Storyboard - The initial idea.

This storyboard was created as a very basic and simple plan for us to follow whilst making our film. It gave us an idea of the order we were going to film and how we wanted it to turn out. However, when we made he film we did make some changes to this initial idea as we thought of better ideas and things turned out slightly differently, this was bound to happen as this is only and initial idea.

When the first shot begins we see the first location which we chose to use, creating a calm effect which keeps the audience relaxed to begin with, then it moves on to dead person lying on the floor the audience are shocked and will be curious to know why and how this person died. Next there is a shot of bare feet walking through the woods, creating suspicion as to who this is and is it the killer? however the feet are those of a little girl creating more curiosity.

Next we see the second location which we chose to use, the church stairs, the fast change of location makes the audience more on edge as to what is happening and creates an unsettling feeling. From then on the scenes flash from one location to another with a fuzzy screens making the audience feel insecure and tense, we also see the little girl on the stairs, making the viewers wonder why she is in the church and how she got there, we see the blood on her dress making us think she might have killed the victim as it flashes from her to the victim on the floor.

With all the tension of this, our initial plan hopefully will help us to acheive a successful horror film clip as we follow the layout and change what we think would work best as we go along.

The Script.

 There is no conversation between our characters in the opening scene, so there is not a script as such, however, the only speech within the clip is the little girl whispering the nursery rhyme 'if you go down to the woods today'. This gives another sense on innocence and creates confusion as to why she is hurting people. The whispering sound is soft yet very creepy and is capable of giving the audience shivers. These kind of reactions are what we want from our audience.

Although there is no speech, there is continuous music through out our opening scene. The music was written by our friend studying music studio technology at university (Mat Tuora), we asked for certain sounds and to have an eerie version of the tune of 'if you go down to the woods today' in the background. We found this very successful and fitted well with what we as a group wanted and with the film. The sounds within the piece of music are extremely creepy and make the audience feel uneasy. There are high pitched noises and screeches within the music.

Because the tune we used within the music was not written by us, we had to consider copyright (Copyright is the exclusive right granted to the author of an original work) as the music music as it had been composed by somebody else. So i researched into this and found out that the tune we are using in the background 'Teddy bears picnic' is part of the public domain,  means the piece of music is openly available to everyone and not subject to copyright protection. Many other children's nursery rhymes are part of this. Usually people who wish to use their work will have to give the request to the publisher of the piece unless the the copyright owner is someone close to you whom you know. But as i found out that this piece of music is in the public domain, it was not necessary to do so and we could use it in our work.   

Characters and make-up/costume design.

 

To begin our film we first needed costumes and make-up for create an effective film. Here is Sarah designing the dress for the little girl in our film. To do this she ripped up an old dress and used fake blood to create a hand print on the dress. This would make the dress look creepy, but also shows how the victim (the second character in our film) reached and grabbed the little girl while trying to escape the murder. Setting the story for the audience from the beginning, but still leaving mystery. We did all of the costumes on the day of filming our clips (11th January 2011).

After making the costumes we had to do the makeup of the little girl. We decided to dress her in a white dress to show innocence and purity, this will cause confusion in the audience. Her face was made to be very pale, showing ghostly features and and how she probably is ill. Her eyes were very dark creating a scary effect and a dirty, tired or deformed effect. Leaving mystery to what has happened to the little girl, whether she is dead, alive or ill. To do this we used make-up such as black eye-liner/eye - shadow and white face powder. We achieved what we had hoped in doing this, and created a tired, pale looking character.

Here is the final result of the  little girl (me) once everything had been done. We covered my hair with gel creating a dirty look as she hasn't washed her hair, and also to keep the hair messy and in place over the face slightly. We feel that we have gained a very effective character from this creating horror and shock for our audience. We made sure that we tried our best to create a mysterious frightening character which will make the audience feel tense, uncomfortable and frightened.

  

This is our second character, the victim (Sarah). We ripped an old coat of hers and added plenty of fake blood to give an effect of a stab wound. This creates a shocking scene and we hoped to gain a horrific image which would make the audience wonder what had happened to her and will presume that the little girl with the hand print on her dress was the cause. We put make-up on the victim also, so that she looked bruised and violently hurt.      

 
 

Location Planning

We have decided to use two different locations to make our film as effective as possible. our locations need to create a strong atmosphere and have a creepy feel to them. Our locations were set within Whittlesey so we did not have far to travel to achieve what we wanted.

The first location which we selected was the church. We chose to set some of our film here as it has an eerie atmosphere which creates fear. Also churches are known to be peaceful places and quiet, so it goes against peoples idea of how churches are, causing much more tension and suspense as the audience do not know what to expect. We used a small spiral staircase within the church, which was creepy and strange making it very claustrophobic and closed in making the audience feel the trapped environment. And was very dark making people unknown of what was going to happen.

This is the st.Marys church where we did the filming for our church scenes. I found an old and a modern picture to show how creepy this church can be.

The other location we decided to use was a small forest area. This setting is the opposite to our other setting, but makes a good place for the dead body of the murder of the other character. It is a natural location, but gives a sense of being in the middle of nowhere and being lost. This can make the audience feel on edge as they are confused why it is skipping from the church to the forest. Forests can be an Erie place during the winter, when the days begin to get dark, so it was a good time of year for us to film our scene in the forest area.  We also use the forest for the scene of the little girl characters feet, this will make the audience suspicious as they might be unaware of who's feet they are, the feet are dirty and bare, making in an unpleasant and suspicious scene.