Evaluation

For my evaluation I decided to make a video rather than type it up because I wanted to do something new that would contribute to my learning experiance and I felt that recording my self talking about the project would allow me to put it in better words than if I was writting it down.

Lucky breaks with footage

as I mentiones in the making ing of post, we wanted to get as much footage as possible so that we could have alot to choose from when it came to editing. during this process we were very lucky in getting some really good footage by chance of things that were around us including police cars, dogs, a dead fox and things like danger signs (see costumes, Props and Locations).

Magazine front cover

I made a simple magazine cover showing our film as the main article:

For this front cover I used a picture we took whilst filming as evidence of filming because I felt it was a good picture to use to show that filming had commenced for a new upcoming horror film. I felt that this picture gives a good example of the kind of mise en scene that the viewer will be seeing in the film.

I felt that If I put the magazine title and text behind one of the characters that it would enhance the image and give it a more 3-dimensional look.

Final poster design

After playing around with photoshop I came up with a final design for the poster:

In addition to the imagery I added a font I felt was fitting because the trailer has the feel of a case file/ investication what with the police car, the news report and the aparent past goings on in the woods and the typewriter font fits well with this, I also got inspiration from the horror 'misery' because of the typewriter theme.

I came up with the slogan "They are known only as" the the title would come after in a disjointed courier font to give a more mysterious urban legend feel to it. I also added things like cast names and star ratings from magazines.

Costumes, Props and Locations

Costumes:
- All white uniform and black masks for cult members
- Teachers - casual smart clothes
- Students - clothes to fit character (e.g. Chav wears tracksuit bottoms and hoody etc..)

Props:

- Danger sign
- Satchels/bags
- Killing object
- Note with "YOUR NEXT" written on it

Location:

Options = Highgate woods, Cherry Tree woods, Hampstead Heath, Kenwood, coldfall woods.
We decided to film the wood scenes in Cherry Tree woods as it was the most isolated and best fitting to create the eerie ambiance.
- Classroom in Fortismere School - Outside Fortismere Sixth Form building - Outside Fortismere School gates.

'The Cult' full movie treatment

This is the treatment we wrote for the full movie of The Cult. We wanted to write this so that we could pick an choose the best scenes to film for our trailer.

1) Camera pans in on window of classroom, teacher talks to class about Planned camping trip. Camera focuses on individual students building up their characters. Students are put into two groups for the trip (group 1: Terrance: Bully, Thomas: Nerdy outcast, Lizzie: Popular – Terrance’s girlfriend, Richard, Beth, Tiffany: Lizzie’s friend/follower Group 2: Robert: Thomas’ only friend Francis: Goth stereotype Milo: Class Clown Stacy: innocent, vulnerable and stupid Katie: ‘Chav’ stereotype John)

The bell rings – kids stumble out of classroom, Thomas accidently bumps into Terrance – Terrance holds Thomas by the collar up against the wall, and threatens him not to come near him on the camping trip.

2) Trip to site – on bus – last three minutes of journey. Terrance tampers with Thomas’ diary on the coach. Lizzie witnesses, concerned facial expression, says nothing.

3) Bus stops, everyone exits – Beth (overweight outcast) struggles to get off the bus – Terrance nudges her in attempt to push her off the bus – Milo offensively jokes about the incident.

4) Cut to boiling pan of baked beans – slowly pans away to reveal teachers in conversation. Mr. Rogers concerned about location of trip. Mr. Wright and Mr. Mason reassure him that things will turn out just fine in a sinister, slightly disturbing manner.

5) Kids settle in their groups and begin to explore the woods. Focusing on group 1 – Thomas looks at his vandalized diary, Lizzie advices him not to pay attention Terrance, Awkward silence, Terrance shouts for her, she goes to him.

6) Whilst exploring the surroundings – Thomas finds mysterious sign carvings on trees. He hears rustling in the bushes – scared, Thomas searches for what the sound was – relieved, Thomas discovers an innocent dog playing in the bushes. Thomas opens his diary to find a drawing that he made previously that is identical to the symbol on the tree.

7) Group 2 also explore the surroundings and find a slaughtered Deer marked with the same symbol that Thomas had found on the deer stomach. A knife lying next to it

8) The two groups arrive at a meeting point – The discovery by group 2 is explained to group 1 – Thomas says nothing about his discovery. Teachers assure the kids that all is all right and it was a result of a hunting trip of some sort.

9) Cut to a group of adults in a dark secluded room all dressed in white uniforms - wearing masks - One man shouts at another about being more careful when killing in the woods

10) Back at the camp – The teachers report that they are dealing with the “Hunters” and that all students must stay in the camp area until all is sorted. Teachers leave

Thomas is left out whilst the rest of the students are eating breakfast the next day, and decides to go for a walk – when he gets lost in the woods he panics and starts to shout for help, no one comes for his rescue. He then discovers an animal like shape in the woods, as he walks closer to investigate he sees that this shape is in fact a human body and it is Mr. Rogers, dead, with the same symbol carved into his stomach. Before Thomas can even begin to think about what to do or even scream for help a hand is wrapped around his face groping him away.

11) Lizzie announces that Thomas, Tiffany and Richard are missing – the others ignore her.

12) Richard and tiffany are shown alone in the woods making out. A silhouette of an arm holding a strangely large knife, which kills Richard with an instant – Tiffany screams and is then immediately also stabbed, but not killed. A quick cut to reveal the killer’s face to be a frightening, unnatural Thomas – eyes wide and chilling, staring and glaring. Thomas makes Tiffany watch as he carves a slightly inaccurate symbol on his stomach. As Thomas slowly creeps towards Tiffany to kill her, she uses her perfume to blind Thomas and then pulls his legs to trip him onto the floor and then runs.

13) After about a minute of running and screaming, two large men in cult white uniforms knock out Tiffany. This incident occurred very close to where the rest of the students were settled, and so they heard Tiffany scream, however they are very drunk and having a lot of fun, thereby mistaking this scream for Tiffany and Thomas having sex. Terrance and John decide to go out to the forest to surprise the lovers and prank them. However he soon discovers Tiffany Dying on the floor, with a carving of the same symbol as they had witnessed on the deer. Before Tiffany dies, she manages to say, “There is something out there” in a slow incomprehensible slur.

14) The students decide to separate into their original groups and are both given a walkie-talkie. Group 1 seem extremely petrified, whereas Group 2 seem to take things in a calmer way, and decide to sit down for a break. Katie (Chav stereotype) insults Francis (Goth Stereotype) about her appearance. Francis runs off into the woods, crying. Cut back to the group, as Robert is concerned about her disappearing alone. Quick cut showing Francis dead hung by her neck on a tree.

15) Milo insists that everyone chills out about Francis leaving and that everything is going to be all right. A fire is set up and Milo offers his group weed to relax. They all enjoy themselves, laughing and joking, smoking and eating. Milo gets particularly ‘stoned’ and wonders off into the woods.

16) Katie feels bad for Francis and decides to go out to the woods to find her and apologize – the rest of the group tell Katie that they are going to carry on ahead and she will find them back at the camp later on.

17) The camera follows Francis as she searches for Francis.

18) All students have disappeared except for Terrance and Milo – Milo insists that the woods are haunted – Terrance ignorantly does not believe and thinks that Milo is being stupid, “Calm down, this is not The Evil Dead man, just a stupid school camping trip”

19) After wondering the woods for a while Terrance and Milo bump into Robert, asking him where everyone is, Robert does not know. “They’ve all just gone”

20) Terrance, Milo and Robert join together to find their friends. They soon find a dead animal with a note stuck to it saying “YOUR NEXT” underneath he note, the threesome find a familiar symbol. They all panic and run – it is pitch black. They soon find a deserted cabin. Terrance suggests going in. Robert smartly insists that they check it out first by looking in through the window – they do to find all their living classmates hung up by rope looking very beat-up. Turning around they find themselves surrounded by men dressed in white cult uniforms eerily walking towards them, getting closer and closer. They panic and run – they separate and keep running and hiding.

21) Cut to inside of cabin where two men in cult uniforms tease and torture the hung up students. Becoming hot one of the men takes off his mask to reveal one of the teachers.

22) Students manage to distract the two cult members and escape – only 2/5 of the students escape alive, Lizzy and Stacy.

23) Cult capture the two girls and kill Stacy – struggle with Lizzy – Lizzy escapes.

24) Stacy finds Terrance and Robert together they walk away and discuss what has been happening. After a while of walking they find Milo’s dead body hung from a tree with the cult’s symbol carved into his stomach. Lizzy cries Terrance puts his arm around her in comfort – a long sharp weapon then stabs Terrance in the back and comes out of his stomach. Lizzy screams – Milo tries to defend her by attempting to attack the masked cult member – he is killed. Only Lizzy is left facing the man in white petrified look on her face. Man in uniform raises his weapon to kill Lizzy – stops very near her heart. Puts the weapon down and unveils himself to be Thomas – crying. Thomas runs up to Lizzy hugs her, holding her tight, crying screaming that he is sorry. Lizzy still crying finds a knife in Thomas’s pocket and stabs him in the back to his death.

25) Lizzy runs crying hard until she finds the camping site – she rummages through the teachers bags to find a working walkie talkie – she turns on the walkie talkie, to eventually get a police radio wave where she manages to explain the situation briefly. The police arrive to the forest Lizzy is taken into the ambulance car. The police however find nothing in the cabin or in the whole forest. The cult still lives.

26) THE END

In the making

During the filming process, we wanted to get as much different footage as possible, so that we had a lot to choose from when editing. As well as going by some of the treatment we had written we also wanted to see how much footage we could get just by using our surroundings: a day or two into filming it snowed a lot and we decided to use this to our advantage because the snow created a good feel of isolation in the forest area we were filming in which is the feeling we wanted to create for our trailer. We also drew inspiration for this from the shining as the snow in the mountains around the hotel created a really good sense of isolation and imprisonment. This factor also effected the costume design for our killer, we wanted them to blend in with their surroundings so we made it all white.

Horror Film Theories

Final Girl Theory

The Final girl theory is possibly the most common trait within the horror movie franchise. Its a basic concept which involves a female character in the film, often the protagonist of the film because females are usually the main characters of horror films anyway. As n many horror films the characters are one by one killed off by a common enemy or by some other force and with the final girl theory the only remaining (or in some occasions one of 2/3 max) character at the end of the film. The trates of the character often vary, she can be developed as a strong willed character who can defend herself, or as is usually the case she is shown as being venerable and weak but against all odds defeating the killer (or whatever force) and surviving.

Male Gaze Theory

This theory is essentially whatever appeals to the male audience in horror or what would be from the point of view of a male. The antagonist or 'killer' in horror movies is almost always a male and alot of the chase footage is filmed in their perspective showing which often works with the final girl theory to show the venerability of the girl and how much of a threat the antagonist poses. The perfect of example of this relationship is in the shinning, Jack Nicholson is the protagonist of the film aswell as the villainous killer which puts us in is point of view of him for almost the entire film, and his wife is shown as being extremely venreble in comparison to him in every way (physically, mentally).

Horror films: The Orphanage

After watching the Shinning I watched The Orphanage which was a very big change giving a very different form of Horror to the shinning.

Although the feel of the film was very different, it does share alot of similarities in terms of setup with the shinning, as with the shinning the film follows a couple and their son who are staying in a larg building, this time being the namesake of the film an orphanage. In this film The Wife Laura is the protagonist unlike in the shinning however throughout the film she has supernatural visions of the ghosts of the orphans who used to live in the building and although she has these experiances it cannot be said for sure that they were real

which can aslo be said with the shinning.

There is a very prominent feel of isolation in th film, particularly during the middle of the film onwards because Laura decides that she wants to be alone in the house to try and figure out where her son Simon because she begins to embrace the supernatural experiances in hope that they will help her find him.

although there where alot of classically scary shots throughout the film and jumpy scences throughout the film I did not find that theses were the scariest thing about the film. I felt that the endind was very powerful interms of horror, she confronts the ghosts of the orphans and finds her son who also turns out to be dead and as a result of this she takes her own life to be with them in the afterlife. While being made out as a happy ending as she is reunited with her son and the orphans I felt that the idea that she was driven as far as to kill herself was very extreme and what I felt to be the scariest thing about the film because something horrific was masked to seem like something beautiful and joyus.

Posters:

With the

posters of the Orphanage thay all share the same trates: they each have a central image being a significant characters being either Laura or Tomas, they all hav

e slightly blurred and faded surrounding images with a black haze boardering the poster, and there is a light scource coming from behind the central image boosting it and showing it's importance. These are fairly common trates amnongst horror posters (and many other genres)

Making the teaser Poster

Having looked at other existing horror posters such as for the orphanage and Eden lake, we have begun the process of making our own poster to go with our trailer.

We have chosen to use Photoshop to put our poster together because it gives us a lot of tools and effects to use in our poster that will really help us to create the right atmosphere. I also have a lot of experience working with Photoshop in previous projects such as my music magazine and in my extended project for which I used it to colour in the panels in my comic book.

I started by getting the Images I needed for my design. I got a good still of Benji in the cult in an action pose and it is nice and centered, It also has the forest looming over it much like with the Eden lake poster. I also wanted to have some faded eyes up top of the poster because I find that eyes work very well in horror posters so I found a good picture of a pair of eyes on the internet.

I put each picture on a separate layer and adjusted the opacity of the image of the eyes to create the transparent faded look I was talking about and it seemed to fit well with the tree silhouettes in the background.

I thought it would be a good idea to create a black foggy boarder to give the poster more of a closed in feel which would also enhance the imagery in the middle of the poster.

Final Chase Film: Rabbit Hole

This is the final cut of our chase video. I felt we achieved one of our main aims with this video which was to make it very fast paced and action packed which was achieved through the fight scenes and the and of course the chasing itself, the uncertainty of the plot i feel adds to the thrill.

for the music I wanted something with a good repetitive lick and a good beat, for this I chose Fat Boy Slim: Right here Right now, with the final cut the footage synced up really nicely with the music.

We used a veriety of shots including, high angle (panning), panning, close ups, wide angle, Dollying and over the shoulder. Making this film was very good in terms of experience and educating ourselves in the art of film making. We learned alot about what shots work best for which scenes and we learned alot about editing for example where to make cuts and the importance of choosing music correctly.

It was also very important to be able to rely on fellow film crew members, this applied for many scenarios: As we were all had parts in the film we had to switch constantly between the role of cameraman and having Sam on board was also very helpful for the scenes that we couldn't film because we all had to be in the shot.