Research and Planning: 'House At The End Of The Street'

On Friday 21st September I went to see 'House At The End Of The Street' which is the latest horror film to hit the cinema. I used this as an opportunity to get inspiration for my coursework as I am also creating a horror/thriller fillm trailer. The film includes a lot of non-diegetic music to create suspense through out, also action scenes included hardly any sound to create an eerie and scarey atmosphere. I also payed attention to the character's in the film and saw that the villian was very portrayed as an outcast in his society- he is quiet and has had a troubled childhood which fueled his actions in the film. This may be a good idea to use in my trailer as the villian will have a lot of mental issues.

Research and Planning: Photoshop Film Poster

This is my photoshop recap, I found this picture through Google images by searching 'possessed girl'. I then edited it by colouring in the eyes with black and then i darkened the skin on the face by changing the opacity of the colour. I then added more darker patches of grey/black onto the face, arms and dress to make the character more sinister and scary. The picture of the girl came with this background and i quite liked it so i decided to keep it and then put text on top of it. The font of the title and tag line is off dafont.com, 'Midnight' is duplicated and then overlapped to make it stand out more. The film's release date related to the film- it has the theme of 12 running through it and also suggests that the product will be very scary as we are facing our 'fears' at this time. Then we have the conventional film titles (eg. director/producer) at the bottom of the poster.

Research and Planning: Audience Research Poll

Research and Planning: Target audience interviews

1. What plot would you prefer? Why?
     -Stalker
     -Massacre


2. What would be the best location for this?

3. What sort of sound effects should be in a horror film?

4. What makes the best horror film?

5. What colours do you associate with this genre?

6. What do you expect to see in the horror film?

7. Would you prefer a male/female villain? What makes a good killer/villain?

8. What type of music would you expect in this genre?

Research and Planning: Write up of interview questions

1. What plot would you prefer? Why?
     -Stalker
     -Massacre

2. What would be the best location for this?

3. What sort of sound effects should be in a horror film?

4. What makes the best horror film?

5. What colours do you associate with this genre?

6. What do you expect to see in the horror film?

7. Would you prefer a male/female villain? What makes a good killer/villain?

8. What type of music would you expect in this genre?

Research and Planning: Pitch

Research and Planning: The Chase

The sequence begins with a POV shot that lasts around 30 second which in my opinion is too long for just one shot however you could say that it adds tension and suspense to what is about to occur. We then see a high angle shot of one of the chasers which could show that he is the less powerful of the two then we cut to a low angle shot showing that this person is more powerful. After this we have shots of the characters running up some stairs with close ups of their feet and we can also vividly hear the footsteps and as this is the only sound it adds tension. We then see cut to each of the chasers so we see medium shots of them both approaching the same area. Near to the end of the video we have the climax which is in slow motion to add a movie effect to the video and we can also see the severity of the jump. We then end with a series of shots where the male gets shot- we hear a gun shot, a 'doh' sound from the victim and an evil laugh from the killer. From a mise-en-scene point of view the sequence is not very good as we didn't have the equipment or time to make an effective action chase scene so the video is mostly set in a college main hall and the characters clothing is usual everyday wear. The editing is also very limited as there is only straight cuts, we could have put a fade at the end to show the ending of a life.