Main Task planning: Casting

Here is the cast for the opening of "Murder Studies"

Fred- John Power (Me)
Jase- George Hopkins
Mike- Jamie Oliver
Tom- Mateusz Zbielski
Teacher- TBC
Media Classmates- Deet Bains, Josh Thorley, Robert Corbishley, Matt Ingram, Deepika Singh, Oliver McMahon, Ava Markie etc....
Female victim in vision- Holeigh Perkins

Main Task planning: Mise-En-Scene

Costume

• Black long sleeved shirt, all buttons fastened with shirt tucked in
• Brown Tie, tied up smartly 
• Grey pin stripe uniform trousers
• Black dress socks
• Black slip-on formal shoes

Props

• Media Notebook (Red school exercise book)
• School desks
• School chairs
• Media iMacs
• Knife (vision chase sequence)
• Fake Blood (vision chase sequence)

Set

• Media classroom 
• Dark Corridor (vision chase sequence)

Lighting 

• Classroom lights on, daytime sunlight
• Hallway, very dim lighting, night time

Main Task research: A timeline for the opening 2 minutes of a teen horror film

Here is a picture of the notes I took for the timeline of the first 2 minutes of a teen horror film. The film I chose to analyse was John Carpenter's The Ward (2010). I looked at what titles e.g the cast and the director came up on screen and when. I also made notes on what I could see and hear in the opening titles stating my thought on their convention and what the intended effect on the viewer was.

Here is the opening for John Carpenter's The Ward available on Art Of The Title, please click the image above to watch the video. 

Main Task Research: Art of the title

What is Art of the title? 
Art of the title is a website dedicated to analysis of Film and Television openings. It is the leading resource for title sequence design for not only film but also Television and Video games etc. It was founded by Ian Albinson.

Here is a video on the Art of  the title site that portrays opening title sequences through the decades. Click the picture below to watch.

Main Task research: Film openings

There are many conventions in the openings of teen horror movies, some of them used too much in horror films e.g secluded location, phone losing all signal/ battery power or car running out of petrol in the most inconvenient of places (places where a serial killer is most likely to be waiting for their prey).


Dead Wood (2007)
Dead Wood is about four friends who ditch city life for a few days to go and relax in the woods. Events take a sinister turn when a strange girl appears looking for her boyfriend. The nightmare then commences and they find themselves in an endless wilderness stalked by a deadly force.
Some of the conventions portrayed in the opening:

• Secluded Location 
• Someone gets killed in the first 5 minutes
• Victim close to safety before death

Dead  Mary (2007)
Kim and Matt travel to a lake to spend time with their friends even though they have only just recently broken up. As a game the teens play "Dead Mary" and they end up summoning a deadly witch who possesses some of the kids, they fight for survival not knowing who is evil and who is not...
Conventions portrayed in the opening:

• Secluded location
• Car runs out of fuel in the most inconvenient place where the character is most likely to get murdered.
• Fake scare
• Phone loses all signal.

Wrong Turn (2003)
Six people find themselves stranded in the woods of West-Virginia and being hunted by cannibalistic hillbilly maniacs grossly disfigured through generations of incest.
Conventions portrayed in the opening:

• Secluded location
• Death in the first few minutes
• Victim dies very close to safety (E.g. a getaway vehicle)

Main Task Planning: Treatment for the opening

The film starts with a teacher (played by Mr Henton) explaining that now his media class has done their research for their task they must now go out and actually complete their main task of filming their very own teen horror film.


We now cut to a shot of Fred (played by Me; John Power) looking into the camera with a blank look lacking any emotion. A slow heartbeat sound effect begins and Fred has visions of killing people, this shows he is not right in the head and also shows the ideas he has for his movie, real murders! As the heartbeat gets faster the visions get gradually more violent.


A point-of-view vision of Fred chasing a woman with a bloody knife, as he gets closer with the heartbeat now faster than ever.... A book is suddenly slammed down on the table (a fake scare). The book contains the words "Murder Studies" on the front of the book.


At the beginning there will be establishing shots of certain areas around the school, with eerie deep bass music to create a horror atmosphere. Titles will be included during this time apart from at the end when the film title is included.

During the close up of Fred, The other class members will be blurred out so the audience's point of focus will be completely on Fred. Also the background sound e.g. Classmates talking or other noises will be drowned out by the heartbeat, getting inside Fred's head.


From the 3 best ideas we picked out we decided to build on multiple ideas instead of just one for example we are using Robert's idea of having a normal day for students, We are using Man-Lok's idea of using a sinister figure or person in the opening having something eventful happening also.

This is just a basic idea at the moment but we will build on this in group discussions deciding on what shots to use and setting our ideas into stone. Some things might change but for the time being this is the opening that Twin Pine films has agreed on and will build on.

Main Task planning: 60 second pitch (the video)

Click the picture below to watch our 60 second pitch:                                    

please skip to 4:45 on the video and continue watching until 5:45 

                                                                                                         

Main Task research: sharing our pitch with our target audience

We interviewed 10 people, gave them the synopsis for "Murder Studies" and asked them what they think the opening should be. We can't show you all 10 but here are 3 we thought were very good. Credit to Mateusz Zbielski for making the video.

Main task planning: the synopsis

This is the synopsis for "Murder Studies":

Fred, Jase, Mike and Tom are 4 average sixth form lads who are assigned the task of planning and creating a teen horror movie. After indulging themselves in lots of research by watching horror movies, they have their plan; A psychopathic killer who kidnaps teenagers and tortures them in new and inventive ways...
While filming for their horror movie they get carried away with their roles and begin actually killing and torturing victims in the style of the murderers from the films they have researched. The style of their killings are loosely based on the Saw films along with hints of other horror classics such as halloween and Friday the 13th.

Main Task planning: 60-second pitch

Here is the script for the 60 second pitch for the idea of "Murder Studies":

John:  I'm John Power
George: I'm George Hopkins
Mateusz: I'm Mateusz Zbielski
All : We are twin pine films
John: Our fourth member Jamie Oliver could not be here today, our idea for our film is "Murder studies" which is wordplay on "Media Studies"
George: It follows four sixth form media studies students Fred, Jase, Mike and Tom. They are given the assignment of making a horror film in lesson.
Mateusz: While filming they go on a murderous rampage, inspired by the horror films they watched for research.
John: The film is shot using the Point-of-view technique which is seen in The Blair Witch Project and Diary Of The Dead.The target age certificate for "Murder Studies" is aged 15. That was our 60-second pitch for "Murder Studies" I hope you all see it in cinemas thank you for listening good day, good night we love you.

Main Task planning: Plot for main task

The plot line for "Murder Studies" (A Twin Pine films film and A Twin Pine films production) follows four sixth form media studies students Fred, Jase, Mike and Tom who are given the assignment to film a horror film in lesson. During research they watch horror films and inspired by the murderous violence, during filming for their task they film themselves going on a very REAL murderous rampage! The character names have been adapted from horror villains Freddie Kreuger, Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers and Thomas Hewitt (Leatherface's real name in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre). The film at first is shot from the character's point-of-view and then during the murdering spree the POV switches to the character camera. POV filming can be seen in such films as The Blair Witch Project  (1999), Cloverfield (2008) and Diary Of The Dead (2007).

Main Task planning: Brainstorming

During lesson in our group we brainstormed possible movie ideas we could use for our main task. Here is a picture of Twin Pine films with our brainstorm: 

Main Task Research: British Board of Film Classification (BBFC)

The British board of film classification is the company that decides age certificates of films that are proposed for release in Britain, they decide what gets cut out of a film. The BBFC was first established in 1912 by the film industry (who wouldn't rather have the government controlling censorship).

Here are all of the age certificates the BBFC use for cinematic and video release purposes:

The R-18 certifictate is only used in licensed cinemas that show"adult" films.

Media ID card

This is a Media ID card that I made in class, this is not relevant to main task research or horror work. We were assigned this task as part of our photography based class.

Main Task research: Audience perceptions and expectations of a horror film

This is my evaluation of the qualitative questions in my survey on horror films:

In this question most of the people who answered said that they had watched their first horror movie long before their teen years. I watched my first horror movie at the age of 7. This is probably why people don't scare easy at horror films in later years as they have gotten use to watching horror films and it doesn't bother them as much. 

 In this question nearly everyone stated a favourite horror movie that was released in the 70's or 80's. The horror films that are seen as major classics today were released in the 70's and 80's  (the teen slasher era) and still loved by many people, even people who were born long after that era; that's how influential films such as "Halloween" and "A Nightmare on Elm Street" are and still are.

Main Task Research: audience perceptions and expectations of a horror film

25 people completed my survey on horror films on Survey monkey and here are the results from my quantitative questions:

   

 

3. This tells me that people (mostly female) watch a horror film for the suspense alone, not knowing what will happen next although in most films these days anyone can have a pretty good guess on what will happen. 68% of people said that they want a plot in a horror film to get them to the cinema or DVD outlet, a good plot twist makes a good film. Terror on the viewers' mind seems to get over half of the surveyees to the cinema too. I felt pretty mentally tortured watching "A Serbian Film" and "The Human Centipede 2".

4. Over 3 quarters of surveyees expect a scare when watching a horror film (after all it's what horror films were made for). When I was 7 I watched the 2003 remake of the texas chainsaw massacre and felt scared that leatherface would come and kill me in my sleep with a chainsaw! To be honest Horror films do not scare as much as they used to (in my opinion), I like a horror film that leaves me feeling disgusted and scared.

5. The fact that most people would rather watch a horror with others around shows me that they are easily scared and terrified by horror movies. To some people watching a horror film alone if they're easily scared (especially with the lights off) gives them an adrenaline rush that is like heroin, it is so addictive and feels good.

6. This shows me that even though horror films are intended to scare people they don't give them a "real" scare by preying on their phobias, an example of this would be arachnophobia in which a tarantula is used in filming to prey on people's fear of spiders.

7. This shows me that watching a horror film in the dark gives people that adrenaline rush, dark is associated with fear and death and sets a mood when watching a horror film, a lot of people like that.

Main Task Research: The evolution of Teen Horror since the 80's

In the 80's Teen Horror movies were just slashers with not much of a plot line other than a gory killing spree. At the time this was all the rage but it soon died down when the 90's came around no one really cared for characters like Freddy, Jason, Michael or Leatherface anymore; they wanted something that scared them again.

In 1996 however Wes Craven (the mastermind behind A Nightmare On Elm Street) revived the teen horror genre with smash hit movie Scream and followed it up with Scream 2 (1997) and 3 (2000). After Scream teen horror suddenly came back into fashion in "the noughties"with films such as Final Destiantion (2000) and Freddy vs Jason (2003). Freddy vs Jason was the first ever horror movie to involve two villain characters from a seperate horror film series in the same movie fighting each other.








The noughties was very popular for horror remakes or reboots, A good example of a remake would be the 2003 version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and a prequel Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006). Other classic slashers to make a comeback to the big screen would be Halloween (2007) and Friday The 13th (2009).

Main Task Research: Teen Horror

What is Teen Horror? 

A genre of horror that includes a teenage character going through every day events of a teenager's life.... And then they get brutally murdered. Teen horror mostly is aimed at a teenage audience as well despite most of these slashers having an 18 BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) certificate. Most Teen horror films are mindless slashers with no real plot line to it apart from blood, guts and gore; If there is a plot line to a teen slasher it most likely includes a brutal death or two.

The first notable Teen slasher is Halloween (1978). Halloween starred Jamie Lee Curtis as an everyday teenager babysitting for a neighbour stalked by a masked un-killable psychotic mental patient known as Michael Myers who is later revealed to be her long lost brother. Halloween was the catalyst for a revolution in the horror film industry in the 1980's, the revolution of the teen horror.


                        
The 80's is when the teen slasher really evolved in the film market. After Halloween came Halloween II (1981), A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984) and Friday The 13th (1980). Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees were the main characters that spearheaded the charge of Teen horror to major fruition in the 80's.


The Friday the 13th franchise tells the story of immortal hockey masked psycho Jason Voorhees who terrorises the teen residents of Camp Crystal Lake where he drowned as a child. Jason isn't seen wearing the hockey mask until Friday the 13th part 3 (1982).

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) made Robert Englund's career legendary for his part as Freddy Krueger in what is still regarded as one of the greatest horror franchises today. Freddy Krueger was a child killer who  got murdered by victim's parents. Freddy spends his afterlife murdering Springwood teenagers in their dreams except... they also die in real life! A Nightmare on Elm Street is also famous for it's own made up nursery rhyme; 1,2 Freddy's coming for you 3,4 better lock your door 5,6 grab your crucifix 7,8 better stay up late                9,10 never sleep again.   

                     

Main Task Research: Horror films through the decades: The 2000's

"The noughties" was not too successful for horror films, there were some good ones but obviously not good enough or remakes of old horror films wouldn't have to be made. The noughties did not see a new "awesome" genre of horror being born. However the noughties did see the release of the first film of one of the most successful film franchises in decades; Saw (2004). The Saw franchise to me was successful because of it's gore and it's psychology, it makes everyone ask the question "What would you do to stay alive?" and also you have to see all of them to get the entire plot line as the story spreads over seven films. A couple of films also preyed on the fear of terrorists because of the Attacks on September 11, 2001. 28 Days later (2002) really emphasised this fear as people were paranoid that terrorists would go to chemical warfare. The noughties were surprisingly quiet for horror films.




                      


                     

Main Task Research: Horror films through the decades: The 90's

By the time the 90's came around the Slasher genre was in it's twilight, mounds of corpses and jets of blood and gore didn't faze people anymore. The 90's saw the birth of the sophisticated horror. There can be gore but the sophisticated horror looks more at how a killer's mind works, the psychology side of things. What scares people is the psychological cat and mouse game happening perhaps between the villain and the viewer or the villain and another character. The 90's saw the evolution of the thriller genre. Below is a  clip from 1991 classic "The silence of the lambs".

                           
However in 1996 Wes Craven (creator of A Nightmare On Elm Street and Friday the 13th) came up with one of the greatest films of the 90's; Scream. Not only did Scream use the more sophisticated way to chill viewers with the plot line but it also mixed in the guts and gore of an 80's slasher and even the dress code for an 80's movie serial killer (an unorthodox costume with a scary mask or disfigurement to hide their true face). The teen horror genre was back!

                           

Main Task Research: Horror films through the decades: The 80's

The 1980's saw two major eras in horror film as the slasher genre was at it's peak notoriety and a new type of horror came into the mix; Body horror! During the 80's technology really advanced in the film industry, with new tools at the helm; film makers could make their impossible dream a reality with highly advanced technology making outlandish special effects a reality, making  films look more realistic than real life itself! The films that pioneered "Body Horror" were two of the most famous 80's horrors The Thing (1982) and The Fly (1986). New editing technology meant that Sci-Fi horror now came back into contention for the top of the horror film market with films like the Alien series and Predator.

In the 80's Teen slasher horror was at it's peak. After The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween in the 70's The teen slasher genre evolved in the 80's into a film genre with the biggest audiences in the world. Many sequels followed Texas Chainsaw and Halloween and two new horror figures came into the fray that also grabbed teen audiences worldwide; Jason Voorhees (Friday The 13th in 1980) and Freddy Krueger (Nightmare On Elm Street in 1984). Theses movies preyed on people's fear of a dangerous evil serial killer figure that is incapable of doing unspeakable things (back in the 80's people were still scared of serial killers because of people like Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacey). 

                               

Main Task Research: Horror films through the decades: The 70's

The 1970's mostly was known as the "Era of the creepy kid". Children are normally seen as innocent figures who can do nothing bad or evil. Horror films throughout the 70's played on people's fear of the unknown as  no one could know what goes on in someone's mind. Not only were children the main figures of these films, sometimes they were grown adults. The 1970's is the origin of psychological horror, developed from Norman Bates' character and made into an even more creepy, evil, psycho figure. The flagship films of the 70's include The Exorcist (1973) one of the highest grossing horror films of all time, The Omen (1976). The "Norman Bates but worse" character is first seen in the 1974 gore fest The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkm2rMZXPyg

The 1978 teen slasher "Halloween" starring Jamie Lee Curtis as a teen babysitter stalked by a masked psycho with a large kitchen knife known as Michael Myers was the catalyst for the domination of the slasher genre in the 1980's and is the first major "Teen Horror" movie. 

Main Task Research: Horror films through the decades: The 60's

The 60's is where society completely changed, everyone loosened up from the nuclear paranoia of the 50's. Teenagers changed from generic mummy's boys and daddy's girls to "free spirits", hence this decade being dubbed the "Swingin' sixties". With the idea of genetically altered nuclear monsters beginning to be seen as a bit silly, Film writers gave the viewer a fear of something closer to home. The most notorious 60's horror was Alfred Hitchcock's legendary 1960 movie "Psycho". Psycho is the story of motel owner Norman Bates who hears the voice of his Mum's ghost telling him to kill people. The moral of the story was that being a "Mummy's boy" was not a good thing anymore, this film summarises the rebellious nature of the teenage population in the 60's.


                          

Main Task Research: Horror films through the decades: the 50's

The 50's is when Sci-Fi (Science Fiction) Horror took centre stage from the dark gothic horror era of the 30's and 40's. In the 1950's everyone was still reflecting on the Second World War which ended in the worst example of technological warfare possible; The American nuclear bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killing over 150,000 Japanese citizens. Horror films in the 1950's aimed to prey on the public's paranoia of nuclear warfare by making films about monsters,born from Nuclear weaponry! The film that started this trend was "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" (1953). The most notorious 50's horror film though was "Godzilla" (1954). The 50's in the horror film market was known as "The Atomic Age". 

Godzilla (1954)

A clip from "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms"

                                

Main Task Research: Horror films through the decades: the 40's

The main horror characters from the 30's (Dracula, Frankenstein and The Mummy) carried on into the 40's with sequels such as The Mummy's Tomb (1942), Son Of Dracula (1943) and Ghost of Frankenstein (1942). There were also new revitalized films of other characters such as The Wolf Man (1941).

                        

However in the 1940's no one really had any interest in Cinema as the Second World War was taking place and everyone in the world was either fighting for their country, hiding in their bomb shelters or helping clear the streets of rubble from air raids during the night; No one had time to sit in a cinema watching films or were simply just too scared to leave their house. 

Main Task Research: Horror films through the decades: the 30's

The 1930's is when horror films really came into fruition with the 1931 releases of Frankenstein and Dracula in cinemas everywhere really grabbing the attention of the audience. The 1930's is the origin decade of one of the biggest media markets in the world today. Dracula and Frankenstein were the main catalysts for the mini boom that would take place in the horror market in the 30's. Other main horror releases in the 30's include "Werewolf of London" (1935) and "The Mummy" (1932).

         


                                                         








                                                   

Main Task Research: Origin of Horror

The horror genre has been around for years! The gothic style started mainly in the 19th century when Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in 1818, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in 1886 and Bram Stoker wrote Dracula in 1897. These 3 novels are what defined these 3 authors' careers. The first horror film ever made, Nosferatu in 1922 was based on the Vampire idea from Bram Stoker's Dracula. The gothic genre is the first main genre of horror, completely different to what horror is to us in the modern day.

A 1931 adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. 

Bela Lugosi's 1931 adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula.

     Robert Louis Stevenson's career defining novel "The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" (1886)




Here is the full film of the 1922 horror film "Nosferatu" there is no speech as in 1922 cameras could not pick up character speech. Nosferatu is the first ever horror film in known existence.



                         

Main Task

Now that our preliminary task is finished, it's now time to get started on the main task! The main task is an opening to a new teen horror film that lasts a maximum of two minutes. In our prelim task we used iMovie which is very simple to use however for the main task we will be using a more complex software for film editing in Final Cut. Final Cut is a state of the art software for film editing that the professionals even use nowadays for making films.

Preliminary Task: Evaluation

Preliminary task evaluation from JohnPowerKBA

Preliminary Task:Final Product

Today Twin Pine films finished filming and editing the Preliminary Task. Here is our final edited product showing Match-On-Action, 180 Degree rule and Shot/Reverse Shot.

How to embed Youtube videos onto your blog

These are the steps you need to take in order to embed a YouTube video onto your blog:

Step 1.Go to www.youtube.com
Step 2.Find a suitable video
Step 3.Click the share button on the bottom of the video
Step 4.Click the down arrow underneath the Facebook symbol.
Step 5.Click blogger.
Step 6. Publish your blog post.



                                                                 TEST

How to embed Powerpoint slideshows

These are the steps to follow in order to embed a powerpoint presentation onto your blog:

Step 1. Go to www.slideshare.net and create an account

Step 2. Upload your powerpoint presentation onto Slideshare (the amount of time this takes can vary)

Step 3. When your Powerpoint has been uploaded you can copy the HTML address. 

Step 4. Create a new post on Blogger and change writing settings from compose to HTML and paste the HTML address. 

Step 5. Publish your blog. 

                                                                TEST

          

Media consumption from JohnPowerKBA

Mise-En-Scene (costume and props)

Mise-en-scene is a french term which literally means "put in the scene"


Costume: 

In the preliminary task Chuck (played by me) I am wearing a black shirt with no tie, with the top button undone and the shirt untucked; I am also wearing black trousers with black shoes and socks. I will also have fake blood on my face to give the effect that I have been roughed up badly.

George (playing the Mafia Boss) will be wearing a black jumper, a white shirt, a black tie with black trousers and black shoes.


Props: 

For the preliminary task we will be using a table to separate the captive Chuck from the Mafia boss. Chuck will be "tied" to a normal hard chair but the Mafia boss will be sitting across the table from Chuck in a nice comfortable leather chair.

Preliminary task: Casting

In our preliminary task the casting is as follows:

John Power (me)- Chuck

George Hopkins- Mafia Boss

Mateusz Zbielski- Camera man

Jamie Oliver- Lighting man/ Camera man

Preliminary task: Location planning

In lesson me, George and Mateusz were looking for possible locations for filming our preliminary task, here are some locations we were considering for our Extreme Long Shot/Establishing Shot and our first glimpse of the Mafia boss (the second piece of footage):

Area behind the English block

We thought about using this area to film our establishing shot, we liked this area because of all the rubble it gives a "you shouldn't be here" as an area with rubble is seen as desolate and derelict, Chuck is being held captive inside an old abandoned warehouse.

Area behind the Sports Hall

 

We were thinking about this area for our second shot where the camera tracks backwards while the Mafia Boss is walking towards the camera, we can only see the Mafia Boss' feet while he is walking to where Chuck is being held captive. 

For our final decision we concluded that for our Establishing shot we would use a panning movement with the camera to film the area behind the English block where the mound of rubble currently resides. 

For our second shot with the backwards tracking close up on the Mafia Boss' feet while he is walking to where Chuck is being held captive we decided that the best area to film this would be the path just outside of  the school gate that leads to the main turning circle.

Basic camera movements

Camera Shots: Twin Pine films

In today's lesson our task was to demonstrate multiple camera shot techniques.

Extreme Long Shot (ELS)

Long Shot (LS)

Mid Shot (MS)

Two Shot (TS)

Close Up (CU)

Extreme Close Up (ECU)