Music Research

Marco Beltrami, was one of the main influences for the  2 minute opening section of Viral Terror

Marco Beltrami is an American Film Composer best known for his work scoring Horror films, such as Mimic and Woman in Black.

To create atmosphere, heighten the audience emotion and deliver intensity to the scene it was important to have dissonance in the notes.  The sound had to be sharp and eerie to match the mood of the scene.  The sharp notes are employed when people are dying to emphasise the key moments in the video.

When researching into the woman in black, there is a section of the film where it is in complete silence, which can be very risky. However i wanted to have a section where you can see exactly what was going on, but there is no sound to match it. This creates a more disturbing effect. which also heps to lure the audience in to opening.

previous work:

songs/credits:
Scream
World War Z
Fantastic 4
Warm Bodies
The wolverine

The above examples are some of the most well known or iconic films with a memorable score or soundtrack.

Studies suggest that Music triggers the brain to relate the song or soundtrack to a certain memory or impulse.

This is the idea we wanted for our opening, to create original sounds and tracks to match up with the footage, to heighten the emotions of fear.  Our target audience is teenagers and young adults.
Psychological thriller is our Sub genre, so we already have the jumps and the fear in the footage, we just used our music to bring that out.

Location shots, narrative structure, shot list and story board, mood board

Shot List

Location Shots for ‘Viral Terror’2

Todorov's Narrative Structure:

audition reels

These are our finalised characters and there audition tapes, we decided to take some auditions, just to see how they act on camera and if it all flows together.  We decided through our audition reels that these are the perfect characters, as they are confident and can act without a character being there and keep their focus where we need it.

final cast:

Kim Renton
Sam Cartwright
Daniel Burton
James woodbine
Junior zambaketikis
Charlie Romeo- penn
and Emily Jennet              

Make up

         

 

1. Make Up 

When deciding upon the make up a number of factors had to be taken into consideration 

• The characters had to be aged to look creepy and scary ...to add effect to the footage
• The character had to look beaten up
• The character had to look unkempt and dirty with greasy hair 

To create the character appearance I used pale foundations to age the skin coupled with black/grey cream to portray sunken eyes.  Finally I added  black and purple eyeshadow to add the illusion of bruising.   In addition to facial make up I used styling gel on the hair which made the character look as if he had flat, greasy, dirty hair.

The overall effect defined the character David Donel.

Hair: When styling his hair, we wanted to make it look greasy and flat, so we used styling gel for this effect. As our murderer has a profile of a creepy person, we though this would add to the idea of being watched and the stereotype of killers you see in other movie like Stan Tucci, when he played the murderer in the lovely bones. 

When it came to deciding the make up for our Victims, I wanted something casual and everyday, so we used skin matching foundation, eyebrow pencils, eyeliner and mascara. We didn't want any red or pink coloured lips, because she isn't in a romance or a object of sexual desire, but is a teenage girl everyday, who is ordinary and thats how we really want to reach and effect the audience, as a lot of young teenage girls, will just wear basic everyday make up like Kim, which helps create this element of fear for our audience to relate with. 

Hair: Straight and down, everyday hair, nothing extreme done or hairsprayed, as if she was going on a night out, but if she was coming home from school or work. This is the style we were going for, just like Jennifer Lawrence in House at the end of the Street. 

Jen, has got the same style of hair as Kim, just down, straight and normal. This reaches our audience as she just looks ordinary. 

When we did Emily's make up, we kept it again very basic, just eyebrows and foundation, emily is already very pale, so we decided to keep her skin the same, so we used the same colour. We chose to have her eyebrows, to represent simplicity, just like Kim, her make up was basic and innocent, nothing seductive as this isn't a romance. Our intention to make our audience think about themselves and their actions and how it could effect them. The main aim to instil fear and make it look normal just like them. So thats why we decided to have a basic make up range.
Hair: down and straight, however Emily has very black hair, this is normally conforming to an idea of evil or danger considering it is such a dark colour, however her hair does look very similar to Esther from Orphan. Instead this time focusing on how Evil David Donell is by being able to kill emily when she already has a past of crime.

All our other victims have no make up or hair changes. 

BBFC

Looking at previous horror films, we have decided our target audience for Viral Terror.
our Target audience is Teenagers, both boys and girls. We have decided on our target audience based on  the previous  horror films that involve young teenagers, such as Saw or Scream.

However our film isn't as brutal as this, it doesn't contain weapons, or blood or really bad language, so therefore would require a high certificate rating.

Our film rating is more aimed at a certification of a 12A
What makes it a 12A is the moderate, not strong violence that we included throughout with the different ways people die and how it is clearly shown to the audience.
Especially in our first scene where one of our actors head is in dunked in blood and held there. There isn't much dwell on injury or pain.
 The overall tone of our film is very dark and creepy, which may unsettle an audience. As  killing and injury isn't glorified it is recommended for the lower rating of 12A.

In regards to strong language, there is no agressive use of strong language  that may result in the film being placed in the 15 category. However there is some moderate language, such as Bitch and Hell.

Discrimination
There is no discrimination or behaviour in the film that would justify a higher rating.
 There is no homophobic or racist terms, as this would unlikely to be passed at a 12 or 12A, unless it is clearly condemned.

Violence
 throughout our film we do show moderate violence, but it is not glamourised, nor do we use any weapons that could be either.

Some horror films are passed at this age rating/ category as long as they are  not disturbing.

The reason our film is this age rating and not higher, is because we do not dwell or glamourise the death of any victim, we do not use any strong language, where it can be considered as a 15 or 18.

There are also no sexual scenes throughout our opening to Viral Terror, there are some references to sexual scenes, however nothing that is beyond what is suitable for young teenagers.

casting and costume

 Name of actor: James Woodbine

Role: Antonio Borelli, Victim 

We picked James because he is small and has a youthful face, which creates a sense of innocence that surrounds him. As he is small, this shows how vulnerable and weak compared to the killer, through th e use of levels, with our character being dominant.  James character is a victim  of David Donnell, so it is important to establish this early on, for the genre and audience to feel sympathetic towards him. 

Name of Actress: Kim Renton

Role: Laura Hodge, Victim and Carl Jackson Girlfriend

We picked Kim because she looks friendly and innocent like James, making her an easy target for the killer. This also suggests to the audience that she doesn't deserve to be killed and how ruthless David our killer is. Kim herself, is a confident person , since she plays the second half of a love match, she has a good connection on camera and isn't shy. She is a perfect choice for someomne to play Laura as she is confident, which portrays her.  

 Name of Actor: Daniel Burton

Role: Robbie Andrews, Victim

We picked Dan because he looks older and more mysterious. As an audience we are slightly weary of him and we begin to question his actions. We see him as a strong headed character. Therefore we can infer that he will put up a fight against the killer. Dan is one of  our Victims in our film Viral Terror.  He is shown as quite stern and we wanted dan to be one of our victims, as it shows that even though he is presented as strong, we are showing that he isn't strong enough to over come our killer. 

Name of actor: Sam Cartwright

Role: Main character: Jamie stuart

We chose Sam because he has a lot of confidence and some would describe him as a typical teenage boy. He is fairly tall, which shows his dominance in the film as he is the main character and this helps the audience to relate with him. He doesn't seem shy and on camera this is the perfect person we need to present a Vlog. He has a cheeky innocent smile, which makes him a loveable character, which 

relates to the story line of him being a popular Vlogger. 

costume: , I  have decided to go for a smart casual look, with smart shoes, denim  jeans and a shirt. I picked these wardrobe decisions so that sam is wearing casual clothes, which our audience can relate to. He doesn't wear anything that stands out to make him look different. This shows that it could happen to anyone, which creates fear for our audience. 

Name of Actor: Junior Zambektis 

Role: Carl Jackson.

Carl is the  Boyfriend of Laura Hodge, we picked Junior because, he looks fresh and sweet, which would make the audience feel sympathy if something bad were to happen to him. . Junior in this role is playing the second half of a love relationship, Which shows to our audience that Junior is the hero of out horror film. He is strong and tall which shows dominance as a hero. However he is not strong enough to go against David Donell. 

Name of Actor: Charlie Romeo-Penn 

Role: David Donnell - Killer/ main character.

We picked Charlie, as he is tall, showing his dominance that can be portrayed as a villain, making him the perfect person to play this character.  Due to his strength and height, in the opening we see him play on the characters vulnerabilities, showing the fear in our Horror. He is also very pale, shows how he's very lifeless and death like. He is also strong, typically conveying a killer. 

Costume: Brown jacket, Brown trousers, Brown boots and a Black jumper, to show the nature of our film. The connotations of brown, its a warm colour. Connotations show it's a stable colour, it's quite warm and rich. However we have subverted the typical connotations and represented it as a cold colour, which shows to our audience this is our killer.

Name: Emily Jennet

Role: Daisy Williams

I chose Emily to play this role because she looks young. I wanted her to be represented as a message in our opening. She is the first Victim and wanted to show to the audience that she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. For the audience this is relateable as it could happen to anyone. In generic horror movies, such as Saw the victims convey their character. When looking at the comparison between emily and how she looks in the video. She is young and vulnerable and thats exactly how i wanted her to look.

Costume for our victims: We have decided for our victims to wear casual clothes,  jeans and T-shirts, to show to the audience that they are normal people. This helps the audience really relate to these characters. Also to empahsise that this could happen to them. which helps to create the fear. Considering that most psycological thrillers relate to their audiences, we have created our fear and audience, by using teenagers, to grab the audience and take advantage of their vulnerable minds.

I wanted the cast to portray the same characters in unfriended. Typical teenagers, that got mixed up at the wrong time by being in the wrong place. In the picture above, the characters look ordianiry, just how our characters look in Vial Terror. Casting and makeup decisoins are also very similar. The female characters in both films have very basic make up,subverting typical female stereotypes. The male characters, again very similar except they are conforming to being strong, bread winners and handsome. I have tried to portray tyhese features form Unfriended in Viral Terror by using these features.

Title research

In this task i looked at all of the successful horror films and the top ten voted horrors.
In this order:

Halloween
The Exorcist

The Shining
The Texas chainsaw massacre
Psycho
Alien - Doesn't link to the plot
Scary Movie
Night of the living Dead
Poltergeist
A nightmare on Elmstreet



Our Final idea: Previously in a flat, young teenagers were murdered by a man called David Donell. Every time Someone new comes to live there, something bad happens. He also gets recorded from the flat Blocks CCTV cameras. I then made a connection with technology and Youtube videos. If the general Public was to see live murders on Camera, it would go VIRAL. After considering how this links to our plot/storyline. I decided that it should be the first half of our title.

When i researched into Night of the Living Dead these words related to the film:

Obtained
Demanded     - words that relate to the plot.
Dictated
Compelled
Terror

looking at some of these film:

psycho
unbalanced
Crazy
 Mental

Hilarious
Jumpy
Spoof

This is an example of a more comedy horror, than something designed to scare an audience. This is an example that didn't influence our decision in deciding what we wanted the film to look like. However compared with a Nightmare on Elmstreet (Below) where this is an example of how we wanted our horror film to look. Specifically when he is in the child's bedroom, the darker lighting and the sharper music. This creates fear and builds tension and TERROR Which is a great example of what we wanted.

Nightmare
Torment
Terror
poltergeist
Spector
demon

After all of this consideration, we have chose Terror, to link in to the task and show our audience that it is a horror film. Which relates to Nightmare on Elmstreet. Another  word we have chosen to use is Viral, because it's about technology and footage we see through these video messages. 

Our title: VIRAL TERROR

Phsycological Horror conventions

Having chose  phscological horror as our sub Genre i decided to look into this horror in more depth so we know exactly what it consists of.

This type of horror relies on audience as a main contributing factor, as it is all about their minds that create the scariest part. Phsycological horror has been votes one of the scariest genre's of horror.

Conventions of this sub genre:
No physical weapons
Flashbacks
Normal characters and killers
Based on true stories or factual events.
Big houses, Woodland Locations, warehouses, schools and hospitals.  
The use of children as killers is also common
Female targets
contrapuntal sound

In  physiological horror, we normally see the main target being women. We see this in the conjuring and poltergeist as we see young, female children either possessed or as the killers.

we also hear quite a lot of diegetic sound and whispers, the sound is typically contrapuntal, meaning it doesn't match the action on screen.
We also see throughout theses movies, it exposes the evil that hides through normality, unlike in a slasher film e.g Saw - we have a clear killer ( jigsaw), whereas in  physiological horror, it is normally a story which we see unfold and the evil take over a characters body - which then condemns them to move forward.

Again in this genre, we rely on the characters emotional instability to build tension for us as an audience.

an Example would be the opening scene in Jaws:

we don't see our source of danger, we hear screaming, chaotic movements, we hear dissonant tones and sharp notes. This shows us our source of danger, but our minds are left to wander and create the things that happen. Simply because we can't see it until later on in the film. But the main hook of this genre is the fear of the unknown and thats why audiences love being scared.

Linking back to how this genre is aimed at woman, slashers are more aimed at men as it involves physical weapons, blood, creepy killers. All which they can relate too, as men are stereotypically into guns, and action in films.
However in Physiological horror, it's aimed at woman, because of the children, maternal insticts are there and woman are drawn to children as they feel the need to protect them. Again they are normally based on true stories, women tend to over think and let their minds wander, as they are typically more vulnerable to seeing events that could actually take place in real life.

Target audience for film

Saw III  - Horror
Male audience because the blood anf gore)
Demographic : C2 , E and B
Age: 18-25
secondary audience 25-35
psycographics - Explorers & strugglers
Uses and gratifications - Escapism and Entertainment.    

Armoir - French film, 40+, Drama
B, fast moving
E - retired, Reformers
Mixed gender

Expendables 3 - Men
18-40
C2, D, E
strugerlers and mainstreamers

conjouring - Women
secondary audience - Men
C1, B, E
15-30
Explorers annd strugglers.

close analysis of horror

codes and conventions

In Films, we see many codes and conventions in the opening scene to the main body.
i have looked at 5 films from different genres and this is what i found.
i looked at:
Legally Blonde
Cabin in The Woods
Pride & Prejudice
Toy Story
Footloose


Legally Blonde 
We can see the genre, through things like Action, Printstyles and Sound. 
The font, we see it's Diary Writing, it's pink - we can see it's aimed at a girls audience,the writitng is nice and bubbly. 

Music - The song Perfect day, insinuating her perfect life, the song is really girly and upbeat, like her life. In the background we see her Blonde hair and perfect manicured nails, a pretty and girly film. We then see the title of the film come up, it then cuts to the actress name, the only name we see, which shows us who our main chsrscter is. Again all of our credits are Pink. 
we see things on her table such as: A heart necklace, Nail polish, magasines, cream, hair stuff, make up, perfume
we also see her shaved legs, sparkly shoes homecoming banner - this is all part of our narrative - we have been introduced to our main character and her personality. Whilst we see all of this, The actors, producers, Directors, Editors and music people - we are introduced to more of the cast.

Cabin in the Woods 
Lionsgate - the colours changed to Red, introducing to us that it is a horror Genre.
We see Blood - which reveals the Background information = We see religious symbols and our Credits are all in Red. 
Cuts then to a normal scene of people drinking coffee, CABIN IN THE WOODS  in capitals and in red. 
We're introduced to our main characters straight away, but however we get the tone of the film from the blood , but however we see a cut to the coffee room, suggesting a different type of horror. 
cuts to home town 
Actors names - in red - we meet our group of characters - set up for film 
Editors, Designers, Producers and Directors etc - All in red with blood spat - reveals the genre

Pride and Prejudice 
Serif font ( flicks, coligraphy), the credits are white/ cream and the music - Piano/ Instrumental - 
sophisticated 
the title of the film is in capital letters - When it cuts to our Main character walking through a field, reading a book, we see our main characters personality - she likes reading, she's sophisticated, strong willed, not like other main girl characters. 
Actors Names, producers, screen play, exec prodcucers and directors. 

Toy story: 
Production logo - Disney Pixar 
we see Animation - tone of film - aimed at children and families
music - you've got a friend in me - also sets the tone of the film, it's happy and adventurous 
we see the title of the fim in big letters, which roles to our credits 
Producers, executive producers, technicals, music, original writters - howver we see no actors names in the opening sequence, just a background scene of all the toys - we can make inference from the scene and the title, what the movies about. 


Footloose: Music - upbeat, funky, dramatic - the Genre - Drama revealed through music
, we see the credits, in lower case bubble type font in a dark yellow colour, we are introduced to our main characters, when actors names come up, the rest of the credits role up as we follow our main characters, we see, producers, the Title, the casting directors, chereography and Director. 

Overall from these openings we are introduced to our main character/characters 
the tone of the film, through - font, narrative and music 
Actors names 
credits - producers, directors 
The film Title 
and the set up for what type of film it is 
iconography's through the film - our reccuring object 

Saul Bass

Saul Bass

Saul bass was born on May 8th 1920, in the Bronx, New York City, USA. Died april 25th 1996, Los Angeles US

His Artwork : Anatomy of A Murder, Advise and Consent, Exodus, The Man With The Golden Arm and In Harms Way. 

Awards - Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject. 

In the films like around the work in 80 days and carmen jones, he designed very abstract title credits and end credits. Saul bass was a graphic designer and a title designer, who used a number of styles like animation, live action and type treatments. Saul Bass is known as the man that changed graphic design, his use of lines and his crafting were surreal and abstract which everyone interpreted as his way of telling the nature of films. His time began in hollywood in 1940's designing print advertisements, for films including champion in 1949 and death of a salesman in 1951.

 

Before he did title sequences he also did logos such as:

 all his logos use a very abstract, cubist style, which we also see later in his title/end credits

during his 40 year career, bass worked for some of hollywoods most prominent filmmakers, including Alfred Hitchcock, otto preminger, Billy Wilder. Bass designed some of the most iconic corporate logos in north America  including the bell system logo in 1969. He designed logos which became some of the most recognised in the industry. Bass became widely known in the film industry after creating the title sequence for Otto Preminger's - The Man with the Golden Arm in 1955.  He chose the arm as the central image, as it relates to heroin addiction - the way it looks like it was cut out shapes from black paper, as he hoped, it caused quite a sensation.

Martin Scorsese opinions on saul bass. Martin states that before he had ever met saul bass or worked with him, "he was a legend in my eyes" taking into account his work, Scorsese says the that his work were images you could dream on and still are. bass said "the ideal trademark is one that is pushed to it's utmost limits in terms of Abstraction and ambiguity, yet is still readable. Trademarks are usually metaphors of one kind or another, and are, in a certain sense, thinking made visible.

Martin scorsese thought very highly of bass, my opinion of him myself, is he was a genius who had an amazing, abstract,cubist way of thinking, if you were to look at anything created by saul bass, you could clearly see his thinking behind it, especially with lines and shapes. for example in the man with a golden arm, it looked as if the shapes had been cut, a particular signature i like is the colours, shapes and lines and how he could use these over again but create something completely different, and would still look just as amzing . which makes him as an artist very unique as regular designers always look for somehting new instead of changing what you already had and thinking of a physcological impact that it could have on the audience, which links in very nicely to the lines we see in the prelude in physco, with the fenetic stabbing we see in the shower scene.

movements video

Preliminary Task Evaluation

In the Preliminary task the story board and the shot list were the basis of what we planned to do in our video, When it came to filming the video and editing it together, the shots we had worked well for matching what we were trying to do: match on action, shot reverse shot and 180 degree rule. The shots worked well as each character delivered their lines to the camera. However when it came down to importance of what needed to be in the video, some stuff was cut out - like crabbing of the feet as it would have breached the continuity of the video. but generally the shots we were trying to achieve to demonstrate worked well.

   The match on action shot worked well because we managed to match up where jack opened the door on one side, to wear it was opened on the other side, again the shot reverse shot also worked well as we got both people to delver there lines on the exact moment as the camera cut to the other person.

What i feel could have worked better was when we tried to get a crabbing shot of jack walking along to the heads office, as we couldnt use the tripod to take the shot, we handheld the camera, the shots we got were unfortunately no good as they were really rocky and unsteady, whereas if we could have steadied the camera the footage would have turned out better. Also i feel we could have worked more collectively as a group, as we couldnt really decide on the order of shots and the angles we wanted as the main focus, so we all should decided so we could have got on to shoot the footage earlier on, so the quality of film could have been perfect.

Prelim Task and finished video

representation