Planning - Titles

Malevolent Phantom

Titles 

Planning - Storyboard

Malevolent Phantom

Storyboard

Planning - Script

Malevolent Phantom
Script

[road noise, cars passing by - contradicted by silence of location the characters are now in, only the sound of tweeting birds and their feet walking]

L: Yeah so that was really good fun wasn't it

R: [overlapping] Yeah that was really good

L: Yeah so we're doing cinema tomorrow night aren't we

A: [overlapping] Yeah

L: Yeah right, see you then,then

[hugging goodbye]

R: Bye

A: Bye

L: Right See you

[sound of footsteps walking away - distant sound of traffic and civilisation]

L: [heavy breathing as music tempo rises, cut off by sound of phone ringing]

Oh hi mum 

[pause to hear response from caller]

Oh what you want me home now?! uuh [looking around, unsure what to do and annoyed by the information given to them] Okay [looks around, chooses woodlands path instead of road] Right well I'll be home in a minute, Okay [angered/anxious tone in her voice] See you

[sound of footsteps as Lucy walks away, sound of piece of paper hitting the ground]

L: uuh 

[sound of creatures footsteps as he turns to walk and follow Lucy]
L: [heavy breathing as MV appears to be following her]
[footsteps, rustling of leaves, as MV gets closer footsteps increase in pace until she's running at full pace, pauses for breath as she believes she has out run him]
L: [loud scream as MV grabs her]

This is a rough outline of what our script will be, as production continues we may choose to add or remove certain bits of dialogue or add more sound effects depending on whether we feel it creates enough suspense and is scary enough.

Planning - Mood Board

Malevolent Phantom

Mood Board

Here we complied a collection of images to do with our opening two minutes, the main image is of a woodlands - our setting, looking dark and mysterious and conforming to horror stereotypes. There's two separate images of a man lurking in the woods creating suspicion and tension as we don't know who he is - this represents our malevolent phantom. He is mysterious and creepy, hiding in the back of shots and stalking our innocent main character - Lucy.

Our main character will wear a colourful coat to connote interest and show the main character to be more vibrant than the other characters who are of less importance. The malevolent phantom on the other hand will wear a big, dark, black coat to hide under and to almost blend into the background of the woods so he is not as noticeable. He could also possibly be wearing a balaclava to cover his face and hide his identity even further.

A long shot of a person in the woods, all alone shows that our character will end up alone in the woods, surrounded by only darkness and lurking somewhere is the malevolent phantom - this builds suspense and links to the other picture 'suspense'. One of the main parts of horror we hope to achieve is suspense, making the audience scarred, feeling like this is actually happening to them.

A low battery picture shows that as Lucy's phone dies she is left alone and isolated in the woods (a key factor of horror) with no way of contacting people and is therefore truly alone in the woods. This makes the audience nervous and scared for her as they worry whether she will be killed by the malevolent phantom.

Planning - Diary Of Filming/Editing

Malevolent Phantom

Film Diary

Monday 24^th November:  (Arrived at 3.15pm Left at 4.30pm)

The first day we went to the woods was straight after school. We looked around the woods getting a feel for what parts were darker than others, what parts were secluded and what areas were close to safety. We started off with a few trial shots to see what angles are most effective. Our first scene was two friends walking up the roads then saying our goodbyes. Although we had to repeat this scene a few times as we couldn’t decide the best shots for when we entered the woods. We included shot reverse shot during our conversation which also took a few attempts as we were cautious of the 30 Degree Rule. We were able to film up to point where our main character Lucy had received a phone call from her Mother which was the trigger for her to take the unsafe route through the woods and the uncertainty that come along with it. We stopped filming at 4.30pm due to the drastic lighting change which causes the shots to look out of place.

Friday 28th November: (Arrived 2.35pm Left at 4.00pm)

After looking at what we had produced for Monday 24^th November we discovered that filming by the side of the road was inefficient as the noise was too much, we also added another character into the story; we decided to include another friend. We did this because we wanted the audience to concentrate mainly on the friend who was on her own for them to sympathise and relate to her. Therefore we started our film again with us beginning more in the woods to eliminate any unwanted sound; this also gave us a wider range of options on to how we could expand the story. We filmed a variety of low angle and high angle shots by using trees to climb up; we were able to film up until the point where our main character Lucy starts feeling paranoid which also included the audience seeing the malevolent phantom for the first time. We could have carried on although the lighting became too dark for the camera to pick up useful footage.

Monday 1^st December:  (Arrived at 4.00pm left at 4.30pm)

Due to other factors we could not get to the woods as early as we hoped, therefore our lighting was too dark than what we had initially planned, resulting in no filming being done. Although we used this opportunity to talk through what we would do at our next filming session and realised that we had to come earlier therefore we all came to the decision of filming on a weekend so the lighting would be better.

Sunday 14^th December (Arrived at 9.30am Left at 11.00am)

We decided to arrive at our setting early on Sunday morning because the lighting would then be appropriate; we started filming from where we left off on Friday 28^th November carrying on from our main character being nervous while the malevolent phantom was in her presence. We were unsure whether we should include a shot where we film for the protagonist point of view as some from our group felt that we should leave him as a complete mystery but we came to the decision in which we thought that following him would make the audience more empathetic towards the innocent girl. We included diegetic sounds to create suspense which was the trigger of a running scene which resulting in our main character stumbling to her knees where her preying predator dragged her off scene which ended our opening with the noise of her desperately screaming. We were able to complete the 2^nd half of our film. We planned to stay till 12pm but we had finished early. All we need to do now is add some non-diegetic music over the top for emphasis as well as titles. 

Sunday 18th January (Arrived at 9.30 left at 11am)

After doing some editing and putting the footage together we found a extremely noticeable lighting change therefore we decided to redo the scene in more appropriate lighting. While we were revisiting the woods we decided to touch up other bit that we were not 100% happy with, these mainly included the transitions between two shots.

Planning - Questionnaire

Malevolent Phantom

Questionnaire 

Age: _ 0-10  _ 11-15  _ 16-20  _ 21-30  _ 31+

Gender: _ Male  _Female

How often do you watch horror films?

What aspects of horror do you like?

Chase _

Suspense _

Darkness _

Jumpy bits _ 

Blood _

Clowns _

Other _________

What other genres do you like?

-

-

-

Why do you or do you not like horror?

-

-

How much fear do you like from horror

Hiding behind the sofa - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - No fear at all

Horror is the best genre

_ Strongly agree

_ Agree

_ Not sure

_ Disagree

_ Strongly disagree

What's the best setting for horror?

_ City

_ Woodlands

_ Abandoned house

Whats your favorite horror film + Why?

-

Results

0-10 = 9%  16-20 = 72%   30+ = 19%

Male = 28%  Female = 72%

45% of people said they never watch horror films which is interesting as that's almost half, but it's what I expected as personally I don't see the appeal of horror and so never watch them but I was stunned to see almost half of the people questioned felt the same. 

Interestingly it wasn't just the males who said they watched horror the most which subverts from the stereotypes that horror has a mainly male audience as a quarter of females also said they watch lots of horror films. An anomalous result was one male saying he never watched horror films (subverting from stereotypes) but another independent factor that influenced this was his age as he was only 8 and therefore the horror films were probably not age appropriate for him, unlike comedy or children's films.

The two most popular features people look for in horror films were chase and suspense, this is what i expected as they are the cliché parts of a film that make it a horror film. Blood was only said 19% of the time which surprised me as I thought more people would look for that in horror, also tension was only said 9% of the time when I thought it would be more, but it is similar to suspense, which was said 36% of the time, so maybe these two aspects were too similar - therefore for next time I would make the choices more distinguished. Chase was the most common aspect with 63% of people saying they looked for it in a horror film, this is something that we can use to our advantage and include in our film to appeal to a larger audience and make more people want to see our film.

When asked what other genres people liked, so we could include the aspects of other genres people like to create a more appealing film to a larger audience, Comedy was third most popular with 36% of people saying that was another genre they liked - this doesn't really help us as we feel it would be quite hard to incorporate a comedy aspect into our horror film, this is something we will have to consider at a later date but I feel it's something we won't end up incorporating in our film. Action was the most popular with 65% of people saying that was the other genre they liked, interestingly this was most popular with people who also liked horror suggesting they like the physical side of horror, the chase, the murders etc. This will help us when making our film as we now know to attract a larger audience we should include a physical side of things, as previously established people do like a chase scene so to optimise our films attraction to people. Romance was also a common favourite genre with 62% of people saying they also liked this genre, but this may not be relevant to us as people who said they liked romance didn't like horror so it wouldn't actually be combining the two things people love. On the other hand though we could maybe attract an audience of people who are not usually the sort who go see horror by incorporating a romance side - something they like.

Most people like either a 4/5 or 1/5 scare factor - the 1/5 was suggested by people who don't like horror and don't like being scared so probably wouldn't come see our film anyway so their results should be disregarded as we should focus on horror enthusiasts (people who will actually come to watch our film). Therefore we should maybe go for a high scare factor (4/5) to please the horror enthusiasts as although it would be good to attract a larger audience by appealing to people who don't like horror as much and want a 1/5 scare factor, in doing so we would isolate and exclude our pre-built horror enthusiast audience so I think we should entice them in other ways that don't exclude the main part of our audience. 

60% said woodlands was the best setting for horror with 40% which is interesting as we had anticipate to use woodlands as we thought it was most mysterious and, for production purposes, most accessible and easy to achieve a tense atmosphere in. As I thought 0% of people thought a City was the best setting for horror - this is probably because it’s far too open and too many people so it's hard to be isolated. Also, it's quite bright and open and if you film at night it may be more eerie but you'd have to find a suitable camera and you wouldn't be able to see the beauty of the city you’re in - therefore making it almost pointless to film there.

Overall this questionnaire was helpful in identifying what people look for in horror and the aspects/location to include in our film.

Planning - Representation Of Stereotyping

Malevolent Phantom

Representation of Stereotypes

In majority of horror female character are seen as the damsel in distress and usually are attacked by a killer within the opening of the movie. The common stereotypes in horror movies are dumb blondes; they are represented as an innocent, vulnerable and naïve character. The character Lucy subverts the looks of the dumb blonde however she conforms the representation as she’s easily manipulated. This character helps build suspense especially because of her behavior.

The antagonist is represented stereotypical malevolent phantom that lurks near the main character. It preys on the protagonist until it finds the right time to attack and kill her. The appearance is unknown in the beginning of the film as it is wearing a big black coat which covers its face so they audience can’t make a connection with them. This character has a huge impact in the horror film because it strikes a fear into the audience.  

Planning - Shot Lists

Malevolent Phantom
Shot Lists

In the opening scene for 'Malevolent Phantom' we used many shots to show the setting and emphasise the characters feelings. The variety of shots allowed us to capture the moments in the scene from different angle which let us portray different aspects of our scene.

High shot - We plan to use this shot a lot to show the loneliness of our character and have the audience emphasis and feel sympathy for 'Lucy' our main character who is alone in the woods. This shot will show the remote setting we plan to use which is the woods.

Medium shot - This shot we will use to track 'Lucy' on her journey and also as the 3 characters say their goodbyes, this shot will show how the group are close together and are safe however as 'Lucy' ventures off on her, the shot will change into high shots to show she is alone in unknown territory.

Over the shoulder shot - This shot will be used for the conversation with the three girls at the beginning to create a realistic effect and get the audience to feel like they are present in the world of the film. Also it will be used when the 'Malevolent Phantom' is preying on 'Lucy' to show that she is being followed and is in danger

Low angle shot - This shot will be used to show the strength and power of the malevolent phantom, we will use this when the creature is watching 'Lucy' walk past, this will show it to be over powering and seem stronger than Lucy.

Long shot - This shot will be used to show more of the setting and show Lucy walking through the woods, which will show her slowly getting closer and closer to danger which lurks in the trees.

Establishing shot - This shot would be used to show the setting of the woods, however we may not be able to do this as this could involve a high angle.

Planning - Costume And Props

Malevolent Phantom

Costume And Props

Costume and props

In our film our characters are wearing different clothing to show the importance of a specific character called ‘Lucy’ played by our talented actress Chloe Hicks. Chloe was wearing black jeans, black shoes, and a vibrant coloured button coat. The coat was a black and pink checked coat, we chose this so it would stand out from the other character and show the audience that she is the main character and focus of the scene. The other character 'Amelia' was wearing plain and simple clothing, to show she was less important than ‘Lucy’.

The main and only prop that was used was the girl’s phone, in which the mother calls to tell her to hurry home. This then panics ‘Lucy’ and has no choice but to venture through the woods. The phone adds tension to the scene as ‘Lucy’ is forced to go into the woods. 'Lucy' is looking around deciding which way to go feeling cold and worried a call comes through to break the tension. This immerse the audience as they feel like they are 'Lucy' and therefore empathise with her as she has to take the dreaded walk through the woods.

Planning - Initial Ideas: Film Brief

Malevolent Phantom

Initial Ideas: Film Brief 

Overview of the film - People are being followed home late at night, they are targeted when they're alone and terrified. There is a serial killer who is on the loose and is destroying people's lives across the country, having slipped out of America is adamant on picking people out and providing them with a gruesome death. With a mysterious background and ever growing a list of the dead do you choose to run and hide from this malevolent phantom or instead get to the bottom of this horrific crime? Is there more to this story than what meets the eye and are these people actually innocent at all.

Genre: The genre of our film is going to be horror because we can create more impact with this genre and create suspense making the audience engage with the film. We are planning to film the scene in the woods as this is a horror genre convention and also we can use the setting to create and isolated effect.  The main focus of our film is 'fear of the unknown' which attracts the audience as they want to find out the identity of the mysterious figure so that the  audience would be more engaged and also hooked wanting to find out more.

Use of Camera: The scene will use a variety of camera shots from the high shot of her entering the woods establishing part of a setting, to a medium shot of when she is walking. Close up shots will also be used to highlight the characters facial expressions and create suspense and also show the fear in which the girl has. We will use long shots of the girl walking to suggest a long journey in which anything could happen also the long shots would feature a malevolent phantom in the distance which she is not aware of. During the conversation at the beginning with the two girls we plan to use shot reverse shot which will show both characters emotions and create more of a realistic aspect to the scene. Also many high shots will be used to emphasise how vulnerable she is and show her to be a weaker character in the scene.

Characters: The female lead will be wearing an neutral colour clothing with an bright red scarf so the audience can sense danger and they can recognizes the main protagonist easily as it will stand out. The lighting is important to show the setting and the character so we will be using different type of lighting especially low-key lighting so we can create a sense of danger when the protagonist is in the woods. The music we use will nicely complement the tense atmosphere of the scene in order to build suspense and use the 'fear of the unknown' aspect to our advantage.

Sound: The opening sequence is going start with a calm non-diegetic sound however as soon as she enters the woods; the sound is more sinister to show a change of mood within the scene. We’re going to be using diegetic sound such as the dialogue from the characters and the sound of bushes rustling, the wind which will build on the tension already in the scene.

Plot: The plot will follow the pattern of an alone girl in an isolated setting being preyed on by a mysterious figure creating fear and suspense within the audience. Two friends are returning from a night out and part ways to go home, the main protagonist who’s the main focus of the scene will be decide to go through the wood which is a faster journey home than the twisted roads that she doesn't know much about. Whilst she’s making a decision a call comes through - it’s her mum telling her to hurry home so she chooses to go through the woods. The setting is going to be dark so she can barely see the direction so she has her phone out however she realizes that her battery is about to die. This is another horror convention; it makes the audience emphasis with the protagonist as they will have an idea of the ending. The girl tries to rush through the wood but in the scuffle she drops her phone, when she’s bending down to pick it up the audience see a 'malevolent phantom' in the distance in which she is completely unaware of. The girl gets back up and carry's on walking, then she starts to hear rustling from the bushes which makes her more uncomfortable and suspicious of her surroundings. The girl becomes more worried and terrified which attracts the audience and engages them with the scene as they know the antagonist is following her. As the girl walks the phantom gets closer and closer to her then suddenly he grabs her, we are going to cut the scene on a cliff-hanger while there is a very disturbing sound of her screaming leaving so the audience use their imagination to think about what has happened to her.

Planning - Documenting Of Influences

Malevolent Phantom

Documenting Of Influences 

During the production of the Malevolent Phantom, many things influenced our choices as to the direction of the way we wanted to take our film. A film which inspired us to go with horror as a genre was 'The Cabin in the woods'. This film uses a setting similar to our own and has the same target audience; although the plot was slightly different we felt this gave us an understanding of what to include making our film suit the horror genre and the typical male dominated audience which would be our main focus in terms of target audience. Another film which influenced our film was 'Scream' as we used the same fear of the unknown aspect which we thought would engage our audience more with the film. In scream when a character dies it usually takes place in a remote location, this was an idea in which we imitated and used in our film Malevolent Phantom. Both films gave us different ideas and themes that we incorporated in our film to appeal and suit our audience.

The costume of the actors was not an influence from a specific film. It was an idea we saw featured in many horror films, this where the antagonist where dark colours to camouflage into the darkness. Films such as scream use an antagonist with a black costume as this emphasises that the identity of the antagonist is hidden and increases the tension and makes the audience more fearful. The costume of the protagonist wearing a bright light coat was to show the innocence of the character and make her stand out from other characters, this was not really an influence from a film but rather a decision we all felt was necessary to give the protagonist most prevalence the shot.

As a group we thought of many settings which all were similar as they were in a remote location, this idea we was influenced by other horror films which always feature a remote location as the setting. This type of setting creates tension and hints that something will happen. The audience are always left not knowing what is going to happen as this presents a mystery as its unknown and usually deserted. As the setting does not contain other people this means when the victim dies, no one be there to hear the screams.

The characters we hope to include will be the stereotypically innocent young girl who finds herself trapped in a dangerous situation which she will regret. She comes with the not so stereotypical antagonist whose identity is unknown and is known as the Malevolent phantom. The young girl stereotype has been influenced from a number of films; this is a major connotation of the horror genre.

Planning - Relevant Online Tutorials And Comments

Malevolent Phantom

Editing

For the initial draft edit of the opening of our film we used Sony Vegas software to edit purely because I have used it before and find it easy and comfortable to work with, also its on my laptop at home so I could edit the film outside of school. It will be good in giving us a simple, clear idea of what our project will look like all edited together and what parts we may need to re-film or change to make it look more professorial. After Christmas we may choose to re-edit it in adobe software to get a more sophisticated look to it with more developed features so I will look at tutorials for how to use that software to the best of my ability. I have used Sony Vegas for a few years now and have developed my skills whilst using it so I didn't need to watch any online tutorials on how to work it but just to refresh my memory I quickly glanced over a few tutorials to develop my skills even further and looked over the basics again (mainly the keyboard shortcut keys as it makes life a lot easier.) 

This video goes over the basics and gives newbies a clear idea on how to do the most simple editing, when I first started editing this would have been helpful, so to refresh my memory on how to edit using this software was perfect.

When you're editing it can be quite tiresome to keep having to use the mouse to click things and perform simple tasks when having a keyboard shortcut would be a lot easier. This video quickly sums up the basic Sony Vegas shortcuts to make editing even easier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Amjan5Xfe44

The other software we will use after Christmas to create a more professional look to our film is adobe, I have never used this software before and therefore will research into it to find out how to use it to the best of my abilities. The video above helped me to learn the basics of this adobe software so I now feel more confident in editing our film footage in it. I think between now and after Christmas it would also be helpful to learn how to do opening titles as it will create a more professional look for our film.

Planning - Film Treatment

Malevolent Phantom

Film Treatment

People are being followed home late at night, targeted when they are alone and frightened -  and there's good reason for that fear. A serial killer is on the lose and destroying peoples lives across the country, having slipped out of America and come across the pond he seems adamant on picking people out and providing them with a gruesome death. With a mysterious background and an ever growing list of the dead do you choose to run and hide from this malevolent phantom or instead get to the bottom of why all these innocent people have been brutally murdered. As innocent Lucy wanders alone through the woods there's a rustle in the trees, but why is she being targeted? With more and more stories of murders dominating the news has Lucy gone too far to get to the bottom of it all and will her name be added to the list of the dead. Is there more to this story than first meets the eye and are these people really innocent at all?

Overview:

The story centers on a young girl called Lucy (16) who is being targeted by this malevolent phantom, the start of the film is her lonely walk through the woods where she is grabbed by this creature before it then flashes back 48 hours.  The audience then spend the majority of the film living this 48 hours with her and finding out about this malevolent phantom, Lucy's background and all the victims this malevolent phantom has already claimed. As the film progresses you learn more and more about this malevolent phantom and how all the people he targeted may have a fundamental link between them and may not be so innocent after all.

Planning - Initial Ideas

Malevolent Phantom
Initial Ideas

We had to decide what genre we wanted our film opening so we could develop a theme, story line, characters and filming techniques. We had difficulty choosing a genre we wanted to expand on; it had to be within our budget and we’re able to execute effectively.

We shortened it down to three genres:

Zombie/Post Apocalyptic: As some members of our group were fans of horror dramas and movies we came up with the idea a zombie outbreak. We liked the horror and gore theme for the opening sequence however after putting a lot of thought into it, it wasn’t a great idea. The problem was that it would’ve been hard to get the right costumes and props for the character. Also the setting needs to be chaotic as it’s an outbreak but we can’t damage or destroy the environment. We thought that this might be a good idea because it would create suspense and tension however it would be extremely hard to execute this genre.                     

Comedy: At first we decided to go with the comedy genre however we thought that our sense of humor would be different to a large audience, as we may not get the response we wanted. It would of also been time consuming especially as we needed to make it funny and script jokes that may entertain the audience. As the opening is only 2 minutes we wouldn’t of been able to include a lot of humor at the beginning. I think comedy isn’t a strong point in our group so we didn’t choose this genre.

Horror: As we all liked the idea of a horror genre because it’s not expensive however it needs a lot of planning to make the audience frightened and engaged during the first opening scene. The members in our group have seen horror films and have an idea of what codes and convention to include when we began planning. After thinking of the plot and the features that’s going to be included all agreed and chose this genre.

Research - Opening Titles Analysis

Malevolent Phantom

Opening Titles Analysis

To help us in designing our own opening titles we analysed some horror films opening titles to get an idea of what works and what will look good for our production. The first film we looked at was cabin in the woods, they used red titles that connote blood and danger, this is an interesting look for a film as most of the time the titles are in white or black. The red contrasts the plain, simple colours usually used in films and leads the audience to believe the film will have a lot of blood and death in it. They are placed off center which is more aesthetically pleasing than them just being placed in the middle, this coincides with the rule of thirds which suggests that each image should be divided up into nine equal sections (two evenly spaced horizontal lines, two evenly spaced vertical lines) and that important compositional elements should be placed along these lines or their intersections. This technique is useful as it's claimed that placing a subject with these points creates more tension and interest in what's on screen that simply placing the subject in the center of the screen. Therefore I would probably copy this design pattern and also have my titles placed on these 'lines' or their intersections to make my titles more interesting and appealing.

Another set of opening titles this time uses white text which I think looks more professional and still holds an aspect of horror about it. Red text can look cheap and unprofessional so I think we will use white text instead, therefore we can have a black or red background and the colours won’t be contradicting and the white will stand out. This set of opening titles also uses the rule of thirds with the titles being placed in the low corners of shots and off center, this reinforces how much better titles look if placed off center and so I think it would be a good idea to copy this. The titles are quite small so not to drag too much attention away from the shot which I think is key but they are large enough and of a bright enough colour and clear enough font that they stand out and can be noticed by the audience. They are aesthetically pleasing to look at too as they glide over one another with a subtle enough movement that it doesn't steal the scene away from the focus of the shot but stands out enough to be noticed, also the font is clear to read so not to confuse the audience.

Out of all these features I think it is a good idea to have white text as red looks unprofessional and black would be too dark to work on any shots, especially horror as the scenes are likely to have low key lighting so the text won’t stand out. Also coinciding with the rule of thirds and placing the titles off center is a good idea as it makes them look better and have a more interesting look for our film, as well as that having a large enough font is key so the titles can be read but not too small as you don't want them to overshadow what’s going on in the scene. Another important factor is a clear font, nothing too swirly or jagged - simple but unique font to coincide with the appropriate colour, size and placement.