2. Saw II (Bousman, 2005) We looked at this film, as it has been part of a very successful franchise. Despite it being fairly different to our concept, we thought we could take aspects of their opening and transfer these techniques into ours. These techniques include the close-up’s of the characters to show their emotion, and other techniques including shot-reverse shot.
3. Amityville (Douglas, 2005) Through the research of this film, we thought about the potential of having a young child in our film, as in many films the use of a young child makes horror films more dramatic and there is a lot of sympathy for young children in horror’s.
4. Grudge 3 (Wilkins, 2009) What is different to Amityville (Douglas, 2005) and Grudge 3 (Wilkins, 2009) is the role the young children play. In Amityville the audience feel sympathy for the child, whereas in the Grudge the young children are the antagonists, so we thought we could merge ideas from the two different films.
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6. The Film starts off with a black screen with selective sound of footsteps. With quick cuts of seeing the feet, a preferred reading of character exposition would be an innocent young child lost in woods. With the use of SFX we will be putting on a sense of horror as not a lot can be drawn from text. With prevalence on the young female, the audience will position themselves with the girl. POV shots looking out at the girl from the trees, will give the audience a sense someone is watching her. Long shots when the characters are in the tunnel so people can’t see completely what’s going on. Followed by a close up of the girls face to show her wicked side which is a binary opposition to how she started the film. Mai seems an ordinary innocent seven year old girl, however you shouldn't judge a person on their first looks. After one instinctive act of self-defence, her life and personality has completely changed. Now, instead of the cute face, and the innocent personality, Mai has really become the ‘Wild Child’. As she revels with the nickname and people are aware of her, is there any stopping her?...
7. In our opening we will be having two characters. A young female antagonist and a male protagonist. Costume is a question we included in our survey and a high proportion of the results said that our female antagonist should be wearing a white dress, to emphasise her innocence at first before she turns evil. However, after the murder as a group we decided to make the dress look to have blood on it. Whereas, our protagonist’s role in the film is to look intimidating, so perhaps a hood, or some dark clothing to hide his identity. We had asked in our survey what the male protagonist should wear and a lot of people suggested black leather gloves as this is common in horror films to hide fingerprints after a murder.
8. Millie’s Role In the film opening, the role of Millie is the protagonist at first, to be walking around the set looking confused and in a state where she is lost. Millie is portrayed as a young child who is innocent and unlikely to hurt anybody, as well as being seen to want to find her parents. However in a strange turn of events after someone follows her in to a tunnel, she walks back out of the darkness with ripped clothing which are covered in blood (fake blood) as well as her hands covered in it and looking pale, it also leads to her slowly jolting forwards gradually getting closer and showing her outcome in a different persona, in a crazed sense of mind. Toby’s Role In the film opening, Toby starts off as the villain following a small child around woods when she is lost and clueless, however as he thinks he is going to complete a task of kidnapping a young child he follows her in to the tunnel, not know what is going to happen next. He heads in to the tunnel and ends up not coming out, as all you see of Toby after this is a dead body at the end of the small scene.
9. In the film opening we are planning on using only a few props, such as a teddy bear, which my sister will be walking around with when she seems ‘lost’ this will be iconic to the young protagonist, as she is 7 it represents her as still being a young child and not really knowing what to do, or where to go, until she comes across the tunnel, where Toby eventually follows her in to. As well as this, there will also be the use of certain things that aren’t really props, such as clothing and music, but for clothing the hood of Toby’s jumper will be iconic as it as the beginning of the scene and he puts it over his head just as you see Millie in the distance, as Toby is being represented as a ‘hoodie’ looking to kidnap a young child. However the music used will be a slow set nursery rhyme, which gives off the effect of a young child as the protagonist; however it is also meant to reinforce the sense of a horror film, as it is seen to be kind of ‘scary’.
10. (1.) A Young Girl is lost and wandering through the woods. The Location is Isolated. (2.) The little girl is shown to be cute and innocent through close-up and misé-en-scene e.g. Costume (3.) A Close-Up of a nasty looking man is shown. He is wearing his hood up which makes him seem more intimidating. (4.) The man follows the lost little girl. The audience is positioned with the girl and will feel worry for her. (5.) Man follows girl into tunnel and then you will hear a loud scream. Audience believe girl has been attacked. (6.) Girl reappears from the tunnel, and you can see the man’s body on the floor in the distance.
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12. Are you male or female? – 3 possible answers to chose from What age category are you? – With 6 answer boxes that you can chose from How important is it to include woods in a Horror film? – With 5 possible answers to pick out of Do you think it is suitable to have a young child as the main character? – 2 answers available to the question What do you think the villain should wear? – Pick 2 from a possible 6 answers At what time in the day do you think would be best to film? – Pick one of a possible 4 answers How do you think a child should be represented in a horror film? – Choose 1 answer from 6 answers What do you think a young female protagonist should wear in a horror film? – Chose 1 out of a possible 8 How important is it to have at least 2 characters in a Horror film opening? – 1 answer from a possible 4
13. “ Are you Male or Female?” 93.3% Male 0% Female 6.7%Other. As the Males are our target audience, we invited more males to do our survey and they did What Age Category Do You Fit In To? 86.7%...Aged 19 or Below 5.7%... Aged 20-29 5.7%... Aged 51 and Above Our Target Audience was not just Males but Males aged 19 or Below, so with 86.7% being below the age 19 it ensured we got the most accurate results possible.
14. How Important is it to Feature Woods in a Horror Film? 7.1% Very Important 57.1% Important 28.5% Slightly Important 7.1% Not Important As we are aiming to shoot the film in woods, with 57.1% of the participants saying it was ‘Important’ it gave us confidence that we had chosen an appropriate location. Do You Think it is Suitable to have a Young Child as the Main Character? 66.7% Yes 33.3% No When contemplating using a young child as the main character, we weren’t to sure whether it was a good idea, however our questions were answered, and from this question we decided to go with using a young child.
15. What Do You Think the Villain Should Wear? 20% A Black Cloak 33.3% A Mask 40% Black Gloves 33.3% Innocent Clothing 26.7% A Suit We were unsure what items of clothing our villain should wear, and despite the choices being fairly close, we have decided that the use of Black Gloves is definite. At What Time in the Day do you Think it would be best to Film? 0% Morning 0% Afternoon 86.7% Evening 13.3% Night We Expected to find that Night was the most popular however, this could be due to the film being less realistic if a young girl is walking through woods at night.
16. How do you feel a child should be represented in a Horror Film? 33.3% Evil 13.3% The Victim 13.3% The Main Character 20% Scared 66.7% Innocent 6.7% Other (Please Specify) Evil, and Innocent were the stand out two, so when looking at the results, we brainstormed, about how we could potentially use the child as Evil, and Innocent in our opening. We also had put Other as an option to see if anyone had any other external ideas, and one person had suggested ‘Superhero’ however, we didn’t take into account this answer, as Super-Hero’s aren’t relevant to a Horror Movie.
17. What do You believe a Young Female Protagonist Should Wear in a Horror Film? 50% A White Dress 0% A Black Dress 7.1% Leather Gloves 35.7% Casual Clothes 0% Old Scruffy Clothes 14.3% Headwear 14.3% No Shoes 7.1% Other (Please Specify) A White Dress Gained 50% of the Votes, which was promising as we were planning to use one already. How Important is it to have at least 2 Characters in a Horror Film Opening? 33.3% V. Important 26.7% Important 13.3% Slightly Important 26.7% N. Important.
18. From these answers we can manage our plans for our film opening, and can suit the film to our target audience, which will also help in the sense that it will increase our views and will attract more of our intended target audience. As well as this, it also enables us to see where we can change our faults in our idea’s and can take the advice of the responses, and can put in what the target audience would rather see than what already have planned. After looking through previous years horror films that our similar to ours we found this one, which has a Sound-Track appealing to us. http://www.youtube.com/user/kittysadler1#p/a/u/0/o_7F3gxv3IQ
