Running Order of Shots/Editing/Transitions - 20/09/2011

Creating a running order of the shot types, editing and transitions to be used before starting filming is useful since it will help us to know what shot types to use when filming and give us an idea of how to edit it afterwards. Here is the running order of shot types, editing and transitions in correlation to our storyboard:



Pitch - 19/09/2011

Before we could produce our film, we had to record our pitch to potential producers. We planned this pitch thoroughly, and used the following powerpoint presentation to accompany it:

And this is the video of our pitch:

Trailer Storyboard - 18/09/2011

This is the storyboard for the trailer of our horror-mystery, Hangman. Each scene represents a new camera shot, but these scenes may alter when filming depending on what looks best on film. 

Film Genre Choice - 17/09/2011

For our film, we have chosen to make it in the form of the horror-mystery genre blend. Horror is a classic genre used for decades, and is designed to invoke fear whilst captivating the audience with surges of terror and often entertainment. Mystery is considered to be a sub-genre of the crime genre, and focuses on an individual or group of people investigating into some unsolved mystery. These two genres encompass our Hangman film idea perfectly as the horror captures the sheer terror of the Hangman killing innocent people in brutal methods, and the mystery coincides with the mystery surrounding the whole Hangman book - who is the Hangman? Is it some ancient old curse, or just her own mind becoming increasingly unstable? And how will she be able to stop the Hangman from killing her next? All these unanswered terrifying questions lead our group to believe that this film is definetely of the horror-mystery genre.

Some of the most famous films that have arose from the horror-mystery genre are as follows:

• Psycho (1960) - one of the most infamous horror-mystery films to date, and it really set the trend for successful films of the same genre
• The Exorcist (1973)
• The Omen (1976)
• The Ring (2002)
• Insidious (2010)

Hangman Synopsis - 16/09/2011

The genre of our film trailer is a genre blend of horror and mystery, horror-mystery, and this is the overview of our story:

Our mystery-horror is based in the small town of Lydiate in Liverpool, and is centred around a 17 year old sixth form student called Melanie, or ‘Smelly Melly’ as the mean popular-girl Tara calls her. One day, Melanie finds an old battered book with the name ‘Patricia Applegate’ on the front and as she flicks through the pages, the book reveals numerous unfinished hangman games. These games appear innocent, until she fills in the unfinished games and spells out ominous words like “SUFFOCATE”, “RUN”, “TRAPPED” and “KNIFE”. Soon people are dying mysteriously and their death methods are related to these words – is it the old hangman book that is causing this? Melanie must find a way to destroy the book before it falls into the wrong hands and she becomes the next victim.

Production Schedule for Research - 15/09/2011

This is the production schedule logging the process of my research:



Comparison of 'The Last Exorcism' and 'Dead Silence' Posters - 14/09/2011



Although these two posters are from the same horror film genre, they represent their film in several different ways. The poster for The Last Exorcism makes the dreadful mistake of not giving any indication of when the film will be released - Dead Silence at least puts "COMING SOON" on their poster, and people may forget about The Last Exorcism if they have no clue as to when or whether it has already been in the cinema. Dead Silence further conveys its well known producers/directors by writing "FROM THE WRITERS AND DIRECTORS AND PRODUCERS OF SAW" - 'Saw' being an iconic gore/horror film will be instantly recognisable to the audience, and will make them more interested in Dead Silence. However, The Last Exorcism poster just enlarges the name of well-known horror producers "ELI ROTH & STRIKE", and not everyone will know who these producers are - the poster should have given an example of one of the films Roth produced, such as 'Hostel'. The Last Exorcism poster is more sparse in information than the Dead Silence one - Dead Silence includes a whole cast/production billing block at the bottom which takes up a majority of the poster. But I feel that this unnecessarily wastes valuable poster space and becomes lost and insignificant to the audience. Furthermore, both posters give an indication as to what rating their film will be (Dead Silence being rated 'R' and The Last Exorcism 'TBC' or 'To Be Confirmed'), but you can pretty much guess the rating of the film just by the imagery shown on the posters. Both posters are also similar in the fact that they include a website address for their movie to advertise their film further and give the audience a chance to find out more about the plot of the film.

Personally, I believe that the imagery in The Last Exorcism poster stands out more in comparison to the Dead Silence poster due to its more unique and disturbing imagery, and will be more memorable afterwards than Dead Silence. However, Dead Silence does give more information and enticing textual features than The Last Exorcism, and thus may exceed in bringing in a wider cinematic audience.