Definite Location.

We have decided to film outside Northwick Cinema for the first part of our film, as it has a classy jazz - style look that were aiming for. This isn't to say however, that we will film inside, as that is near-enough impossible due to filming restrictions.

After watching "Manhattan"'s title sequence, we were inspired by the

outside shot of the Manhattan sign on the side of a building, similar to that of Northwicks.'

Possible Locations.

Northwick theatre

This is Northwick theatre, made in 1922 so it is perfect by giving of the old effect and it's easy to access.

Huntingdon Hall









Huntingdon Hall, Worcester is a fantastic 'old fashioned' venue, this would be great to film at as it's such a historical and popular venue.


The Swan theatre

The swan theatre has a professional stage and will look very slick though the camera giving our project a classy feel, this would be a great place to film at.

Research into target audience.

First of all we made a mood board on face book and asked our friends certain questions such as:
1. What emotions arise after first viewing these images?
2. Do you find the images disturbing, if so, any in particular?
3. What age group do you feel would be most disturbed by the above?
4. Does the rejection of colour suit the 'mood' of the images?


These are the replies.



However some of the people that answered wanted to say anonymous, here are their responses. 


Male : 29 Years of Age

1. The image evoke Fear and Angst. Something hidden and dark.

2.I find all of the images shown disturbing, particularly the clown to the left, as it subverts the traditional meanings of clowns as happy, and instead portrays them as deceiving and hiding and that they might be fighting internal emotional conflict.

3. I don't know.

4. Yes, black and white is often used in film as light is more subjective than colour.

Female : 43 Years of Age

1. I think the pictures are quite spooky and sad.

2. The images are sad more than disturbing, and the top left picture of an empty warehouse is almost the exact same location of my recurring nightmare.

3. Well I find the pictures quite disturbing, but I don't think children would do so really, as they probably wouldn't understand what's 'so scary' about a clown and an empty warehouse .

4. I think colour would give the same effect quite honestly.

Male : 48 Years of Age

1. Creepy pictures! Although I don't find the withered rose scary!

2. The most disturbing image to me is either the dead body at the bottom, or the x-ray of broken hands.

3. I think kids would find them quite disturbing, but I wouldn't show my child these pictures!

4. Darker pictures do seem to be more emotive than colour, but colour can sometimes be pretty powerful. I think only colour would work well with the clown, for example.

We have concluded that  The age group of our target audience is 25 - 50, as we researched that mature audiences would relate closer to the themes present in our title sequence (Regret, Loneliness, Heartbroken, Anger), than those below 25 would. Not only based on asking members of our demographic, but studying user data for Se7en athttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114369/ratings allowed us to see that the majority of those viewing Psychological horrors were over 18 and were mainly male, with their viewings of 207, 562 far outnumbering 32, 110 females who posted user ratings. This was surprising and caused us to reflect on our film, and consider how to appeal further to the populated male audience. Steven Casey Murray, is 'Bellaonline's horror film editor, however and believes "Horror films cross gender-boundaries because they deal with the primal emotion, the basic instinct in all human beings - fear". We decided to aim to keep our film appealing to both genders, as alienating certain gender audiences is not necessary in horror, in comparison to age.

Our target audience are intelligent, mature and experienced. They realise the complications that love can cause, and the problems it can create. They prefer well thought out, sensual and deep meaning film rather then the 'jumpy', 'blood and guts' horror often associated with a teen audience. They realise the disturbing effect objects such as clowns and empty locations can create, and realise that subverting traditional connotations is an effective form of 'horror'. Understanding light in film, they realise the strengths of using black and white in horror, but are welcome to all aspects of colour.
Their interests are reading and watching films that are not always advertised and marketed but are more obscure, discussing the message behind films.

Our Choice In Music.

This is "Swan lake waltz" composed by Tchaikovsky. This digetic music will be played of the record player so it gives the classical effect when the character is dancing with the mannequin. This is available on http://freeplaymusic.com/ copyright free.

Editing in Premier Pro.

I am using Adobe Premier Pro to edit my film; this is a non-linear time line, making it easier to edit the clips.

Props.

These are the props that we are planning to use in our opening sequence:

Why we are using each prop:

We are clothing our main and only character in a pin strip suit very similar to this one.

We are getting 4-5 half mannequins as props on the stage.                                                                                                                      

                                               

We also need old clothes to dress the mannequins to make them more life like. 

We are using a full size mannequin which is going to be dancing with the character.

A record player like the one shown is going to used to play the music and set the classical theme.

Light health and safety brief.

I have received a health and safety brief from my teacher to use the cold lights that my college can supply. We are debating in using these lights because we want to film in a theatre and the lighting would be provided. 

Why We Don't Need A Script .

In our opening sequence it does not require a script because it doesn’t use dialog but instead uses the classical music to show a classy and sophisticated effect of the character. So a detailed dialog is not required as there’s no communication between characters. 

Storyboard.

 Click to zoom.

Idea.

We have come to the conclusion that we are sticking to the psychological horror theme but were not sticking to the crowd, we’re doing something unique. We plan to film in a theatre and only have one character who is wearing a suit with a rose attached. We’re going to start the scene with a close up of a record player/radio which gradually tracks back revelling the character dancing with a plastic mannequin to the classic music played of the record player. While dancing a petal from his rose hits the ground and drives him mental so that he beats up the mannequin showing his mental state.

Time management

 

On December 1st we sorted of the time management sheet that we created on Outlook Web App and include every detail of our project that needs completing in a certain date to have full organisation on our project. I have included the idea process, the final research summary, and research into target audience. Also finding a location, writing a script, finding props and performers, and completing a story board.