Filming - Woods Day 1 JB

Today we had our first day of filming in Sydenham woods. We ended up getting around two thirds of our filming done which is around what we expected. We filmed more than just our shot list so we have a few extra bits of footage we may use instead of the ones on our shot list. We started at 10am as planned and finished at around 2:30pm. It was hard to get everyone to show up on time but apart from one girl not showing up everyone was on time and arrived in suitable costume as well as behaving well. There were a few places we had to slightly change the location inside the woods because of wet benches etc. We are going to have to do one more day of filming in the woods, planned for Monday 23rd December but if there is rain that day we will have to reschedule.

Research magazine cover research EA

I have looked at a couple of Empire magazine covers and annotated them, when we make our cover we will be using their style. The company that owns the EMPIRE magazine is the Bauer Publishing Group. The BPG is the largest privately owned publisher in Europe, publishing in Germany, France, Spain, Portugal and the United Kingdom. Additionally, Bauer publishes in the United States and Mexico. The Bauer publishing Group was founded in Hamburg in 1875 by Johann Bauer. Under the management of four generations of the Bauer family. The Bauer Publishing Group has grown from its humble beginnings as a printing house into a worldwide publishing empire compromising 282 magazine in 15 countries with 6,600 employees worldwide and annual turnover of 1.79billion Euros.

Empire is the Uk's premier movie destination, providing indispensable insight to cinema, both blockbusting and classic. Online and in-print, Empire's unparalleled access has led to world-beating exclusives such as the first look at Heath Ledger's Joker, to extraordinary access to Steven Spielberg and George Lucas's backyards in the run up to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

They have a huge audience 76% of which is male, more specifically they target affluent abc1 movie fans and cinema hounds.

Poster Evaluations EA

Poster analysis ea from Reconpastry

Poster evaluations JB

Interview on Posters 2 EA JB

Below is an interview we conducted on 6 film posters that are similar genres to ours.
  

Interview on posters 1 EA JB

Below is an interview we conducted on 6 film posters that are similar genres to ours.

Organising Film JB

I've created a Facebook group to get everyone organised and let everyone know when we're filming, where and who's playing who. This is shown by the photo below.

Title Planning JB

One film that has influenced a lot is The Cabin in the Woods. This title doesn't play much with anything and gives an overview of the film very literally.

Other films that are similar to ours are The Woods have eyes and Cabin Fever, who's titles are posted below

We are going to use these sorts of ideas for our title including the word Woods and giving them characteristics of a human we think is quite effective. Woods.

Poster Survey JB

60% of the people asked didn't like horror films, all of which were females.

40% of the people asked did like horror films, all of which were males.

The Skeleton Key - 

When asked what most liked about the poster some answered with the eye image and one with the tree image. Some also answered that they didn't like the poster.

When asked what the poster made them feel some answered that it made them feel intrigued. Two people said that it made them not want to watch the film. Another said it made them feel worried for the person in the wheelchair.

Insidious -

When asked what most liked about the poster most of them said they liked the boy's eyes and the way the poster played with shadows and contrast of light and dark.

When asked what the poster made them feel a couple answered with annoyed/confused. One said it looked more like an alien film poster and the rest said it made them not want to watch it.

The Cabin in the Woods - 

When asked what most liked about the poster most said the house image and the idea of it being like a puzzle or rubix cube. One also said they liked the brightness of the poster.

When asked what the poster made them feel most said excited or intrigued about the house. One said that it didn't make them feel much.

Case 39 - 

When asked what most liked about the poster most of them said that they didn't like it at all and one said that they liked the simplicity of it.

When asked what the poster made them feel most said they didn't like it and it didn't make them feel much.

The Conjuring - 

When asked what most liked about the poster most said they liked the simplicity of it and others said they liked the doll and the fact the only colouring is on her.

When asked what the poster made them feel all of them answered scared or creeped out.

The Blaire Witch project - 

When asked what most liked about the poster most of them answered that the writing left them wanting more or the close up of the face was the best bit.

When asked what the poster made them feel some of them said intrigued about the writing or the symbol. Others said nothing at all.

The most liked poster was The Conjuring and the second most liked poster was The Cabin in the Woods.

When asked whether the fact a film is based on a true story makes them like it more 90% of them answered with yes as it makes it more interesting or scarier. One answered no because they said they don't really believe it.

When asked whether the names of actors/directors on the poster make them want to watch it more all of them said yes if it was an actor they liked or the director of another famous film or one they liked.

Schedule for Filming JB

We have decided to film during the following dates: 19th, 20th, 21st and 22nd of December.
We've checked all our cast members are free during this date and we should be ready to go to start filming. We've got our equipment including:
Camera
Tripod
Two Lights, each with two battery packs
Audio recorder
Directional mic + extension pole
Headphones

Script JB

We are going to have some talking in our film and so we've written a script below that we are going to roughly follow.

The first dialogue is between the policemen(P) and the ghost hunter(GH):
P1: There's been an accident in the forest, it's.. not.. ordinary
GH: How so?
P2: He means to say Sir, that we believe this to be a murder of the supernatural kind.
GH: Show me.
(On scene or voiceover)
GH: There's something wrong here.. I don't like this

The next dialogue will be the voiceover of one of the kids talking about the woods
"Did you guys hear about the jogger who died in these woods the other day? Some people say it wasn't human what killed him... I've heard stories about these woods. I've been told there's something that lives here who feeds on people. He picks on the weak first, and the ones who don't believe his tale, he hides in the trees and in the bushes and when your guard is down he STRIKES."

Time Management JB

Schedule for filming

We have decided to film during the following dates: 19th, 20th, 21st and 22nd of December.
We've checked all our cast members are free during this date and we should be ready to go to start filming. We've got our equipment including:
Camera
Tripod
Two Lights, each with two battery packs
Audio recorder
Directional mic + extension pole
Headphones

Finished Storyboard EA JB

Storyboard

Below is our storyboard with some sounds and effects added in.

Influences For Graphics EA

The Conjuring:

The conjuring has a more documentary style title sequence which can be incredibly effective, especially considering that the conjuring is based on a true story. The documentary style title sequence tends to have a grayscale color scheme, this old fashioned technique can be quite fear enspiring. Moreover it is usefull to get out as much information as possible in a short amount of time setting the film up, introducing the plot and characters. The font in these slides are all easily read except the titles of the pages, which are not particularly relevant to the cast and directors however it is of use to give background information on the plot line hence lines like "haunted artifacts museum".


Cabin In The Woods:

The cabin in the woods is set in a wood, however the title sequence does not show any of these woods. As you can see the title sequence is used to establish what is going on, therefore they show the interior of the organisation behind the intricate murders of the youngsters. The text is very legible and tends to be in block fonts which are large and attention grabbing. Moreover the text tends to be all rather central which makes it even more captivating. The colour scheme has a re-occuring red theme which is the typical 'horror colour' seen as it is the same colour as blood, we also see black, blue and grey. The blue and grey are for a more satirical approach to the horror genre as it tries to illustrate the lame life these workers lead in comparison to that which you experience later in the film.

Evil Dead:

The Evil Dead title sequence is very typical for a horror, the colour scheme is red and black which are both fear inspiring and signify blood and darkness. There is a lot of blood in the title sequence which I think we would be able to animate for our title sequence effectively. I have tested some blood animations in motion which seem to work well. The text is large, not particularly central and in block capitals. The reason they have not made it all central is because they don't need to, the titles are attention grabbing enough with them being in bright red and capitals as it contrasts from the black background, also the animations which appear centrally are important and provide the eerie horror feel to the sequence. The title of the film has looks as if it has been scratched away which provides a really nice look which I would also be interested in experimenting with or perhaps even using.

Plans for Graphics

Fonts:

Trailers use a variety of fonts to show different moods and basically to introduce the film, I have looked at a number of different fonts used in films to accentuate aspects to the audience.

Here are some examples of other fonts I am considering using for our title sequence.

These are all great horror type fonts which Josh and I will be thinking of using for our title. 

Color Scheme:

We will probably be inclined to make our horror poster have a dark colour scheme with red writing, this tends to be the typical horror standard and it works to a good level. However this really does depend on the image we want to use for our poster, we will do some research into what images our target audience like best to find out. 

As you can see for the cabin in the woods title sequence they like to stick to the red writing for the colour scheme which works very well, it lets the audience know that it is a horror. 

Filters:

Filters are great because they are easy to use and extremely effective at creating a different atmosphere, filters are typically used to make something seem more realistic. All films are filmed with a camera however sometimes they will add a filter or a special effect that makes it look like it is being filmed, a prime example of this is at the start of the trailer for "The Conjuring" it uses a filter similar to the one I found on motion called 'bad film' this makes it look like an old camera is filming the scene and generally adds tension and an eerie atmosphere to the trailer. Case 39 uses a lens flare effect which looks like this.

Sound:

For our narrative titles we have a few examples of things that we might want to use, the sounds in these narrative titles tend to be quite simple such as a drum or a sudden sound. The cabin in the woods has a perfect example of the type of sound we want to use for our narrative title slides at around 0:46, it is a quick short sound which accompanies the text saying "You think you know the story".  The same again happens at 0:54, this is perfect for what we are doing because it is quite easy for us to do and it can achieve great dramatic effect. Here is the video below. 

 

Movement:

Movement is crucial in our title sequence, there should not be too much because they are supposed to be very quick points of information which get the audience involved and thinking. The examples you have seen from the cabin in the woods at times 0:46 and 0:54 are excellent ways of showing a narrative title, the way that only a  bit of the writing appears at first and then the rest comes after, this builds tension and adds effect. 

Research and Aspects For Sound JB

Sound JB

Sound is a massive part of our film. We are going to use lots of different foley sounds, 3 different soundtracks and also diegetic sound. Below is a soundscape of lots of different foley sounds that we could possibly use in our film. I've downloaded these off of various different copyright free sound websites. They're saved onto my hard drive and in the editing process I may come back and use them, or look for some more. There is also a wide range of foley sounds already installed on Final Cut Pro that I can use.

As we also need to use music soundtracks i've researched a few different soundtracks as well. Below are a few different soundtracks that i've got from either YouTube or different copyright free websites. With the YouTube videos i've asked for permission to use them in my film and the people who own the songs have accepted this use. 

This video is a horror movie soundtrack someone made for their media product and eventually didn't use, they said to message them if anyone wanted to use it so this could be a potential use for our film.

Below is another horror movie soundtrack that's on YouTube. This one is available for use in anything but for a small price, so this could also potentially be a use for our film.

Below is a long copyright free soundtrack I've found online. It is a very long soundtrack and goes through several different moods and tones and so I could definitely use some of this and not others for my films. I've also layered some other sounds on top of it during the first two minutes which has shown me it's quick to make the soundtrack sound even better and so I will do something very similar for my final piece.