How are social groups represented in your production?

In our film, a group of young friends decide to try out a Ouija board. This can be interpreted as naïve. They walk in to a seemingly abandoned house and continue to use Ouija board. They proceed to talk to the supposed demon inside the house…

The stereotypes that we initially wanted to portray in our film were: The jock, the nerd, the average guy, the ‘dark’ guy and the girl. Each character wears the appropriate clothing to fit their characters, e.g. the nerd wears skinny jeans and a superman shirt and the girl was wearing ‘girly’ type clothing to suit the character.

We also included a monster in our film that is used to scare the group of friends. The look of the monster is loosely based off of the demon, Pazuzu, in The Exorcist. Our look can be found here: http://zoejennerg321.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/monster-makeup.html

We used a range of shots in our film, the shots that we have used are listed here: http://zoejennerg321.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/shot-list-of-our-movie.html . The shot that we have used the most is a medium shot.

The target audience would expect an early death or moment of suspense because that’s a convention for the opening of a thriller or horror film.  Our film lives up to this, but because our audience expects an early death or killing we decided not to share much of the back-story of the characters.  The only thing the audience comes to realise about the characters in our opening scene is that they are a group of naïve teenagers that want to take the risk of playing with a Ouija board and become very unfortunate.

The Summoning

How we changed the film whilst filming

At the start of the film we set out with a very complicated idea and had little idea of how we were going to be able to achieve our goal, we did not realize how long it would actually take to film the film and we didn't take into account the actual setting of the film.
We had lots of problems with the setting of the movie, this was because our preliminary idea of filming in the morgue in Chertsey had to be stopped because the day before we filmed there we found out that the morgue was closed for renovations and that no-one was allowed inside or it would be a criminal offence and a fine.
This meant we had to re-think our whole scene as the morgue was very spacious and therefore it would be hard to replicate the space inside the building. Seeing the morgue was shut down we had to look elsewhere to film, this proved to be difficult as all the creepy looking locations we found were either unreachable or un-achievable.
Therefore we decided to film at my house seeing it is an old cottage and therefore it retains some of the creepy factor. It also has lots of cracks and a relatively big dining room where we could do the Ouija scene and it would look quite ominous and creepy with the idea of the candles and the match bringing creepy lighting to the forefront.
The change of scenery definitely impacted onto to our preliminary idea of what shots we would implement into our film. however we tried to work around it and involve the shots we first wanted just at different intervals or different positions. This was especially important when considering the 180 degree rule seeing we don't want to disorientate the audience on where about the characters are in the scene.
The end of the film stayed the same as what we previously wanted with the candles getting blown out, everyone disappearing  and then the match scene where it gets blown out at the end with the monster coming into shot and blowing out the match. However it didn't all go to plan with shot types, we can see this because our initial ideas had lots of birds eye views of the group, we realized shortly into filming that this would be nearly impossible to film as we do not have the correct equipment to do it outside, on the inside however we could get high angle shots but not a birds eye view as the ceiling was 8 foot high and we wouldn't be able to see the screen whilst filming.

Sound Effect research

 Music isn't the only copyright free sound we will need for our film; we will also need sound effects. Like the music, we want the sound effects to be subtle and not immediately noticeable.

  The first sound effect we want is a quiet ambient noise that plays during the 'IFM Studios' image.This is simply to add sound to an otherwise needlessly silent part, and also makes it seem more professional.

Breathing sound.

  We also need a sound that would come from a ghost (i.e Luke). This noise will appear when the characters are in the hallway, to draw their attention towards the door. Ideally, the sound is a low pitched, echo-y breath.

Shot List of our Movie

  Here is a complete list of the shots we used in our film, along with the times they appear.

00:00:05:29 – 00:00:13:07 - panning up shot. Establishing shot.

00:00:13:10 – 00:00:19:26 - long shot.

00:00:20:03 – 00:00:25:22 - high angle shot.

00:00:25:26 – 00:00:32:26 - over the shoulder. Makes you feel like you are there and adds to the intensity.

00:00:33:03 – 00:00:36:17 medium shot.

00:00:36:21 – 00:00:39:29 - match on action.

00:00:40:06 – 00:00:46:18 – medium shot.

00:00:46:19 – 00:00:54:18 – panning right shot. One of my favourite shots; it is smooth and professional looking.

00:00:54:19 – 00:01:00:20 – high angle shot.

00:01:00:21 – 00:01:05:01 – two person. High angle. There are a lot of high angle shots during the part of the scene in this room because they make the characters look small and vulnerable.

00:01:05:02 – 00:01:10:08 – match on action.

00:01:10:09 – 00:01:12:04 – high angle.

00:01:12:05 – 00:01:14:23 – two person shot. High angle.

00:01:14:24 – 00:01:20:23 – match on action.

00:01:20:24 – 00:01:22:12 – two person. High angle.

00:01:22:13 – 00:01:24:27 – medium shot.

00:01:24:28 – 00:01:33:12 – match on action.

00:01:33:13 – 00:01:34:27 – match on action. Another of my favourite shots because it feels dynamic due to the angle.

00:01:34:28 – 00:01:55:04 – over the shoulder. Panning. Long shot. This shot starts out as an over the shoulder, but as Matt moves it becomes a long shot. The camera pans as Matt walks because the audience is still essentially following his perspective.

00:01:55:05 – 00:01:59:23 – two person close up. A shot that meets the conventions of the horror genre very well. similar shots can be seen in many other horror films.

Movie logo research

The following URL links show a variety of different logos which i have looked at and seen that they could be a good image to strive for to make our movie to the greatest possible standard

http://www.movietools.info/video-background-loops/misc-loops/item/loop-97-film-reel.html

http://www.movietools.info/video-background-loops/misc-loops/item/loop-221-underwater-lights.html

http://www.movietools.info/video-background-loops/misc-loops/item/loop-193-flight-through-the-clouds.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzUQ3LjCJ5g


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWijjr_-3fA


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew5EWVIG2Zs

Title Research Se7en

For our title sequence we want an eerie and uneasy feeling, and I feel that the opening titles to David Fincher's 'Se7en' captures that mood very well.

From a design standpoint, the font used is effective because it looks hastily scribbled which fits the panic and fear the movie tries to convey. We could use a similar font to set the mood for our film.
  Another thing I like about the titles is the way they flicker. The flickering also adds to the mood; it makes the audience feel uneasy. This would fit the creepy tone we hope to acheive with our film.

Storyboard

Credits research-The Italian job

In our film we want to strive towards something which is fluent and easily slides over the images and movie scenes we have filmed, the Italian job opening has lots of credits which flows simply and easily over the actual footage shown, this helps us get into the film more as there are no intrusive images with writing forcefully put over the top and so it can be viewed much more easily. W also have to be careful of the colors we use as it can't contradict the image, for example white writing on a white sky. What we should be striving towards is something which sticks out on a screen, a good example of this would be the Italian job opening as it has a bright color like yellow and white on a black background so it brings more emphasis to whats being said using the yellow writing. Even any of the pictures they use are in a different and vibrant color so that they will have maximum attention, we should strive to achieve this however seeing our movie is a horror movie we should look for black and white images to conform to the overall feeling of tenseness, The use of colors can be a really important example of how we should gain attention to whats going on through the use of shadows, shades and lighter on darker footage, this will automatically create an atmosphere which will drag the audience into the story.

                                                                               

Cast for the summoning

Bill-

what we expect him to do- to act appropriately to the theme of the film (horror)

how we expect him to act- he will have to act in an appropriate way as in act scared, terrified, mortified, nervous, tense etc.

How he will incorporate stereotypes into his acting- normal guy means acts nervous of the unknown, a bit tentative to the idea of spirits.

Zoey-

what we expect her to do-We expect her to perform her role to the appropriate standard and she should be able to say her lines in a creepy manner

how we expect her to act- she will have to act in a less scared way because she is the one who brings the Ouija board

How she will incorporate stereotypes into her acting- blond maybe relating to naivety, suggests the idea to the group and is unaware if the consequences.

Billy-

what we expect him to do- act in character, stay in character, good facial expressions.

how we expect him to act- more scared then most other people there, he will have to use a variety of facial expressions to get his feelings across

How he will incorporate stereotypes into his acting- nerdy character is supposed to be scared of pretty much everything, doesn't want to take part in the ritual, afraid of being left out, forced into everything.

Matt-

what we expect him to do- perform well as his character, stay as the jock/leader

how we expect him to act- less scared then anyone else as he is the leader and is maybe naive to the possibilities of spirits

How he will incorporate stereotypes into his acting- as the jock he is supposed to e headstrong and doesn't think before he acts, we can see this in our film as he is quick to jump on board the idea of the Ouija board, he would be less inclined to react as he maybe doesn't understand the scenario seeing they are stereotypically stupid

Conor-

what we expect him to do- he will have to stay as the dark guy, be less scared and more open to the idea of the Ouija board

how we expect him to act- we expect him to act in an appropriate manner where he will stay in character, keep a neutral expression and not be too fazed by anything which happens.

How he will incorporate stereotypes into his acting- as the dark guy he needs to be into the idea of the Ouija board and the dark themes surrounding it, this means that he shouldn't be scared of whats happening, we can see this with his rather subdued reaction

Luke-

what we expect him to do-give his creepiest face as the monster and to stay in character

how we expect him to act-creepy, spooky, turns up out of no where

How he will incorporate stereotypes into his acting- As the monster he needs to have a scary element around him, therefore his facial features have to be a creepy smile as that it usually what scares people the most, his body language needs to be quite dominating, he can achieve this as he is the tallest in the group and therefore can look down on everyone

Interviews With Actors

Whilst we were interviewing our actors we found that specific people fit specific stereotypes which you would find in a typical horror film cliché.