Pre-Production Research

Questionnaire

Sample size: 20

Female: 10

Male: 10

Age range: 15+

1.       Which sub-genre of horror do you prefer?

                                                               

Psychological	Slasher	Zombie	Monster	Comedy	other
9	5	3	1	2	0

 

2.       What settings do you prefer in horror films?

 

Haunted House	School	Graveyard	Other
4	7	6	3

 

3.       What is your preferred costume?

 

Mask	Clowns	White gown	Other
6	4	8	2

 

4.       What is your preferred weapon of choice?

 

Gun	Chainsaw	Supernatural	Knife	Other
1	6	9	4	0

 

As you can see, we took in to account all the feedback we received from our target audience. Our sub-genre is psychological horror because our audience told us they preferred horror films which contained a hidden message. We also decided to film in school as the majority of them believed that filming in graveyards or haunted houses etc. was an overrated concept. They also told us that the white gown gave the killer a 'mental and derranged' look. In addition they also told us that supernatural powers are the best weapon because it gives the film a sense of mystery.

Sule Gunes - Evaluation.

Our horror trailer ‘The Plague’ is about a disease that has caused the death of many innocents in the past, which returns to a local school infecting few schoolgirls, along with the ghost of a schoolgirl seeking revenge for the death she didn’t deserve.

In the creating of the production I played several roles, some including camera work in scenes one being the birds eye view of one character dead on the floor, this shot helped create a dramatic and scary effect. I had to ensure that my group was always on task and fully equipped. When I wasn’t in the scene acting, I was directing and filming. I used a wide of camera angles this was supported by a checklist of camera angles that my group came up with. Using different angles gave each scene its own twist; it conveyed different emotions and status. The camera angles we used were included; Extreme long shot, long shot, mid shot, close up, extreme close up, birds eye angle, high angle, eye-level angle, low angle, dutch angle, tracking shot, panning and a evangelion shot. The high angle shot can make the subject look small or weak or vulnerable while a low-angle shot is taken from below the subject and has the power to make the subject look powerful or threatening. The extreme close up shot, which has one body part usually, was my eyes in our trailer. While directing I took on aboard everyone’s views and put the surroundings into prospective and thought about what may make the horror trailer more effective. I positioned the actors in a manner that would make the trailer a success and help the actor express their character better. As an actor I had the role of a schoolgirl who saw the ghost of Lisa whom died of the ‘The plaque’ and is back to seek revenge for her death by giving the symptoms of the plague to those who set eyes on her. Being an actor I had to convey a lot of emotion and help make the act believable. Lastly I contributed in the editing of the trailer and help finding, picking and putting in the sound effects. All the roles I played in this production were important and crucial to it becoming a success.

The lessons at school were used for the planning, research and filming of the scenes for our trailer.

Horror films often deal with the viewer's nightmares, hidden fears and terror of the unknown. Horror film is a genre that aims to create a sense of fear, panic, alarm, and dread for the audience. Horror films usually center on the arrival of an evil force, person, or event. Many Horror films include mythical creatures such as ghosts, vampires, and zombies. The horror genre includes a wide variety of sub-genres within it such as, Monster-Horror; a Monster film is sub-genre of Horror that centers on a struggle between human beings and a monsters. Often, the monster in the film has been created in an ‘experiment gone wrong.’ The monster usually serves as a villain, and the film portrays a hero or heroine that ultimately saves the world from the monster. Slasher; slasher is a Horror film that revolves around a psychopathic killer. This killer stalks and murders his victims in extremely violent and memorable ways.

Zombie-Horror; Zombie film is a sub-genre of Horror film that portrays mindless human beings who are raised from the dead. These films often include a Zombie invasion, and center around Zombies feasting on human flesh. Psychological, (surreal) this subgenre is usually written from a tight viewpoint. Is the protagonist really seeing terrible things, perhaps battling against demonic possession. The subgenre that we choose was supernatural. These stories focus on various types of monster from the ‘beyond’ and are back to ruin the lives of a suffering humanity. Ending up in some characters going mad and most dying. Conventions we used in our horror trailers were: blood, isolated settings, evil, screams, darkness, ghost, deaths, and disease. The movie ‘Woman in black’inspired us because it uses a supernatural killer. Also it explores the theme of revenge, which is relevant to our trailer as the killer ‘Lisa’ seeks revenge for having her life taken away at such a young age, whereas teenagers today carry on living with their lives. Another similar aspect is that the woman in black only takes lives when she is seen which is how the deaths of our characters occur when they see ‘Lisa.’ Before we started filming as a group we decided to make a blog in which we all could take turns and contribute ideas to about the production. We believed getting our ideas done before we film would help us get a good idea about what we had to do and what our plot and everything was about. We decided on costume, camera angles, plot and location before we started any filming. I believe my group overcame any problems and difficulties by discussing it and agreeing on a solution that was fine with everyone. During editing we learnt really quickly about the effects and what would go well to make it scary. The only problems were the fact we had to share the laptop with another group and their work went on to save during our lesson times making us lose some editing time but we overcame this by coming after school. Time was a big problem. With music, my whole group took turns in listening to the music that each of us found as we thought it was suitable and decided on the ones that were appropriate. We picked out the times and scenes that they should be put on, same with the sound effects.

Overall, I believe my group worked really well together, we overcame any problems by discussing it and wasn’t afraid to speak out if we wasn’t happy with the decisions that were made. We solved them by discussing it and finding new solutions that everyone was on board with. My favourite scene in this trailer is the quick cut shots of Halana standing in the dark theatre facing away from the ghost figure of Vesa (Lisa) whom is behind her but every scene where it is cut she comes closer to Halana and on the 3rd scene she is right behind Halana. This scene makes the viewer jumpy and gives it the horror atmosphere to the trailer. Also Vesa’s make up makes it scarier and suits the situation. We showed the 3 victims as friends and typical teenagers, also we showed other students walking around to a show typical school in our trailer and we showed the killer to be alone and emotionless in every scene.The skills I earnt from this project are how to use imovie on the mac, which i can use later on in life. Also I m planning on carrying on with Media for A-levels.

Halana Abdul - Evaluation.

Our horror movie trailer is based on the plague, a deadly disease that has killed many, and a young girl who lsot her life to it and comes back to ruin the lives of unsuspecting school girls, which are the age she was when she died. My role in the production process was filming, acting and directing. During the scenes I wasn't involved in, I filmed a scene from different angles, so when it was edited at a later date, the effect would make the scene more interesting. The different angles I filmed were the extreme long shot, when Farjanas character first spots 'Lisa', the birds eye angle, when Farjanas character is killed, the mid shot, when Sules character has her second encounter with 'Lisa' and when Farjanas character sees 'lisa and coughs up blood and the tracking shot, where my character is cornered by 'Lisa'. I took part in some of the scenes and was one of the victims, which was also a crucial part of the production process as if an actor wasn't performing properly,  it could ruin the whole trailer and waste time we didn't have. Some of the scenes were directed by me, and in some i just helped with the the directions. Some scenes such as when 'Lisa'(played by Vesa) is first spotted by the actors, were directed by me, but my actual death was directed by another member of my group, Farjana. I had done a lot of background work in lessons, such as finding films that had a similar plot to ours and horror films in general that used supernatural forces. We also searched information of the actual plague and found the symptoms and what the victims looked like in preparation for the costumes. In addition, we designed a questionnaire which we then took round to be answered by our target market, teenagers aged between 15-17, so we could gain a better idea on what our target market actually want in a horror trailer.

The horror genre has a wide variety of sub-genres within it, such as supernatural, monster/physical killers, slasher and psychological. Each of these subgenres have different conventions. Supernatural horror movies tend to use more ghosts and dead people who haunt or possess a normal human, whereas in a psychological horror movie peoples brains are manipulated by either supernatural forces or other humans. In monster/physical killers horror movies it is usually direct killings using everyday objects such as knives or even guns, with a lot of blood shed and mass murders. We chose to use more conventions from the supernatural genre as it tied in better with our horror movie trailer. A dead persons ghost haunts and possesses a person and kills the others. We decided to use these conventions in our trailer because from our questionnaire results, we realised it was more appealing for our target market to watch horror movies about supernatural beings with murders that didn't just include a lot of blood shed, but had a deeper psychological, if not unearthly reason, behind it. 'The woman in black' was a major inspiration in the production of our trailer. During our research we came across it we realised it had also a psychological reason behind the killings, which was what we wanted to incorporate into our trailer. Although, the film is not directly related to disease, it has deaths of children, which is similar to our trailer which has deaths of teenagers. Also, the killer is a mother that haunts a village and kills the children because her child died at a young age and she doesn't think its fair for other children to live, which is also what 'Lisas' reason is in our trailer, as her life was taken at a young age she doesn't believe that others should live to. Also, there is a scene were little girls are wearing long white dresses. This is where I got the idea for 'Lisas' costume from. The connotations of white is usually purity, however although 'Lisas' dress is white, it is stained with red blood, which has the connotations of death and anger. Before filming we had to do a lot of planning in order to film effectively and use our time efficiently. Along with research, we brainstormed ideas of actual deaths and scenes which could be in the trailer. We didn't want to waste time filming scenes and end up not using them, so we ordered each of our scenes chronologically before hand. Whilst filming we had no problems as we were all able to handle the equipment properly and we already knew what areas and places we were going to film in. All of our filming was done in the area of our school, inside and out of the buildings. When we needed to use places like the theatre we booked a time with the drama teaches to ensure we were able to actually use the theatre at the given time and to avoid any issues, such as the teachers not knowing we were going to be filming and using the theatre for something else, stopping us from filming. Also, we respected the classrooms and people around us whilst filming at lesson time, and in return people inside the school respected our filming and didn't disturb us or affect any of the scenes. We could have improved the way we worked together as a group by being less dominant when it came to one of our ideas and allowing someone else to expand on the idea and by recognising mistakes other group members were making, such as holding the camera wrong or filming from the wrong angle, which would have saved us even more time. Also, as we re did some scenes, we should have planned in advance to make sure hairstyles and clothes were all the same, as we wanted the trailer to be as professional as possible,so we didn't have to waste time planning it for another day. Overall, our group worked brilliantly together as we all got along and didn't have any major arguments or disagreements when it came to the actual work. Also, we all had similar ideas when it came to the trailer so the ideas we came up with weren't so different from one another. We supported each other through every scene and made sure we came after school to finish off any filming or editing, and we used our time effectively and wisely during lesson time to ensure everything was finished and at the highest standard. During editing the only real problems we faced were when another group had used the laptops before us and were finalising their projects, which meant we had to waste time waiting for their projects to finish finalising so we could make a start on ours. Also, we weren't all experienced at using the editing programs at first so a lot of the beginning editing was left to Farjana. However, we all learnt to use the editing program and were able to help her. We already had a rough idea on what sort of sound track we wanted for the trailer from our pre production and research on other trailers. The sound effects we used were thought of whilst actually editing as we had many scenes that had too many background noises, such as the scene where everyone is gathered outside of school. We had to find an appropriate sound to fill in the silence. Also, we recorded our teachers voice to be added to the trailer later on for effect as we weren't only filming her but the whole class and we didn't want any background noises.

In conclusion, i think we have done amazingly in the given time with our horror movie trailer. It is completely finished, which different camera angles, a sound track, sound effects and a recognisable plot with clear conventions. Our group has done very well and we were all able to get through this project with minor difficulties and produce a brilliant piece of work. We could have improved our trailer by having more background information about the plague and the killer so the audience could already have some sort of idea of what the plot line would lead up to. My favourite scene from our trailer is when my character is being cornered by 'Lisa' and my back is faced towards her and she comes closer every second, very suddenly. This is my favourite scene as it shows our skills in editing and creativity, as we had to cut at the right time to get that effect, as well as it shows some of my acting skills. The horror convention we broke was that usually in horror films the first person to realise what is going is the last to die as when they tell people they aren't believed and have to watch the events that occur without being physically effected till the very end. In our trailer Sules character is the first to realise but instead of trying to warn the other characters and stop the events from unfolding, she draws my character to her death and she is effected the worst as death is instant but she loses her mind. Usually a stereotype for girls is that they are the weaker gender, and they need men for everything remotely dangerous or something out of their comfort zone. Our trailer challenges this as the girls don't go running off to boys to check our their fears and make sure there is no ghost or monster. Farjanas character is already away from 'Lisa' when she first spots her but she shows bravery by going back into the building to confirm her suspicions and also uses her initiative which is shown when the flashback of the symptoms are shown. However, our trailer also conforms to some stereotypes, as girls are always shown as too eager and too curious, as my character hears the eery music coming from the theatre and instead of ignoring it and walking away as I did when i first spot 'Lisa' i allow my curiosity to take over and investigate, which inadvertently leads me to my death. The killer was represented as a lost soul as she did kill 2 school girls, but she also needed a friend which is why she kept Sules character alive even though she had become mental. Everyone in their teenage years needs friends for comfort and support, and during the time of the plague she didn't have that but by taking Sules characters sanity away she had gained a friend or an acquaintance. Stripping the killers issues away from her, leaves a school girl that is lonely. Our target audience was teenagers, of both genders, aged between 15-17. This is because that is the age we are now and we believed that we could relate to people our own age rather than people of other age groups. We know what we look for in horror movies, and as peer pressure and band wagon appeal are at their highest during teenage hood, it was easy to pin point what would be most popular with people our age. The main lessons i will take away for any future film making projects are the techniques i learnt whilst helping editing, and the different angles in filming that can be used in many different scenes for different effects.

Checklist - Shots & Angles

Lisa

This is the powerpoint we used in the actual filming to bring the subject of the plague to the attention of the viewers and to tie together the whole film.

Plot

CHARACTERS:

- Lisa (Vesa)
- Helena (Halana)
- Sonia (Farjana)
- Kim (Sule)

PLOT:

The trailer begins in the classroom where the teacher (played by Ms De Bortoli) explains to her year 11 class that a topic that had been previously banned from the History curriculum has now been added back. An image of Lisa - who was a victim of the plague - was shown and the majority of the students dismiss it. Kim is the only one that is stuck in a trance from seeing the image and she can't seem to look away. Towards the end of the lesson she looks through the door and sees Lisa.

Later that day, Kim washes her hands and sees Lisa in the mirror. Kim looks at her hands and sees black dots appearing. She soon realises that it's a symptom of the plague. She becomes delusional and starts washing and scratching her hands until they bleed. Sule claims she sees the black dots but Sonia and Helena only see her scratching her hands and realise she has become consumed with fear.

Sonia doesn't believe Kim and this has disastrous consequences. She is walking home and sees Lisa standing by the window, watching her walk alone. She is immediately horrified by this and begins to cough violently. The next day in school, she tells Helena that she has seen Lisa and fears she is going to die.

Shortly after, Helena sees Lisa and knows she needs to leave school before it's too late. On her way out, she hears the iconic 'Ring around the Rosies' coming from the theatre. Here she sees Kim silently rocking in the middle of the dark, deserted room with make-up running down her face. At this moment, Halana falls to her knees, Sonia is found dead on the floor and Kim continues to rock back and forth unaware of what has happened to her friends. The trailer will then fade into the dark and an image of Lisa will suddenly appear as one last reminder to the audience.

Inspiration - The Woman in Black.

 

The woman in black is about a women who had her child taken away from her by her sister because she was labelled as mentally unfit. When her child died by drowning, she blamed her sister and hung herself in the home saying she will never forgive her sister for saving herself and not her child. From then on, whenever anyone saw her, a child would kill themselves because of her.

 This movie inspired us because it uses a supernatural killer, as we plan to do in our trailer. Also, the theme of revenge is relevant to our trailer as the killer inb our trailer is looking for revenge for having her life taken away at such a young age, whilst teenagers today carry on living. In addition, the woman in black only takes lives when she is seen, similarly to how the killer in our trailer takes and ruins lives only when she is seen.