Roles Of Group

Alexandra Haley - Costume and Set Design (mis-en-scene)/Actress/Director of Casting
Liberty Shaw - Director of Photography/Actress/Director of Music
Rosy Armitage - Director of Editing/Producer
Liam Hand - Director/Executive Producer/Actor

Extra People involved:
Samuel Snowdon - Actor
Kane Mitchell - Actor
Abigail Haley - Actress

Mis-en-scene

Set:

The setting we have chosen is located in the Buckden area of North Yorkshire, which is owned by a friend. It is an old, abandoned church which was once a school, with an abandoned morgue in an adjoining room. It contains old dusty furniture, with an old balcony at the back of the church, and ornate glass windows. These parts of the mis-en-scene will look odd and almost uncomfortable for the audience. The morgue looked like a perfect location for the idea of the death sentence/last words scene, and the church could be useful to set the scene with an old, eerie, lonely atmosphere. It is a stereotypical location for the genre we have chosen, as well as for more extreme horror genres. The setting of the opening is important because it will keep the audience interested for the rest of the film, and sets up the theme for the rest of the story.

Costume:

The teenagers in our idea will be in normal everyday clothes, so the audience can relate to them. The character being killed will be dressed in dark colours, to make him look mysterious and almost dangerous, which would make his last words more powerful. His killers will be dressed in lab coats, to make them look like the authoritative people in charge, as well as making it clear they are like 'doctors' or 'professionals' injecting him with drugs. The white coats will also contrast with the dark location, to make them look odd or out-of-place. To further show this, they will have very distinct make-up to make them look quite disturbing or uncomfortable for the audience, which would fit with our genre. I took inspiration from the film 'Insidious' with the smiling family, where they are made up to look like dolls, with exaggerated lipstick and eye make-up, and distinct but still facial expressions, to also look psychologically disturbing. This family are also in the astral plane setting of the film, almost a dream-like state, which is an effect we can try to create. 

Insidious - The Smiling Family scene

Genre/Narrative

We all agreed that the genre of our film piece would be a 'psychological thriller' because we thought it would be something challenging and interesting to work with in order to suit a target audience. We have been inspired by other films of this genre, or horror films that have a psychologically disturbing nature, because these types of films keep an audience drawn into the film because it keeps their minds wandering.

 Our idea for the narrative is inspired by films such as 'Citizen Kane', where the last words before death are revealed at the start, and the rest of the film is working out what the words meant. As we are only making the beginning of a film, we will make this clear in the title. 

Here is a short summary of our narrative idea:

•   A teenage, possibly drunken couple stumble into an abandoned church, looking for somewhere to possibly shelter, or to investigate it. There will be a few establishing shots of outside the church, and some over-shoulder shots, to introduce the setting, and give opportunity for the credits to start appearing. There will be eerie music starting at this point.
•   The couple enter the church and the music stops to emphasise echoes and sound effects, where there is dusty up-turned furniture, a high balcony, and old-fashioned windows, letting in just enough light for the audience to see the interior. There will be shots of each distinct 'disturbing' or 'unusual' part of the church, where credits will also appear. These clips or photos could appear with credits before the actual film sequence appears, in order to give the audience a sense of familiarity when the couple enter the church, and to set the scene more effectively.
•    The couple either investigate further, or hear a noise coming from another room, to which they walk over and peek around the door and keep quiet as they watch the scene inside, as more music begins to start and build tension.
•   The focus is taken off the couple and is drawn into the scene in the room, which looks like an old-fashioned abandoned morgue.
•   A man is willingly being strapped a stretcher-type bed or table almost ceremoniously, and the room is lit by candles. The people strapping him down 'look' strange and out-of-place to the audience, where they would look like 'dolls' in lab-coats with extreme make-up and facial expressions.
•   One of these people say to the man whilst smiling "any last words?" followed by a shot of a needle moving towards his arm.
•   There is a close up of the man's face as he shuts his eyes. The title screen then comes on, as he whispers his last phrase, which will also be the name of the title.

Half Term Research

The group all met during the half term holidays and had a 'film night' where we chose several films to look at and get ideas from for our film opening coursework. Two of the films that we included were 'Black Swan' and 'Sucker Punch', which have a psychological and in some ways disturbing genre to the film, a genre we are interested in, as well as having very distinct and effective opening scenes. We discussed ideas as well as picking up on some evaluation points for our first project 'Porphyria'. 

(Photo by Liberty Shaw: http://www.libertyshawmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/a-week-off-from-school.html )