Our Film

The Gift

Risk Assessment

Audience feedback responces

audience feedback 'click here'

The questionnaire about the gift

Audience feedback questionnaire

Tempory link to feedback questionnaire

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1FePNPllnXXO_xMC_gRU_c_QiR-q5NufauZ2JpLkh30I/viewform

2 minute story board

This is the rough story board for our 2 minute film. I included illustrations of the scenes as well as shot types, audio and the character's script.

Props: Costume for Archer

The costume for Archer will be a normal set of casual clothes. He will wear a long sleeve shirt with a T-shirt underneath with a pair of jeans. This will show that he's just an ordinary boy with nothing especially strange or off about him, which further emphasises the fact that he is unfortunate in the fact that he's working against the clock to keep himself alive and has been taken out of his element.

Possible filming locations-photos

Possible Film Location-The Boys Room

These photographs are of my room at home which my group are still debating whether or not to use to film for the final scene which takes place in the boys bedroom. Whilst it may be useful to film here, as my house is easy to get to from college and it is spacious enough for our group to film in, there is a problem that my room looks too girly to pass off as a boys room

Location Photos- The River

Location Photos of The River

These are the photos of our first filming location, where we have filmed the first shot of our film, a pan of this river. The shot will be used to set the scene of our film, as the girl in the film who is the ghost died after she was pushed into a river by her uncle and will be edited so it juxtaposes with another scene location, which is the boys birthday party and creates the feeling that something bad is about to happen because of how calm it all is and this links to the horror genre as river looks gloomy and miserable, which you may expect to see in horror film locations. This location is probably the only location we are using in our film that has or will pose a risk to any of us whilst filming, as there was the danger of one of us falling in the river and the camera being dropped in the river.

Storyboard Pictures

The storyboard with pictures will go here

Research into a possible film distributor.

It’s important to decide on whether or not are film would be a mainstream or independent film. Below I have researched into a possible mainstream and independent distributer:

A possible independent film distributor is:  warp films.

·         Warp films is an independent film production company based in Sheffield and London that was founded in 2002.

·         Warp has distributed various horror films one example is “berberian sound studio”. Which about a sound engineer's work for an Italian horror studio that becomes a terrifying case of life imitating art. The film was released in 2012 and given a 15 certificate.

A possible mainstream film distributer is: dream works

·         Dream works is an American film studio which develops, produces, and distributes films, video games and television programming

·         I think this would be an appropriate distributor because Dream works was the distributer of the ring -a similar film that I have reviewed in my research.

·         However dream works is largely associated with family films and children’s animated movies and so are film would probably not appeal to their primary market as are film is a horror movie targeted at a local audience.

I think are film would most likely be an independent film because it is a low budget film that doesn’t use any special effects. Its also been created in the local are so its unlikely it will appeal to a national audience.

Girl character profile

The Girl

Name: Eliza Huddleworth
Age: 16
Date of birth: 1884
Occupation: maid
Family: poor, live with uncle and aunty. (both not present in film).


Status in film: Deceased
Character status in film: The antagonist
Description: Pale skin, white eyes, blue cracked lips, dark sunken eyes, messy curly hair covering face, sunken cheeks.
Interests: Getting revenge on men
Hobbies: Sending out haunted presents
Favourite music: classical

Life before death:
She lived on a farm near a river, far away from any neighbors. She raised pigs, and traveled on a hourse drawn carrage. She was killed by her uncle after years of abuse, and thrown in the river. (This is the  reason she wants revenge on men.) She didnt know her mother or father as they died when she was young, and she adopted by her uncle.

 

Boy Character Profile

Character Profile: Archer (The Boy)

Name: Archer
Age: 16
Date of birth: 6th June 1997
Occupation: High School Student
Family: Rose (sister)
Mother and father (not present in the first two minutes of the film)

Status in film: Alive
Character status in film: Main protagonist/victim
Description: Short brown hair, pale blue eyes, fair skin tone, bushy eyebrows
Interests: Comic books, video games, movies, drawing
Hobbies: Drawing, playing video games, watching movies, reading comic books, hanging out with friends.
Favourite music: LMFAO, Olly Murs, The Killers, Kaiser Chiefs, Jessie J, David Guetta, Eminem, Maroon 5, Bruno Mars (Anything from the UKTop40). ACDC, Tenacious D, Muse, Oasis, Black Veil Brides, Yashin.
Favourite films: Aliens, Rocky, Spiderman films, The Batman films, Kindergarten Cop, Forrest Gump, The Expendables.

Clothing: Casual clothing: jeans, T-shirt, jacket, converse
About this character: Archer is a regular teenage boy. He doesn't enjoy school because of the work he has to do, the only thing he likes about it is getting to hang out with his friends. He bickers with his siter Rose, but he cares about his sister alot and sees her as a good role model. Prior to the films events, he had a normal life and was looking forward to his birthday party, although he was a little down in the dumps about his parents having to go away and not being at home for his birthday. He often enjoys playing pranks on his friends, which explains why he thinks the gift he receives containing a broken necklace charm is one of his friends playing a joke on him, as he believes they are trying to get revenge for his previous jokes. After he realises the gift is not a joke and a deadly curse lurks behind it, he becomes determined to find out the origins of this gift and its so-called curse and find a way to prevent the ghost from killing him.

Distributor

Distributor: Warner Brothers

Warner brothers is a fully intergrated entertainment company, which is a global leader in creation, production, distribution, licensing and marketing. The company has over 61,000 hours of programs, including nearly 6,5000 feature films, 3,000 live-action and animated television series.

In 2012 the company grossed $4.3 billion at the worldwide box office.

Its one of the major film companies, and has many companies underneath it (like warner bro. studios, warner bro. interactive entertainment etc).

The four founding brothers, Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack Warner created warner brothers, they began when the older brothers Harry, Ablert and Sam created a movie theatre business, having bought a projector, and they showed films in the mining towns of Pennsylvania and Ohio. The first theatre was opened in Ohio 1903.

In 1930 Warner's cartoon unit had some sway in the independent Harman and Ising studio, from 1930 to 1933they produced a musical animation series for Leon Schlesinger, which  sold the shorts to Warner. Harman and Isling introduced their character Bosko in the first Looney tunes cartoon, 'Sinkin' in the Bathtub'.

Harman and Ising studio broke away from Schlesinger after a contractual dispute,  Schlesinger then created his own production company Leon Schlesinger Productions, whic carried on making Lonney Tunes with the character Buddy (a Bosko clone). By the end of the decade, a new Schlesinger production team was formed including, Friz Freleng, Tex Avery, chuck Jones and Robert Clampett.

Avery directed a string of cartoons, starring Porkey Pig, Daffy Duck  and Bugs Bunny (both warner bro. cartoon characters). These achieved star power. The  Schlesinger studio has surpassed Walt Disney as the most successful producer os animated shorts in the US. Warner bro. bought Schlesinger's cartoons in 1944, and renamed it Warner bros. cartoons.




Warner brothers merged with New Line Cinema in 2008. Warner brothers films are available worldwide.

Warner brothers can afford 3D, IMAX and lots of special affects, cost is rarely an issue.

Warner brothers. Entertainment headquarters are in California, in Warner bros. Studios lot, 142 acres in Burbank. Warner bro. movies include the eight harry potters, the dark knight, sherlock holmes and charlie and the chocolate factory.

Distribution Company research: 20th Century Fox

20th Century Fox is a mainstream film studio, one of the six largest in America as of 2011. They belong as part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. It was founded on the 31st of May, 1935 because of a wager of Fox Film Corporation.
Fox has a number of franchises, including Star Wars, X-Men, Ice Age, Die Hard and a few others. It also has a TV franchises, such as Family Guy and American Dad. It had some dealings in the music industry, too.


The famous logo of the company

Fox distribute its films world wide, ensuring large audiences for each film. This, generally, leads to a larger audience due to having more people having a chance to see the film. Due to Fox's success it rarely, if ever, co produces films with other film studios as it has no need to do so, however it did partner with Lionsgate when producing and developing The Day After Tomorrow.

This company would be a good choice to distribute our film as it has a wide variety of genres under it's belt, including some famous sci-fi horror films such as the Predator franchise and the Alien franchise. As it distributes worldwide it would reach out to a larger audience and fetch in more income than if it were an independent movie. Also, as a result of being backed by one of the larger film comnpanies, the budget would be substantially higher and lead to a better quality film. The comnpany name as of itself would be beneifcial as it could be seen as an official seal of approval to film goers, thus encouraging them to go out and watch the film.

Plan Sheet-post

The Gift- Plan Sheet

Characters

• Victim- Archer, a teenage boy who is an average teenager but in our film is placed in a murderous situation after receiving a mysterious birthday gift.
• Sibling- Rose, Archer's sister who loves him alot and is ensuring that he enjoys his birthday at the start of the film. She points out he has another birthday gift and is oblivious to the evil and danger that lurks behind this so-called present.
• Archer's friends- all of them are close to Archer and at the beginning, are enjoying his party and wishing him a happy birthday. He blames the gift on them at first, thinking it is their ides of a joke.
• Killer- Maria, known as in the first two minutes of our film as "The Girl". She was killed by her father who pushed her off a cliff into the river, where she drowned. Angry at her death and wanting revenge, she kills men by sending them her "gift", which contains a broken necklace charm which belonged to her and is passed on from victim to victim.

Settings/Locations

• River- exterior, during the daylight
• Boys house-exterior scene
• Front room of the boys house-interior scene
• Bedroom- interior scene

Camera Shots

• Pan shot
• Tilt shot
• Crane shot
• Close ups
• Zoom in
• Zoom out

Editing Techniques

• Cuts
• Cross cut
• Double exposure
• Fade
• Shot reverse shot
• 180 degree rule
• Rhythmic edit- elliptical-goes faster than it would in real life

Lighting

• Natural lighting in exterior scenes and possibly the interior scenes if natural light is shining through the windows of the house we film in.
• Low-key, underexposed lighting in the final interior scene in which the ghost of the girl enters the boys room to create a sense of dread.
• Blue filter- used in the scene featuring the ghost, as the boys feels as cold shiver so will be used to show how cold it is.

Costumes

• Normal casual clothing for the characters in the daylight scenes, such as jeans, T-shirts and trainers or boots.
• Pyjamas for the night scene.
• The Girl- Old-fashioned, innocent looking floral dress that will be splaatered with brown and red paint in order to make her look sinister and innocent at the same time.

Props

• Happy Birthday banner
• Birthday presents
• The battered gift
• Jewellery- half a charm of a cross
• Contact lenses

Make-Up

• Casual, subtle make-up for the boys sister, such as powder, blusher and mascara
• White scale- for the girl to make her face look pale and dead
• Brown scale- for her eyes to make them look sunken
• Grey scale- also for her eyes to make them look ghostly
• Black scale- also for her eyes to make them look threatening

Plan sheet- rough draft

This is a photo of the rough draft of our plan sheet, which I drew out as a mind map after we had written our script for our two minute film. I included character names, camera shots and the editing techniques which we intend to use. I intend to write the notes from this sheet on a post on our blog.

Script

Script

River

Pan of river
Tense music- building up
Close up on a necklace
Tense music hits it climax.
'the gift' comes up on screen- title credits.

Boys house ext

CLOSE UP OF BATTERED GIFT, ZOOM OUT TO SEE BANNER, SAYING 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY'.

 

                               DOUBLE EXPOSURE FADE OUT TO NEST SCENE

Front room INT


 

                                                                           GIRL 1

Thanks for inviting me to the party.

ARCHER

Thanks for coming.

GIRL 1

Bye



Girl leaves and Archer is left siting on the sofa alone.
Sister then enters the room.
 

SISTER

Hope you've had a good birthday. I'll just go and take the rubbish out.

 

ARCHER

ok.

Sister leaves room, then enters the room with the gift in her hand.

SISTER

you've got another one

ARCHER

who's it from

SISTER

It doesn't say

He pretends to smile, and slowly walks upstairs with the gift.

TILT SHOT UPSTAIRS

Bedroom int

Archer sits down on his bed and looks at the gift.

CLOSE UP OF GIFTTAG, THAT IS BLANK

Archer then opens the gift.

CLOSE UP OF INSIDE THE GIFT. PART OF DRESS.
archer lays down on his bed, with the gift by his side.

ARCHER

 really funny guy!

He sighs and falls to sleep

FADE TO LATE IN THE NIGHT

Archer opens his eyes, and looks around his room, his eyes stop at his mirror.

CUT TO MIRROR, TO SHOW FIGURE STANDING THERE.

She inches closely to Archer, he remains still in his bed. When she reaches then end of his bed she stands still, and slowly raises her hand. Her fingers remain outstretched as she gurgles, and blood dribbles out of her mouth.

GIRL

days

  She disappears instantly.

CLOSE UP: OF ARCHER'S ARM AND FIVE BRUISES



Table showing horror films with different certificates

The table shows the ratings of popular horror films. As a group we brainstormed the different horror films we knew of for each rating. From doing this we discovered that there were few horror films rated u and PG. The horror films that were given these certificates were generally fun animated comedy’s that contained mild threats but were aimed at young kids, with the exception of some older horror films that used to be higher rated but are now rated PG because the certificate grade boundaries have changed, examples of this are “Hammer studio” and “Frankenstein”. Horror films given a 12/12a certificate were generally still appealing to kids and were most commonly given a 12/12a rating for fright/peril. We noticed that the majority of horror films were given a 15 certificate. The recurring themes in horror films given a 15 certificate were paranormal/supernatural activity. There were also a large number of horror films rated 18, these films contained scenes that may be distressing to some people as they featured dramatic gore. The research we have gathered will give us a better understanding of our target audience and what rating are film should be given.

Horror films rated U	Horror films rated PG	Horror films rated 12/12a	Horror films rated 15	Horror films rated 18