Magazine Cover

Choice of Trailer

We will be making a highlight trailer. Because we are producing an action horror trailer we need to use the biggest and best moments from the films action sequences and show small pieces from them, to generate excitement.

 We will be doing a red-band trailer as this allows us to show the gore elements of our film. Also with a red-band it means we have no restrictions when making the film. Then we can explore body horror with freedom in the trailer. This would allow us to land a “sucker punch” on the audience which George A. Romero spoke about in the Documentary The dead will walk in which he speaks about landing a big moment of gore earlier on to really shock the audience and catch them off guard. In Dawn of the Dead his sucker punch is the head explosion earlier on in the film which shows the audience what type of film it is going to be, a 18 certificate gory horror.  

Mood Board - Planning

Mood Board 2 Planning: Why we chose them

The image with Freddy standing in the hallway was chosen because the way the lighting is makes him appear as a silhouette. This consequently makes him seem creepy, because we fear the unknown, which in this case is the figure at the end of the hallway. The lighting also creates a tense atmosphere due to the mist, making us feel empathetic towards the final girl. In the other NOES pictures they both carry on with the silhouette theme, and also have Freddy wearing the hat, which relates to our scarecrow, who also wears a hat.

Scarecrow’s face from Batman Begins was chosen because it is a very simple mask, but very effective because you can still see the person’s eyes, which is quite disturbing. It was also chosen because the idea of The Scarecrow from Batman spreading fear was one we wanted to somehow use in our trailer.

The barn in the mood board is very similar to that of the one from Ed Gein, in which he hangs up a woman and cuts her open. We hope to have a decent level of gore in our trailer. This follows on to the crow image which we chose because we would like a crow to be with the scarecrow, and for it to eat people. The crow can connote evil, but it will be twisted around in our trailer because the crow is actually a friend to the scarecrow.

The scene from Cabin in the Woods was chosen for the level of gore it involves. The film is practically gore-less until that scene, which makes it even more unsettling and shocking. The image of the dead woman was also chosen due to its realistic nature, which makes it seem more disturbing because it is a real life death.

Chad from Tucker and Dale vs Evil is on the mood board because we believe him to be a typical male character that is generally not a very nice person, and also ends up dying in an incredibly brutal way.

The Birds on the climbing frame was chosen mainly due to the scene from The Birds in general when they are all squawking and flying around then go completely silent. This is collision cutting, but it is done in such a way that it just isn’t expected because crows aren’t thought to be violent animals.

Audience Research 1a: Class Poster

Audience research 1b: Class Poster Feedback

Plot details of your idea:

Lenny grew up on a farm with his mum and dad. His parents died when he was seven and he took it upon himself to look after the farm. A pack of crows ravaged him one day, disfiguring Lenny. He vowed to protect the farm so any trespassers he sees he kills, dressed as a scarecrow. A group of drunken teens wander onto the farm for a party, and this doesn’t bode well for their survival.   

Positive responses from class members:

Class members said that we had a good narrative and history for Lenny. The bad guy is iconic and memorable. And also there is an element of realism to the villain, making it that bit scarier, the suggestion of child abuse linking to a horrible real life event.  

Negative responses from class members:

Some people said that some features where a bit too crazy, especially the ending where we wanted Lenny to be eaten by crows. However after looking back on this idea it would be very hard to film. So we changed the ending to having the scarecrow alone in the field and then a crow lands of his shoulder, and then he starts to move. We felt this change was needed so the realism was maintained.

How many voted to say that they watched the film, where did it come out of all the groups:

We got 19/19 in votes from the class, meaning we finished as the top idea for the whole group. This shows why we decided to take it on for our trailer. The idea was clearly very popular with the class, and they are our target audience, so picking the film was the right choice.

Are you happy with the score? Do you think the idea is worth making?

We are extremely happy with the score as it is top marks. It shows that this idea is exactly what the audience are drawn to. We feel that this is worth making, as we could do it. We feel we could make a really good trailer from this idea which we get us a high grade.

 

Psycho (1960) Shot analysis (1)

In this shot, Norman is dressed as his mother and is about to stab Marion. He is back lit and in silhouette to create suspense because we do not know who the killer is at this point. This shot is taken with a handheld camera, which then goes to very fast paced montage of shots which include some point of view shots and close ups, so you can see the emotion on Marion’s face.

Because Norman is dressed up as his mother, this gives the audience the stereotypical horror ideology of being outside the CDI, because what Norman does is obviously not normal. This also relates to the historical context of the film because in 1957 Ed Gein had been arrested after murdering lots of people, dressed as his mother. This scene illustrates the importance of genre theory as written by Thomas Schatz’s “Hollywood Genres” because it has lots of horror conventions in it, but it also shows the important of Janet Staiger’s “Audience Studies” theory in that the references to Ed Gein would have made the film even more powerful in 1960.

Psycho (1960) Shot Analysis (2)

In this scene Marion is undressing and Norman is watching her through a spyhole. This is Norman being a voyeur, meaning that he can see her, but she can’t see him. This could reflect Hitchcock’s auteur style because he was somewhat of a voyeur in real life, and the Upcoming movie Hitchcock explores his obsession with blonde stars. The low key lighting also connotes that Norman is evil and dark. Furthermore there is light coming from Marion’s room, which connotes that even though Marion has stolen the money she is still a good character, which is then proven because she decides to give the money back. Just after this shot we get a POV shot from Norman, and we see Marion undressing and this makes the audience feel uneasy because it is outside of the CDI. We don’t actually see Marion naked, because at the time censorship was very strict with the Hays Code, Marion could only be shown taking her shirt off instead of her bra, but it is still uncomfortable us to see through the eyes of a seedy voyeur.

Psycho (1960) Shot analysis (3)

In this scene Norman has invited Marion back into his office. Norman tells Marion is a taxidermist, and we are shown the stuffed birds in the background. This could connote that Marion is going to be ‘stuffed’ by Norman, which we find out later on to be true.

The Stuffed bird in the top left of the shot is an owl, which is a bird of prey. The shot is a low angle expressionist shot, possibly connoting that Norman is the bird of prey and Marion the prey.

This also leads to the conclusion that Norman is a misogynist because we assume that he has killed other women. The birds also relate to Ed Gein, but in a more sanitised way, because Ed Gein collected bones and body parts from corpses and made furniture from them.

Yet we also feel sorry for Norman here because it seems he has invited Marion in so he can have a friendly chat with her, because he has been isolated and feels like he is outside the CDI. There is a slight hint that Norman is insane because when Marion ask if his mother could be put away, Norman is offended and starts ranting about asylums. He says ‘they clack their thick tongues’, and becomes very angry at the thought of his mother being insane.

Dawn of the Dead (1979) Shot analysis (1)

In this scene Fran has just had sex with Flyboy (Steven). We can see from their facial expressions that they are incredibly fed up of what they are doing at the moment. This relates to Fran feeling that they are trapped in the mall (shown when she says shortly after this scene: “Can’t you see we’re prisoners here?”) and that they are zombies wandering the mall like they would in their everyday lives, because they are consumerist. Fran and Flyboy are zombies in their own way, because they have gotten into a routine of their own, and have become slaves to consumerism and greed.
Fran is also shown very differently in this scene in comparison to the other scene when she is putting make-up on. Just before this scene, she is putting make-up on we also get shots of mannequins, which is Romero comparing Fran to the mannequins, saying that she is not really living.
This reflects George. A. Romero’s “auteur” style (the concept that directors put their ideologies into their films which was written about by Andrew Sarris in “Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962”) in which he puts in issues of the zeitgeist Into many of his films.