Planning

For my first idea, I decided to use my dad, mum, sister, brother and friend Sam. The story idea would be my dad had just started dating my mum, but had killed her daughter (my sister) but would make it seem as though it was an accident. For this idea, I thought I could try to portray my little sister coming back as the ghost near her coffin which would be in their garden, and she would leave clues in order for the mum to work out how she had really died. However, this story line would be too complicated to portray, and also arranging would be extremely hard as my dad works a lot of hours per week and my mum and dad are separated. Also, getting the mise en scene to portray this would be very hard as I would not be able to make a coffin/grave stone and be able to put it in my garden.

For my second idea, I thought of using my friend (Sam) to be the boyfriend, and use him as the murderer of his girlfriend's little sister. I could use the same kind of idea as before, but perhaps use something else to symbolise her coming back to life and trying to explain to her older sister what really happened. However, I had no one to play the girlfriend, I was going to play this role myself, but I am very camera shy and would find it very difficult to film the scenes and star in it at the same time. Also, the general story idea would be hard to convey through a trailer, and I think I would still struggle to find appropriate props for the mise en scene.

For my third idea, I decided to still keep the male character, but I decided to have him star as the older brother. My mum could play his mum and my sister would play his little sister. I thought of having the story include the older brother, who would be called Alex, take Annabel to the park one day to play. Then, a series of unfortunate events could lead to an accidental death of his little sister, perhaps she could fall off the climbing frame or fall down from swinging upside down on the monkey bars. Alex would then blame himself for this, and try to disguise her death as her just going missing, and lying to his mum about taking her to the park. He could hide her body somewhere and in order to forget his terrible past, he could move house. When he moves into this new house and he is on his own in a very big, open-spaced house. This would be the perfect time for his little sister to come back and haunt him for what he did.

With a lot of consideration and talking to my Media teacher about how to show Annabel falling off of the monkey bars without her actually getting hurt, we have devised a new story idea. I am going to use the same idea as before, where I use my mum for the film trailer, Sam as the brother and my little sister as his little sister. Alex, the main character, has a little sister around the age of 9-10. He has always been jealous of his little sister because she is his parent's centre of attention. Sick and tired of always feeling inadequate to his little sister, he decides to do something very spiteful. One day, he takes her to the park as a 'treat', he is laughing and smiling at his evil plan. Annabel could be swinging upside down on the monkey bars still, but if I manage to edit it well enough, I could portray Sam as having killed her as an act of jealousy and revenge. I think this story follows the codes and conventions of horror films that I have analysed to a greater extent as it has the psychological horror element to it, because he has killed his little sister intentionally. The little sister will still come back to haunt him when he moves out. It would also make more sense for the little sister to come and haunt her older brother if he has murdered her intentionally, as opposed to if it was an accidental death. His mum thinks that his little sister has gone missing and after months of searching for her body, they give up hope. When Alex moves out, they think he is just a 19-year-old boy, wanting to leave home because of his age. However, he is wanting to move away because he wants to try to forget the terrible actions that he took when he killed his little sister and hid her body from his parents.

With more thought and consideration and more analysis of existing products, I have added a few extra ideas for my film which I think will make it look more effective and more individual. The originality and unique part of my film would be having a music box to symbolise when Helena is near. At the beginning of my film trailer, I could film the mum giving Alex the music box, which Helena used to play with all the time, and use this to symbolise when she is haunting him. I think music boxes are very creepy and they are also old-fashioned, which follows the codes and conventions of horror films using old-fashioned elements to represent a spirit haunting.

NAME IDEAS

Learning that the synonyms of insidious and sinister are scary, evil, possessed, etc, to get some name ideas, I went on a thesaurus and searched the following words:

 

I didn't find that any of these synonyms would work my horror film trailer, I decided to brain storm some name ideas for the film trailer, as I think it might work better if I used the little sister's first name.

 

 

   
hello 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ARRANGING...

 

Unfortunately, my actor, Sam, only turned up to 1/4 pre-arranged sessions that we had arranged for him to go to, this has put me behind on my project and caused me a number of problems.

 

Sam was meant to have been able to turn up to do some filming but he was unable to, we then agreed to re-schedule the 'day scene' to the following Sunday.

 

Sam had agreed to do filming on Sunday at 11.

Sam then did not reply to me for the entire day, meaning that we missed our day to do the day scene of filming.

 

Sam then said he was free to do filming on Thursday, but never replied to me about whether he could turn up or not.

He did not show up on Thursday and still had not replied, I then asked if he could do some filming on the weekend, but he had still not replied.

These were all pre-arranged dates that Sam and myself had agreed to meet up on and do some filming. However, he did not reply so it meant that I had only 1 scene of footage that I needed, and a few photos.

I then gave up on the idea of Sam being in my film trailer, although I had based my entire planning around him. I decided to ask another friend if he could possibly replace Sam.

 

 

 

Luckily, my friend Joe had agreed to take Sam's place in my horror film trailer.

 

We had arranged to meet at my dad's house in Corfe Mullen (the main location and house for my trailer) om Sunday at 5pm.

 

I double-checked if he was still okay to meet me on Sunday and he was.

STORY BOARD

 

 

 

 

Whenever it says 'Sam' on the story boards, or anywhere through my planning, I will mean Joe, as he is now the main actor for my film as opposed to Sam.

 

I have ticked the story boards in which I have already filmed.

 

 

This was too hard to film and also too dangerous, as the floor beneath Annabel was concrete, I therefore just filmed a medium shot of Joe pulling Annabel off of the climbing frame.

 

THIS IS THE PART WHERE THE SHOTS GET VERY SHORT - DROP FRAMES.  

DIARY

31st October 2013

Today I did my first bit of filming with Sam and Annabel. We filmed from about 5:00pm till about 9:00pm. We were filming the scenes in which he is sat on the couch and see's something that he jumps at. We also filmed the scenes where he looks at the music box, then looks out the window and see's his little sister. 
I also experimented and thought that a scene where he looks in the mirror and see's his little sister would be quite scary, as horror films have done this before. 
I also experimented and filmed a few scenes where he is sat in the corner of the room on the floor looking very scared.

For my poster and/or my website homepage, I took some pictures of Sam's reflection in the mirror of the music box that I will try to add a picture of Annabel in.  

2nd November 2013

Today I did some more filming, unfortunately, Sam could not make it, but I did manage to film some scenes where Annabel opens the closet door from the inside, making it look like it has opened by itself. 
When I did this, I tried to get a variety of shots, so I put the camera in different places, such as: the floor, my bed, the tri-pod and I also did a hand-held extreme close-up, to create the idea of something chaotic happening. 
Today I also experimented with my light, and managed to get it to flicker on and off. I thought this might look scary to add to my film trailer so I filmed some hand-held shots.

Wednesday 20th November

Today was the first day filming with Joe and my mum, this was to film the day scene. We started at 4:00pm and we finished at about 6:30pm, so it was done quite quickly. These scenes were the beginning scenes of my film, the props that we used were big cardboard boxes, which my dad found at the local shops for me. This was to make it look as though Joe had just moved in.

For my poster and/or website, I took some really good photos where I experimented with the light and angles in order to get Annabel's reflection on the mirror of the music box and for her to also be looking into the camera so it is direct mode of address I order to frighten the audience.  

Thursday 21st November

Today I started editing the parts of the film trailer that I had filmed. I have done a lot of research into free 30-day trial editing programs to see which people found the best to use. The program that most commonly came up was 'Sony Vegas'. I researched into this and there was a lot of online guides on how to use it, so I decided to download it to edit my film trailer on. I found this program very complicated, but in the end I found it quite easy to use. This is a very detailed program and I think it will be good for effects and adding music to.

Tuesday 26th November

I have completed my filming now. Today I filmed Joe and Annabel at the park that is nearby where my dad lives. I used the fake blood to make it look like Annabel had hurt her head and I have added these clips to my laptop and started to cut them to the right length. I have also found some very scary and creepy music on Youtube which I think works for my film.

Friday 29th November

I have now completed my poster and my website, I just need to add images onto some of my website pages. My font has changed to another one that I had found, as I thought it portrayed my film as more of a 'slasher' film, it also works well with the fact that the main character had killed Helena. 

For my film trailer I have added all of the shots and starting adding the music that I found.    
    



FILM POSTER

For my poster, I have decided to follow the codes and conventions of the film posters I have analysed. I have noticed some similarities and some differences between these posters as they are all of a very similar sub-genre of horror films. I have decided to make a film trailer based on a mix of psychological, slasher and ghost sub genres, therefore, these posters were very helpful towards the poster I will be making for my trailer.
This is a layout of what I hope my film poster to look like, it will be a guide line to show me what will go where. The horror film posters I have analysed have helped me design this layout.

 

 

These are the photos I took my film poster. I experimented with the light and the angle in which Annabel stood. I had Annabel stand on the right of Joe, looking into the mirror, at the camera lens, in order for there to be mode of address, which the films posters that I have analysed have used.

 

This is my first attempt at the poster, I have decided to use this font in the end, as it resembles children's writing. I have also used the same font for the tagline, however, I am going to adjust it slightly as I think it could look a lot better.

 

 

 

 

 

This is the photo I decided to use, I really like this photo as I experimented with the light and also the angle of the camera and where Annabel was standing. Annabel was looking into the mirror and at the camera, meaning she has used direct mode of address, which I think makes it look very scary.

 

 

 

I used PagePlus X7 to create my distribution logo that will appear on all of my final artefacts. Although I am not very good at using complicated programs such as these, I experimented with different effects and managed to make it look effective.

 

This is what I will use for my distribution page, all I need to do is add a background to it and then it will be complete.

 

 

 

WEBSITE HOMEPAGE

For my film website homepage, I am also basing my website homepage layout on other horror film websites that I have analysed. I am not very good at designing websites, as I have never done this before. Therefore, I will try and get a student or teacher to help me make this. Unfortunately, I may not be able to have interactive features on my homepage like Insidious 2 had. I would have really wanted to do this as I felt it really promoted the film, but I do not have enough knowledge to be able to make this very interactive for the audience.

I have included social networking links on my webpage due to the age range of my target audience and the idea that it will promote my film. I will also include some Twitter feedback from horror film fans, like Insidious and The Conjuring did. This is a very good idea as people who are of the same age as the 'tweeters' will get a good idea on whether they will like the film.

Because I have never used an application to make a website before, I thought it would be a good idea to ask an ICT teacher to help me create this homepage for my horror film trailer.

 

 

 

I started making my website on WebPlus X6, I found it very complicated but I managed to experiment with some effects, navigation bars and photo frames. I also managed to add links to social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. 

 

- POSIBLE IMAGES FOR THE BACKGROUND.

 

I drew these on Paint to put as the symbols that come up when you've selected a page.

I made this on Paint as the symbol that comes up when you scroll your mouse over the navigation tab.

 

I have recently found out that the program I am using the create my website, it would not let me publish it publically, as it is a school's program and I would not have permission to do this. I have found a very good website, however, that is very good at helping people create websites. It is called 'Webeden' and I have found this a lot easier to use.

 

 

On the program 'Page Plus', which I am not too familiar with using, I have created a crayon-drawing of the white door of the closet hat 'Helena' has been hidden in. I think I could add this to my website somewhere to give the audience a small hint of what the film might include, and also leave them feeling confused and intrigued.

 

I have also used the same program to create a background for my 'Competition' page on my website. I think the crayon effect looks really good and works well as it involves a little girl, this is also another clue to the audience and leaves a creepy suspense as audiences usually find films with little children on quite freaky. The red crayon also looks like blood, which she could have drawn to represent her blood.

 

This is my Competition page so far, I have added the image that I create on Page Plus and have added text of a rhetorical question to entice the audience into taking part in my competition. I have also made the prize be a Play Station 4, as it comes out the day that my film is out and have included my film's own game as the prize as well. Other films such as: Resident Evil, Saw, Slender Man and Silent Hill have their own video games that have proved to be very popular, so I think my film having a multi-media purpose would be a good idea.

 

This is the Master Page so far, I have four navigation bars which include: 'Home', 'Sneak Preview', 'Motion Poster' and 'Competition!' The font that I have used for these navigation bars resembles children's writing. However, I don't know whether I will keep this font, as it looks quite neat for children's writing, and I would have preferred the writing to look more messy, but this website is very limited to the amount of diverse fonts it has. I have also included links to social networking sites such as: Facebok, Blogger, Twitter and Tumblr.

 

On my 'Sneak Preview' page, I have used the children's writing for the title, because I think this is subtle enough for the audience to find this creepy. I have also written a synopsis of the film in white writing to contrast from the dark grey text box and in a font which I think is very simple yet very effective and matter-of-fact in order to leave the audience wanting to know more. I need to add a photo of the outside of my dad's house to put next to the synopsis, similar to what they have done in 'The Conjuring' website. I have also added the picture that I have drawn of the white door below the synopsis, because I think this counts as a sneak preview.  

 

 

On the Master page I have also added a link to a YouTube video, which will be my horror film trailer, and at the top right hand corner is a link to twitter feed. For this, I will get some people that follow me on Twitter to write good reviews about my film, so my website will follow the codes and conventions of existing websites by having live Twitter feed appearing on their website. This would encourage people to watch my film.

 

 

I used Page Plus again and used the cut out studio for the image of the title and the tag line of my film to get rid of the background of the image of Joe from the poster.

I then pasted it back onto the same image of Joe that I had flipped horizontally for my website, so that the title of it could be at the top left hand corner, so the audience would be able to notice it more.