Choosing a Film Studio

We needed to choose a film studio to produce our films. We looked at popular horror film production companies that also produce similar films to ours. We needed it to be right for our genre, target audience, style and themes. We did some research and found that Hammer and Lionsgate were popular horror film production companies and decided to look at those two. We looked at their portfolio of films and their websites to see whether they would be suitable. 

Firstly we looked at the Hammer Films website:

We liked the look of the website straight away as the colour scheme is dark, with black, red and white colours in it, which were our theme colours. It looks quite eery and creepy straight away which identifies it at a horror film production company immediately.

The film 'The Woman in Black' was shown on their website, which we had all heard of and knew made a fairly good profit when it was in the cinema. We looked for other films that we recognised but the other films weren't as recognisable and we'd never heard of them, which started to make us think this wasn't the right film studio.

We looked at the Lionsgate website afterwards:

We immediately liked this website as it was also dark and eery and had a huge advert for 'Texas Chainsaw 3D' which, is a very well known horror film franchise. This gave us a good impression immediately. We looked into other films that Lionsgate had produced and there were some big names like 'The Hunger Games'. That film, even though wasn't a horror film was a massive hit at the cinema, meaning this production studio would have the sufficient budget for our film and would be able to get it a lot of public attention. This is a perfect advantage as we need a lot of promotion going into it as we have decided on a cast of unknown actors. Overall we decided to choose Lionsgate as our production company as we believed it would be able to provide us with the commercial success we hope for, because it is much more a well known company.

Filming our sequence part 2

We had to film the destruction of the photos, I couldn't show all of the photos destroyed as most of them had been cut up and had fake blood on them. Me, Dylan and Kate went into my garden and burnt one of the photos, submerging one in water, cutting one, slicing one with a small knife and splatting blood on it and dropping small rocks on one. Each photo and the way it is destroyed signified the way each character dies in the film. It's like a foreshadowing events later in the film.

Behind the Scenes shots

Kate filming

These are some shots from behind the scenes when we filmed. In the pictures you can see Kate, as the cinematographer, working out what the shot would look like, where to position the camera and filming some of the clips. Also there are some pictures of me also positioning the camera and seeing what the shot would look like when it was filming and seeing if it would look effective. Dylan was the one taking the photographs however, both he and Kate helped me decide on the location and he also did some filming too. As the director, he made effective decisions on what to film and how to film it.

Me positioning the camera in the correct place

me seeing how the shot would look

Kate working out where to film

Location shots

These are some of our location shots that we took whilst we filmed on location. As location person I felt these locations were suitable as with the right colour changes in final cut they would have the right dark and creepy look we wanted to achieve. I liked the positioning of the trees (fallen down tree, trees dotted around) as I thought that these gave the location a more eery look to it. We all felt that this was the perfect location as it was similar to what we'd imagined and discussed what we wanted it to look like.

Filming at Oxleas part 1

To film our sequence, we had to go to the set location we selected prior to filming. We decided, since we were doing the horror/slasher genre, we wanted a creepy, eery location. We picked the woods as this fit the criteria of the location we wanted. The woods are often a typical setting for a horror film making it instantly recognisable. Before going off to our location, we made sure we had all the equipment, which we were able to do with some complications; such as problems with the weapon, tri-pod issues and rope issues. We managed to resolve them in the end with Simone providing the knife, me being able to locate a tri-pod (we forgot to get one from school) and kate finding some rope to use during filming. 

Once we got to our location, we had to choose the right location in the woods that would fit our imagination of our woods. We selected a location that was not over crowded by trees, and had a decent amount of walking space. Since I was in charge of location, I had the decision where we started filming, with the help and opinions of Kate and Dylan. Kate set up the positioning of the camera, and decided where people should enter and leave and the different camera angles, whereas Dylan being the director, oversaw these decisions and had to see if the decisions being made where ultimately good enough - which all were and there were no problems.

Once we had picked the location we started to film the walking, and running clips for our film. We took lots of shots so we had lots of choice when we began editing and so we wouldn't have to go back again. Once we finished filming, we looked through and watched the clips to see if they looked good. 

Production Plan

Production Plan 

Filming Schedule:
Date: December 16th
Location: Oxleas Woods
Times: 
2:00 Meet at my house
2:10 Leave my house and get bus to Oxleas Wood's
2:30 Take loaction shots
2:45 Film scenes of the "killer" cutting rope
3:00 Film scenes of "killer" walking through woods
3:15 Film scene where group of friends "enter" the woods
3:30 Film scenes of running through woods in panic

Things needed: 
Rope (Provided by Kate)
Torch(Provided by Kate)
Fake knife (Provided by Simone)
Camera and tripod (Provided by Lucy)
Bags to use as props (Provided by Dylan)
Must ensure costume is dark and suitable for camping

Problems that may arise: 
1.Bad weather
2.Camera running out of battery
3.Location is not suitable
How they will be resolved:
1.We have ensured we have chosen a dry day to film by checking the weather report
2.We have brought spare batteries along
3.We have organised a backup location in the Abbey woods

Issues With Our Weapon.

As a group we discussed the possibility of using a real axe when shooting as we all thought it would look realistic and eery, however, taking an axe out into a public woods would probably cause some unwanted attention from the police and public. We then did some extensive research into looking for a fake alternative. We found some realistic ones but they were significantly expensive.

http://www.partytowers.co.uk/fake-weapons-guns-swords/plastic-axe-fake-weapon-fancy-dress-accessory.html

This is the only fairly realistic fake axe we could find during our research, we liked that it was under £3 however, we think that it looked very fake and wouldn't give the look that we wanted. We thought that it wouldn't give the scare factor.

http://struts.co.uk/party-fancy-dress-shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1222&ref=1

 We considered changing our weapon and looked into buying a fake chainsaw. This seemed more promising however we realised that we could not wait for delivery if we wanted to film the day we had planned.

We came to the conclusion we would use a fake knife which would still work effectively on camera but would be much safer and easier to get to the woods and back. 

Storyboards

Group roles given to group members

In our group, we had to take specific roles. The roles were director/producer who basically had control over everything, cinematography who checked the camera angles, lighting and so on and someone had to be in control of the props, make-up and location.

The role Dylan was given was: Director/Producer
The role I was given was: Props, make-up, location
The role Kate was given was: Cinematographer