Evaluation Activity 2 - Comparison of characters

Comparison of the victim character from creep & the victim from our film, Stalked.

• The two are similar in the way that they are both displayed in casual clothing. This gives the idea that they are going out somewhere which isn't associated with work, so they're in casual clothing. Also, by making both of the characters wear feminine clothing, this shows they are not masculine or could stereotypically be seen as 'tough', so they would be able to defend themselves.
• The victim in Creep is presented in a dress which gives more of an innocent feel to the character than our victim, Lucy. By having the character look more innocent, this makes it clear to the audience that this character is likely to be attacked in the film.
• Similarly both of these characters are victims in films, being followed by the 'horror' character. The fact that these characters are both being followed is also a similarity. In Creep the woman is being followed in a train station, whereas Lucy is being followed around the streets.
• As both characters are female, this gives a feeling of vulnerability to the characters. Stereotypically in films women cannot defend themselves, therefore the audience being more fearful for their safety in the film.

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Comparison of the father character in Silent Hill & the father character in our film, Stalked.

• These two characters are similar as in the beginning of the films, they are both left at home not knowing what's really happening to their daughters.
• The difference between the two characters are the fact that the father character from Silent Hill is worrying about his wife and daughter, where as the father character in our film Stalked is only going to worry for his daughter (though this isn't shown in the beginning of our film.)
• The clothing between the two characters is slightly different as the Silent Hill father character is usually shown in his suit, where as the father character in Stalked is shown in more casual clothing, because he is shown in in the evening, therefore with no relation to work, so not wearing a suit.

Evaluation Activity 1 - How typical is the opening scene of our film

• For the title of our film we used a plain, capital font. We didn't want to use any fonts that are like handwriting (e.g French Script) or any fonts that are rounded (e.g. Comic Sans). This is because it would give a soft look to the film. Where as using a harsh, straight font this gives the feeling this film isn't going to be a comedy, romance etc. , but a horror. We used the colour red for the font as from researching other films, it is clear that for horror films titles red is a popular colour as it represents blood, and reflects the angry feeling usually expressed in horror films.
• We introduced the location of our film by using an establishing shot. This is something usually done in horror films, as the audience need to be clear where all of this action is taking place. This establishing shot can be compared with the establishing shot used at the beginning of the film The Ring, similarly it is an establishing shot of the house. We also used a panning camera movement with this shot to clearly show that the house the conversation is taking place in isn't alone, it is on a street with other houses, highlighting the fact that the action of the film will not happen here. This contrasts with the beginning of The Grudge as in this establishing shot the house is placed on its own, showing that the action in the film will begin here.
• From the third screen shot it is clear we have used a prop. This prop is a knife, which clearly highlights who the victim and who the attacker is in this film. By having a close up shot of the knife this clearly shows the prop to the audience, making it clear to them some action is about to happen. In many horror films close up shots are used to highlight props which are key to events happening, e.g in the opening of The Grudge the close up of the phone ringing shows this is key.
• The fourth screen shot shows the editing we have used in our film. We used the effects 'black and white' and 'old film' to capture the feeling of a CCTV camera. The 'old film' affect also created movement on the shots, giving across the idea that CCTV cameras are moving looking for action all the time. This isn't similar to many horror films, as a lot do not use editing in this way, though some do reduce the amount of colour in shots to give a dull feeling to the film, therefore reflecting it's not positive and is a horror film.
• For our opening credits we used the same font as our films title. Instead we used the colour white for these, so that they are more noticeable against the dark colourings of all the shots. We decided to show the credits ontop of the opening scenes of the film, instead of being on a block colour background. This is so that the credits aren't distracting for the viewer, even though they're important we do not want the flow of the film to stop and the viewers interest to deteriorate. Some films can work using credits ontop of a block coloured background, for example in The Grudge this works well for seperating scenes which I saw in my research previously. But in The Ring, which I also researched this used credits over the top of the opening scenes which worked well in keeping the flow of the film going. Also, because the opening locations do not change a lot, this means keeping the credits over the top of the opening scenes ensures a steady flow for the film.
• The prop the 'lost cat' poster shows the story of the opening. This prop shows why the victim is going out at night. Also the fact that she is going looking for her cat gives the feeling of innocence to the character, meaning that she is more likely to get attacked in this stereotypical horror film.
• The genre of the film is suggested by the attacking character, as they are mysterious because of the costume (the hood covering the face and hiding the identity). Also the fact that our film is shot at night gives the idea it is a horror film, as usually attacks in horror films do not happen in the day. Also being at night gives the feeling the victim cannot be helped, as nobody will be around to help whereas they would be in the day time.
• Two characters are introduced by the conversation scene which is typical in horror films. E.g at the beginning of The Ring, two girls are introduced to the audience through a conversation scene. The attacker is introduced by being seen following in the distance, which is typical in a horror film, as by using this technique it does not give away the identity of this character, therefore adding suspense. 

Final film - 'Stalked'

Editing using Adobe Premier

Our first piece of editing in our film beginning is at the beginning, a fade in from black. This is an affective transition to use at the beginning of the film as it introduces the first scene in a smooth way, instead of the shot straight away being there. From looking at many other horror films this technique is clearly used a lot.

This scene also fades in from black as it effectively separates the scene before (the victim and father having conversation in the house) and this one.

Also on the same scene we introduced the opening credits of the film. We introduced these credits here as it doesn't distract the viewer from the beginning of the film, the establishing shot and the conversation setting out what is happening (victim looking for lost cat). For all of the credits we used fade into line so that the credits aren't on screen for too long.

For this scene we used the wipe transition. This is to show a change of location - from where the victim is to where the victims father is. This highlights the fact that the victims father is far away showing clearly he wouldn't be able to save her.

Another wipe is used on the ending of the phone conversation. This is to separate the conversation from the victim character walking away down the stairs(as the shot of the victim on the phone is then followed by her walking away and then a shot of her walking down the bridge.)

In our film we also used the affects 'black and white' and 'old film'. This was to create a CCTV affect as we placed the camera in the corner of the bridge in both of the shots where we included these affects. Also, the 'old film' affect gave a moving feeling to the shot, emphasising the fact that CCTV cameras are constantly moving around capturing action.

At the end of the opening of our film we used text faded in from the black background. This ensures the audience focuses on the text as there is nothing else to be distracted by. The font colour is in red as this represents blood, giving the feeling of the horror genre. This colour also could show anger, which is usually an emotion portrayed in horror films. Also, from looking at many other horror films it was also clear that red is a popular colour to use.

Animatic

We have reproduced our animatic for our film as we have changed a lot. Also, in this animatic we have made each scene as about as long as each scene is going to be in our final film. This gives us an idea of how long our film will be, to ensure it's not too long/ short. We did not add in our titles as at this stage we were unsure of what they were going to be exactly, but we knew that they would start at the scene of the victim walking out of her house so that they wouldn't run over the dialogue scenes to distract the viewer away from the conversation itself, as it's key to the beginning of our film to outline what is happening.

Opening credits in our film

For our film we have looked at the film 'The Grudge' to gain ideas for what is said in the opening credits.
From watching this we have come up with the ideas of having our opening credits as

_____ (name of director) and Columbia Pictures present
A Ghost House Pictures production
A film by _____ (writer)
_____ (main characters name)
Casting by _____
Music by _____
Editor _____
Produced by _____

Where the music will be placed in our film

• In our film we have decided to include music to add to how tense the film is, and too add to the fear created by the 'stalker' character. In the scenes including dialogue we decided to fade out the music so that the viewers focus is on the dialogue, instead of being distracted by the music itself. 
• We decided to start the music after the scene including dialogue inside the house. This is to show the fact that something bad will happen soon in the film.
• We also decided to fade the music back in after the phone conversation scene as it then carries on the tense feeling in the film. The fact that the ring tone of the phone starts suddenly creates a feeling of shock and fear, showing that the victim is on edge and afraid. By suddenly having the music of the phone ringing introduced, this will shock the viewer, therefore they will emphasise with the victim character.

Institution research for our film 'Stalked'

• For our film we have decided to have 'Ghost House Pictures' as our production company. We chose this company as it has produced many horror films such as The Grudge. Also, we liked the name 'Ghost House' as it clearly shows to the audience that this film is of a horror genre.
• We decided to have Universal Pictures as our distributor. This is because this company is very successful in distributing films, meaning our film may become successful because of this factor.

Additional filming

Yesterday we went out filming to re-do some of our scenes to make them more effective.

• We re-did the conversation scene of our film beginning as part of it wasn't completely still, which could cause our film to not look similar to a real film. To the conversation scene we also added in a close up shot of the lost cat poster being picked up by the dad character (Fabian). This ensures that the focus of the scene is on the storyline of the main character (Lucy) looking for her lost cat.
• Also, we added in a phone conversation to add more dialogue and action into our film, rather than it just consisting of the victim character walking around. By adding in the phone conversation this makes it clear that the victim character, Lucy, is looking for her cat, and her dad is waiting at home for her.
• We also added in a knife to the 'stalker' character following the main character (Lucy) walking down the stairs. This adds more affect to our film, clearly showing why the main character is fearful and running away.

Choice of film title

For our film title we have chosen the name 'STALKED'.
We chose this name for the title as our film has changed from a film including zombies to a film that is a type of thriller, which includes somebody being followed by a character with a knife.

For our film titles we have chosen to use the font Trajan Pro. This is because it is similar to the fonts used in other film titles, as they are in capitals and quite plain fonts, reflecting the fact that we don't want to give away much about our film.

To do list produced after editing

After beginning to edit our film we came up with a to do list of things we need to do to make our film a lot better:

1. Add Ghost House Pictures title to the start of our film (idea gained from watching the beginning of The Grudge)

2. Choose font for the titles of our film. (We are using a black background and red fonts)

3. Redo the inside shots of conversation

• Less camera movement – put camera on tripod
• Make sure posters fit across the two scenes
• Close ups of holding the posters 

4. Shot of Lucy walking out of the house

5. Shot of cat poster being put up (Longer length)

6. Shot of Lucy walking down stairs – Stalking character viewed with knife (so the audience clearly know why the main character Lucy is running away)

• As lucy gets to half way down the stairs sammy gets knife out of pocket which is visible to the camera

7. Cut the above scene so that it fits with the point of view shot going around the corner

Editing in class

Today during our media lesson we decided to edit our film. Above is a screen shot of this happening.

When editing we noticed that the first scenes of our film (displayed above) was not shot steady, so we will be re-filming parts of these scenes so that it looks a lot better. Also, we noticed that the scene did not flow together, as when the main character is passed the 'lost cat' poster, in the next scene the paper was the other way round. So when re-filming we will take in mind all of these things. We also decided on this scene to add in close ups of the father character picking up the posters, so that there is emphasis on what the posters is about (the lost cat).

Changes of the 'horror' characters and props

In our film we have changed the character that is meant to be scary. Originally we were going to have zombie characters, but we realised with this it would not look like a real film as we do not have the special effects/ makeup to produce a realistic zombie character.
Instead we stayed with the idea of the victim coming across a scary character and being followed and attacked, but instead we changed this to just a person with a knife that cannot be seen clearly except just before the title 'STALKED' is shown at the beginning of the film, but again in this shot we didn't want the stalking character to be clearly shown just to make the film more tense and mysterious, as horror films are.

 

Above are images displaying the stalker characters clothing. We chose to have this character in a Parker coat with the hood up, as this adds to the mystery of who is following the victim as it cannot be seen whether this character is male/ female. As most of our shots of the stalker character are either far away or from behind, this also adds to the mysterious feeling as it cannot be seen properly who this is. As the jeans and shoes could belong to either a male or female character, this also adds to the mystery of the film for the audience, as they cannot be sure who it is at all, making this character more feared as they could be any of the characters in the rest of the film but disguised to attack other people.
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As we have changed our film location, we decided to rid of the tortch prop as it wasn't nessicary because we now have enough light to work with and for the characters to be visible. We instead are using a knife to show why the victim character is afraid of the stalker. We use a close up shot of this prop to highlight its importance in our film, as this gives across what genre our film is. We did not show this knife in the light as it isn't a real knife, so to give across the idea that it is real we showed it in the dark, giving a more realistic look to it.

 

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We also decided to add into our film a phone conversation to clearly highlight what the victim character is doing (looking for her cat). We had a close up of the phone recieving a call to show its importance in the film. Below displays the screen shots of our phone conversation scenes (the first screen shot of the victims father on the phone, the second screen shot displaying the close up of the phone going off so that the focus is on the fact that this is happening.)

Why we changed the location

In our first attempt of filming we realised by using a torch in the dark doesn't work as effectively as we thought because of the fact that the camera couldn't focus well in this low amount of dark, so we decided to change location to somewhere with more lighting.
Also, as the trees etc to show the rural setting cannot be seen, this eliminates the rural setting idea and the feeling of loneliness and the fact that the character cannot be saved. By changing the setting to on the bridge this gives the idea of loneliness as nobody is around, and also trees etc can be seen, giving a rural and lonely feel as we originally intended.

First attempt of filming

This is my group and I's first attempt of filming in our location. As the above is affective for creating fear in the beginning of the film, as it is a silohuette of the character who is going to attack the main character. The silohuette is created by using the light from a train station nearby. By using this as the light source this doesn't have the rural and abandoned affect that we originally intended to create, to give off the idea that the main character is away from any people who could save her from this other character.

Animatic

Above is the animatic of our storyboard of what is going to happen in our filming. By producing this it clearly shows what order our shots are going to be in and almost shows what our actual film beginning is going to look like.

Props

• The main prop that we will be using is a torch. This is key to the film as it creates a light source in the dark when we are filming. By having a torch present this makes the film more convincing, as the main character would not realistically be going into the woods in the dark without on.

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• Another prop we will be using is a newspaper. This will be used when the victim and her father are having conversation. By including this prop this adds a relaxed feel to the scene, and makes it more realistic also. If the two characters were sitting next to one another just speaking straight to eachother with no interactions, this would not be realistic as this would not happen in real life. We could have had the father character on his phone for example texting, or watching television, but this gives across the feeling of lack of concentration and not really listening to what's being said, showing there is no importance in the conversation. By having the newspaper there, it shows that the father character was reading before but now has stopped to listen to Lucy, the victim character.

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• Above is a screen shot of another prop we are going to use - the lost cat poster. This prop clearly shows to the audience what exactly is happening in the film, the storyline of it all. It shows why the victim character is going out at night, to look for her lost cat, otherwise just going for a walk at night seems unreasonable as danger is likely to occur.
• By using this prop, it also gives a feeling of innocense to the victim character, as having her going to look for a cat this has quite feminine traits so this gives a stereotypical vunerable female feel to this character.

Characters

The main character is Lucy who is the ''victim'' of the attack in the first two minutes of the film (By including an attack straight away this makes it clear to the audience the film is full of action and terror). By having an average looking character as victim, this gives the audience the idea that anybody could be attacked by the creature in this film. Also, by casting this ''victim'' character as a woman, this stays to the stereotype in horror films of women being attacked rather than men, as they can't fight off the creature as they are defenceless. Also by casting this character of someone in their teens, this gives the idea that she is innocent, once again ensuring the audience knows that anyone could be attacked.

Above displays the costume of the victim character, Lucy. By wearing casual clothing her age is clearly shown, as she is not shown in working clothes such as a skirt and blouse etc, showing her young age. As these clothes are showing a slight fashion sense, this shows how the character is in her teenage years, showing she is vunerable and is likely to be attacked in this film.

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This character is the father of Lucy and is included in a small part of the film which outlines the storyline of Lucy's cat being lost. The hair of this character will be gelled to the side to give a 'smart' look to the father character. This character will also be wearing smart clothing to clearly show the audience this is the father character. This character will also be reading a newspaper, as this is a stereotypical thing for a father character to be doing in the evening.



The above images display the costume of the victims dad. By wearing casual clothes this shows that this character isn't going out to work at this time (as it's late) and will be staying at home for the time that the victim, Lucy, goes out. This shows that the father character will not be out around this time so the victim character doesn't have a chance of being saved.

Pictures inspiring our film beginning

For our film beginning we want the mysterious character to be hidden in some way. The Grudge films affectively show this by hiding the Grudge in different ways. For example by having her unfocused, or simply by the lighting. Another aspect of the Grudge character is the fact that she has hair to hide her face, therefore making her a more mysterious character as you can't clearly see who she is.




The shot below is from 28 Weeks Later. This screen shots shows another affective way of making a character mysterious - by having them hiding/ looking through a gap. This makes the viewer unsure of who they are, but the eyes make the viewer clearly see that this character is one of the 'horror' characters in the film. In consideration of how the eyes are affective in this way, we would have to produce affective make-up to show the audience this is the horror character if we showed them hiding in this way, so we have decided not to use this way of making the character more mysterious.

Ideas for film

For our film we came up with the idea of changing our story board slightly, this is to develop our film. We thought that by changing this it would make the film beginning more scary, showing the genre of the film better.
We decided to change the shots to the ones below:

• Establishing shot of house

(Panning to show the whole road to set the scene)

• Long shot of characters having conversation in a room inside the house

(The conversation will consist of something like this:
Dad character: "So you going to look for Shandy"
Main character: "Yeah, where are the posters?"
Dad character: "Erm... over here" (hands posters)
Main character: "Bye Dad")

• Low angle panning shot of main characters feet walking
• Zooming medium shot of 'LOST CAT' poster being put up
• Low angle panning shot of main characters feet walking
• Long shot/ over the shoulder shot of main character walking into the woods
• Quick shots of - rustling hedge/light of torch/close up of eyes showing fear
• Point of view shot of the feet and then looking away
• Close up of eyes
• Point of view shot of torch going around the woods
• Close up of eyes
• More quick shots to show the fear of the main character clearly.