Stressed

Okay so today we were supposed to try and film again, but our actor, Connor, wasn't able to film today so our plans fell through. I'm really stressed out now because we only have a week to film and I was really hoping that we were gonna start filming over our spring break. I think we're going to start to film on Monday and try to finish on Tuesday but I'm really worried that we're not going to have enough time to edit our production and we're also going to have to make foley sound effects. I  really hope we have enough time to do all that. I'm really hoping our project comes out good and everything goes according to plan. I don't want to have to make any changes to our film and I really wan't it to look professional.

Distribution

When my partner and I are done filming our opening I want to share it with other people and post it online so that people can see what we've created. Of course I'm going to post the opening right here on my blog so that I can fully complete it, but I also want to distribute it to a bigger audience. I think I'm going to post the opening on YouTube because that will make it easy to access and I think I will also share the link on my social media accounts so that my friends are able to see it. If the opening doesn't turn out how we planned, then I'm not sure if I'm gonna want to post it on social media, but we'll see how everything turns out. Also, if our film turns out good, I want to enter it in the Film Festival! I really hope everything works out and our opening turns out good!

Trying To Film

So today we planned to start our first day of filming but things didn't go as planned. We were supposed to go to my partner Taylor's house and we did but we weren't able to film anything when we got there because her cleaning lady was there and we couldn't film with the noise of the vacuum. After we all met up at her house, we decided to go to our cameraman, Tomas' house. After we got in his car, Taylor's dad called her and told her that she needed to get her dog from the vet so we drove back to her house and tried to work out a plan, but then Tomas told us that he could only stay til 4 PM so we weren't going to have enough time to film. I really wish we could've filmed and we should have planned it out better but we all agreed to film on Saturday and we will have all of next week to film. I hope everything works out on Saturday and we plan better!

Coloring

Since our project has a creepy tone I want to have a dark tint over the film and turn down the saturation. I’m thinking we can kind of have a blue hue to our film and turning down the saturation to make it look washed out and creepy. I have a program on my laptop called Magic Bullet Looks that allows you to add different colorings to projects and I think it’ll be very useful for our film. The Netflix show, Ozark, has a blue tint to the coloring and I really enjoy how it looks, so that’s kind of an example of how I want our film to look. I also want to have some dark lighting in our film to make it look ominous and creepy. I’m thinking we can have a couple scenes with lowkey lighting to show the danger of our main character. Below are examples from the show Ozark and examples of lowkey lighting.

Creepy Tunes

I’ve been wondering about what my partner and I are gonna do about the music in our film opening. I like the idea of a creepy song playing in the background and I was even humming the song Mr Sandman while we worked on our storyboard because I think that song is really creepy and works well with horror. The song was even used in Halloween 2 and last year when I went to Halloween horror nights, the song was playing outside the Halloween house which was inspired by the movie. There was also a remake of the song that I heard playing in the show Bates Motel, which is a spin-off from the movie Psycho. For our project I think we should have a song playing in the background but also have diagetic sounds that the audience can hear. If we end up using background music I really want to use Mr Sandman but I’m not sure if it’s royalty free or if I have to get the rights to it so I’m definitely gonna look into that

If we’re not able to use the song then I’m gonna try to find another creepy song or maybe we just wont have any background music at all. If we don’t have any music then we’ll probably have to make foley sounds. I don’t think I’d mind making the Foley sounds because the sound project was my favorite project so far in the class and I had fun making it. I was also thinking about using stings to make our opening more intense and dramatic .

Target Audience

I've been wondering about the target audience of our film so I think it's time I make a post about it. A target audience is basically the group of people who are most likely to watch and enjoy your production. A production has to appeal to a certain target audience in order for the audience to enjoy it. Target audiences help promote films and spread the word about them. The target audience for horror films is usually a younger audience.The usual ages for the target audience of a horror film is 15-25. This is probably because horror films tend to not make the audience think and they don't require much intellect. Young adults and teenagers enjoy the thrill that horror movies give them, thrillers are more likely to excite a younger audience rather than an older one. 

Younger audiences are more likely to be less affected by graphic images and can actually be drawn to them. Older audiences are usually put off by graphic images and would rather watch something with more intellect. Also, horror films are aimed at males more than females because men enjoy violence more than women and because men are known to be less mature than women. Horror films are also mostly targeted at middle class audiences because the films are cheap thrills. Horror films attract groups of teenagers because a lot of horror films have teenagers as the main characters, which could allow the audience to relate to the film. 

The horror movie IT is a good example of target audiences because the original movie was released in 1990 and the remake was released in 2017; because of this, the remake of the film can appeal to older and younger audiences. It can appeal to an older audience because the older people would want to see a movie that they once enjoyed and see a different version of it, and it can appeal to a younger audience because of the special effects and just simply because it's a horror movie. 

“Horror Film Target Audience.” LinkedIn SlideShare, 21 Oct. 2014, www.slideshare.net/isaac97media/horror-film-target-audience.

New Ideas!

I met with different groups today and they gave me a couple of good ideas. Someone in my group told me that we could show our main character carrying his suitcase to his car and then opening the trunk and putting the suitcase in, and while the trunk is open we see a shovel in the trunk. I thought this was a really good idea and I really wanna use it. Someone else in the group gave me an idea of having the news report say where the missing person was last seen and then we can show that the killer has a calendar with the place written on the date the person became missing. I think these ideas could help to show the subtle hints that our main character is a killer and I'm really happy that I was able to meet with other people and get these new ideas. Also, I enjoyed helping my other group members with their projects and I liked giving them ideas.

After I was done meeting with my group I met up with Taylor and she was so excited because her group gave her some really good ideas. There was one idea that she was super excited about and it was that we can show a shot of a locked door and then the audience can hear the voice of a little girl say "help me" and then our opening will end. We both really like this idea because it will make our opening really creepy and that's the vibe we want it to give. I can't wait to incorporate these new ideas into our project!

Finished Storyboard

So we finally finished our storyboard and our opening is looking really good! Obviously everything on the board isn't definite and we're probably going to make some changes to the opening once we start filming, but it's a way for us to visualize our idea and let us see how it's going to look. We plan on incorporating many cool and unique angles in our opening and I can't wait to see how it looks on camera. Also, we've decided our location, which is going to be at my partner Taylor's house and our actor is going to be a boy named Conner who is in our class. Now all we need to do is figure out exactly what day we're going to start shooting and we have to get the props we need. We also have to make sure that the person who is going to help us film is still available and we have to make sure we can use his camera. So far everything is working smoothly and I'm super excited to start filming!

Character Development and Costume Design

Our story has a lot to do with character development because our story revolves around one character and we are trying to show the audience what a day is like in his life. Basically our whole opening is developing our character and seeing how his mood changes when he realizes that he could be exposed for the person he truly is. Our opening isn't going to have a lot of dialogue so we have to develop our character through actions and facial expressions. Our facial expressions are going to be small because we decided to only show extreme close ups of our main characters face and not show his full face. To further develop our character, we might set up some posters in his room to show his interests. By showing our character's daily routine, it will show that he is a very neat and clean person who doesn't like things out of place. Also, showing our subtle hints that our character is a serial killer will develop his character by showing what his main purpose is and why the story revolves around him.

The costume design is probably going to be easy because our character is gonna be a man in his early 30's who works in a business. First we will have our character in simple pajamas, like a t-shirt and loose pants, and then we're going to have the character in a suit for when he's getting ready for his job. The costumes have to represent the visual styles of the production and give the audience context. From looking at our character's costume design, the audience will probably be able to tell that the story takes place in present day. We also have to use costume design for the person who goes missing and their clothes are seen in our main characters house. We want to make the character a young girl, so we just have to find clothes that look like they belong to a young girl.

This is what our main character's costumes will probably look like:

Starting Our Storyboard

While my partner and I were in class today, we decided to scrap the idea of having our story take place in the 1960’s, we decided to do this because it would be too difficult to show a home in that time period due to how different the style of a home was. So now our story takes place in modern times and we can use technology to our advantage. Since we made this decision, we decided it would be a good time to start our storyboard and draw out our ideas. While in class, we came up with so many good shots that are going to make our production look very professional. So far we only have the very beginning of our story but I really like how it's looking so far! We've decided not to show the face of our main character to make our film opening more interesting and keep the audience wanting more. This is all we have so far for the storyboard but we're going to add more soon!

Set Design

My partner and I have been developing our plot and trying to figure out what time period we want  our film to take place in; we came up with an idea that could alter the time period of our film but I think it's a really good idea. Basically our idea would place our character in the 1950's or 1960's because our character would have to be listening to a radio so we think it would make sense to make the time period in the 1900's. This idea isn't definite but if we decide to go through with it then we have to make big decisions about our set design.

If we want to make our time period in the 1950's or 1960's, we have to make it look realistic and make our audience feel like they were transported into this time. The set design will give our audience some context and my partner and I want to incorporate objects from the 1950's or 60's into our production to really emphasize the time period. I was thinking that we could have posters from the time period and music from the time period could be playing in the background. My partner, Taylor, suggested that we shoot our film at her Grandma's house because it has a vintage aesthetic and it will make the time period look more realistic. Since our story revolves around a serial killer, it would make sense to place the character in the 1960's because that was a time when there were many serial killers. Also, the set design will help us develop our character because it could show his interests and we might show personal objects that are important to our character. If we want to have our time period in the 1900's then we're gonna have to make a distinct costume for our main character and make sure he's wearing the accurate clothing for that time period.

This is an example of what a home looked like in the 1950's, I think that we could somehow alter a set to resemble this

Making Our Schedule!

In order to have an organized project, we have to develop a schedule that will allow us to easily manage our time. I know we have to film soon and I’m nervous for that because we still have to fully develop our idea, get an actor, find a shooting location, and get our props. I really think having a schedule will help us through this process so this is what my partner and I came up with!

Week 2 (3/5-3/11)
- Fully develop idea
- Do more research (set design, character development)
- Finish postings
- Find an actor
- Find shooting location
- Get some props
- Start storyboard
- Figure out shooting schedule

Week 3 (3/12-3/18)
- Finish postings
- Try to start filming
- Adress any issues with production
- Focus on scenes that will take more time than others
- Research (distribution, production, and costume design)
- Finish storyboard

Week 4 (3/19-3/25)
- Finish postings
- Have filming officially start
- Make sure everything is running smoothly
- Have appropriate equipment for filming

Week 5 (3/26-4/1)
- Finish postings
- Finish filming
- Re film anything that is faulty
- Start editing

Week 6 (4/2-4/8)
- Finish editing
- Finish postings
- Start on CCR
- Fix any issues

Week 7 (4/14)
- Finish postings
- Finish CCR and submit
- Submit film opening

Developing our idea

Taylor and I are coming up with so many ideas! We've decided that we want to hint at our main character being a killer by showing little clues and hints throughout the opening. We're gonna try to subtly show the clues but we have to make it somewhat obvious so that the audience gets the gist of what the story is about. So far we've only thought of a couple scenes but I really like them so far.

Our story begins with a man waking up and getting ready in the bathroom, we want to include a scene of the character opening a medicine cabinet and inside there's a pair of bloody scissors. Then we're going to show the man making breakfast and show something like a bloody knife, we also want to incorporate the credits in the process of this routine. Next we're going to show the man switch on the television and allow the audience to hear a reporter speaking about a missing person and describe what they were wearing the last time they were seen, and announce that the parents of the missing person won't stop until their child is found, which will leave the audience wanting more. Then the camera will show the man quickly turn off the television. We haven't figured out how we're going to do this yet, but we want to show the missing person's clothing somewhere in the man's home to show that he abducted the missing person.

These ideas aren't definite but we want to do something like this!