Planning - Considering Mise-en-Scene For Your Opening - Costume and Props

Alisha will be wearing a super dry jumper with high waisted jeans, she will be wearing quite a lot of makeup to make sure that the audience see her as a vulnerable character as women are seen as the weaker sex. She will have fake blood on her when she gets captured by the predator. Alisha's clothes will contain blood also.

 

Brian will be wearing an adidas jacket and jeans to make him look like a stronger individual within the opening scene as the males within the film are seen as the stronger characters. He will have fake blood on him in the opening scene when he begins to experience danger. Brian will be carrying alcohol throughout the opening scene and will appear to be carrying the bag with alcohol on the way to their camp.

William will be wearing similar clothes to Alicia in the fact that he is also wearing a super dry jumper and grey jeans within the opening scene, he will have fake blood on him as he enters danger and his props will include alcohol throughout the opening scene.

The characters will also be drinking from a bottle of Smirnoff vodka to emphasise that they are out in this secluded location to drink alcohol without the consent of their parents.

Planning - Writing A Treatment For Your Chosen Opening

The film will start with an establishing shot of the quarry/woods.

The establishing shot will then fade into a long shot of a group of people walking into the woods with various bags containing drinks. 

Close ups of branches and leaves will include various titles of people behind the making of the film and will establish our groups name. The shot will still be following the group as they walk down the path.

The camera then goes to a mid-shot of the group in an ideal place to have their campout. They start to drink their beverages and all seems well.

As the gathering goes on people are feeling more and more drunk and need to go to the toilet. One member walks away from the set location and quickly realises they are lost.

As the member of the group starts to panic things can be heard through the bushes and trees. Eventually, after more and more bushes are rustled something attacks the person and kills them. Leaving a close up of the dead persons hand on the floor.

People within the group get worried about there friend who was taking a while and go to find them. Over the shoulder shots are used numerously to show people searching for the friend.

One by one everyone is taken victim to the unknown threat within the bushes until there is only one person remaining. The camera pans around the person showing their vulnerability. They run back to the campsite and realise they are still on their own.

Shortly after they have realised everyone is gone after shouting there names numerously, the last person if finally killed.

Blood is splattered on the cans on the floor near the fallen victim. 

Extreme close-ups of beer cans on the floor scattered around the floor with an unfocused shot of the figure of something in the background in black.

Planning: Casting For Your Opening

Casting is a very important part of the planning stages as it can have a major impact on our film if we get the casting wrong. It is important with any film anyone does. You have to get the actors that you believe will fulfil the promise of the characters that they are being required to do. In the casting process we can see if the actor/actress is actually capable of taking the role. We could do this by producing a short bit of footage of the person doing a bit of acting. This will be able to show some strengths and weaknesses that they may have. Also it will highlight whether they are a confident actor or not, which is very important. If someone we had casted isn't a good enough actor then the casting process can help us to realise this quickly. We can then move on quickly to find a more suitable

Character: Alisha Harold

Age:17

About Alisha: Alisha is an exciting girl who enjoys getting involved with activities including her friends. She is a bubbly person but can get very worried quickly if things go wrong.

We have selected Alice Piggott to participate in this role as she is an experienced actress as she took part in GCSE and got a good grade. She is also confident, which is what we are looking for in this specific character. She is also age appropriate for the role as she will be turning 17 soon. She is also showing enthusiasm towards the role which also makes her a good actress for the role.

Character: Brian Prince

Age: 17

About Brian: Brian is a close friend to Alisha and is also very confident. He likes to make sure that he is always heard and is the centre of attention most of time.

Jamie is the right person for the character as he is a similar age to the character, he is also very similar to the actual character. He is a funny and out going person who always likes to make people laugh. Jamie isn't a shy person so he will be fine in front of the camera.

Character: William Jones

Age: 17

About William: William is very similar to Rhys as he is a shy character. He will hang back from all the action until it is safe to join in. He enjoys spending time with his friends and likes to go camping anyway so is well prepared for this trip anyway. Like the rest of the group, he has never experienced alcohol so is worried about the trip.

Josh is the correct person for this character as he is the same age as the character and knows a thing or two about camping as well. This means we can use some of his skills to make the film more realistic when it comes to miss-en-scene. He is also confident in-front of the camera.

Planning- Location Planning For Your Opening

The Quarry
This post is about the location planning for our horror film opening. this is important in the planning stages of the film because when it comes to recording we won't have a car understanding of where to go and record our set piece.

The location we are using is a place called the quarry. It is located next to the A6183 in Kettering. It is  a large abandoned area that is mostly used for dog walkers and people that like to ride there motorbikes illegally. We have chosen this specific location as it is quite large and has a lot of interesting and mysterious places that we can use to convey common codes and conventions within horror films. We will be able to achieve various different camera angles from high and low angles which will add more and more effect to the opening. This location has numerous areas where we will be able to use more advanced camera angles,shots and movements. When it is getting dark this location will be at its best as it will appear more creepy and spooky. This will suit the horror movie opening a lot more. The location has different areas like a old/broken down house, a very steep and rocky hill, and wide/open fields. All of these different areas can be used well for a chase scene for example or as a place where people are killed or captured.

These are some of the images of the location that we used for the filming at the entrance of the quarry. this is where our opening of the film will take place. We plotted the location here because it was easy to get to so that recording is easy to do as it is not a far walk, this is good because if any adjustments are needed then we can quickly edit this and not have to walk a far distance to do this. this is also a pro for everyone in the group and acting in the group because everyone lives in the radius of the location, so arranging where to meet it does not cause a hassle. this location already came with a log which is what we needed in the scene. When using the woods as the location doing high angle and birds eye views we were able to be recorded with a high standard as we could just climb the trees. The drawbacks with this location are that when we where recording there is a footpath running through the woods and right next to our location, with is used by dog walkers and other pedestrians, this then means that we may be interrupt our recording and set us back and loose out on venerable time.

Planning : Target Audience Feedback

Within this post we will be looking at and evaluating the feedback we have gathered from the survey that we produced. This will help us to see what most people expect in horror film openings. It is important for us to gather lots of different information about how our opening should be. This can help us to develop more ideas and can help us to make sure we capture the theme of it being a horror.

The picture above shows that everyone who had completed our survey thought that someone should die within the opening of a horror film. This could suggest to us that it would seem like a horror movie opening if someone was to die.

The age group that we have received our feedback off of is 15-18. This means that all of the information we have gathered will be from the same age group and will probably be very similar.

From the feedback we have been able to see that people within the same age group expect the characters in the film to be of a similar age or a couple years older. This will make the film more relatable to the audience.

From what we have received it seems that people find dark woods the most frightening setting for a horror film. In our horror film opening we had already decided to film in the woods anyway. This will make our film more scary and frightening.

Our survey has proved that people prefer it if the film is based on a real life. This means that people need it to be more believable. This means not having anything that is unbelievable and unrealistic.

 We have found out that people expect to find out a little bit about the storyline within the film ,but not a lot at all. This means that we will need to make sure we do not reveal a lot of detailed information as to why things are happening or why they happen at a certain location, and other things like that.

Our survey has shown that people expect to see the villain/killer in the opening. Personally I do not agree with this. I only think that people should know the villain is there but not actually see them until later on within the film when more of the storyline has built up.

Jump scares and Gruesome/bloody scenes within horror film openings are the most popular. This is probably because they excite and make the audience stand on edge a lot more. Also, it may be because they are the most realistic things that could actually happen in real life.

Judging form the results of our survey, we have discovered that the majority of our target audience like films in which people around the age of 16-21 are featured and are out and about in the woods during the night.The surveys have shown that people prefer horror films which are based on real life events that give you a slight insight into the story of the whole film but not too much at all. Our survey shows that a lot of people prefer to see the villain in the opening but we think it is better and adds more suspense if the villain is not shown. We have found out that the most popular type of horror movies include a lot of jump scares and gruesome, bloody murders. Looking at some of the response feedbacks we have received it seems like people like it when characters go missing and are killed.