This was the third and final short film I watched, this was a horror short film. This was great, such a simplistic idea but it was really good. I feel the end was slightly cheap and expected, however, I took some ideas from this.
Firstly, the use of mine-en-scene in the first minute or so told the audience everything they need to known, that this couple are in a long term relationship and they have an accomplished nice life, and they are in bed together. This is really effective as it shows and doesn't tell whilst also building tension.
The reveal is amazing, it's such a creepy design, but this is accentuated by the way the film is done, the phone call, the expectation that beside her in her bed is her partner and the simplistic creepiness that makes the audience say "what would you do if that happened to you?". This simplicity would be ideal for an A-Level short film due to budgetary restraints added to the fact that a high concept 5 minute short film would confuse and ware the audience out, because too much will be packed into the 5 minutes, giving the audience no breaks.
This uses something that I learnt last year, the filmmaker uses Alfred Hitchcock's bomb theory, in which you tell the audience there's a bomb under the table before a conversation to extend the audience's tension and disbelief, as opposed to just a few seconds if a bomb went off with no explanation. Here the filmmaker decides to show the audience the ghoul before the female character sees her, giving him the chance to creep the hell out of the audience with a terrifying ghoul who's almost excited for her to find him. I could incorporate this into the film that I make, using this tactic to reveal whatever plot twist there is to reveal. One thing however was the lack of character development, although the mine-en-scene introduces the protagonists, it tells us nothing about them at all or the antagonist for that matter (which actually works in the filmmaker's favour, as not knowing why its there or who it is what it wants, and there being no need to explain it makes it a lot creepier). However, this means that we have no empathy for the character, meaning that all of the fear has to be derived from how creepy the actual ghoul is and jump scares. We actually went more high concept because our idea wasn't that hard to do. Although you would think the contrary, simplistic and minimalist horror films are much harder to construct because they have to be scary based on the design and situation which is easier for a production like 'Bedfellows' which had a bigger budget and more time to deliberate over a scary situation that's simple and doesn't involve the Devil possessing a medium!
We then attempted to think of ideas, although they were few and far between, perhaps we were still in summer holidays mode. We tried to think of an idea based on tools at our disposal for example Tommy's well outside his house, which he thought could link in with a kidnapping story line, however I was hesitant to do this as a result of a bad experience last year with a similar story line. Another idea thrown around was a horror movie about the pied piper, and homophobia in modern day Russia.
14/9/17: In our second lesson we came in knowing we needed to nail down a idea and I suggested not worrying about limits such as "how do we get enough actors?" or "we can't get the props" to allow a bit more creativity. This seemed to have worked, as we finally got an idea but whether it's our final one remains to be seen. It had to be an idea we all liked and are interested in to really make us try hard to make it good, which was my mistake last year. Our criteria for an idea was to not go cliche and do a depression or mental illness film, but to instead explore a controversial and sensitive topic.
Tommy's initial idea of the social media controlling us morphed with our help to become about conspiracy theories which we hold a mutual interest in. More specifically the Illuminati and how they control celebrities careers and lives, showing it's link to the occult. We liked the idea that we focus on a female singer who dresses strange, inspired by Lady Gaga, who will be our protagonist. I then, linking to the occult, suggested a second character of the devil, voicing my idea that he should be in human form and we make him look frightening without making him look like a monster, this will be heavily reliant on good acting, so you can bet your house that I won't be doing that part! I also came up with the idea after Tommy suggested the protagonist commit suicide, that we should see news footage outside her house, then it goes back through all of the other news footage from outside the houses of other artists who died in the 27 club, such as Amy Winehouse and Kurt Cobain. I said we need to show that she is 27, therefore I suggested a scene in which she's in her dressing room and in the background there's a "27 today" banner. Also, I suggested that, similar to theories about Tom Cruise, she is forced to be in a marriage to further her career, and that drives her to kill herself. Tommy suggested, which I really liked an opening shot going into her eye, which becomes a motif, during one of her shows, as a result the dressing room scene could succeed that. My idea that she signs a contract with the Devil and then cuts her hand the blood pours over the paper to seal the contract with the Devil to make her famous, was inspired by this scene. I suggested that it could be a flashback in the concert scene after the eye shot. The eye shot could then be repeated in the interview scene to lead to another flashback. When trying to think of a title I went really simple and asked Tommy what he thought the main theme of the film was, was it the 27 club idea or the Illuminati, he said the 27 club, therefore I thought of the simplistic title '27' as a working title.
Alternatively, we could draw inspiration from one of my favourite shows 'Lucifer', in which the Devil takes a vacation from hell, to come to Earth in human form to punish wrong doers. Of course Lucifer is a comedy, so his personality and quirkiness isn't transferable to our idea for a film, which will be more of a horror and serious. However, when he looks people in the eye and looks right into their soul, we could use that when the Devil confronts her about not keeping to her contract. In the first scene, he's just a charming, cheeky, rich man, but it's just to show that he's in human form and is normal, which I find far more effective than a scary red goat with horns. However, in the second scene he does the eye thing, the really intense 'murderer's eyes' stare into their soul, which I think will be really good to do especially with some black contact lenses which would make it scary, but not so Avant-Garde, surrealist, monster horror. In 'Lucifer' his eyes have fire in them, to connote the fact that he's the devil, linking to hell and anger at the person he's about to punish. However, as I said before, the black contacts would be way more effective, and would couple well with the dead pan expression and silence that I envisioned for his scenes. However, because it is a comedy, they show all of him rather than, like we would, none of him, to keep the mystery and fear elements strong within our film, otherwise you'd get too attached to the character and I find that what the imagination dreams up is always scarier than the reality, so we'll use that to our advantage. The third and final option for inspiration for our devil character is the Emperor from the Star Wars trilogies. Obviously I realise that Star Wars is aimed at a younger audience and unlike the previous two, isn't supposed to be overly scary, however I find the idea of a cloaked weak man as the devil to be quite inspiring. His voice is also my main reason for including him as an inspiration, the croaky and monotone aspect of it is just quite chilling. This however, would be in the event that we do allow him to speak, as currently I quite like the idea of him being silent.
We changed this idea in favour of there being no view of the Devil, just a black cloak in the pitch black darkness. This, in hindsight, was much better as it's more mysterious and I feel it would have been hard to make this not be cheap and tacky with the Devil talking to her and the contract.
We changed this idea in favour of there being no view of the Devil, just a black cloak in the pitch black darkness. This, in hindsight, was much better as it's more mysterious and I feel it would have been hard to make this not be cheap and tacky with the Devil talking to her and the contract.
Tommy's inspiration for the protagonist is Lady Gaga, and he was particularly excited about Lady Gaga's wardrobe and he wanted to have our protagonist wear a costume inspired by that. So I researched some of her costumes. This dress was the one that Tommy envisioned the singer wearing on stage and was the one that he expressed the most interest. However, buying something like this, or that resembles anything like this will be so difficult on an extremely tight budget that we will be working with.Upon looking for costumes so that we could decide early whether to follow up with this idea or not, the only costumes I could find like this were trashy and cheap looking Lady Gaga Halloween costumes.
We didn't have the budget for this and it would have been very hard to pull off, with the concert scene.
The central theme is the 27 club, so I researched other members. There's Jimmy Hendrix, Kurt Cobain and Jim Morrison who I particularly focused on as they already have dramatisations of their life and death made about them. This is basically what we're making, is a fake biopic with an explanation for the 27 club being that the contract they signed to become famous with the devil eventually kills them when they rebel against it with drugs, which all three musicians which I mentioned above and most of the 27 club were on, and reverting from their fame. The Jimi Hendrix film is 'Jimi: All is by my side' and the Jim Morrison film is called 'The Doors'.
After this lesson I went to see 'IT' at the cinema and on the way home I wrote treatment in note form. I took the idea that Tommy suggested about starting at a concert and added the fact that the camera in one continuous movement goes past a poster, showing the audience who's singing, going through a crowd of her fans and right into her eye. This then flashbacks to when she signed a contract with the devil. I tried to incorporate all of the ideas that we discussed in the lesson, so as a result I could clearly think of more ideas for the next lesson.
I researched something that came to my mind when thinking about the 27 club conspiracy, the white lighter curse, which is a conspiracy theory that people in the 27 club all had white lighters on them when their bodies were found by the police. Such as Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse and Jim Morrison.Apparently, they all had white Bic™ lighters on their person at the time of their deaths. It turns out that Amy Winehouse wasn't a victim of this curse, however Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin and Kurt Cobain were, who all are members of the 27 club incidentally. This is a picture of the famous Bic™ Lighter which we could possibly use in our film, when she's in an interview, she could light up a cigarette which shows she's both rebelling and doesn't care any more and that she carries this lighting, foreshadowing her death. I would love to have seen this idea come into fruition, the imagined scene when she's in an interview, would have been great but in hindsight, we chose the best option, in regards to both ease of production and freedom of direction, as there wouldn't have been much room for different edits, or camera angles due to it mostly being news/interview footage.
18/9/17: In this lesson we finalised our narrative using a flow chart format. I came to the lesson with knowledge of the white lighter conspiracy that I researched and suggested that during the interview scene she light up a cigarette with it, just as a cool homage and a piece of mise-en-scene. Tommy came to the lesson with an idea about including a voodoo witchcraft element into the film, because he likes American Horror Story, he showed me the scene, and we tried to work it into the plot. It actually slotted in quite well because we had a beginning and an end but no resolution or middle. This provided us with one, she wants to get out of the contract and contacts a voodoo witch to do a ceremony in the forest to reverse the contract. I then had the idea that she thinks it's reversed for a while and then he starts appearing again.
Genre theory: As we've got our heart set on the horror genre, I researched the history of the genre and some horror genre theorists.
History of the genre: (Taken from http://www.sothetheorygoes.com/horror/)
The driving force behind horror has always been to draw inspiration from mythology, urban legends, fairy tales, and literature. Early European and Hollywood films such as Nosferatu (1922) and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), and Universal Studios’ Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), and The Mummy (1932) began to establish horror as crowd-pleasing spectacles.
Britain’s Hammer Horror became a major producer in the 1950s with The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Dracula (1958), and The Mummy (1959) – all of which were extremely successful, and notably launching the career of Christopher Lee.
Psycho (1960) emphasised Hitchcock’s exquisite touch for psychological horror; with Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968) shifting towards the occult, and paving the way for The Exorcist(1973), The Omen (1976) and Poltergeist (1982). The supernatural left its lasting trademark on horror films with Stephen King’s adaptations Carrie (1976) and The Shining (1980) providing playgrounds for Brian De Palma and Stanley Kubrick to showcase their unique styles.
The supernatural and the abstract work of H.P. Lovecraft has consistently provided a platform for all generations of filmmakers to experiment with their own styles. Roger Corman, John Carpenter, David Cronenberg and Guillermo Del Toro all carry distinctly Lovecraftian peculiarities.
The extreme, disturbing violence of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) was particularly transgressive, and groundbreaking in helping to usher in the intense gore-fests prevalent in the 1980s. A host of controversial ‘video nasties’ emerged in that period, with British social activist Mary Whitehouse leading a crusade to heavily cut or ban the films altogether.
Daniel Chandler states that "genre is defined by its conventions", horror conventions include but aren't limited to...
- The feelings of lonliness and helplessness being exploited
- Dramatic Irony is often used (the audience knows who the killer is/the entity who's terrorising the protagonist and characters) like 'Bedfellows' for example.
- 'The ghosts, entities and outlandish villains exhibit irregular, otherworldly movement which is often complemented with camera work creating a sense of confusion, and jump cutting to add to the tension.'
- Children are often used as both victims (Child's Play) and antagonists (The Omen).
I made a prequel to the video below, 'The Theorizer' but it's called 'An Unimaginative Prequel to 'The Theorizer''.
Audience theory:
There are three main theories of how the audience interacts with a media text: the effects model, the Hypodermic model and the Uses and Consumption model. They basically debate whether the audience is passive or active, and whether therefore the text effects them or interacts with them, respectively.
I made a video showing my research on audience theory in a spoof of action movies:
I made a video showing my research on audience theory in a spoof of action movies:
Narrative theory:
Narrative, defined as written account of connected events; a story, has been subject to many theories from theorists like Propp or Barthes that try to apply a set rule that applies to every narrative in not only films but also books and mythology. Propp:
Vladamir Propp was a Russian literary theorist and theorised that it was possible to classify the characters and their actions into clearly defined roles and functions. Star Wars mostly fits Propp's theory, but not all films do, more artistic films tend not to, where as mainstream blockbusters do.
-The Hero: Seeks something (Luke Skywalker)
-The Villain: Opposes the hero (Darth Vader)
-The Donor: Helps the hero by providing a magic object (Obi Wan Kenobi provides a lightsaber)
-The Dispatcher: Sends the hero on his way (Obi Wan Kenobi)
-The False Hero: Falsely assuming the role of the hero (N/A)
-The Helper: Gives support to the hero (Han Solo)
-The Princess: The reward for the hero but also needs protection from the villain (Leia Organa)
As we don't have a lot of characters, obviously not every character type will feature in our film, however two or more character types could apply to each character. For example Farrah is the hero as she seeks fame, but is also the princess as she needs protection against the antagonist, being the Devil who is also the false hero as he is deceitful and pretends to help her. Finally the medium is the helper, the dispatcher, and potentially the donor.
Barthes:
Roland Barthes suggested that narrative works with five different codes that
Proairetic/Action code- Action adds suspense to the text, or it can be used as a resolution (a narrative device)
Hermenutic/Enigma code- This code refers to mystery within the text, the audience are given clues but no answers are given. Enigmas make the audience keep watching and want to know more.
Semantic code- This refers to semiotics, where something has meaning due to the narrative already shown to the audience.
Symbolic code- This is a narrative device that adds another layer of meaning and therefore can create tension, drama and/or character development.
Referential code- This code refers to anything in the text which refers to an external body of knowledge (scientific, historical or cultural knowledge)
Barthes' codes can be applied to our possible narrative, as the referential code for our film will be any reference to knowledge of the occult, this will be told by the Dispatcher or the 'wise old wizard' character applying to Propp's character theory, he'll warn her about the dangers of it. The character of Farrah is a drunk and uses drugs, so a vodka bottle or a line of cocaine on the side could act as our symbolic code, adding character development and another layer of meaning. The mystery within the text could probably come with the audience not knowing whether or not she'll get her fame back, but we could also add another element in as I feel at this moment our idea is lacking in mystery.
Todorov:
Tzvetan Todorov suggested that most narratives start with a state of equilibrium, which is altered into disequilibrium by an exterior force and this is fought to return to the original or a new equilibrium.
Equilibrium: Shown at the beginning of the movie, 'normal' life for the protagonist.
Disruption to the Equilibrium: The protagonist's 'normal' life is disrupted by something that isn't 'normal' which changes their day/life.
Recognition of Disruption: The protagonist recognises that their life has changed and must repair it.
Attempt to Repair Disruption: Protagonist may enlist the help of others to repair this disruption which could either fail or succeed.
Return to an Equilibrium: This equilibrium may be as a result of the attempt to repair the disruption succeeding and the protagonist's life returning to 'normal' as it was at the beginning, or it could have failed, meaning that a new equilibrium has been reached, what's 'normal' in the protagonist's new life.
22/9/17: In this lesson Tommy wasn't in, leaving only Becky and I to write up a provisional roles list and to research sub-genres of our film. I also researched 'the tritone' in this lesson, which is a note in music that has some connotations of the occult, I knew of this a bit before, and I thought that seeing as our film's main theme is the devil and the occult that the music could feature this note in it, maybe as a sting everytime he appears in the film.
Out of interest, I researched in this lesson, other films with the central theme being the 27 club, I found two films called 'The 27 Club' one from 2008 and one from 2016. However, although the central theme is the same, the plots are nothing like ours. Firstly, the 2008 film is about a band-mate of a singer that died at 27, who travels to fulfil his last request, and seems to be based on Kurt Cobain judging by the stills on IMDb. The other film is about a singer who makes a deal with the devil at crossroads to become famous, this is dangerously like our film, but we are focusing on the aftermath of this deal rather than the actual deal. This reminded me of Robert Johnson, a story that I learnt from another one of my favourite films, called 'O Brother where art thou?' starring George Clooney. I decided to research it further.
Robert Johnson sold his soul to the Devil at a crossroads in Mississippi in exchange for his guitar playing prowess and even had this chiselled into his gravestone. He was murdered in 1938, and funnily enough he was 27 making him part of the 27 club. In this scene from 'O Brother where art thou?' the renamed Tommy Johnson, explains the story of Robert Johnson in real life. The joke is that the Devil is white, in this film with heavy themes such as racism and considering it's set in the 1930's, however, that joke gave me an idea that, the devil probably would be white even today if he was to walk the Earth as all of the powerful people in the world are white males, therefore that's who our devil should be in my opinion.
Becky and I wrote out a provisional roles list so that we could get cracking as soon as possible on our different tasks associated with the roles given.We remembered Tommy saying last lesson that he wanted to be cameraman, as a result we gave him that role. I put myself forward for director because I feel like I'd do a good job and already can see in my head how some scenes will play out. The actual editors are Tommy and Becky but I can pitch in as director with my opinion and ask for changes. As a result of his interest in the costumes, we allocated him the role of production designer, which involves him obtaining and maybe designing and creating props. I suggested that I would be able to do music with Garage Band on my iPhone which would be an original score, so that we can custom design music for our film as opposed to finding royalty free music which might not fit. I can't read music, however as I play guitar and piano I have a working knowledge of it and can use the software mentioned. Finally, Becky put herself forward for Location Manager which would entail her finding appropriate locations to film and researching them.Having got the role of composing the music, the first thought in my head was about the 'Devil's tritone' that I had heard of ages ago but never really researched it. From my knowledge it's a combination of notes that is named 'diabolus in musica' or the devil in music or nicknamed the devil's interval/tritone that back in the middle ages the monks wouldn't sing it for obvious reasons. I thought due to the subject matter of our film it would be cool for me to include this in the score, it could even act as a sting everytime the devil character appears, it won't be noticed by the audience but it would be a cool little 'Easter egg'. The Black Sabbath song 'Black Sabbath' features this as they were aiming to relate the song and them themselves to the occult. I made a video documenting my research on the topic.
I began writing the first draft for a treatment (to the right) using the notes I wrote on my phone from last week to fill in the gaps to the story that weren't covered by our ideas on the mind maps. I wrote one page and then Sir came over to us and discussed our idea, he gave feedback that our idea might be 'too much' and we are making it hard for ourselves. Becky and I saw the sense in Sir's comments and decided to rework our idea, as the elements of the occult we liked. Sir suggested a few ideas, one of which was that she's not famous, as a concert scene and to show fame might be difficult, and that she wants to die. She makes a deal with the devil to die and he gives her one month to live, then she finds a romantic partner who at first she just uses him to have a last month of fun, however then she really falls for him. The partner then finds out about the deal and then goes to the Devil and makes a deal to take him instead without her knowing. Another spin on this idea that Sir put forward was that she could be pregnant with his baby.
25/9/17: In this lesson we developed sir's idea into our own, changing it so it becomes ours, we kept the idea of the girl being depressed. I however added the fact that she used to be a famous actress and that she messed it all up in someway and I said we could show this with a photo-shopped picture of her accepting an award , Tommy then adding to my idea suggested she could shed a tear on the photo. We removed the romance element, as we weren't really interested in going for that effect. I also had the idea that we could change the fact that she wants to die, to she wants to become famous again and makes a deal with the devil to do so. In effect, we are seeing a kind of prequel to our first film idea, and therefore some of my research wasn't wasted after all. We'll keep in the deal with the devil scene but instead of being a flashback, now it'll be chronologically within the narrative. Tommy wanted an element of the supernatural and used this to answer one of the questions on the picture to the top and to the left. How does she find out that she can make a deal with the devil. He suggested that her friend is a medium and they do a seance. So I built on that idea, that she could be trying to contact her mum, who also was an actress and who also lost her fame, to ask for her advice. But it doesn't work, so the medium warns her not to answer the devil if he calls out. Originally we were liking the idea of her going to the devil to die, but it wouldn't make sense, why wouldn't she just kill herself? I therefore after doing some research about religion, found out that they believe that you go to hell if you commit suicide as all life is precious. As a result, I incorporated the fact that she could be religious and therefore believe that, and want to go to heaven, so she must make this deal. However, my idea that she wants to be famous makes more sense and drives the plot more, I think, than the religious idea and her wanting to die. We kept the name the same as the first idea, because why not? It still sounds like a famous person's name no matter if she's a singer or an actor. I wrote a treatment for our new idea, which was well received by the group. I described the hell out of emotions and the events so that it's easier for whoever writes the script.
So my idea was that, she does the deal, trips out, then wakes up in a huge house, it's all light and happy, expensive stuff everywhere, the deal has worked. She's so happy, instantly her dreams become reality. She turns on the TV to check the news, maybe she's on it, who knows, maybe she's got a new film out? She is on the TV but not in the way she would've liked. She's lying there on the side of the road, at the crossroads, lying over a pool of blood. The headline 'Farrah Lake' pierces her heart, sinking into this reality, she stands there clenching the remote, the confusion is too much. She must go there to see what the hell is going on. She runs out of the room and towards the door, upon opening it, she discovers the fact that the door is bricked. She then returns to the living room and now the lighting is dark, she is in her own hell, famous but not able to bask in it.
This is an alternative wording to the same ending in the treatment, I need to decide which one I like best, who knows maybe I'll combine the two?
After this lesson I created my own character profiles using my description of emotions in the treatment to help me. I classified the characters using my research of narrative theories, specifically Vladamir Propp's 8 character types.
Protagonist [wants to reclaim her fame]-
Name: Farrah Lake
Age: 23
Ethnicity: White British
Family: Mother (former actress) deceased (terminal illness)
Father (Worker) disowned her after mother's death
Occupation: Former actress (she stopped getting roles after
drug use got in the way of her work.
Habits: Drug taking* and drinking
Goal: Wants to regain her fame and experience it again, feels
she wasted it. But sees no way to get back there which
causes her depression.
Nature: Used to be an extrovert, now is extremely introverted.
Spirituality: A non-believer, but open to trying it when she's
desperate and at her whits end.
Mentor/Helper [helps protagonist also could be the donor and hand a crucifix???]-
Name: Elijah Newman
Age: 28
Ethnicity: White British
Family: Father (disappointed in him, believes his job isn't
a real one)
Mother- deceased (Encouraged his profession)
Occupation: Medium
Habits: Smokes
Goal: To help his friend (the protagonist) put her famous life
behind her and seek a normal life.
Nature: Very spiritual, helpful and approachable
Spirituality: A believer in all spiritual and supernatural
phenomenon, a Christian since birth.
Antagonist/False Hero [tricks the audience into thinking he'll give her her fame back, but doesn't and becomes the antagonist]-
Name: Satan/The Devil/Lucifer
Age: Immortal
Ethnicity: N/A
Family: God (father)
Angel Gabriel (brother)
Occupation: Ruler of hell and punisher of sinners
Habits: N/A
Goal: To feed on the souls of the wicked, and to Sisyphean
out the immoral sinners by using his manipulation.
Nature: Manipulative, cunning, merciless (to wrongdoers)
Spirituality: N/A
*We could, as part of our mise-en-scene, scatter some weed or cocaine around the apartment.
2/10/17: In this lesson we set out to finish character profiles and write a props list, costume list and location list and eventually writing a shopping list to spend our budget on and research different options. We started by making a mind map of the scenes and naming them for future reference. Becky and I worked out all the props we need, not including background props and some props that are easy to obtain. Then we worked out the locations.
We came to the conclusion that for the first three scenes we would have to use a house on the smallish side, not as flashy as the house we were planning to use for our first idea. I suggested my house, however I also said it's not really practical or easy to get to. Becky then suggested her house which is only a short walk from school. For scene 4 I knew that we could use an Epping Forest crossroad however I didn't know where, so in this lesson I used Google Street to look for one. I had in my mind a crossroads similar to this, which is a picture of the same crossroads that Robert Johnson sold his soul at, it would obviously have a few more trees around the roads. However, the only crossroads in Epping forest have houses and aren't as 'backwoods' as I was envisioning. There is, on the other hand, a place in the forest that I go past everyday on the bus that I think would be perfect for a 'deal with the devil'. I screen-shotted it when I got home, can you imagine that place at night, not many cars go down there either.
As you can see the house looks like it's one cohesive house, even though it's separate flats, maybe we could do an establishing shot or a shot of the house, with maybe a black sky instead of the blue sky so that it's clear she's in hell. This could be the very last shot of our short film. Maybe it might be a little cliche or naff, depending on how well we pull it off, but she could scream as we zoom out, then her scream synchronises with all the other souls in hell. The living room will be where she walks in and turns on the TV to see that she died on the side of the road. It has a lot of natural light which would suit the first part to what we are trying to go for, the fame and the happiness makes the audience happy and helps create the illusion of a happy ending. However, we could film the second part where the lighting is dark, or at least not in the daytime. Finally, the bedroom will be where she wakes up after the deal with the devil. I envision it like Christmas morning, she can't wait to find out whether the deal has worked or not. I thought we could place expensive items such as jewellery or electronics around showing how 'famous' and rich she is.
The location that we will be using the most is Becky's house, she sent some pictures of her living room, in which all the scenes barring one will be shot in. It is of modest size and doesn't look like one of a celebrity, which is what we wanted, she used to be famous and therefore can no longer afford a huge house. There is room to make this setting messy and look like she doesn't care anymore, for example knock over the table in the corner, and mess the cushions up, maybe knock the lamp over.
This is a perfect setting for our film as the we can track Farrah getting up and letting the medium in.
Focusing on the idea for the final shot, for the screams of hell we could use a soundbite from an old myth that I heard about ages ago. The story goes that some miners were digging, and dug so far down that they hit a hole that apparently was said to be a passage to hell, and the sound
s coming from the hole were deafening, said to be the screams of the souls of the damned being tortured in hell. Now, I know that it's probably a hoax, but as a cool little homage, her scream could be drowned out by this soundbite to show that now she's just another one of the souls in eternal damnation.
I ended up reusing the whisper SFX that I used earlier in the film to create a motif rather than add this sound in, this is because I feel this would have been a little too much, and a crescendoing creepy latin whisper would work much better.
Becky and I also created a costume list for each character in different scenes, it didn't take long as we only have three characters and five scenes and three of the scenes the costumes are the same.
I asked Becky what should the protagonist wear in the first scene, in which she doesn't care about her appearance because she's depressed. Becky said maybe tracksuit bottoms or leggings, I suggested maybe an old dirty t shirt for scenes 1-4. In scene 5 when she thinks it has worked, I suggested she wear a satin nightgown because to me anyway that portrays a rich woman's nightwear. For the medium, Tommy suggested that he be in all black, with a back shirt or rollneck and black suit trousers. I asked him should he have his hair up, which would be more 'spiritual' he agreed with me that it should be up. I then, to finish his look, suggested that he should be wearing jewellery such as a metal cross to show spirituality. But not only a cross maybe a few necklaces, bracelets and rings. Finally for the devil, I thought he should wear an all black or navy suit, so that he's not visible in the dark, with a red tie, maybe the tie could be the only part of the costume that's visible. Obviously red connotes both danger and the devil and hell. All this with a white shirt. There's talk of me playing the Devil which of course I was hesitant to do so, but our plan for the Devil, is for him to have no dialogue and might not even be seen. So I'm comfortable with that, and it makes sense utilising members of our group, so it's one less person to have to schedule with. As I result I asked do you think I should have my hair slicked back fully or back but with some volume, both Tommy and Becky said to have it slicked back fully. I can only surmise that it's because it looks more unhinged and like I'm dangerous, or maybe they just don't like the way I have it now!
After getting the props, costumes and locations sorted out I set out to draw up a provisional shopping list for what we will be spending our budget on. The ticked items are ones that don't need to be purchased as we can easily get our hands on them, such as a vodka bottle or candles. Most of our wish listed items are quite cheap on sites like Amazon, you can buy a crucifix for quite cheap, the same applies to fake blood. I set out a maximum budget for both Jewellery for Tommy and fake nails for the Devil, at £20 and £10 respectively. As this was a provisional shopping list I didn't take note of any particular items, I just got a ball park figure for the price. Tommy, as production designer will do that at a later date. For the photo-shopped picture to look good I might have to ask a friend to do it, as none of us are that proficient at it, I would obviously advise him on how it should look as the director and Tommy as the production designer. One item I did forget to include was the black contacts that both Tommy and I would be using, Tommy when he gets possessed and me in the contract scene. Upon further research, there are Black disposable Scelera lenses for £8 from Wonderland Fancy dress shop.
The vodka bottle became a full bottle as we decided to have her drinking from it to show that she's depressed, otherwise there would have been just her sitting there waiting for Elijah to turn up. The photoshopped picture turned into a picture taken in the drama studio, with a spotlight on Farrah who's holding a prop of an oscar that we obtained from the drama cupboard. We didn't end up using the fake blood because the contract idea was scrapped and we thought that the news footage wouldn't have been realistic if we showed a dead body in the background. The fake nails simply didn't arrive, but it didn't matter because we scrapped the contract idea anyway.
Upon seeing this picture doing further research of Robert Johnson, I had the idea of the devil still appearing as a human, however in the shadow created by Farrah Lake's car lights, lighting the scene, he has horns. This will be really difficult to do however and we might need to do research of shadow manipulation, but it could be a cool little effect. Adding to my idea of the car light, lighting the scene, after the deal is done, as the blood drips on the page, the light could cut out and go to black. Which then paves the way for it either to go right to the final scene in which the contract has 'worked', or to the 'trippy' part of the contract actually working or going through a process to work. So I wrote the idea of the horns on the costume list as it can be considered part of the shadow's costume. This idea was scrapped due to it being impossible to show the devil with only his shadow having horns without using CGI (which we didn't have access to funnily enough). We didn't want the actual devil to have horns due to it being both a bit on the nose and cheap and tacky.In addition to this, I edited the treatment to smooth out any kinks in the story. One I found was the seance scene, it seems quite boring and uneventful to not talk to anyone and is a good opportunity to have a scary scene. Also it's not clear how she finds out, also Tommy was keen on my black contact lens idea, and therefore if he's playing the medium, he wants the medium to get possessed. I suggested that the devil could possess him and he could talk directly to the actress and then could make her an offer. But I think the idea from the treatment that she unwittingly is drawn to the crossroads should remain in the film. This led me to edit the treatment, which gave me a good opportunity to combine the ending with the alternative wording ending that I wrote.
6/10/17- In this lesson we chose our actors. We have only three characters in our final idea. We have the protagonist, Farrah Lake, we have her friend and the medium in Elijah Newman and finally we have the Devil. For Farrah, I insisted we have to have a competent actor to make it look really professional and a little less cringe than normal student films. Tommy suggested his friend Issie, but I didn't think that she would be right for the role, so then Tommy suggested his fellow Drama student Eleanor Davis. I agreed and we went on to the medium role, for which Tommy put himself forward for. Then finally, although I really didn't want to, I got the part of the Devil, reason being, it made sense in regard to not having to schedule another person.
As an update to the character profiles, now we have our actors in place, I suggested shooting a live character profile, which Tommy edited together.
The Character of Elijah is based on several characters, namely Max Von Sydow's character of Father Lankester Merrin in 'The Exorcist' one of my favourite horror films of all time. In the film, he comes to Exercise the demons out of a 12 year old girl Regan. I thought that it would be really cool to have this character of Elijah seem like a priest in appearance and costume, but instead of get rid of the demons, to actually inflict these demons on Farrah. Father Merrin's whole manor is a bit dated and a little old for our character of Elijah, but none the less, we could use him for costume inspiration. I thought that instead of a typical black jumper and dog collar, that a turtle neck and a high collar jacket would be quite cool, and would bring a modern serious tone to his character.
This character and costume idea worked so well, Elijah looked exactly how I envisioned it, he was spiritual and looked like a younger more modern version of a priest, taking inspiration from one of my favourite horror films 'The Exorcist' (1973).
This character, being Doctor Parnassus from 'The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus' might seem like an odd source of inspiration for Farrah. However, in the film, he makes a deal with the Devil to keep telling his stories, because it's the only thing that makes him happy and his only source of power. This is very similar to Farrah who wants fame for the same reasons. Doctor Parnassus however, after the deal is made, realises that people have moved on from his narratives, this could be an ending, that she's gone all through a deal with the devil only for it to turn out she can't get work, because she's no longer revered as an actress. After all no one wins in a deal with the Devil but the Devil himself.
For the character of Farrah, my next thought, though it isn't a horror film, was Spiderman. Mary-Jane from the 2000s Spiderman trilogy, is a damsel in distress that in the first one has troubles with her abusive father and abusive boyfriend which drives her into depression behind closed doors. This is like Farrah who doesn't leave her house because she's scared of people seeing her like this, which would affect her chances of ever getting her fame back. Also she acts really strong but needs a superhero to save her every time she's in danger, which can be likened to Farrah being 'saved' by the Devil from her facelessness, and to a certain extent Elijah from her depression (temporarily).
Farrah is by no means an original character but there isn't really an exact copy of her, she is made up of traits from many characters, such as Mary-Jane from spiderman. Farrah can be described as a damsel in distress who does nothing to combat the antagonist, this is because he tricks her and he's the devil. I always hated that about films where the protagonist just happens to be able to defeat the devil or some supernatural extraordinary force, causing me to want to write a film in which Farrah doesn't even try, she just tries to run away and escape it, of course you can't. Also she deserves it for being a fame hungry person who instead of getting on with life, dreams after the shallow life she had when she was an award winning actress.
I really like this message and it helped me to write the script and the treatment a lot
We made a video to visualise our treatment, and yes unfortunately I am in it, excuse my poor reading, cheers.
12/10/17- In this lesson we made a Questionnaire, to finalise our target audience. Firstly Becky and I made up some questions to ask a sample of four girls and four boys our age in the form of a video, edited by Tommy.
Then Becky and I went to a computer room to achieve more of a wide sample, and we used some of the same questions from the video and then some new ones. For example I had the idea of asking them their favourite films in a certain block to identify their Psychographic. I wanted to base the whole questionnaire on what age and gender most like horror films, so that we can define our target audience. Hence the first two questions. Then I had the idea to ask their profession to identify the demographic they fit into. To identify who would be most likely to see our film, we asked them their favourite genre, with a view to match that up with which pyschographic and demographic they fit into. We did the same with the amount of times they go to the cinema, and which films they last watched and last watched at the cinema. We asked are they fans of the horror genre and how likely they would be to go and see our film, after we gave them a one line summary.
We went out with these to our common room and gave them to a mixture of girls and boys from both year groups and then we took them home to give out to our family members and other people of different age groups to get a wider sample. I tallied up the results and then Becky made some graphs.
We gave them to 17 people under 18 years of age and 6 people over the age of 18, this is as a result of my research into who goes to the cinema most and who watches horror films. We gave it to 4 female and 2 males over the age of 18 and 11 female and 6 male under the age of 18 (and including 18).
This clearly shows that half of the people in the younger bracket that we gave the questionnaire to had watched a horror film last, showing that the genre is alive in this age group. Most of them, if I remember correctly, said 'IT', which has been a phenomenal success at the box office and is becoming a powerful film because of the word of mouth. This works well for us, as it revives interest in our genre, even though it's not the same sub-genre as our film. 
Opposing this is the Adult bracket, which showed that two thirds of people last saw a horror, now this is surprising because through my research I found that horror has become more of a younger person's genre. This has made me realise that we should expand our target audience age span maybe to 25 or even 30. This data however is only based off of a sample of 5 people, which therefore might not be a large enough sample. 
This next graph is in a similar vein and it shows whether the sample are fans of the horror genre, which might pick up some of the people that are fans but it's not their favourite genre. As evident in this graph, the blue section being 'yes', there are many more people that say yes than no in all four sections. This is promising as most are fans of horror and therefore, it's clearly still a popular genre and the dodgy movies of late haven't tarnished it's fanbase and many will still be interested in seeing our film.
Finally, the block question which shows their psychographics. We decided not to showcase the demographic question, as again our results would be skewed having interviewed 17 people 18 and under but only 6 people over the age of 18, most would have been students and therefore fallen into the demographic block E. I chose films that I fought reflected the values and traits of the different psychographics.The block's psychographics were:
BLOCK A: Mainstreamers
BLOCK B: Aspirers
BLOCK C: Resigned
BLOCK D: Explorers
BLOCK E: Strugglers
BLOCK F: Reformers
This graph shows that the two most popular blocks are block A and block B which I expected. These are main-streamers and apirers. Both of which are usually young people. This shows that our target demographic are these two. This ties directly in with our narrative, in regards to her aim is get famous again, which is an aspirer's trait and the fact that it's about fame which is a universal and quite mainstream theme.
30/10/17- In this lesson I finished the script and completed the scenes that I left out. We also bought our props. Having written the script at home, I bought it into lesson for Tommy and Becky to read and then I continued and finished the scenes I left out. Here's the final script that I wrote.
How script appeals to our Target Audience:
I used Genre theory to not disappoint the audience, who's expecting conventions of horror. Therefore things like typical horror props such as a crucifix appears, typical horror events occur such as a possession and typical horror settings feature such as a dark forest.
All of the conventions I identified in my research I was sure to include:
-The feeling of loneliness and helplessness being exploited is included when she hears the voices
-There's obviously the Devil which is classed as an outlandish villain that Possesses Elijah and appears at the end.
-There aren't any children in our film however, which isn't as strict of a rule as the previous two.
How I used Narrative theorists to write the script:
Propp's theory-This script has all of the identifiable characters types and functions in the form of just three actual characters. The hero is obviously Farrah, who wants her fame back. The villain is the Devil who acts as a hero, 'giving fame' to Farrah making him a false hero also. Elijah is therefore the Donor, of information and a crucifix, he's the dispatcher and sets Farrah out on her 'journey' to not reply to the Devil. He's also the helper as he helps Farrah contact her mum.
Barthes' theory-
I used Barthes' theory to use different narrative devices to construct the story/narrative. The referential code is Elijah's knowledge of the occult and the Devil when he tells Farrah after the seance. The Symbolic code is the contract and the crucifix. The enigma code at the end where the audience thinks she's fine but she's actually trapped in hell. The action is the 'car chase' with the Devil leading her to him.
Todorov's theory-
Finally I used Todorov's theory the most, and it applies the most as a result.
Equilibrium: Her being in a depressed state and wanting to be famous again, drinking her life away.
Disruption: Elijah coming around and doing a seance, she now can't answer the Devil.
Realisation: When Elijah tells her this.
Reparation: When she runs away into the forest.
New Equilibrium: She's in hell.
As we are so close to shooting, I thought that I would do some research on how to light our film and some research on how to have good sound on our film, as last years A2 films were marked down quite a lot for bad sound in their films.
Now that I've done the script we can get sir to order our props, as we now know exactly what we need.
This is the cape that I'll be sporting during the crossroads scene, chosen due to its hood and black colour.
This is the brick wall wallpaper, chosen due to its low price and the amount you get of it, so we have room for error.
These are the candles, this we might not buy as we're coming in over budget and Becky already has some.
I found these contact lenses as all the jet black ones are really expensive (over £50!), they are more to portray a blind person but they will probably look equally as creepy.
This is the fake blood used for the crossroads scene.
These are the nails that I will also be wearing to add to the Devil look and to cut Farrah.
And finally this is the crucifix that Elijah will be carrying to add to the whole Exorcist and spiritual vibe of the character.
10/11/17- In this lesson I presented my annotated script to the group and we chose the one's we liked and made a shotlist. We then thought of a title (finally!) for our film. I wrote down the possible title of 'Man of Sin' which I didn't really like even at the time, but I was just spit-balling. We were really lacking ideas, so we went round to some of the people we interviewed for our questionnaire and who said they'd be interested in seeing our film and asked their opinion because frankly we were stuck. One girl said that we could call it 'Lived' which in a reflection could spell 'Devil'. This was a great idea and we put it down as our final idea. However, after time for it to settle in, I took issue with it. I didn't like the idea of our film being called 'Lived' where it has no real tie to our narrative or film. Tommy and Becky agreed and we were back to square one. But really we weren't, as it gave me an idea. At first, I tried to do the same thing with the word Satan, but this spelt Natas which is even more far removed from our narrative. The I had an idea in a similar vein to Grace's idea of a reflection. I thought we could have the word Devil appear on screen, which then splits into two words. At first I thought the could D slide and form dream, but I later changed it to Desire, and the Evil stays there. The title of our film is now 'Desire Evil', which directly links to our narrative because she desires to cheat and uses evil means to get what she wants and Devil is obvious.Tommy then drew up my idea.
Another lingering problem was our production logo and name, which Tommy had an idea for. He saw a piece of art that hangs in our sixth form building, and he suggested that we could use that and call it faceless productions, both Becky and I agreed.
I then, using an app on my phone, put it into negative colours and added fonts to it. I thought that it should be a fancy bold font, and I like the fact that it's all in black and white. The only thing is that it's impossible to take a picture of this drawing without having our reflections in the glass, however with the negative colours it doesn't look that bad, and looks kinda cool.
17/11/17- In this lesson I finished the shot-list, writing up the shots, numbering them and explaining the movement and what happens.
We have 64 shots in total in 10 scenes. In this lesson we also rescheduled our filming days, as lack of props and scheduling prevented us from keeping to the last one.
We have four main shooting days and then a side day for the scene that will play on the TV in scene 10.
20/11/17- After the news that Eleanor can't do our film because of scheduling, we scrambled to find a replacement, and our only option was Issie, who we had considered when we cast Eleanor. This fortunately worked out better as we have the same frees as Issie. In this lesson we shot a video of Issie explaining the situation and her character. We also shot a scene that will be on the TV in the final scene, when we realize Farrah Lake is dead. Having written the shotlist, I then set out to complete the storyboard.
I first story-boarded, with rough sketches, what I thought was the most pivotal scene in our film, following the shot list tightly.
I then proceeded to complete the final draft of a storyboard adding in some ideas of my own alongside the shotlist.
There are some disturbing scenes in the film, such as the scene where Elijah is possessed and Tommy will be wearing contact lenses when we shoot this scene. This could be seen as disturbing.
There's also a scene where Farrah drinks straight Vodka. I'm not sure as to whether we glorify or endorse excessive drinking, which will be vital to deciding it's rating. However we do present the fact that Farrah needs to be rescued from this state by Elijah and therefore suggesting that it's not desirable to be drinking like that.
There is a scene where she cuts herself on glass, and there's blood but it's not in great detail.
In conclusion, I believe that we could get away with a 12A rating, however we won't gain much audience from the <12-15 range so this would be pointless. I feel that we should make it a 15 to give it a true horror feel as the horror films that we are inspired by are all 15 certificate or even 18 in some cases. Such as 'The Exorcist' or 'The Devil Inside'.
Our Equipment list that we'll be using for our upcoming shooting schedule is made up of only three items. A Canon 700D Camera, a shoulder mount/Steadicam and a tripod.
Scenes 1&2: On this day we began filming at Becky's house, but without the prop of the frame and a picture of Issie holding an oscar, we filmed after this and before the Seance scene, as Issie couldn't stay after a certain time, so we wouldn't have darkness. We didn't follow the shot-list to the letter, and even added in some, I thought that it would be good to start slow when I was writing the shotlist, and I believe that's what we achieved.
Editing day 1: 24/11/17-
On this day Becky and I sat down and edited the footage that we accumulated yesterday, we uploaded all the footage and action matched it making it flow, we noticed that we might need to re-film the shot in which Farrah walks away from Elijah who's at the door and smiles at his joke. This is because the lighting was so dark and you can't se her face, we will re-film it with maybe the light on or an iPhone torch on.
27/11/17- In this lesson we retook the photo of Farrah winning an Oscar with our new actress. I also started my storyboard in this lesson, and finally I redrafted the production studio logo I created. We got Issie from the common room and went back to the drama studio to take the picture but this time obviously with our new actress. I noticed that in the first one, the oscar wasn't the focal point of the picture, so this time I made sure that, that and her face are the focal points of the photo.
I look another photo of the drawing without the reflection of Tommy and I and made sure it had better farming to fit in the shoulders and upper chest, which looks really cool because of the way the lines look in negative colours. I also added a darker filter to the picture to make it look better and more gritty, and finally I added in a source of light from the right of the picture. This is a huge improvement I think, and it looks more professional.
Filming Day 2: 28/11/17-
Scenes 9&10: On this day we completed the final two scenes at Christie's house, without a hitch really in roughly 2 hours. I shot most of the shots and Tommy took over during the middle of shooting for five or six shots, then I took the camera back and finished off the rest of the shots. For the final shot Tommy had the idea to have a shot where the camera leaves the scene and have the door slam. I thought that was a great idea, not only because it'll look great but because it's also a homage to Alfred Hitchock, when he used this 'leave the scene' technique.
Editing Day 2: 29/11/17-
I stayed on my own after school to upload the footage from Christie's house and then I edited, I also polished up the editing that was unfinished from last time. I did notice a really annoying thing, that someone left our tripod in the background for one of the shots, that's really visible. However, to refilm this, would mean us refilming these entire scenes, to maintain continuity, as a result I decided that it's best if we leave it. There's also a messy cut that doesn't make sense. For this I made the decision to add a transition that looks as though the camera blinks. However, it looks a little strange that it happens once in isolation. This led to two ideas, either do every transition between shots in these two final scenes like this or continue after this, into the continuous final shot with this blinking motif. I have no idea which one to choose.
Filming Day 3: 30/11/17-
Scenes 1,2,3,&4: On this day we left during our last lesson of the day (media) and continued until it was dark to get the seance scene done. But prior to this, we shot the scene with the picture and frame (the opening scene) and re-filmed the scene at the door, then filmed the aftermath of the seance.
Above is a photo of me filming the aftermath of the seance scene and a candle, and below is the vlog for this filming day.
Filming Day 4: 19/12/17 -
Scenes 5,6,7 &8: As Tommy wasn't available today it was just Becky, our actress Issie and I on set. We got to use Becky's friend Rachel's car in the shots and went to the forest for this last day of filming.
Music Composition: 2/1/17-
I wanted to have the entire film edited in front of me before I started doing the music, so that I could align the seconds and create an overall feel for the film rather than just scene by scene. This however wasn't possible as I couldn't edit over Christmas and therefore our film wasn't complete to put music over. Therefore I've started experimenting with different sounds with vague ideas of where to include them in the film.
As seen here, in a screenshot of one of my Garageband projects, I have three different kind of bass, a filtered octave bass an synth bass and an alchemy synth all at -5 or -4 octave. This creates an unnerving uncomfortable sound, that would be perfect for either scene where the devil appears, the crossroads or the seance scene. It has the potential to be cut suddenly to as I made it without reverb and there's only one chord meaning I can cut it anywhere.
Editing: 8/1/18-
We finished Editing on the first lesson back from Christmas so that I could do the music over the following weekend. We decided to make the first part of our film, all before she wakes up for the second time, in black and white and then have the end when she's in hell in colour. This is to trick the audience into thinking she has got her fame back and the narrative has returned to an equilibrium. It's also to show that she's almost in a stupor and in a gloomy trance, during the first part. I love the fact that it's almost a reverse of what you'd expect, the part that is not real, the end is in colour, when the part that actually happened is in black and white.
Music Composition: 13/1/18-15/1/18
This is the music for the second part of the opening scene, from when Farrah picks up the frame until she falls down onto the sofa. The main focus of the song is the wind chimes sounding guitar that continues all the way through. Here I had to cover up a bad action match that we filmed, in which it jumps. I had the idea to add in two outlandish descending notes, in the same scale as the song but two notes that sound eerie when put together to cover it up.
For this piece of music, I took inspiration from the music from the shower scene from Alfred Hitchcock's 'Psycho' (1960). This music features high violins that are continuous sharp tense notes that make the audience feel uneasy and accentuates their shock at what's happening, however, I thought that I could use this type of idea for the car scene, to match the pace at which she's running away and driving. This is such a great, classic piece of movie music, which is why I had to use this idea somewhere in the film, as both a homage top the film and a tribute to Hitchcock, and it also improves our film too.
On this day we finalised the film, adding in a title and cleaning up volumes based on feedback we gained from showing it to some of our class mates.
-RESEARCH AND PLANNING COMPLETE-
- Research into Similar Products
- Research into Target Audience
- Planning of Time Management
- Planning of Organisation of Actors, Locations, Costumes and Props etc.
- Planning of Shots, Scripting, Storyboarding and Music etc.
- Drafts of Shots, Treatment, Scripting, Storyboarding and Music etc.
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