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.