2. Planning and Research
We looked at trailers that fitted the sort of Genre we wanted to do –
Paranormal Activity 4 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4yp2t7Doac
Cloverfield - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvNkGm8mxiM
Possession(more recent) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLt0qrlb9t4
The ring - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuH5FaUpFm4
- From these trailers we decided we liked the idea’s of the hand held camera’s to make it
look like ‘Amateur filming’, but not for the whole thing as we want to make it look
professional as well.
- We also like the idea of the fuzzy screen shown in The Ring trailer, to use as a cut
between scenes to show that there’s a change in time, destination or characters, effects
like this will be edited in after we have filmed it.
- Another idea we are going to look at is doing a voice over as a narration, and see if that
fits in if not, were going to look at if having a screen in-between shots with writing on it
would work.
- From Paranormal Activity 4 trailer the use of the laptop, could be something we
practice with and see if we could include that
- Also the flash shots around the house to show the area its shot in is something we
could look at doing.
- In Paranormal Activity 4 unlike Possession the use of a dark shadow in the door away
and then followed by screams, is something we’d like to show as the scare of the film.
Unlike possession that shows a lot of blood and gore, we have decided to move away
from that because it might end up looking unrealistic and tacky.
This exercise was useful because it started to show us what real media can produce and
gave us some idea’s of what is possible and what isn’t.
3. Continuing Research..
Codes and Conventions of Horror genre –
Camera work uses a lot of high angle shots to show fear and weakness on the victim.
POV shots are used to show the view from the monster’s eyes.
Hand held camera shots are used to make it hard to know what’s going on from the
audiences point of view. And this also promotes terror and whatever other feelings the
camera man is feeling.
Disturbing sounds are used to build tension and make the audience sit on the edge of their
seats.
Lighting is important dark/shadowy lighting is used so the audience can’t see what’s there,
and it becomes the fear of the unknown.
An isolated location is also important, something about an isolated house just seems scary.
Where as a house on a well lit neighbourhood doesn’t give you the creeps/
A female victim is normally used because females are thought of as more vulnerable than
males.
And there’s normally a hero.
4. History of Horror
The first horror film was a silent short film called ‘Le Manoir du Diable’ directed by Georges
Melies in 1896. It was based on vampires, the film lasted 2 minutes but the audiences loved
it. As the film budgets rose, bigger horror films hit the screens with the Excorcist (1973),
which also proved a big success and still today it’s said to be the most feared scary films by
audiences.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDGw1MTEe9k
We looked at slideshows on www.slideshare.net where media students upload slideshows
on different topics. This helped us to realise the codes and conventions behind horrors.
5. Determining your target audience
× We decided to target our trailer at an age group of around 15-25,
older enough to be able to watch the film as there are horror
scenes included, but also at the right age to relate to the
character-between the ages of 16-18.
× After re-searching the ages for some trailers we viewed, we
found out that Cloverfield was a PG13 in America, but the
distributor was keen to pass the film on as a 12A. This ended in a
re-viewing of the film, resulting in certificate of 15 for the film.
× Paranormal activity has an over rating of a 15 also.
× Decided on a rating of 15 for ours, the minimum age we wanted
to view our film anyway.
6. Organising our resources
• We have found three-four actors so far to play the five characters using a Ouija
board, but are yet to find the fifth and finalise them in total.
• We decided not to have a soundtrack for the trailer, instead maybe part of or parts
of songs, which again we are yet to decide.
• We have a number of locations we are interested in, which combine of parts of
different peoples house’s, as well as an abandoned house in East-Grinstead we are
keen to look into.
• The costuming is to be quite simple, as a 21st century movie with ‘regular’
characters and our evil character not becoming present or viewed, the final
costumes we will decide on nearer the time, once we have finalised our
characters.
• Our props other than normal house hold objects, (laptop, knives etc) we will need
to consider using fake blood.
7. Storyboarding and shooting script
• The trailer will revolve mainly around one girl, beginning with her home alone. We
plan to have a flashback a few days before, herself with four friends, playing a
Ouija board (laughing about not taking it seriously). Suddenly things start to
happen (that could be mistaken for faults/coincidences)-lights turning on and off,
doors slamming in the ‘wind’ etc, telephone ringing and no one on the other end.
Skype’s friend (see paranormal activity idea)-talks to her, same thing happening
flashes to see friends and what’s happening to them etc. You then see a shadow
on the laptop, behind main character…from then on quick shots in time with
tension building music of different things happening to each of the five characters-
based upon paranoia of the Ouija board-slowly driving them insane from these
normal ‘happenings’ that could be coincidence or the doing of the Ouija board…
• This is the outline for our story line, but we are yet to finalise details, and write an
in depth script/shooting order of shots.
8. Narrative
• Even though we are doing a trailer not a short film, it is still important for our
trailer to have a narrative (see previous slide).
• We have a beginning establishing the story, a middle and the end which we plan to
leave on a cliff hanger.
• We are also looking into different aspects be can add into the trailer, adding to the
narrative;
• Voice Over
• Sound Effects
• Narrator
• Subtitles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8FBRATbJoA (Grave Encounters)
This uses the idea of a voice over and a narrative, we could look at the idea of doing it
like a news report. By using subtitles like
‘actual footage’
‘This footage has remained hidden from the public for over six years’
9. Problems and Plan of Action
The plan of action is to try and establish where our locations are going to be, as soon
as possible and look at getting some still shots in the locations so we can start to look
at the lighting we will need. One idea we have had is to set our film in an old house in
East Grinstead if we can get permission; http://www.hammerwood.mistral.co.uk/
Then we need to decide the amount of characters we are thinking of 5 people playing
the Ouija board, and three main characters: we have decided the three main ones to
be Chloe Gorman, Ashleigh Evans and George Hehir as they do drama and have said
that they will play the parts for us.
Once that’s all done, once we’ve storyboarded and know exactly what shots we need
etc we need to finalise a date so we can have all the characters and equipment sorted.
The problems we could encounter, could be that it snows and we cant get people
where they need to be – We are going to try and avoid that by doing it before it starts
to get so cold.
