Pitch and Ideas (SD)

Our short film 'Red Run' is a thrilling story about a night that will stay with you for the rest of your life, The resurrection of a past evil will send a young couple fighting for their lives in a emotional whirl wind where only one will survive.

The concept for our film has been taken from the films Childs Play, Friday the 13th & Halloween. The killer in our film is a doll like in Childs Play and the idea from it coming to life is also from Childs Play but the idea of how it is resurrected is from Friday the 13th as the doll is resurrected/brought to life by electrocution. At the start of our film we have come up with the idea of someone walking towards the house in a POV shot, using a GoPro Headcam, this idea is based around the start of the film Halloween, but instead of having the person in POV as the killer, we are planning to place a false scare into this somehow.

The basic idea of the storyline is that, the girlfriend is going to bring the doll into the house of her boyfriends when she goes round there, she could of found it outside on her way there or something like that. She then gives it to the boyfriend as a joke or present if we plan on making the boy a slasher film enthusiast, the two then go upstairs to have sexual intercourse implying there both impure and that they deserve it in the slasher genre world, we are then going to have a time lapse on the window showing it going from night to morning, the girl then wakes up and says she must go home as she didn't intend to stay over and her mum will be angry, she then leaves the house, but as the boy is running and telling her to wait up, just after she leaves the house and closes the door, he trips up at the top of the stairs, falling down them. This is where the doll comes into play, somehow between the time of it coming into the house and this it is going to be electrocuted, this could happen as the boys running after her girlfriend before he falls down the stairs, as he's running out of the bedroom he could knock over a glass of something maybe alcohol which will emphasize their impurities. When the boy falls down the stairs the doll then goes to get a knife, when this is all happening the girlfriend has realised she has forgotten something and has to go back, will she get to the house on time?

Treatment & Influences

Treatment for Red Run

Next Scheduled Filming

Sam and I are re-filming our new idea tomorrow (21/03/11) at the new location, please refer to a previous blog to read about the re-locating. We also aim to edit after filming and we don't have a lot to film. Sam and I also plan on recording our soundtrack tomorrow. I'll keep you updated with posts tomorrow post filming.

Re-locating

Sam and I are thinking about re-locating; the new location will be at Sam's house. We won't have a lot to film, and if we did it would be very unrealistic to think that we would get it all re-filmed in time for the coursework deadline on Friday 23rd of March. We only need to re-film the scene of the teenage boy making a cup of tea, the walking around the side of the house and creating the false scare and introducing the female character. We are re-locating simply because we don't have enough footage with the new character (female) and the actress for this doesn't have a lot of spare time and it will be a lot easier and quicker to film at Sam's house as the actress lives a lot closer to it than she does from mine. After filming, i'll blog to let everyone know how it went.

Filming Our New Idea - Vlog

LS29 Productions talking about our recent filming and using the GoPro head camera!

Mise-en-scene - Main Location

A tour around one of the main locations in our film opening, Red Run

Filming From A Point Of View Shot

This is some of the footage filmed from last night (19/03/11). The shot is a lead up to a false scare and obviously in this shot the character isn't scared when creeped up on but this is because we're filming his surprised reaction from a different shot. Ignoring the acting and the clip being un-edited, Sam and I are happy with this take and think the GoPro head cam which was used to film it worked really well and the take is effective. The GoPro camera used to film it straps onto a headband, worn by Sam as he walks around the side of the house.

The camera that Sam and I used to film the shot.

Sam and I got the idea for this shot from the opening scene of Halloween when someone walks around the house and looks through the window at two characters inside. I think that we have done a good job at recreating the shot with the twist of the false scare, although this can't be scene yet as this clip is only raw footage and we are yet to add the other shots to make the whole false scare shot.

Screenshot from the opening scene of Halloween.

Another screenshot, getting closer.

Stalking the two characters.

Walking around the house in the same way as the character in Red Run.

 Once edited, i'll post the new cut. Please leave comments and feedback to help Sam and I to improve

Gender In 'Red Run'

The story line of Sam and I's film opening is mostly male orientated. Stereotypically, men enjoy tension, violence, killing and action in a film where as women may prefer comedy, love, romance and happiness. However, this is being extremely stereotypical and it's possible that females may also enjoy LS29's film opening as they could like the idea of the killer doll.

To relate back to the target audience for our slasher opening, it may be too broad to state that it's unlikely that females wouldn't enjoy the film opening as much because males would like it too, it may depend on the age of the people as to whether they enjoy the film opening or not. The main character in the film it a typical teenage boy, please click here to read a blog post about the characters in the film opening. Anyway, with the main character being the stereotypical 'Jockey' character from the slasher genre, it edges the film opening to be more male orientated. However, LS29 have decided to introduce a new character to make Red Run more interesting and to encourage a more female audience.

We believe that a female character could encourage a more female audience as the females may think that with only a male character, Red Run is only male orientated and that with a female character, it will be more balanced and even, encouraging both genders to watch the film opening. The mise-en-scene in the film opening however, is male orientated and this is because the majority of the setting is in a teenage boy's bedroom. Click here to read a previous blog post about the mise-en-scene in the film opening, Red Run.

A typical teenage room where a big part of Red Run is filmed.

The relationship between the two characters is mutual and it's not as if the male is dominant over the female as this patriarchal view would most likely put females off watching the film opening. Overall, Sam and I have tried to keep the film opening as unisex and mutual as possible. Only one person is killed in the film opening and this is the male but the female still plays a big part in the opening.

Characters (SD)

We are planning on having 2 main characters although this could increase after filming more and structuring our idea's fully. These 2 characters are going to be a boy and a girl both teenage. The boy / Dillon shares some the characteristics of a possible characteristics of an American 'Jocky', the common scream kings in the slasher genre, he is of average height, brown hair and as a character in this film, plays the part of someone whom is relatively sexually active and 'impure'. The other role/character in the film is the girlfriend of this boy, we haven't decided yet whether or not we'll have her as a scream queen or final girl, most likely scream queen as she is portrayed in this film as a sexually active young teenage girl and will most likely will have blonde hair although we still have not decided on who to use as the actor for this role.

Location & Mise-en-scene (SD)

The main or only location in our film at the moment is outside and inside of Dillon (Tell William Production)'s house. This location is perfect for what we're trying to accomplish as it suits most Slasher film characteristics as the house is in an urban location and it isn't detached; it's of an average size and an average household that you wouldn't think twice about, therefore it will hopefully relate to most of our audience. Our audience has been acknowledged on a previous blog post, please click here to read about our target audience for Red Run.

 

The Mise-en-scene we are using is also already as he want it, as the boy's room or Dillon's bedroom already shows all the characteristics of a normal, average, stereotypical teenage boy; such as a messy room, posters of girls, artists like Bob Marley and sport role models. The rest of the house gives signifiers that it's simply a normal, middle class household where you wouldn't expect supernatural occurrences to take place; fitting into the slasher genre and being fairly stereotypical.

Re-Filming

LS29 are filming again tonight (19/03/12) and we aim to get a lot done and to use the feedback we received from our last rough cut to improve our 4th rough cut majorly. We have a new idea which we are going to try out tonight; to see this idea please refer to a previous blog post. The idea shouldn't take a long time to film but we will film it several times to make sure that we get the shot to be as good as it possibly can be. The feedback that Sam and I received from our 3rd rough cut was that there are some good ideas in there and the media product could be good but it needs a lot of work doing to ensure so, one of the aspects being framing.

Sam and I when filming for our 3rd rough cut, didn't take the framing as seriously as we should have done and we didn't think about it as much as we should have done. For example, there's a shot of the main character on his phone and it's a close up of his hand; however, in the background there's a poster with a close up of the hand and this ruins the shot and it looks terrible. It's such a simple mistake but it effects the final product drastically.

This is an example of poor framing in Red Run.

After filming tonight, I'll post some preview clips of the rough cut, asking for opinions and feedback so that Sam and I can work to improve it once again in the short time that we have. Please click here to see the new idea that LS29 have and aim to film and post tonight.

Representations In Our Film Opening

We have established the target audience for our film opening to be teenagers or young adults and more specifically, males. This is backed up by our main character being a stereotypical male teenager. The stereotypical male teen is portrayed as a scream queen figure; he will be the male scream queen and the female character that Sam and I are yet to introduce will be the stereotypical female scream queen with blonde hair and references to being sexually active. We have attempted to portray the main character to be a male scream queen in several ways. For example, in the mise en scene we have included posters that make references to drugs and sex.

This shot contains a Bob Marley poster in the background which makes relates to drug use. Also, behind the laptop, there is a poster of naked women which relates to the character being sexually active. The joggers that the character is wearing connote to the character being lazy, like stereotypical teenagers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This shot shows the character rolling down his blinds which represents it being night time, when most killings in the slasher genre occur!

LS29 Productions' Ident

This is LS29's first ident. We are happy with this and feel as though it looks professional and will certainly look good when it's used at the beginning of our film opening. However, it's not the final product and to improve it, Sam and I need to add some sound to it which shouldn't be hard, we can just use a simple sound that we will create ourselves in a program called Garage Band. Another thing that we can improve with this ident as we gathered from our feedback on it is that it isn't long enough and should fade in, fade out and show the LS29 Productions text for longer. Please take a look at our ident and help us by providing some feedback

Untitled from Sam Daffern on Vimeo.

Next Scheduled Filming Of Red Run

Sam and I have organised to film this Saturday (17/03/12) and Monday (19/03/12). We will then edit that night and possibly Tuesday if we don't get finished so that we can hand in our 4th rough cut on the Wednesday and gain feedback. With the feedback we receive, we will film again on Wednesday (21/03/12) taking the feedback into consideration and creating a final cut to hand in on Friday (23/03/12) so that it can be marked and given back with more feedback.

Sam and I don't want to be handing in a rough cut which we know isn't as good as we know our potential can achieve and this is why we're going to hand in a 4th rough cut, simply to gain feedback before our final cut so that it can be as good as it possibly could be.

Creating A Soundtrack

With the deadline looming, Sam and I need to create a soundtrack. In our 3rd rough cut we used the song 'Red light indicates doors are secured' By the Arctic Monkeys. We feel like this song fitted in well with the teenage image that we're trying to portray as the main character is supposed to give the impression to the audience that he's a male scream queen as he has two posters included in the mise en scene in the bedroom, one being Bob Marley which symbolises drug use and one of naked women which symbolises him being sexual active.

Anyway, because Sam and I know that we can't use the Arctic Monkeys song because of copyright reasons, we included it in our 3rd rough cut simply to see whether people enjoyed it and think that it worked well. The feedback we received was positive and most of the audience agree that if it wasn't breaching copyright laws, it would have been a great song to use.

With this feedback, Sam and I have decided to record our own version of the song which should hopefully work just as well and won't breach any copyright terms. Sam plays the bass guitar and I play the electric guitar, so between us we think that we'll be able to create a good soundtrack. Our other alternative is to make the soundtrack using Garage Band but we believe that we can learn and record the Arctic Monkeys song in the same amount of time as it would take for us to create a soundtrack in Garage Band. Once we have recorded the soundtrack we will upload it for feedback and comments.

Rough Cut 3 With Feedback

There are a lot of obvious mistakes with this rough cut and Sam and I aren't particularly impressed with it as we know we could have and should have done better. The first mistake is that we have included diegetic sound from the film opening in the idents; this is very wrong as we have now lost the original sound from the idents, however we could include sound from the video but less of it with it fading in and after the sound of the idents has finished so that we create an audio bridge. Another mistake is the shaky camera work on the long shot of the house and there shouldn't be a person in the window on the bottom floor because this makes the setting less Slasher like as the house if creepier if it's empty except for the main characters who will be attacked by the killer doll. Sam and I also experimented with colour efffects to make the video look like it's a flashback and that is explained at the end of the video with the women on the phone telling the story but now we've decided that this is to complex and unnecessary.

With our next rough cut, Sam and I have a new idea which has been explained in a previous blog post and we will also improve it by correcting these mistakes and posting the next rough cut so that we can gain feedback telling us whether we've improved or not and what we can still do to progress.

A New Idea

After gaining feedback on our 3rd rough cut, Sam and I have concluded that to improve our media product we need to do several things; add another character, preferably a scream queen stereotype (blonde hair and sexually active) because this fits in with the slasher genre, take more time to cut into the action of the killer doll as we introduce the main character too quickly as we need to build tension and suspense and also show the killer doll being brought to life through electrocution which we did for our first 2 rough cuts but decided to leave out for the 3rd. Also, it would be a good idea to create a false scare are the beginning of the slasher film opening because this also links in well with the slasher genre. A false scare is a good way of getting the audience's attention and introducing the characters to them.

To create the false scare, LS29 will film the girlfriend character (scream queen) from a point of view shot as she walks up to the house of her boyfriend; this has been used in slasher films before such as Black Christmas and Halloween although they weren't false scares, they were the real killer. Also, we will add some intertextuality with the media products from other students in my media class and providing the audience with anchorage that the doll, which will be a joke present from the girlfriend to the boyfriend as the main character and killer doll from one of our fellow student's slasher film opening. The girl will be walking up to the house whilst the boy is in the kitchen making a cup of tea with his back facing the doors that the girl will be sneaking into and creeping up on him, scaring him and creating a false scare.

By creating this false scare, Sam and I will be hopefully improving our media products in several ways; for example, we will be increasing the length of it to the preferred length of time for the slasher opening as it's too short as it is now. Also, we will be able to introduce the characters more slowly and build tension and suspense and when we do introduce them during the false scare, we will be introducing them in a more effective way and we will hopefully have gained the audiences attention and interest more. Once LS29 have filmed this, we will post it as a blog and ask for feedback. We plan to film this on Saturday (17/03/12)

Red Run - Rough Cut 2 Feedback (SD)

The audience/class's feedback was that the takes were too long which made the clips look less believable or real compared to the fast paced cuts you see nowadays.

The killing was also too long on both the doll and the body being stabbed, so we plan to make these cuts fast and sharp and also probably change the fake blood as the mixture we used for this was too orange.

Another bit of criticism was lack of sound or a sound track, so were are going to try make on ourselves either on garage band or simply with guitars and bass.

Target Audience

The target audience for LS29's film opening is younger people rather than old, roughly 16-25. We have gone for this target audience because the storyline of the film opening is similar to that of Child's Play; a series of films based on a killer doll, that's brought to life also through electrocution but through other methods too such as voodoo. Some differences with LS29's film opening and the Child's Play series is that the doll is the spirit of a person; a serial killer called Charles Lee Ray where as Sam and I's film opening hasn't got that included, it could be the case but there simply isn't enough time to expose that.

Our film opening, we believe, also fits in with the Child's Play film's target audience (16-25) and this is because the younger the person, stereotypically the more imaginative they are when it comes to films, either imaginative or simply easier to please. This means that the younger the person, the more they are supposedly going to enjoy the idea of a doll being alive and not only alive, but a killer too. Sam and I believe that the older the person, the less likely they are to embrace the killer doll concept and they may see it as being childish, especially with the story line being similar to that of Child's Play. It's not so much that Sam and I think that the older age group won't enjoy our film opening, it's simply that we believe they may not enjoy the storyline; however, we may be wrong and they could possibly enjoy the film opening as long as they find the killer doll's role in the film believable and effective.

The young audience that Sam and I are targeting could be easily accessed through social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. The older age group may be harder to promote our film to because there is a lot less older people on Facebook and Twitter. Our film opening, like the Child's Play series may be seen as inappropriate by some people due to the killer in the slasher genre being a Child's toy, in this case a doll. If this was to happen, it would most likely be older people thinking like this and this is another reason why they're less likely to targeted as an audience. The young people however may feel even more encouraged to watch the film if older people are contesting it like they did with the Child's Play films.