Planning

Final Media Idea's on Prezi

Once we had decided that we wanted to do a horror type genre we had to start thinking of ideas for our opening - we decided that it would be best if we each came up with an individual idea and then we could share and then pick an idea or mix different parts of the ideas together which was what we ended up doing.

When we were in class we all discussed our Ideas for our film opening, we planned them out onto a mind map including things like - certificate, characters and music, as well as the storyline. We scanned these pieces of paper and put them on prezi as it was an easier way to present the ideas. However we all wrote a detailed explaination of our ideas.


My film idea .
my idea is based on Paige's idea  which was that there was going to be someone running away from a black figure and then when they went through the key hole of a house the person was going to be laying there dead.

My idea was that we sound made it so that we were filming, students making that film and they would be acting, then coming out of character to say that it wasn't scary enough, however there would be a character all dressed in black with a white face stood watching the group of kids.
The film would be a 12A/15 as it would have some distressing subjects. The main idea of the film would be that because the students were in a graveyard, impersonating a dead person, they had awoken a spirit and throughout the film they would be getting haunted, until at the end they all got killed.

The opening would start off as the students film so that the audience would believe that this was really what the film was about, there would be tense/orchestral music playing until the students broke character which is when it would stop. The music would only start again at the end of the clip when the audience realised that there was something following the teenagers.

However the trouble with this idea may be that the audience may not understand what is happening as we're only filming two minutes of the opening, also we would have to make sure that we had good student actors and people that weren't going to mess around.

Paiges Media Idea
This is the building I would like my character to walk up to within my idea of the opening scene. The first shot would be my establishing shot showing the setting (crematorium) and the charters involved.

I would also like my idea to be low lighting, with only natural sunlight and maybe a few candles leading up to this building.
the character will have long, back combed hair, making it look as if she has struggled in her previous journey. I would like it to also be a she because it would then play up to the idea of the stereotypical damsel in distress. She would be wearing no shoes and have mud up and down her legs.
The viewer will also never see her face as it will only ever be a point of view shot and a shot looking at her from behind.

Josie’s Media idea pitch

Plot: 3 boys, 3 girls (teenagers) go camping on a foggy misty night near a forest  They are all laughing and joking around, having fun drinking alcohol and having a good night. Then one of them notices something hovering in the distance, a black figure and the night goes downhill from there. Setting:forest (Shenfield common)

Karina’s Media idea

The opening sequence for my idea is based on two lovers. The audience first sees the couple walking through fields holding hands. The lighting is high key, setting the scene to create a romantic effect. As we move along the, we see the couples do various actions relating to love; hugging, play fighting, kissing. While all these are taking place the sound track begins as orchestral music to suit the tone. However as the audience continues to watch they rapidly see a change in the relationship, turning from good to bad. Love letters and notes are all being ripped up and tore to treads. They get a sense that something bad is about to happen as the soundtrack turns in to loud deep heart beats. Then everything goes silent and black, and as the finishing shot the audience sees a body being hanged with blood everywhere.

Final Idea

For our opening we decided that we were going to work from Paige's idea which was to have a patient from a hospital who had escaped and have her walking through the graveyard and into the chapel at the end. We all then put our own ideas into this and made it so that the patient was in love and had love notes in her hands that she was dropping as she walked down the path, also that we should see something after her walking into the chapel so we were going to have a pool of blood on the floor and have the camera pan up from there. We then presented our idea to the class the feedback we got is below.

the main piece of feedback that we were given was to make sure that we made it clear what was going on in our clip as people thought that it may be a little confusing, we also got told to make sure that we had a good actress as sometimes horrors end up looking like comedies if the acting is really over the top - because of this feedback it made us extra careful to look at all of these things and we had to make sure we stuck to the genre that we had chosen. 


A few weeks before we were planning on filming we decided to do a practice on some of the shots we were going to use in our opening so that we could get used to moving the camera in that way and make them as clean as possible - this also meant that we wouldn't have to do loads of takes when we were on location as it was going to be cold anyway and Amelia was going to be in just a hospital gown. 

these were the practice shots that we filmed and as you can tell - it was a lot harder than we thought it was going to be - in the end we decided to take some of the shots out like the one dropping the paper as firstly we found it too hard to film and secondly it was making the storyline too complicated. If we hadn't have done the practice shots our opening would have turned out very different so I'm glad that we took the time to do this even though they weren't perfect.

This was the plan of our shot list:

1. Pan from right to left- This will be the opening shot, the establishing shot.
2. Long Shot- of the character walking into the chapel.
3. Cut Away (Close Up) - close up of Actress' face
4. Mid Shot- of Josie walking through the doors.
5. Cut Away- Dead roses going into the puddle
6. Tilt Up- going from the bottom of her feet to her face as she walks into the chapel
7. Mid Shot- of character walking into the chapel
8. Cut Away- Of Josie sitting in pews of the church turning her head round

and this is what our actual shot list was:

1. Pan right to left
2. Dissolve long shot 
3. dead roses - cut away
4. Back to long shot, starting to walk
5. transition/cut away (running breathing)
6. Walking in the doorway of the chapel 
7. Candle blow out - cut away
8. close up of Josie's face - straight
9. close up of Josie's face - slanted 
10. Opening door breathing - up then back in 
11. Cut away of Josie in chair 
12. Josie walking up to cross
13. Cut away *Title*
14. Touches Cross 
15. Josie tilting up her head
16. High angle of Josie in bed


As you can see when we redid the shot list we found that we had more shots in it because once we had edited the first one together, the shots didn't run into each other very well and so we found that we needed to use some of the other footage we shot.