Locations, Mise-en-scene, Costume and Props

Location
From our genre research we found that most slasher films are set in 3 general locations, Campus, The Wilderness, or Urban and that most of the action takes place in these confines. We decided on an urban setting for the flashbacks of the alleyway to give exposition of the girls class along with a stereotypical haunted house for the action to take part in, particularly favored by Hammer in the sixties. For the internal footage we used a coal cellar similar to the torture chambers used in Hostel.

Mise-en-scene
We used candles to set the atmosphere in the cellar and give the feel of possibly rituals, like the murderer has done this before. We decided to use candles as an inter-textual reference to Halloween(1978) and a House Of Wax. We first used sellotape on the victim to gag her then when watching the footage back we decided it would look better with black tape over her mouth so we decided to re-shoot because this didn't give the effect we were looking for. We got this ideal from other slashers such as The Signal and the thriller Lethal Weapon 2. We considered using a material gag but decided overall the black tape would give a better effect. In our re-shoot we also tied the victims feet together to give a more realistic effect when she was struggling. We uses flashbacks to create verisimilitude which we hoped would give the audience as sense of a docu-drama feel which may help attract some ABC1 viewers. We got this idea from the opening scenes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper 1974) which used this effect to signify a police investigation and create a sense of realism.

Costume
We dressed the victim in tight, quite revealing clothing and a dress to connote she is a feminine girl and provides anchorage for our view she is sexually active, as this is believed to be the theory behind why the sexually active girls always die first in horror films as pre-marital sex is seen as a sin.
We dressed the murderer in heavy navy trousers and a heavy navy coat which gave a similar effect to the boiler suit Michael Myers wears in the 1978 Halloween. He wore heavy walking boots to sound menacing and amplify the sound as he was walking down the stairs.

Props
We used the candles to create atmosphere and the feel of an occult ritual. We chose the knife the murderer carried because it is similar to the one used in psycho and looked effective when silhouetted against the candles, another reason why we used these. We decided on black tape instead of a gag to look menacing.

Casting

We decided to follow the codes and conventions we noticed in slasher film openings when undergoing our genre research. We considered using counter-types but then decided, taking into account the age of our target audience and the socio economic groups we aimed it at (C2DE) as our genre is more seen as "popular culture" whereas class groups ABC1 are generally associated with "high culture" such as period dramas. We could have possibly appealed to this class grouping by not having our product centrally based on teenagers and introduced authority figures or counter-types however we decided to try and target the majority of our target audience rather than attempting to bring in the higher class audience. We made our final decision on using the stereotypical "Scream Queen" We cast Sophie to play this part as she has blonde hair and a more curvy figure comparable to to characters such as Tammi from Donkey Punch or Drew Barrymore's character in Scream.

We cast Theo as the murderer as he is the specific age we were looking for and has acting experience. We were looking for a male who looked like a typical teenager, not dissimilar to Billy Loomis from Scream.

We wanted our character to be in their teens so it would appeal to our target audience and soci economic audience and from our research we decided Sophie and Theo fit these specifications best out of our other options.

We are aware that our cast shows a very narrow representation of the generally public as it does not involve any ethnic minorities or characters with disabilities however we found that some successful horror films do not contain any ethnic minorities or characters with disabilities such as The Ring so decided to overlook this fact.

Target Audience & BBFC

Age

We decided to rate our film as a 15 as the main theme and context could potentially be a sensitive issue with younger age groups. We used the BBFC classification rating system to classify our product and compared it to similar films to come to our final decision. We found this on the BBFC website to research their guidelines and classify our own film http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ we found the student guide particularly useful. The violence in our film "is not portrayed as a normal solution to problems" and our "victim does not inflict pain" however "callousness is shown towards our victim". Following BBFC guidelines the violence in our product is strong but "does not dwell on the pain and suffering of the victim" and there is no sexual violence. However due to younger audiences being able to over come these age restrictions due to sources such as downloads we decided our product should be aimed a the youth audience around ages 14 to 35. The victim in our product is reflective of the target audience as she is in her teens.

When undergoing research into the BBFC we found they have an historically over-zealous attitude towards the classification of films. Before the 1960s films were often censored as a form of social control for example Rebel Without A Cause (Nicholas Ray 1955) was cut because it was believed it would encourage teenage rebellion. We researched which films in our genre had been banned and the reasons for this, we found that The Last House On The Left (Wes Craven 1972) was banned in 2002 until 2008. "The Craven film was controversial for its graphic violence, and for the manner in which the villains imposed their psychopathic and sadistic will upon the victims."

Ethnicity

Our product only includes Caucasian characters however still targets a wide ethnic audience.

Gender

The slasher genre is often seen as primarily male orientated however in order to avoid only targeting half the available audience we wanted to use the stereotypical "Final Girl" a tough, intelligent girl often used in horror films to attract a female audience. However due to only the opening being in our film we decided to stay with the stereotypical "Scream Queen"the blonde haired large chested unintelligent female who gets killed off in the first few minutes of the film. Our film may not appeal to some females as we have used this stereotype which is often looked down upon by feminists although could attract more males with the male gaze theory. This is the theory that when watching a film the audience is put into the perspective of a heterosexual man for example when a scene lingers on a women's curves for instance, We dressed our female in a tight low cut clothing to emphasize this theory. We also considered the "movie as date" and the fact that this could reflect some of our target audience and bring in more female appeal. We thought carefully about how to represent gender and how it is represented in other media products. We had the male character with heavy footsteps, breathing deeply and grunting to connote masculinity. We had the girl shrieking and screaming, with long blonde hair and wearing makeup. She is also wearing a dress which wouldn't normally see a man doing this connotes she is feminine.

Socio-economic groups

Our product is a conventional slasher as its takes on stereotypes rather than counter-typing them therefore might be aimed more at a lower middle class to working class background such as C1C2DE who generally prefer "popular culture" rather than "high culture" classes ABC1 prefer. To attract higher class groups we added some still photos as flashbacks to give or product a docu-drama feel, similar to the techniques used at the beginning of The Texas Massacre (Tobe Hooper 1974) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4i4EBZzHGM&feature=related). Our product represents class groups C1 and C2 however it also appeals to DE class groups as it uses conventional stereotypes. We chose our characters to be C1 and C2 groups because whilst undertaking our research we found the majority of characters in slasher films were from middle class backgrounds for example Laurie and her friends in Halloween.

Nationality/Region

Although we do not have alot of dialogue in our product we decided to feature northern English

accents even though this has proved a challenge for some films to gain success. Films produced by Warp X such as Donkey Punch (Oliver Blackburn 2008) and This Is England (Shane Meadows 2006) however prove it is possible to overcome this. This could potentially affect foreign sales and there are advantages of using southern English characters such as Hugh Grant in Bridget Jones Diary (Sharron Maguire 2001) as this is generally the stereotype given to other countries by films such as the example and Love Actually (Richard Curtis 2003) for instance it may be hard for other countries to relate to different accents and dialects when this is the initial impression they have been given. We considered this option and still decided to use a northern accent as we felt it reflected and fit our genre better rather than a southern accent which are generally more commonly used in Rom-coms. We were going to name our film "The Basement" to appeal to an American audience however low budget British horrors rarely gain recognition in America therefore we decided to name it The Cellar to achieve as much British appeal as possible.

Fans Of...

We would expect the older section of our target audience (around 25 to 35) to be fans of classic slashers such as Halloween, Scream, (Wes Craven 1996) Nightmare on Elm Street (Wes Craven 1984) and possibly Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock 1960) For the younger section we also considered Scream to have been popular amongst them aswell as films such as Scary Movie (Keenen Waynas 2000) which takes a post modernist approach by centering the film around other films, this could help the audience be more aware of inter textual references which would make them more able to pick up on them in our product.

Psycho graphic Profile

We thought the typical person out of our target audience that our film is aimed at would be a 16 to 17 year old male possibly interested in video games as these often contain violence as do horror films. We came to this conclusion because of this factor, the male gaze theory could also play a part in the appeal to males and the specific age group.

We researched the box-office performance of films comparable to our own, in the slasher genre to find out how well they were received in the opening weekend. The Decent (Neil Marshall 2005) took £570,850 and was shown on 329 screens. 28 Days Later (Danny Boyle 2002) took £1,500,079 and was shown on 318 screens.

In comparison to other genres such as action films horror films seem to receive the lowest amount at the box office, with films such as Watchmen (Zach Snyder 2009) receiving £3,243,001 and was shown in 419 screens on the first weekend. This is most probably due to the fact horror films are generally lower budget and appeal to a narrower audience. Another factor could be that Watchmen was originally a graphic novel therefore already had a large fan base.

Micro Drama

We applied Tordorovs 5 part narrative formula to our micro drama. The basic state of equilibrium at the outset when the girl is on the phone to her mum. The disruption of the equilibrium by the action of the two girls confronting the protagonist. The recognition of the disruption by the protagonist hitting the girl and an attempt to repair the equilibrium by the two girls calling an ambulance however

our micro drama doesn't show a reinstatement of equilibrium. We set mood with our choice of music which was fast paced and used the Thurlow theory of the active question as the girls want the phone and overcome obstacles in the process.


Levi Strauss's theory of the binary opposition is also applicable as the central protagonist is blonde making her appear innocent, the other girls have brown hair and appear more common than the protagonist. We also used several of propps character archetypes such as the villain and the princess.

Genre Reseach

"The use of the "Final Girl" or the heroine is a common trend. All final girls share some common characteristics in that they are intelligent and resourceful. They are usually the first to sense trouble for example in Nightmare on Elm Street whilst Nancy's friends see the appearance of Freddy Krueger in their shared dreams as a freak happening Nancy sees it as an important omen."

"The climax of the film centers around the final girl and her attacker in a one on one affair. The Final Girl is often of blood relation to the killer for example Halloween which centers on the relationship between Michael Myers and his sister Laurie Strode and later episodes shift focus onto her grand children."

"Final Girls in slasher films are often virginal, whilst at least one of their friends are sexually active. In John Carpenters Halloween, generally assumed to be the first true slasher film Laurie Strode, a seventeen year old school girl and the Final Girl is only of the most notable examples of a virginal leading lady. She often makes disparaging remarks about her more experienced friends sexual appetites. Counter-types are used in A Nightmare On Elm Street 2 when Jesse finds himself unable to consummate his relationship with Lisa due to Freddy's interference however unusually for a slasher movie whilst the girl is eager, the boy is unable to go through with the act. In-fact the Nightmare series are remarkably free from sexual relationships."

"On the other hand there are a number of films where the Final Girl is

clearly not a virgin. The second installment of the Friday the 13th series conforms to this, the leading female character has a boyfriend who she sleeps with. Jamie Lee Curtis's character in Prom Night isn't a virgin either. By the nineties film makers were aware of the "virginal heroine" idea and frequently went out of their way to remove this tradition from their films for example in Kevin Williamson's I Know What You Did Last Summer the Final Girl engages in off screen sex in the first 10 minutes. Scream also played with the idea although dismissed it later using Sidney's past emotional trauma preventing her sleeping with her boyfriend, a common device however she does lose her virginity half an hour before the end of the film before she triumphs over her tormentor. Cherry Falls exploits the traditional slasher films attitudes to sex and virginity, presenting a killer who only preys on the untouched and innocent therefore the Final Girl Jody is a virgin. The film does not contain the usual implication that sex is bad, it is hard not to sympathise with the teenagers frantically trying to have sex to prolong their lives."

"Whether or not the girl is sexually active, on most occasions she is accompanied by a boyfriend as this is the most common way of highlighting her sexual attitude. However unlike many earlier horror films the boyfriend character is rarely there to rescue his girlfriend and generally has one of two functions. He will either be slain trying to defend his girlfriend as in Halloween 4 or he will be incapacitated and useless as in Prom Night. At best the boyfriend is reduced to tagging along with the Final Girl who is nearly always left to save herself."

We got this information from "A Legacy Of Blood" by Jim Harper. We decided to follow the stereotypical slasher mentality by having the blonde sexually available female as the victim, who is killed off in the first few minutes of the film as in films such as Scream (Wes Craven 1996). I feel this gives the audience a firm view that our film is of the slasher genre. The locations for in our product are all familiar to the audience and all I feel highlight the post modern era such as the cellar is similar the the rooms used in Hostel (Eli Roth 2006). Our central protagonist Nancy is named after Nancy from A Nightmare On Elm Street (Wes Craven 1984).

We decided if we developed the film further we would have the killer kidnapping his cousin, or someone of relation to him because from our research we found this is a common convention of the genre. We used a knife as the killers weapon as a reference to Psycho and to give the killer more power and dominance as a knife is seen as a phallic object and therefore stabbing someone is seen as a symbolic form of rape, also emphasising the girls vulnerability. In the kidnapping scene we had the killer capture the girl by putting a plastic bag over her head which is a reference to Black Christmas (Glen Morgan 2006) and when the girl had black tape our her mouth we got this idea from The Signal (David Bruckner 2007).

The poster we designed for our film was an inter textual reference to Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock 1960) as we designed it with slashes similar to the ones in the opening titles of Psycho and turned these into stairs as to be more fitting with the title of our film.

We considered the growing popularity of Hybrid genres which we came across in our research for instance Jason X (James Issac 2001) however we decided to say with a single genre to boost appeal to horror fans.

Initial Group Idea

Our initial idea is in the horror/slasher genre. We targeted it at ages 15 to 35 and socio-economic groups C2DE as we found from our research this is the most popular audience for our genre. We rated our film a BBFC rating of 15.

Our establishing shot is black with candles slowly flickering in through the black. The light grows stronger to reveal a girl tied up and gagged covered in blood, similar to the effect in opening titles of Halloween (John Carpenter 1979) where the pumpkin fades in and the opening scene of Leprechaun (Mark Jones 1993) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX5GcS1Z3So&feature=related). The scene starts black then a candle slowly flickers into shot, then another light source is introduced.

The music would be long drawn out notes to create tension and it would get louder as the candlelight became stronger.We would use a high angle shot to emphasize the girls vulnerability. She would be dressed in revealing clothes and have blonde hair as we want to stick to the typical "Scream Queen" stereotype to appeal to our audience. It would be set in a small dark room filled with torture instruments, comparable to the first torture room of Saw. which would be shown in our next shot, a panning shot of the room. Footsteps are heard and this cuts to a shot of two feet at the top of some stairs, they begin to walk down the stairs, the sound of the footsteps is amplified to create tension. As the footsteps come down the stairs there are short flashbacks of girls screaming, being tortured. We would use extremely high pitched screams to shock the audience. The flashbacks will be fast paced to contrast with the slow footsteps. The lighting source in the room will be a small window covered with newspaper, the light coming through will be blue tinted, an effect, we found though our research often used in horror possibly to connote supernatural activity. This technique is used in Halloween when Laurie walks up to the old Myers house to post something. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRPfIpH5OlA&feature=related)

There is a shot of the girl and sound of the footsteps coming towards her, she starts to become conscious. She sees the man and the knife and tries to scream, shaking her head. The man is dressed in a boiler suit similar to the one Michael Myers wears in Halloween. A point of view shot from the girl is used to show the murderer, then cuts to behind him and shows him stabbing her. We would have the man grunting and sighing, well-built in masculine clothes so even though you don't see his face it is connoted that he is male.

We decided if we were to take our idea beyond two minutes we would have the psychopathic killer capturing and torturing teenage girls until one day he decides to push himself to the limit and kidnap his cousin Nancy. We decided to have him kidnapping his cousin because in our research we found the killers victims are often of relation to the killer. We decided on the name Nancy as an inter-textual reference to Nancy from A Nightmare On Elm Street and we named the killer Hades after the main villain in The Hills Have Eyes 2 (Martin Weisz 2007) and the main character in The Hills Have Eyes : The beginning and also in English literature means "Hell".

Mean Girls

Director-Mark Waters                            

Paramount

Release Date-18^th June 2004

Comedy Drama

Awards-7 wins and 15 nominations

Opening Weekend-$24,432,195

2,839 Screens

Budget-$17,000,000

 

Non diagetic tribal music with piano over the top to signify that something isn’t right.

Titles on black screen, money saving strategy, simple font, bright colours signify target audience, teens.

Establishing shot low angle mid shot and patronising way characters are talking connote that they are talking to a child, this is the preferred reading. The camera then moves upwards to show the audience has been mislead and the central protagonist is actually a teenager.

Still shots and the sound of a camera used to show photos being taken and expressions on characters faces.

Use of stereotypes of home schooled children then use of central protagonist as countertype.

Woman in stereotypical mother role, fussing over child, crying on first day of school and screaming.

Detached house shows middle class.

Girl portrayed as a geek wearing glasses and braces.

Farmers shown in dungarees’, no teeth, music changes to show setting eg Africa more tribal, guitar in America.

Two women scream when nearly get hit by the bus, man doesn’t.

Mother stays and waves girl off, man walks off

Voice over of central protagonist gives exposition.

Filming from characters view to show how she is disorientated helps audience empathise and relate to character especially target audience because they may have been in the same position.

American teenagers portrayed as rude and unruly, walks into girl, setting things on fire, fighting.

Background and background characters blurred, central protagonist focused to show her confusion of starting new school.

Tina Fey writes and stars in the film so this may attract a wider audience because her fame from “Saturday night live” an American sketch show.

Preliminary Task

This is my edited version of the group preliminary task. We were asked to film and edit a character opening a door, crossing a room, sitting down opposite another character with whom he/she then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. The task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180 degree rule. The task was to reinforce our understanding of classic continuity editing, the smoothing over of discontinuous editing to make the link between shots logical.

We first considered the target audience we wanted aim our film at so we could relate our characters, plot and setting at a specific age group. We decided to aim it at young youth (15 to 25) and use a school setting because this is something the vast majority of this age group can all relate to.

Bullying is also a theme many people can relate to. We used a girl with brown hair as the bully and a girl with blonde hair as the victim as so she looked stereotypically innocent and is also a Binary Opposition.

We used high angle shots on the girl with blonde hair to increase the feel of vulnerability and low angle shots on the brown haired girl to make her appear more domineering. We used over the shoulder shots to show the girls reactions and close up shots to show emotion.

We had to re-shoot our preliminary task due to having the camera at the wrong angle and we also decided to change our location. Our initial filming took place in a teachers office and we decided the toilets would be more suitable because it gave more of a feel that the victim was being hunted down and we could make use of the  cubicles to incorporate shot reverse shot into our filming well by having it from the points of view of both characters. shot reverse shot is a feature of continuity editing and part of the criteria for our task. It is a technique where one character is shown looking at another character and then there is a shot of that character looking back at the first character. We used it to make our editing seem less obtrusive and appear lifelike.

We used the 180 degree rule, also an example of continuity editing, when exchanging dialogue both our characters always have the same left/right relationship as if the camera is passing over an axis or a "crossing line" connecting the two subjects.

We began our film with match on action shown in the girl entering the toilets. It is a cut that connects two different views of the same action in the same moment, making the shots seem continuous.