Treatment -Trailer

Treatment – 

Our plot :

Two boys and a girl are camping in the woods, over the camp fire the boys decide to try and scare the girl by telling her children’s stories which are commonly used to scare children into being good or to test someone’s bravery. However they use this in attempt to scare her because they think it’s funny. They tell stories such as: The Boogeyman, The Candy Man story and of course the favourite Bloody Mary Story.  This is the point where the girl admits that she doesn’t think it’s a good idea when attempting to be ‘brave’, but the boys seem to think it’s even more hilarious and think she’s just being weak. However the boys didn’t realise this was all far from a silly little story… their jokes become a reality.

We found that the most popular genre of film in late and recent polls were Horror and Comedy. We like both genres however we have more experience creating a horror because we know the codes and conventions of a typical horror film because of our AS project and we also have particular interest in the genre of horror itself, because we have no control of what will happen and how we will react.

Me and Stephanie also did further research into horrors and found that there was a gap in the market for the sub-genre of Forklores/urban legends and myths that fall under the wider genre of Horror. When discussing different routes to go down and when mentioning different films we particularly like, such as: The Blair Witch Project – Urban Legend – The Hatchet.  We particularly liked the narration on ‘The Hatchet’ which consists of a little girl telling a story of a little boy who was killed by his dad by a Hatchet- hence the name Hatchet- and he sets out to kill other people and follows the rules of the myth. We thought that the use of the little girls voice was used to great effect, this is because when I asked family members and friends what sort of scary protagonist they thought was the scariest, 9/10 said that they thought that using a young child as a ‘killer’ is probably the scariest because it is unexpected of ‘innocent’ children, and also I personally thought since I was young that a little girl singing, like in ‘The others’ is probably one of the most spin shivering things ever, and one of the most useful things to have in a horror film to make it ‘scary’ is the use of sounds, music, singing, diegetic sounds and non-diegetic sounds.  The latter types of sound create scary atmospheres that automatically pull the audience into the film and grab their attention immediately.  We did research on different folklores/myths/urban legends to refresh our memories on many that we hurt when we were younger but also to widen our knowledge on the genre itself, we also found many that we didn’t know already and we were then able to use that as inspiration for our own myth that we were create for our trailer. Another key feature we looked at when looking at ‘Hatcher’ was the location, this is very significant to the film in its entirety and this is because it is set in the woods. This is important because many famous/successful horror films created have been set in the woods at one point or another (Hatchet – all filmed in the woods, Urban Legend – Damon gets killed in the woods and The Blair Witch Project – all filmed in the woods), this is because it gives out a creepy atmosphere, the characters have no sense of control over what happens there… They’re in the ‘Great Outdoors’ anything can happen and they’re completely out of their comfort zones and are unable to predict what will happen, could be good or bad. Our film is very relatable to the target audience(15+) this is because the audience we predict that will view our film has more than likely been scared into being good by their parents or dared one another to test the myth to prove bravery but in some case stupidity.

We presented our pitch to our media group and media teacher, once given out a hand out that sums up our film in its whole and presented what film we are planning on doing and why we used particular things, we were asked a series of questions to help pad out our planning so that there is no issues with it and that we going to know how it is going to work, practically making it bulletproof. We weren’t sure on what to place in between the trees in the woods(as you can see we have created a rough idea of what we would like our poster to look like below, using images from the internet so we could show to the group a style of poster we were looking for…) we didn’t want to give the twist of the whole film away by placing an image of a protagonist between the trees because we didn’t want to let the audience view what the characters and the audience itself would fear. We had a suggestion off Craig that was; having may be an image of the scary protagonist appearing through the trees, this is because the protagonist sees everything… There’s no where they can hide. I particularly thought this was an excellent idea; it doesn’t give too much away. We also were asked about the fire that we are featuring in the trailer when the characters were telling stories; we have to consider the risks of doing this, for our actors and the wooded area we are in. We have come up with some solutions – filming the fire elsewhere and place it in while editing or actually create it in the woods under supervision of parents who will be around with water to put the fire out if it gets out of hand. We aren’t sure on which one we are going to use yet.

Me and Stephanie have set a date to start filming which is the 4^th November, we are going to inform all of the actors and the photographer we are going to be using to take some additional shots. I will post some of her images soon to show her style of work. A issue we will face is the fact that it is getting very close to winter, snow is expected sooner than expected, this is very problematic as we might not be able to film the type of film that we actually built up in our minds.

Equipment:

• Tripod
• One school digital camera
  - Need battery charger, last year me and Stephanie had everything set up and actors ready but the battery ran out and we weren’t given the charger, so we ended up wasting a whole night when we could have been film, so we had to reschedule which wasn’t very convenient for all the crew.
• Me and Steph are bringing additional cameras

- This is because we used an extra camera in AS, and it helped us gain extra footage but also helped with the continuity of the film because both cameras were both used at the same time so there was no chance of one of the horses being out of place. We think it is important we keep this consistency throughout our trailer so we can catch the same shot but from different areas of the woods.

We are going to have transport arranged for our actors(mine and Stephanie’s parents) so they won’t have to worry about getting from A to B (bus fare, where it actually is etc).

In case on an emergence all actors and camera operators will have mobile phones which do receive signal (as me and Steph found out when taking pictures of the location) and also we are very short distance from where Steph lives, so we are able to get help or go there in case of weather change.

We are going to have breaks for our actors, obviously we don’t expect them to work the fully time we are there. Me and Stephanie are going to provide food and drink for the actors and crew. We plan of shooting between 4pm-7pm, this is because it’s on a school day so we cannot get there any earlier but also we have to be very serious while shooting as now we are getting into the earlier nights we have to get everything we need to get before it gets too dark to film.

We also have to take into consideration if an actor become ill on the day we plan on filming, we are organising understudies for them just in case events like this happens.

Costume-

Boys –

• Dark clothing – long sleeve tops, dark jeans.
• Trainers
• Most likely hoodies.

Girl –

• ‘Girly’ top – strapped
• Shorts/skirt (depending on what our actress is more comfortable with)
• Sensible foot wear(involves a lot of running)

The reason why we have such a change in costume for the boys compared to the girl is because we want to show the innocence and purity of the girl in comparison of the boys who are taunting her. They have that particular costume because it shows their dark sense of humour and desire to cause ‘hell’ for the girl.

We are very good friends with the 3 actors chosen for our film and we are roughly the same age range and therefore we can communicate better and they we be able to relate better towards us than say an adult director. Also the significances of using teenagers within our film is that our class we are presenting our trailer to is roughly the same age as the actors and therefore they are able to connect to them better and get into the mind of the actors.  

A lot of communication to the cast is mainly through facebook/text/face to face. It is important that they have all the important information for the film to they can prep their selves instead of having to making it up on the spot or learning their lines in the matter of minutes.