Context
By Ben Brown

Initial
Reaction
1. I plan to make a step-by-step
guide on how to survive in a
slasher movie against a masked
killer. This will be shot as a parody
on typical slasher movie troupes.
2. I have experience in
creating stories, filming and
editing. I also animate and edit
films on photoshop.
3. My opinion about this project is I
am happy to have a second
chance after having to plan and
start again my FMP last year,
although the revised project, The
Paranoia of Edward Stanton
turned out well. I feel
overwhelmed being thrown right
into the middle of this major
project and because this FMP is
the most important work of my
college course but plan to do my
very best work.

Mood Board

Mood Board Analysis
Is there any repetition in the images you have collected?
Repeated colours/images styles/fonts/tone/mood? All the
images I have chosen are all to do with the style of
a slasher/horror film. Many of the images are iconic
slasher movies with gruesome deaths. Other pictures also
have the slasher stereotypes like masks, isolated places
and weapons. My slide also has the victims being spared or
killed depending on their demographic characteristics. The
tone/mood is both scary but a parody of the movies
because some pictures there are of horror movies that are
made to be funny and mocking the genre.
How will your mood board influence your final product? My
mood board will influence my project by being scary
and displaying all the stereotypes of a horror/slasher
movie with over-the-top kills but awareness of the
recurring patterns and limitations of the genre. Given that
most horror/slasher movies aren’t scary anymore and
they’re becoming more self-aware, the mood board will
influence me to make it a parody on how to survive a
horror movie where I draw on the source material but do
not take it at face value.

Influence/Inspiration:
Male Gaze
Male Gaze is one of the four main theories in movie entertainment and this one mainly appears in
slasher/horror movies. The theory is about women only being sex objects for dominant males and
the movies are shot predominately from the male point of view. The belief of male gaze is that
women only exist to please men (so that makes them seen as second-class citizens in society’s eyes)
in sexual ways to show the dominant male patriarchy of society. This message is shown through
movies (mostly slasher because they were popular in the 20th century) portraying women in that
belief as people with no personality and portrayed or killed in sexualised ways. The male gaze
mostly appears in the slasher franchise Friday the 13th, and the movies are produced with most of
the run time with women being sex objects for males. What this theory says about the medium I’m
working in is to mainly focus on dehumanising women and movies being shot from only a male
perspective.

Influence/Inspiration:
Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock was born on the 13th
of August 1899 in London, he
studied cinema and started working in
in a movie theatre when he was 20 but
then became a director making many
cult classic films. Hitchcock believed
that the horror movies he made were
art and the actors who were in them
were ‘cattle to be used’. Hitchcock
always took the thriller approach to
horror movies to make them both scary
but also impactful. Hitchcock loved the
medium of cinema but he believed that
to make an artistic film that no care
had to be given to the actors well-
being.

Influence/Inspiration:
Tom Savini
Born on November 3 1946, Tom Savini was a
catholic raised ex-Vietnam soldier from
Pittsburgh, all the horrible things he saw in
Vietnam inspired him to make practical gory
effects which eventually got him a lot of job
roles in horror films. He also became a
director and actor and most significantly he is
the creator of Jason Voorhees. His belief is that
his profession is a coping mechanism to forget
the PTSD of Vietnam and he seems to see his
work of art as beauty. Savini always takes an
extremely realistic approach to his work to
show the realism of death which he saw first
hand in Vietnam. He says that he likes the
medium of film but he always wants the
deaths in a movie to be realistic so the grizzly
events of the Vietnam war won’t be
forgotten.

Influence/Inspiration:
Wes Craven
Born on August 2 1939, Wes Craven was raised
in Cleveland Ohio and pursued the career of
film making at a young age. Craven tried with
different genres to direct movies but eventually
found success when directing A Nightmare on
Elm Street. He was mocked about how he
made horror movies in the early 1990s so he
decided to make a self-aware horror movie,
Scream, which changed the horror genre
forever. His belief was that the horror genre
was what he found most success in but he
made Scream to improve on the problems of
the horror genre. The approach to his work
early on was standard horror but then he
began to make his horror movies more
intelligent and questioning to fix the faults of
the horror genre. Craven likes the medium of
film but wants movies to be more self-aware
and to be truly scary to study fear in the human
mind.

Why are you
making this
project?
I’m making this project for two reasons; I want a second chance to
make a creative FMP of my choice and I’ve had the idea of making
‘How to survive a Slasher Movie’ for a long time so I want to bring it to
life. As you well know by now, my FMP last year was too ambitious
and ended with me having to make a simpler idea that was a success
but not what I wanted to originally make. I’m going to make this
project to have a second chance at bringing an idea to life that I have
had for long time to fully fulfil my artistic vision. I’ve been wanting to
make ‘How to survive a Slasher Movie’ since June and making the
project out of a second FMP with so much time to make it perfect can
make my project of a high standard.

Strengths and
Limitations
1. Strengths: One strength is filming my project entirely at home compared to my other projects filmed entirely in college. This will
impact my production by giving me a lot more time and a higher budget.
2. Limitations: One limitation is the lack of actors I’ll have because its just me and my parents (that means there are only three
actors). This will limit my production by having less actors to portray characters which will slow down production given that my
only actors also have to do other things for the film.
3. Strengths: One strength is the gory practical effects I plan to use for my kills for the stereotypical teens in my FMP. This will
impact my production by feeling like a real slasher/horror movie because they always have over the top kills and the goriness of
my kills will be eye catching to anyone which will gather an audience.
4. Limitations: One limitation is I don’t have the knowledge or resources to make practical gore effects and I don’t know where to
get them so I’ll have to do my best with limited resources. This will effect my production by making the project seem cheaper
than what I was hoping for and it may not feel like a horror movie with low-budget practical effects that try too hard to be
proper gore.
5. Strengths: One strength is I have full creative freedom over the project to make the horror film however I like. This will
impact my production by making the project more imaginative and unique to stand out and get the attention of people.
6. Limitations: One limitation is I may come up with too ambitious ideas that aren’t possible with the time and budget I have. This
will impact my production by causing the quality of the production to drop massively and everything will look like a low budget B
movie because it lacks the proper resources and time.

Potential Research Activities
I will use both the internet and books to research four things; slasher movies, self-aware horror
films, gory practical effects and humour in horror. I can research horror by looking at all the
iconic slasher franchises on Amazon Prime to fully understand how slasher work. Self-awareness
and humour in horror can be easily researched by watching more modern horror movies or
watching the Scream series. I can also research movie books and articles about how horror films
have developed and changed over time. I can research gory effects by taking lessons on practical
effects in the make-up department and looking at all the movies Tom Savini has made gory
effects for.

Context Statement
This FMP will require the construction of a detailed and
original parody of widely known horror movie stereotypes
and troupes through filming at a variety of interesting
locations, excellent editing of the film, high quality acting
and intelligent writing to bring to life the self-awareness of
the modern slasher genre in a fun and compelling way. It
will also require the inclusion of gory special effects and
the use of mood and atmospheric lighting and settings to
add suspense and horror. The Paranoia of Edward Stanton
which I produced last year was an example of building
tension and successfully using gore special effects on a
limited budget. Wraith House was an example of
intelligent writing and using pictures and dialogue to build
horror and tension. Also, my Forgotten Heros factual
project about John Snow gave me non-fiction film making
skills that I hope to incorporate as I intent to use a spoof
public service announcement as a narrative device. I
plan to improve on these two examples in my FMP to make
this project truly outstanding.