There are many different editing techniques uesed in cinema, in order to create a full cinematic experience for the audience. These editing techniques are emloyed to make the film very proffesional and can help in delivering the story to the audience. Continuity editing is a very good editing technique, used by most film makers, which allows for the audience to clearly follow what is happening from shot to shot. Features included in continuity editing are the 180 degree line. This rule states that when filming two characters and you decide to use close ups on the characters face, you cannot cross the imaginary 180 degree line.
Another continuity editing technique is the match on action. This rule says that when cuting from one shot to the next, the action a character is performing in one shot, should follow through into the next.
Shot reverse shot is the final feature in continuity editing, whereby during filming a conversation the camera will cut from one charaters face to anothers when one is speaking. This is to show who is speaking in a conversation or the other persons reaction.
Here is my individual film poster design. I have took inspiration from other psychological horror and thriller film posters, which often have the main character zoomed in on the poster, to drawn attention to their face, for example: The Insidious film poster, which shows a young boy in the centre of the poster.
From my research into other psychological horror and thriller film posters, I have included the title of the film, as this is what can draw in the audience's attention. The title is in a bloody red font, which suggests that the film has horror themes within it. I have also included 'From the makers of The Cards and Full House, which are the titles of two films, done by members in our group in the first year of A-Levels. This is to allow the audience to see something the production has already done, as many people may see films if the same producers have also done other films they have liked. I have included a review of our film on the poster, along with a star rating, as this gives a short snippet into how the film makes you feel, as allows you to see what someone else rates the film. At the bottom of the film poster, there are the film credits, which outline that YouTube is the distributor, the production company, the main actors and 'Experience the horror coming 2017', which tells the audience when the film is going to be released, and also the tagline 'Experience the horror' can make the audience feel excited to see the film.
She is a student at Sixth Form college, studying A-Levels.
Chloe used to be very sociable and had quite a few friends, however in the film she is seen slowly losing her confidence and becoming more and more of a loner.
She has quite a sweet and innocent personality. She is very friendly and is quite sensitive when it comes to getting emotionally hurt.
Chloe is the main character in our story and therefore has the biggest purpose. At the start of the film she is seen being haunted by her dead relative, who she begins to see more and more in her every day life. As Chloe begins going crazy and is extremely confused, she decides to visit her cousins grave to get closure. This is when she then realises that it is actually her who is dead and not her cousin, Amy.
When Chloe is in college, she is wearing a My Chemical Romance t shirt, black jeans, black Doc Martins boots, and a college badge. She also has a Living Dead Souls cat bag.
The first influence that has affected our film is The Others. The Others is a Spanish-American supernatural gothic horror, with elements of psychological horror. The film has a similar storyline to our own film. The Others is set in the aftermath of World War One in Jersey, where a mother lives with her two children, who have a rare disease that means they are sensitive to light, in a big mansion in the countryside. Throughout the film, one of the children says that there are 'others' living in the house and so, the family believe they are being haunted, however, there is a twist at the end of the film which reveals that the mother and her two children are the ones who are dead, and the 'others' are the current occupants of the mansion.
Our storyline is similar to The Others, and is therefore an influence for our own film, because our storyline is about Chloe, a student at a sixth form college, who is tragically killed when she and her cousin and best friend, Amy, come into an altercation with a robber at a house. However, Chloe does not realise that she is dead, and throughout the film, she believes that Amy was the one who died on that day, and believes that she is being haunted by her. Towards the end of the film, when Chloe goes to a gravesite, she has a flashback of what happened on that day and realises that she is the one who is dead, when she sees her name on the gravestone.
The servants at the house are also dead, however, they are fully aware of this, and so the gardener covers up graves at the site, with leaves, as the mother has not yet realised that she and her children are dead. She finally finds out that the servants are not alive, when she finds a photo book, which includes photos of the dead.
Orphan is also an influence for our film. The film is about a couple who adopt a 9 year old girl, after losing their unborn child. However, as the film progresses, it is revealed that '9 year old' Esther is actually 33, and had spent time in a mental hospital, as she suffers from a condition that stunts her physical growth. It is revealed that she has killed many people, and usually tries to be adopted by families, as she will lure the father of the family in to try and advance on him sexually. Orphan is an example of an influence in our film, because there is a twist towards the end when the mother finds out that the 9 year old they adopted isn't actually that age. Our film also has a twist in that it is revealed that the main character in the film is dead.
Another influence on our film is the M. Night Shymalan film 'The Sixth Sense'. The film centres on a young boy who encounters ghosts and with the help of child psychologist Dr Malcome Crowe (Bruce Willis), the child attempts to help the dead he encounters and let them be at peace. Towards the end of the film, it is revealed that Malcome Crowe is dead, as he was murdered at the beginning of the film, and didn't realise that he was dead. This is a significant influence as Chloe, the main character within our film is also murdered, however, she does not realise this, and believes that it was her cousin who died. She also goes about her life, unaware, in the same way that Malcome in the Sixth Sense does. This film has a very large influence on our film, as the focus is on the dead and how it is dealt with by people. It also focuses on being haunted, this being the title of our film, and in turn has a very interesting and unsuspected twist involved.
Another influence into our film is Easy Rider in the grave yard scene. For our film, we want to portray some distortion which this film does well. In a their grave yard scene, they have used several effects to create a distorted atmosphere, however they use it to emphasise drugs. For our film, we want to use this technique to emphasise, that our main character Chloe is imagining things and is actually creating a false reality in her head. We want this scene to convey her coming to the realisation that what she thought was true, is in fact false. Similarly to Easy Rider, we will also film this in a grave yard which will create quite an eerie/creepy atmosphere to add to this effect.
Another influence of our film is Shawshank Redemption. In the scene where Andy walks into the prison, he looks up at the prison and then under an arch doorway which conveys the prisons power and intimidation on him. We would like to do a similar shot to this in the grave yard scene in our film. As Chloe walks into the grave yard, she'll walk under an arch and look up as she's walking through to emphasise that the grave yard is intimidating to her and that she is powerless to what she is about to discover. In this clip, the shot we are influenced by is the very last shot.
Another influence of our film is Stranger Things. We really liked the Stranger Things title and how all the letters mover together and zoom through them into a scene. This is why we thought we would try and do a similar thing. So at the end of our title sequence, all of the letters of our title move together and then we can zoom in on a letter which will take us to the first scene. However we know that this may be difficult to do as we don't have the same advanced technology as Stranger Things.
We will be filming a huge chunk of our film at the house and graveyard (which is near the house) which we decided would be best to do during the Christmas holidays. This is because we don't want to rush these scenes as they're our most important scenes.
For the house scene we will need a dairy (that looks used), some photos of Chloe and Amy together and picture frames to put the characters in (which will go on Chloe's desk), some fake blood and a knife, and a ski mask (for the burglar).
For the graveyard we will need some more pictures of the characters together (some picture frames too), and some flowers.
For our film, we need various other Characters in our film. Our main characters, Chloe and Amy, will be played by two members in our group, Louise and Amy. The burglar (which is a small part) will be played by Owen, another member in our group.
Rebecca and Owen will mainly focus on filming and getting the right shots. This means that we also need other actors in our film as we can't have Leah (Amy) in shots where she is not meant to be as it would confuse the audience.
Therefore we first need to get two actors to play Chloe's friends in the Canteen scene. This gives us the opportunity to use various techniques, such as shot reverse shot, which our film would be lacking if we were unable to get actors.
We also need other extras for the classroom scene. This requires a somewhat full class to make the scene believable. We have decided to ask someone in our Media class to play one of Chloe's friends in the classroom scene, when Chloe goes to ask for help but is again ignored. The rest of the people in this scene will be people in our Media class as we will film during lesson, this will help create realistic background noise as well as creating a realistic scene.
I decided to use dark colours (red and black) to convey the eerie, horror concept of the film. The lines going through the poster represent brokenness and cracks, connoting that the main character slowly becomes more and more broken as the film goes on. The red colour of the text illustrates blood, conveying that our main character is brutally stabbed.
My next poster idea does not include a billing block as this would not be our main poster. Many films have multiple posters to which there may only be one including all the information and the others are just used as teaser posters and extra posters for advertisement. For example, The Avengers had separate character posters. For this poster, I used a shot from our film as this gives the audience a much greater insight into the film itself, the characters and the atmosphere. As well as this, I also used red font which again conveys blood, violence and death.
