Teaser Pitch

Teaser Pitch 1

Skilled and failing horror writer, Lucasz Batrovic takes his new home in the woods seeking new inspiration. Can he survive the power of a corrupted mind?

Teaser Pitch 2

Young horror script writer, Christian Howl and his new fiance take to the woods looking for new inspiration. Can they survive his imagination?

Teaser Pitch 3

A group of teenage friends on their summer holiday, escape to the woodlands. As Christian's story continues, so does their torture. 

Final Teaser Pitch

A group of teenage friends on their summer holiday, escape to the woodlands. As Christian Howl's story continues, can they survive his imagination?

Feedback from other groups

Our target audience said that the first pitch didn't match out sub-genre, so we decided to change it as you can see in in the seconded teaser pitch. They also said we were giving to much away with the idea of the plot, and the fact that he sounded to educational did not fit with our sub-genre once again.

Another thing that came up from our feedback was that we were giving to much away. at the start about the character by saying that he was a 'horror writer' and 'seeking new inspiration' which leaves them knowing what is going to happen as we did not want this we made it shorter, and make sure that the last sentence leaves them wanting more.

One other thing that came up was the main characters name as our target audience said that they didn't like it and that it that the main characters second name should sound more evil such as 'howl', so as you can see we changed the main characters name into 'Christian Howl' we liked this name as a group as it doesn't give to much away, also the use of a protagonists being a group of teenagers which our target audience can relate to.

Main Task Story Board

Establishing shot used to show where the action is set and giving the viewer a sense of emersion in our film early on. This is going to be an extreme long shot of south park. some relaxing music is going to be played through out this and the next shot to comfort the viewer.

This shot is used to give the viewer a closer insight to the location. It also sets the scene and relaxes the viewer before the chase scene begins.

This shot is used to present a woman standing and breathing heavily. We see that she is injured and out of breath. She is going to be surrounded by trees. The relaxing music suddenly stops and and dramatic music starts to gently creep in.

Dramatic music picks up the pace and becomes more tense. The woman has noticed someone is chasing her and she starts running. Camera will be panning to follow her as she runs. 

The purpose of this scene is to show the emotions of the girl. She will be breathing heavily and she will  be crying. However she will also be looking back in this scene.

The previous scene will be followed by a shot of the writer (Connal) writing. This will be set in a dimly lit room. This will be the introduction to the character. However throughout this whole scene his face will not be shown clearly. This is going to be set in one of the classrooms in Cheney but we are going to do our best to ensure that it doesn't look like one. We are also going to be using artificial light however we are going to try and dim the light to ensure we keep that eery feeling through out this scene.

This shot is used to show what the writer is writing in much better detail. This shot will be completely quite. making it seem mysterious and awkward which is exactly what we want the viewer feeling.

This is the scene where the writer lifts his head up to think, as he does we are going to have a close up of his face. We will not be seeing his face clearly, it will be completely shadowed. This also adds to the suspense and the mystery of this character and hopefully make the audience intrigued.

This scene will be a completely change of pace compared to the office scene. This shot is specifically used to show where this scene is set, it allows the viewer to see the background and the surroundings. we use a long shot so that it portrays the whole house, the characters and the car in one shot.

This scene includes a bunch of teenage friends packing their stuff and walking over to the car which is parked outside connal's house. Some smooth and cheerful music is played in the background during this scene. We also feel that we could include a little bit of the credits on the screen too as this is happening.

This scene is of the car driving away as the camera pans with it. There will be several houses shown in the background. Upbeat music is continually playing through this scene to relax the audience and help them get much more immersed into this short film.

This shot is the final shot to end the video is a shot of the car close up then driving off eventually turning it into an extreme long shot. The car will just be continuously driving off into the distance and the clip will come to an end with a fade to black transition.

The Changes Made

We made some drastic and last minute changes to our opening scene to accommodate for some unfortunate news. Such as the fact that we lost one of our actors. She was unable to be in our opening which ignited a range of changes to the opening. Such as the addition of a different female actor. However there were some other changes that were brought around due to inconvenience and general ineffectiveness. For example, the car scene. We thought that it may be too difficult to get a driver, a car and have the whole acting and filming crew there at the same time. Another change that we thought would add to the effectiveness of our opening was the addition of the group scene. This is the scene where the characters engage in a piece of dialogue. We thought this was a crucial scene to add to help flesh out the characters and express their stereotypes. We also changed the order of certain scenes especially the establishing shot. We changed the establishing shot to give the audience a chance to get to know the villain in the film and express his personality through an inner monologue right at the start of the film. We think that the changes we made added to the overall effectiveness and enjoyment of our opening scene.

Horror Movie Interviews

Evaluation

If you interviewed a range of people how are you going to narrow down your target market

We interviewed a range of students from the UK around the ages of 16 and 20, so we all decided that we will be targeting male young adults because they have much more tolerance for gore than women. However there are some women that were interviewed that did not mind the gore so young adult women could also be drawn to our film.  

Did any of you target audience have any answers in common? have these interviews given you ideas or inspiration for your main task?

We did encounter similar answers for the question "What was the scariest movie you have ever seen?" Collectively as a group we were inspired to choose the sub genre extreme horror because it was present in many of the interviewees answers to the question. both men and women in our interviews stated that they found gory movies such as Saw 3 and Final Destination. The main aspect of these films that made our interviewees scared was that they could imagine themselves in the position that the characters are in in the film. The way the movie developers create this feeling to the viewers is that they have to make the situations realistic and relatable to the viewer which is what we intend to do for our main task. The way the directors try to relate to a broad range of people is that they use stereotypes. We will be including stereotypes in our main task in the same way.

Have these interviews given you any ideas of what to avoid in your main task?

Although our sub genre is extreme horror we intended to keep the blood and gore to the minimum because lots of our interviewees said that blood did not really frighten them in horror films. We will be including lots of the other traditional features of an extreme horror but blood seems to be voted down by the public. We also would try not to make our scenes predictable because that is something that lots of our interviewees didn't find scary.

Extreme Horror parody

Evaluation
Me, Mustafa, Ahsan and Ayman decided to film our extreme horror parody. looking back on it, I believe that we did very well with the time and the equipment that we had. However there were some things we could have done differently such as editing the scene which the stand was present in. I believe overall if we weren't so pressed for time then we would have ended up with a better final product. We realized that the start of our parody seemed more serious and much more like a real extreme horror movie, however it got much more light hearted and less serious as the the video went on. We are going to try and avoid that from happening in our main task.

The purpose of this short film was that it exposed and make fun of the regular extreme horror conventions that are often used in popular extreme horror movies. We also used this as a chance to get familiar with the camera shots and angles used in extreme horrors. This film has shown me that the usual extreme horror conventions can be quite funny at times so we are going to try and implement some of that humor into our main task. I also believe that because of the filming of our parody we gained extra skills and discovered a perfect location for a scene on our main task. We have also experimented with a range of different editing techniques such as sound effects & video effects. We saw which effects worked and which didn't and now we have a good idea on what we are going to use in our main task.

Target Audience (updated)

Age: 

18 - 25 because they will have more of an interest in extreme horror because they can usually  relate to the characters in our film because they are usually around the same age as them.

Gender:

The Gender chosen will be male because of their tolerance of blood and gore whereas with the opposite gender are less likely to enjoy it. they will also be able to see themselves in the male characters that our presented in our film.

Marital Status:

They will be single or in a relationship, if they were single then they would usually have more time to themselves which would mean that they are more likely to go out with friends and watch the film. On the other hand if they were in a relationship then they would be able to bring their gilfriends along to see the movie which would give us more money. 

Job:

A part time job like a waiter or working behind a bar, because people of this age will not normally have very hard jobs. They would also have short working hours so that they can have more time to relax and go out.

Education:
They will be enrolled in a course in University. Because they would be more likely to relate to the students shown on our film.

Movie tastes:
They would have to like extreme horror and be scared of blood and gore. They would also have to be frightened of a main protaginist in a movie.

Geographical region:

Developed cities, most likely with universities and colleges. mainly targeting people in the UK and America . This would also allow help the audience relate to the characters that are presente in our film.

What do they spend their money on?
Going to the cinema to see movies, food, maybe an apartment, going partying, holidays and hobbies.

Interview subject (Oscar)



This interviewee directly represents the target audioence that we are trying to target our main task at. He stated that the scariest movie that he ever watched was 'Saw 3'. Saw 3 is an extreme horror with lots of blood and gore which is very similar to our film. He also stated that he was scared of the main protaginist in A Nightmare On Elm Street (Jason). A Nightmare on elm street is also an extreme horror and in our film we will also be having a main protaginist that kills people too. He is also around the same age as the characters presented in our film. It seems that Oscar is the perfect example of our target audience.

Sub Genre

Extreme splatterpunk, grindhouse or visceral) 

This sub genre is as raw as fiction or film can be. The explicit violence and bloody gore are heaped on, often from start to finish.Splatterpunk is a term coined in imitation of cyberpunk, and favored by certain younger authors. Often these stories incorporate technology.
Viceral is in between these two subgenres, and its stories aim for an "in your face" gross-out. The typical characters which are used are the smart guy, the stoner (the sinner), the 'slutty girl', the virgin, the jock and the good guy. usually the virgin is the one which survives.

A great example of this would be The movie 'The Cabin in the woods'. All the characters mentioned are included in this movie.

Research link:

http://www.cuebon.com/ewriters/Hsubgenres.html

Zombieland Title Sequence Analysis

Mise en scene

Zombieland

This scene shows a zombie pouncing on a person who is running away from it. It has been shot from the point of view of the person running and the shot is low angle close up of the zombie on his body eating his flesh. The reason this shot has been used is because it give the zombie a great deal of power making him seem more intimidating and ruthless. The most distinct colour used in this shot is red, the red is shown from the blood and wounds of the zombie. The connotations of the colour red are pain, blood and anger and I believe that applies to this scene. Sounds such as screams from the person being attacked and grunts and munches being made by the zombie are all diegetic and are effective for making this scene more tense and realistic. This scene is set on a street with destroyed and exploding vehicles this helps the scene seem more dramatic. Natural lighting has been used to portray the zombie in more detail so that it can scare or discomfort the viewer early in the movie. The make-up used on the zombie to make him seem more terrifying is fake open wounds around his face and head and fake blood covering his face. He also seems to have meat in his mouth from the person he is eating. The actor used to be a zombie seems to look like an average middle aged man which would imply that every is in danger.

This scene shows an overweight man running away from the zombie which is chasing him and is in the background in this scene and out of focus. A mid-shot is used in this scene to show the expression on the boy’s face and to show the zombie that is behind him. This scene takes place on a football field which is ironic because the boy is running away from person down the field, which is what would occur in the sport. The time of day this scene was shot at seems to be at night however the stadium lights are on giving the scene a source of light, which also allows the viewer to see what is occurring in this scene in detail. The make has been used on the zombie and we see the typical blood on the zombies face and clothes. This allows the viewers to determine that this is a zombie. An average fat teenage boy is used to show how vulnerable 

they are when a zombie apocalypse occurs.

 A high angle shot has been used to show a man sitting on a toilet. This angle makes him seem weak and vulnerable. This scene is set in a public toilet and this particular shot is set in a cubicle. They use this setting to express how vulnerable anyone is when they are on the toilet. A small amount of lighting is focused on the cubicle to draw the viewer’s attention to it. Violins are played slowly in the background to gain tension to the scene then a sharp loud clash of noise is used as the zombie appears to startle and surprise the viewer. The sound used is non diegetic. The director purposely chose an actor that looks weak and vulnerable for this scene to emphasize how weak anyone can be in this situation.

The main colour used in this scene is grey, the connotations of grey are bland, dull and boring. They use these connotations to surprise the viewer as the woman glides across the ground spraying blood on the floor. A bird’s eye view long shot of the ground is used to fit everything in screen and show the entirety of the woman’s glide cross the ground. It also leaves space for the text that is shown in this scene which is rough, bold and dirty like the road. The text was used to blend into the road. The setting of this scene is at a road which is used to express the dangers of the road. The woman in this scene is made out to look like a mother. We get evidence of this from the way she dresses, the way she looks and her car. Diegetic sound has been used to surprise the viewers as the woman crashes her car against the lorry.

 The main colour in the this scene is green. The colour green has connotation of nature, grass and good. This is in contrast of the action which is occurring in this scene. The shot used is a mid shot of the man. The mid shot is used to fit his body, his weapon and the zombies in the background. The setting is not made very clear because the background is blurred and there is plants covering most of the background. The effects of this are that it creates a sense of mystery about where this scene is taking place. The zombies, as usual are made to look disgusting and threatening with fake blood and wounds on their body's and face's. Diegetic sound is used for the smashing of the glass in this scene. The title used in this scene is bold, capital and red. Red is used to represent the blood in this scene. The capitals and the bold in the title is used to draw attention to it.