Research and Planning: Plan For The Week

In the next week I plan to:

• Think up ideas for names for the film
• Think of names for a distribution company
• Come up with an idea for the distribution company logo
• Look for locations to shoot the film
• Design an audition poster
• Extra research into sound in film trailers

Research and Planning: Podcast

Research and Planning: Sound Test

Research and Planning: Production company logo

I have attempted a sketch of a company logo, featuring a phantom's cape, with nobody inside of it.

Research and Planning: Film Poster Analysis 2

There is a medium close up of the protagonist, showing her expression, suggesting she seems like a plain girl, but the black eyes are clear enough to see that there is something creepy about the girl.
The blue colour of her clothes and in the background links to the genre of the film being horror, as the blue links to the creepy eerieness within horror films.
The narrative seems to be that this sweet seeming, innocent girl has something twisted about her which gets discovered within the film, however there is a mystery about it, perhaps not every character notices what is wrong with the girl.
The audience for this film does seem as though it may be a younger one, perhaps only a 15 rating or lower, as the bright colours and the fact there is no suggestion of graphic or brutal scenes may appeal to a younger audience than that of the last film I analysed the poster of: Sinister.
You can tell it's a film poster by the huge image being central, dominating the page, and the release date at the bottom, showing when this film will be released.

Research and Planning: Film Poster Analysis

There is a long shot of what appears to be the protagonist from the film, however placed at the side of the poster, suggesting that there is possibly something more important within the film, perhaps the figure that is made from the blood stains on the wall.
The dark blood-red colour suggests the film may be graphic and that injuries will be cause to characters within the film, also linking to the fact the genre is a horror.
The character's stance and pose suggests she has very little control of her self, perhaps being possessed, with her head down and seeming to drag her feet, she obviously doesn't have very much power or control over what is happening.
The audience will most likely be typical horror fans, as at the top of the page, the producer is mentioned to have created two other well known horror films, which are named in block capital letters, to attract attention to themselves, attracting the audience who have seen these films and will like another, similar film.
The mise-en-scene of blood on the wall is a typical trait of many horror films featuring supernatural occurrences, so this may a suggestion there is supernatural or undead behaviour within the film.
It is clear that this is a film poster by the inclusion of the steel tongs font and the production company logos below them. 

Research and Planning: Treatment

Myself and my media partner have decided to take Plot idea 2 forward into the treatment stage.

The Plot line: A man becomes transfixed with the crime reports of a girl who has recently gone missing and been suspected dead. He finds something of the girl's and realises that the girl in question actually died hundreds of years ago and the deeper he becomes involved in unravelling the mystery, the more paranormal things keep happening to him and the ghost of the girl begins to appear more and more.

Below is a rough idea of how the trailer will run, some ideas may change over time, however for now this is how myself and my partner want the trailer to run:

• BBFC rating
• Production Company logo - "Phantom Productions"
• Close up low key lighting attack montage short sequence (details still undecided)
• high angle shot of drowned bleeding girl sprawled in the woods beside the stream in the moonlight
• Mastershot of the woods where the dead girl is, from a high angle (like in a tree with a few branches overlapping the shot)
• Title
• Master shot of male character inside a phone-box (shot from the outside of the box)
• Mid-shot of male character on the phone inside the phone box (shot from inside the box)
• Close up of character touching the poster of the dead girl in the phone box
• Back to mid shot of the male character on the phone inside the phone box
• Sound bridge from the above scenes runs over to an over the shoulder shot of the male character finding internet information about the dead girl.
• Long shot of male character finding the girl's gravestone and the date on it, he squats down and illuminates the death date with a lantern.
• Close up of the illuminated death date.
• Twig snapping sounds and close up of fingers curling around the top of the gravestone from behind
• Close up of male characters petrified face
• Over the shoulder shot (from behind the male character) from a low angle of the male character moving the lantern upwards to illuminate the dead girl.
• High angle shot of the male character falling backwards in shock and dropping the lantern
• Slow motion close up of the lantern hitting the ground and going out - fade to black.
• Title
• Wide shot of male character pinning up crime reports on a basement wall the light starts to flicker
• Close up of the light bulb flickering and going out.
• Wide shot from behind the male character of a red painted message such as "Behind You" scrawled across the crime report wall
• Camera pan from looking at the crime report wall, to the male characters reaction and round to the dead girl standing a few meters behind the male character.
• Jump cuts of the girl getting closer and reaching out before the scene goes to black
• Title
• Over shoulder shot of male character looking in a mirror
• shot of male character splashing his face with water
• shot of male character jumping as he looks back in the mirror and the reflection of the girl is there.
• Wide shot from behind the male character showing him turning around in shock to look behind him
• Character POV to show the girl has disappeared
• Three scenes with fade to black inbetween
• fast montage
• Film name
• Social networking/website info
• Coming Soon title
• End scary scene

Research and Planning: Group Meeting

Today the treatment was discussed in detail, it has been ordered with lots of consideration into how the scenes will flow, taking a large focus on where to fit three scenes and titles. The outcome has been successful and the final order of how the scenes will flow within the trailer is to be put up on this blog.
Also, there was a discussion of the production company logo and name. The name was chosen by me as "Phantom Productions" and ideas for the logo are of a male figure in a cape, with the text around it. It was also suggested by my partner that there should be a smoke effect in the background, similar to the logo of Lionsgate productions.

Research and Planning: Costume and Props list

Prop and Costume List

Male Lead Character (hero) Costume

• Black jeans/Dark jeans
• Black/Red/Dark coloured t-shirt/checked shirt
• Leather jacket
• Black boots

The male lead has an interest in crime and the supernatural, however he is a typical young adult, and his costumes will show this. The character will resemble a modern day vampire hunter, similar to the ones in the Vampire Diaries. This isbecause the character needs to look clearly different to the dead girl, as they are from different time periods, but he needs to look slightly gothic to fit in with the plot and genre of the film.

Female Lead Character (villain) Costume

• White slightly discoloured dress, with black marks on it and possible rips, needs to be/look wet
• white flat pump style shoes/dolly shoes

The female lead character is supposed to be a girl from 100 years ago who drowned in a river in the woods and has come back to haunt a young man investigating the reported death the same girl. The female character needs to look clearly different from the male character, as they are from different time periods and one is the hero and one is the villain. I hope to achieve this contrast by giving the lead female character vintage gothic style white clothing and the lead dark modern style clothing.

Other Costumes

• Detective style outfit - long overcoat
• Boiler suit style costume for a crime scene investigator

Male Lead Character (hero) Props

• Lantern
• Torch
• Laptop
• Camera
• Crime reports/folders
• Photographs of the dead girl

Other Props

• Camera for detective
• Police tape
• Phone

Research and Planning: Equipment and Software list

For the production of my film, magazine and poster I will use:
Garage Band
IPhoto
IMovie
FinalCutPro
Photoshop
Blogger
AppleMac
SLR camera
Sony HD camera
Canon mini DV

Research and Planning: Production Logo Mind Cloud - Word cloud - WordItOut

Production Logo Mind Cloud - Word cloud - WordItOut

Here is a link to a mind cloud of my ideas about a horror production company. It is based around thoughts of what is included within a horror and also some of the typical features used within some horror production companies.

Research and Planning: Presentation

We have presented our proposals to our tutor who gave us feedback that she prefers our second idea, as she can picture it as an actual film already. We are however going to seek more feedback from other contacts we have.

Research and Planning: Proposals

Proposal One:
A girl acquires a necklace, every time she wears the necklace she begins to see a male figure who is seemingly stalking her. She attempts to throw away the necklace numerous times, but it keeps coming back, as does the male figure.

Cinematography

• Over the shoulder shots showing the audience what the character can't necessarily see.
• POV shots from handheld camera creating atmosphere and allowing audience to empathise with the mood of the character. Helps realism.
• High angle shots show character's vulnerability.
• Master shot of the girl running through the woods.
• Close ups of the girl's face during tense moments.

 Mise-En-Scene

•  Dark woodland location
• Old vintage looking necklace
• Dark bedroom/bathroom
• Gothic but modern costumes

 Editing

•  Fast flashes of light-transitions where light bulbs, lamps and illuminated rooms are included
• Possible tint for eeriness during woodland scenes, simulating the moon
• Fades to black during tense moments
• Titles rather than overhead voice in between scenes

 Sound

• Soundtrack/score through trailer rather than voice-over
•  Themes and stings corresponding with the action on-screen, eg possible mirror smash, theme for ghostly stalking presence
• Rustling heightened diegetic sound during the woodland running scene, also helps to avoid having to include the noise pollution captured whilst recording.

Proposal Two:
A man becomes obsessed with crime reports of a girl believed to be recently deceased. He picks up an object that belongs to her. Upon researching this girl he discovers she died many years earlier, even though he had seen her lots of times. As he researched the girl and figured out more about her, more paranormal occurrences began to happen.

Cinematography:

• over the shoulder shot of character looking in the mirror so reactions can be seen through their reflection. Typical horror trait
• Wide shot of lead character pinning up newspaper articles on a 'crime wall'
• Two shot of the dead girl standing behind the living man's shoulder, reaching out for him

Mise-En-Scene:

• Basement-like dark room. Low key lighting. Crime reports pinned on the wall here.
• Graveyard location containing headstone that is from hundreds of years ago but clear to read.
• Gothic clothing, mostly black in colour.
• Dark bathroom area for mirror scene

Editing:

• Jump cuts, fast cutting to show the panic and agitation in the woods/graveyard. Also used to show the realisation the man is being stalked
• Flashes of light transitions where scenes contain rooms with lights in them.
• Slow fades in and out of black to show realisation and horror on the face of the victim and then the clips of the girl

Sound:

• Soundtrack/score through trailer rather than voice-over
•  Themes and stings corresponding with the action on-screen, eg possible mirror smash, theme for ghostly stalking presence
• Slow eerie melody from an object male finds belonging to the dead girl

Research And Planning: London Trip

With the rest of the group I took a trip to London to do some research, whilst there I spent time in the British Film museum, looking at memorabilia of some of the most well known films of all time, reading information about the films. There were exhibitions about how effects and illusions within films were created, one especially catching my eye was the illusion of a moving vehicle, in which a series of images are shown very quickly, in incredibly short frames (each lasting less than a second) and the sequence is repeated though at such a pace it is impossible to notice the same images are being repeatedly shown.
Another part of the trip was a talk at the BBFC. Here we got to learn more about regulation and censorship. A notable part of this was that The Hunger Games originally had a fight scene featuring lots of blood, the blood would have made the film's rating a 15 certificate, but to make it a 12A the blood was removed from the scene which was otherwise kept the same.

Film Museum horror Pictures:

Research and Planning: Questionnaire

Here are two versions of the research questionnaire, one completed and one not.