RESEARCH AND PLANNING TASK: INTERVIEW WITH THE CHARACTERS

What kind of character is Ivy?

What is your view towards the character Ivy?

How do you tink the audience will react to the female protagonist? 

what is the most challenging part about playing the role Ivy?

How will you overcome the challenge?

Can you tell me something about your role (antagonist)?

In the opening scene, we don't see much of the antagonist what effect do you think this has on the on the audience?

How are you going to deliver your role?

RESEARCH AND PLANNING TASK: SCRIPT

                               

CUT

INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT

IVY sits at her desk while typing up an essay with her laptop.

RINGGG! All of sudden the sound of classic iPhone ringtone start to ringing, as IVY'S MUM is calling her. IVY glances over her phone before picking it up to answer the call.

IVY

Hello? (Hello)

Hi, where are you? (You know that we'll not be back till late, right?)

Wait, how late are you going to be? (We're not quite sure yet) Okay that's fine

(Be safe) Okay, I'll be safe, love you (love you too), bye.

IVY hang up the call after saying bye to her mum.

She turns back to her laptop and continues to type her essay from where it left off.

A few moment later, she receives a message from the NO CALLER ID, she glimpses over the message but isn't bother to check it.

Instantly, a similar message from the same NO CALLER ID is sent to her.

IVY decides to ignore it, however, yet another message is pop-up.

IVY reluctantly pick up her phone to checked the messages.

NO CALLER ID

Hi, my name is Ashley. I died on august 15 2010. My dad came home drunk and was yelling at me. I ignored him and went to bed. I woke up and I felt pain in my leg. Then I saw that my dad was stabbing me with a knife on my leg until I died. Two months later, a boy read this and ignored it but thought I was hot. That night I kissed him, put a rose on him, and sliced his neck with a machete. Later a girl got this and cried and send it. That night I watched her see if any harm came and gave her a wish. If you don't send it to 5 people I'm going to hide until you go to sleep then kill you.

IVY scrolls down the scene to read the whole message that was sent to her.

She thinks that the message is nonsense and that it's probably a prank from one of her friends.

IVY puts her phone down before she continues with her last paragraph on the essay and shut down her laptop. Then she walks out of her room to the kitchen.

IVY walks down the stair with only a peep of light from the 2nd floor to guide her way.

As soon as she enters the kitchen, IVY goes straight to the sink and fill up a glass with tap water.

At that moment, IVY senses something behind her, she starts to shiver and slowly reaches out for a knife off the dish drainer.

All of sudden, a mysterious burns and scalds hand obtrude before her and cover her mouth.

BLACK OUT

(non-diegetic sound) IVY try to squirm away while screaming out for help.

RESEARCH AND PLANNING TASK: FILM BRIEF

Overview of the film

A teenage girl received mysterious messages from an anonymous person, which contain threatening language.

Plot summary

After being left home alone at night, Ivy is working on her essay, before she receives mysterious messages from an unknown caller ID. She receives the same message not once but three times, and the last message was sent to her at 23:59pm. The content of it appears to be strangely intimidating and aggressive. However, Ivy doesn’t seem to be fazed by it. As she felt like she was getting pranked by her friends. After a while, Ivy walks downstairs toward the kitchen, she has the feeling like she is being followed by someone, though she is by herself. Once she reaches out to get a glass of water, a burned and a scalded hand appears right before her… tbc

Characters

Ivy (main protagonist) – Played by Fahima Akther

Ivy is a 17-year-old college student. She is very independent, confident, intelligent and outgoing, the type of girl everyone wants and wishes to be friends with.  At times she has a high self-esteem and occasionally can be sarcastic. But only because she stands up for what she truly believes in. When it comes to family and friends, Ivy can become very protective. This is the main reason why she is different from girls in horror films, as she never acts weak in front of anyone ever.

Antagonist – Played by Pear Emwan

The antagonist in our opening two minutes appears near the ending. We did this on purpose, in order to conceal and hide the identity of the antagonist. This keeps the audience on high alert causing them to be intrigued by the plot line.

Location

The location for our opening minutes is the protagonist home. We will be filming around a few different areas of the house. The two key areas where most of the filming will be taking place are in Ivy’s bedroom and the kitchen.

Sound

At the beginning of our opening two minutes, there will be calm non- diegetic music in the background. However, as the scene gets intestine so will the background music. Additionally, there will be diegetic sounds too such as dialogues and sounds from within the scenes.

RESEARCH AND PLANNING TASK:PRODUCTION TITLE

In order to make our opening two minutes look professional, we need to add a production title. Down below are ideas for our production title that we created

Using, the software Adobe premiere elements I created this production title. It was very simple and easy to make. I started off by finding an image that would be suitable for our title. After that, I went on Adobe premiere elements and added the image plus the name of our production company. To create a smooth transition, I added an effect to make it look professional.        

To create this production title, we used a Glitcher app from the app store. Firstly, we began with a black background and used the font Bebas to make the title. We then put an overlay with the single disturbance fx. After that we changed the layer style to darken and increased the opacity, of the overlay to 100, to give it the glitching effect.

This one will be used in our opening two minutes because it fits well with the theme of our horror film.

RESEARCH AND PLANNING TASK: OPENING TITLE SEQUENCE

In our opening two minutes we need to have a title sequence.From doing some research on opening credits we will be able to recognise what they include and the order they appear. 

 

Opening, credits appear at the beginning of a movie/TV series. It’s used to inform the audience the title, important members of the production and the cast e.g director. To present this the opening credits may consist of a live action, still images and animation. 

The usual order for the opening credits in a movie is:

-Name of the studio

(Production company distributing the film e.g. Universal,21st Century Fox, Columbia)

-Production company

(The production company that actually made the film)

-Producer's name

- Director name

-Starring

(Names of the main actors/actresses)

-Film title

-Featuring

(other cast members that are featured)

-Casting directors

-Music

(Music composer)

-Production designer

-Hair/Make artists

-Costume designer

-Visual effects

-Editor

-Writer

Examples of the opening title sequence in movies:

Ideal title sequence for my film

-The distribution company presents(Elixir)

-The production company(Luminescence Production) 

-The director(Roshni Sen)

-The Producer (Pear Emwan)
-The Casting director
-The art director
-The Editor
-The visual artist
-The main cast(Fahima Akther)
-The film title(Seen 23:59 PM)

RESEARCH AND PLANNING TASK:REPRESENTATION

Teenagers/young adults are conventional in horror films, in order to relate to the target audience, aged between 15-25 years. 

Representations in horror films are based on stereotypes. Although stereotyping is seen as very negative, they are conventicle in the genre. This is because the target audiences for horror expect and respond to the generic codes.

 

It’s a cliché in horror films for the female characters to be seen as weak, submissive, vulnerable and the damsel in distress. This is based on the stereotype women are physically weaker and inferior to men.  

The most common female character, in horror films, is the “dumb blond” for example Casey Becker from Scream.

This character is usually the first one to die or manages to avoid death until the very end; gets killed in a gruesome and graphic way by the antagonist. They tend to be shown as annoying, naïve and stupid. The traits the  ‘dump blond” character has, causes the audience to dislike them. Therefore the audience actually wants the character to die.

However, the stereotypical character does keep the audience at the edge of their seats by building up suspense and tension.

In our film, we want to subvert to the representation of the female characters found in horror. We will do this by portraying Ivy, our protagonist, as independent, confident and a strong individual.

On the other hand, the male characters are usually portrayed as the hero or play the role of the antagonist. This is based on the stereotype men are more aggressive and violent then women. 

The antagonist can occur in many forms such as the killer, Zombie, monster and demonic possession etc. This character has the most impact on the viewers because is causes us to be fearful and scared.

Moreover, a female plays the antagonist in our film. We will follow the generic convention of this character, in order to make our antagonist appear scary.   

RESEARCH AND PLANNING TASK:LOCATION

Horror films are always set in an isolated place, for example, small communities, haunted house, and dark streets etc. The reason why horror films are mostly set in these locations is because they imply being lonely and isolated.

                                                                           Address for our location   

For our opening two minutes, it will be set inside a house. In horror films, it’s common for the storyline to be based in the protagonist's home for example in Scream.

The setting is suitable for our opening two minutes because it makes our film feel more realistic and relatable. It adds a sense of reality because our target audience (teenagers) have probably had the experience of being home alone late at night.

In the winter it gets darker earlier. The dark lighting gives the illusion of our film being set late in the evening, which is the ideal location for our film. This further makes our setting suitable because we are able to film in the dark without it getting to late. 

Down below are the pictures of the different locations inside the home, where our filming will take place.