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.