. However things took a turn for the worst when a fire erupted and burned down the original clock tower and the front of the entire establishment. This is why we can’t film here because even-though it would have been a good place to film, it is no longer there for us to film.                                     

 

                                                                     The actual location

The actual location we ended up filming in was my house in Cobham. Unfortunately our idea to go the morgue couldn't happen as the morgue got closed down a week or so before we filmed. We therefore had to rethink our options and my house we thought was good enough as it is an old cottage and therefore has the freaky factor, it also needs renovating and so it can come across as abandoned and therefore is a better setting. We decided to make this change as well because it was more of a practical location for us to film in as chertsey was far away and none of us knew for sure where it was, my house however is a short bus ride away and therefore was a perfect replacement.

Characters Ideas

Monster make-up idea

Monster make-up idea

Average guy

Geeky/Whimp

Jock/Leader

Girl

Goth/Dark guy

IDEAS FOR OPENING 2 MINUTES – The Summoning.

-Ouija board   -zippo lighter -make up for ‘monster’

Genre: Horror.

Characters:

-          -‘Leader’ – Brave. Jock. –Leather jacket, white shirt, black jeans, dark shoes.  –Matt.

-          -Whimp/Geek – scared. –Geeky t-shirt, Jeans, converse, check shirt. – Billy.

-          -Girl – preppy –Skinny jeans, cardigan, nice shirt, shoes. –Zoe.

-          -Dark one – suggests Ouija board – Black jeans, dark clothing, dark shoes.– Conor.

-          -Average – normal guy – jeans, sweater (zipper), casual clothes, Vans.– Bill.

-          -Monster/ghost - Scary – Luke.

Title sequence:

-         - Names of featured people.    –Names go with establishing shot.     –Logo: Independent Film Making (studios)

Music:

-         -Discordant.    –Eerie.    -Creepy.    –Piano.    –Guitar.   – Goes with establishing shot.

Scenes:

-          -Establishing Shot.   –Ouija Board.   –Lighter Scene.    –Title Scene.

Name Suggestions:

Initial ideas	Shortlist	Final idea
-          The Morgue	Darkening	The Summoning
-          The disturbance	Darkest fate
-          The mortuary	Candle Light
-          A game of monsters	A Ghost’s Game
-          Manipulation	The Forgotten
-          Dark script	Behind it All
-          The devils deal	Deil of Darkness
-          Blood haunting	Darkness Veil
-          The devils conjuring	Gateway
-          The spirit within
-          Possessors grip
-          The screaming flame
-          Boarderline / Borderline
-          The spirits influence

  We have decided that the film we want to make will be a horror. The appeal of the horror genre is that it is very unlike any other genre; when you see a horror film you instantly know it is a horror film. In a lot of ways, this makes a horror easier to film, as you have a distinct structure and idea of what you should be doing during filming. Further appeals of making a horror film are that you only need a minimal amount of props, so the price of production is kept low.

  When brainstorming our film we knew we wanted to strike a good balance between being faithful to the genre, but also have our own spin on things. The risk of sticking too close to genre conventions is that the film becomes cliché, and while being cliché is it’s self a convention of the genre, it is not something we want to include in our film. On the other hand, if we try too hard to be different and have our own spin on things, we risk the film losing touch with the genre.

G321 Preliminary Task.

This is the second film that we have done in media studies. We were set the task of including three different shots and a script within the short film.

The strengths that we believe this short film has are: The camera is held very steady which makes the film seem more smooth to the viewer, the lack of background noise makes the main characters easier to understand and focus on, the more natural cuts between shots make the clip seem like one continuous scene.

In our short film, we used three different shots: Match on action,the one hundred and eighty degree rule and the shot reverse shot. The match on action shot is where the camera is zoomed in on something happening on the screen which is the hand on the handle shot in our film. The one hundred and eighty degrees rule is when the filming never goes the other side of the line of action which is an  imaginary line between the two characters in the scene, in our film it is the part where I walk in and take a seat. The shot reverse shot is when the camera switches between the two characters speaking and it is also an over the shoulder shot, in our film it is when Billy and I are speaking and the camera switches from facing each person when they begin to speak.

The weaknesses within our short film are that when I went to grab the door handle, we should have cut it before my hand reached the handle so it would smoothly cut to the match on action shot of my hand opening the door instead of looking like a freeze frame. Also, when i was walking in we should have changed the camera shot so we wouldn't have spent as much time on just one shot. We could have also put a little more enthusiasm in to the dialogue from both of the characters.

Romance Films Target Audience.

                           If I Stay

Age:	%:	Gender:	%:	Class	%:

	4-6	0%	Male:	14%	AB	23%

	7-11	2%	Female:	86%	C1	36%

	12-14	11%			C2	23%

	15-24	33%			DE	18%

	25-34	18%

	35-44	15%

	45+	21%

From this table we can see that more women go to see romance movies as the female gender percentage is at eighty six percent and the male percentage is at only fourteen percent. Romance films may appeal more to women due to the amount of love and cheesy lines in the movies. Some of the movies also give women false hope that they may have a perfect relationship like the one they go to see on screen.

The average age range for the viewing of romance films is fifteen to twenty four year olds as the percentage is at thirty three percent whereas the other age ranges are all below twenty percent. Romance movies may not be as appealing to an older generation due to the fact that they may already be in a relationship so they do not want to view what they already have.

The table shows that more middle class people tend to watch romance movies as their percentage is at thirty six percent. The other classes are all below twenty five percent which may show that the middle class people have more time on their hands to go to the cinema to view the movies.