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.