The document discusses plans for an original vampire film that challenges some Gothic horror conventions. It will show the protagonist vampire feeding to survive, rather than for pleasure, and struggling to hide his true nature from others. The opening title sequence will create mystery through symbolic shots and a nonlinear structure. It will be inspired by Dexter, Zombieland, and Twilight in its portrayal of a vampire attempting to live an ordinary life. The film aims to attract a male audience aged 15-21 by emphasizing the gore and complex plot over typical vampire romance elements.

1. Pitch 2
JAKE EWEN

2. The subgenre
 The horror subgenre that we have chosen is Gothic Horror
 Under this we have chosen to focus on vampires

3. Researching Gothic Horror
From research we learned:
 There are many conventions with Gothic horrors, such as a limited
pallet of black and white
 They are based on gothic fiction novels
 Most gothic horrors were made in the early 20th century such as
Dracula made in 1931.

4. Conventions of Gothic horrors –
Mise en scene
 Mise en scene is not very important in creating the horror due to
most being made before better technology was available.
 Limited pallets are used of black and whites to highlight the rich red
colour of blood
 There is a high emphasis on lighting to create mood

5. Conventions –Narrative structure
 The narrative structure is usually in the form of a story or a tale of the
“monsters” who make up the antagonist role in the story
 The structure is conventionally linear as follows the protagonist in
their battle against the monster

6. Conventions- Plot
 The plot involves a monster or non-human antagonist whom
dominates the main plot to the story
 The main plot also has a sub plot of a romance, usually involving the
protagonist

7. Conventions- Camera
 Low angle shots are used to show the dominance and control of the
monsters
 Zoom ins of thought to be empty rooms building tension
 Two shots to show tension between two characters

8. Conventions- Editing
 Fade to black shots are used to conclude many scenes or films
 Sound bridges used to continue the tension from one scene to the
next
 Quick cuts (fast paced editing) used to show the characters danger

9. Conventions- Sound
 Non- diegetic music used throughout
 Dramatic changes in volume used to emphasise danger, for
example dead silence with a sudden break into scream
 Fast paced music when characters are scared mimicking their
emotions

10. The plot
 Protagonist is an ordinary blood specialist doctor
 Protagonist has recurring nightmares of something chasing him until
one night he is bitten
 He wakes up with a bite mark
 Turns into a vampire and has a lust for blood
 He starts by eating animals and people get suspicious
 He moves on to eating people
 People don’t realise that he is a vampire
 He tries to go about an everyday life while eating people in his
spare time to fulfil his lust
 His neighbour is always suspicious of him
 He has to bite him to stop him from telling anyone

11. Conventions in our film
 We will reinforce conventions of a vampire who has to hide himself
from everyday people. This makes the plot more relatable to an
audience as not many people would accept a vampire into their
community.
 We will then challenge conventions as vampires are usually shown
to kill for fun, we will show our vampire to eat in order to survive. This
makes the protagonist more relatable to the audience as they can
understand why he has to do what he does and therefore they can
sympathise with him.

12. We will create enigmas by….
 This will be achieved by not introducing the character or exactly
what he is in the OTS.
 We will show symbols of what he does but not be clear
 We will then not show the protagonist's face in the OTS

13. Type of OTS
 The OTS will be a mixture between a non-linear and symbolic
 This will leave us able to show cuts of what he does without giving
too much away
 This will also allow us to create enigmas through the use of symbols

14. Character representation
 The protagonist will be represented as someone not in control
 He will be someone that is simply fulfilling his need to feed allowing
him to relate to an audience as we will see everything from his
perspective
 This will also create sympathy for the character himself

15. Character representation
 The antagonist, the neighbour, will be the only person who sees
through the protagonist for the vampire that he is
 He will be represented as moody and always cautious towards the
protagonist
 As the audience sees all events in the protagonists eyes, this will
create the neighbour to be perceived as frustrating and to be wary
of.

16. Inspirational film 1
 Dexter
 This also shows a person who is hiding his true personality as feels will
not be accepted by anyone
 We see his struggle for human connection and also has a work
colleague, Sargent Dokes who sees him for how he really is

17. Dexter This cut from the OTS of Dexter highlights the
protagonist’s love for blood
This also shows how the
charcter does what he
does behind the image
of an ordinary life. This is
shown through blood
and gore being shown
in a morning routine
We will use this
idea of hidden
symbolism in our
OTS to create a
similar idea of
hiding

18. Inspirational film 2
 Zombieland
 This is mainly due to the effect use of blood and gore shown in the
OTS
 The use of slow motion and effective mise en scene really highlights
the gore in a light hearted way

19. Zombieland
The collection of
slow motion non
linear shots work
really well to
highlight events
rather than
establish any
characters. This will
help us when we
are trying to create
enigmas.

20. Inspirational film 3
 Twilight
 This non-conventional, modern twist to a vampire film is similar to
what we are trying to achieve
 The use of having to hide is shown in twilight as well as showing how
normal people do not accept vampires
 The conventional traits are also there, such as the lust for blood,
which we can look at and use in our film

21. Twilight
The more
conventional
vampire OTS
concludes with
the name of the
film written in
blood. This
conventional
approach could
be included in our
film along with
other non
conventional
ideas

22. Our unique selling point
 There are not many, if any, modern vampire films that show them
feeding for lust rather than just for pleasure
 The idea of having a single character that is relatable but a killer at
the same time is not very common

23. Target audience
 We will not be targeting the stereotypical audience of vampire films
due to our lack of romance and increased level of gore
 Due to this we will be targeting males of around the age of 15-21
 The increased amount of gore and a lifestyle focused more around
killing and the struggles which follow will relate more to this group of
people.

24. We will attract our audience by…
 This will be achieved by highlighting and advertising the gore and
plot to the story rather than the vampire side to the story
 This will attract this audience as vampires are associated as more a
female genre with the biting being more sexual
 Focusing on the gore and complex structure to the plot will hook
more people and allow the audience to feel empathy for the
characters.