Presentation

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B7x9WfGCxp29YzUwZWNjMzktY2M0NC00ZTYzLTgwNmMtZTdmN2Y3YjBiZWQy&hl=en

Lodge Hill

Our final project!

Freaky Friday!

Well, it was an unfortunate Friday! As we sat there feeling quite smug with ourselves feeling that we had fully completed our project, as we were just about to watch our final version full screen our computer froze, not thinking much of this we left it for a little while after 20 minuets of waiting we assumed shutting down our computer and restarting it wouldnt cause any issues, as we'd already saved the work. Well boy were'nt we wrong! As we restarted the computer we soon realised that some parts of our project were missing, so we panicked but it turned out alright in the end but we still have to reshoot our opening but that shouldnt be too much of a problem.

Cleaning up the project!

Finally, we finished editing! or so we thought! Watching back what we thought was a completed horror opening we found problems with some of the scenes which we found to either lack continuity or seemed to bring down the whole tension which we tried to build up. We racked our brains and couldn't think of a way to fix it, so we decided to consult in our teacher who gave us the simple yet effective of idea of simply changing the effect on the scenes, which worked perfectly!

Seeing our final project and just moving around the music as everytime we make it syncronise it seems to alter itself everytime we leave the computer, so we have been continually moving things around to make sure they fit and that they are.

Chosen Institution

Even though all of the institutions we looked were very good and established institutions we decided to not choose any of them as we feel that out horror movie is a lot like the Blair Witch Project therefore we have decided to look at the distributors of that film.

The distributors of The Blair Witch Project are Artisan Entertainment which was a privately held independent American movie studio until it was purchased by a Canadian studio, Lionsgate, in 2003. At the time of its acquisition, Artisan had a library of thousands of films developed through acquisition, original production, and production and distribution agreements.

Horror Film Institutions

As part of our evaluation we had to think about what media institutions would distribute our film as there are many to choose from. The main ones are:

• 20th century fox
• Lionsgate
• Hammer Productions
• Universal Pictures

20TH Century Fox

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation also known as 20th Century Fox is one of the six major American film studios as of 2011. Located in the Century City area of Los Angeles west of Beverly Hills. The company was founded on May 31, 1935 as the result of the merger of Fox Film Corporation, founded by William Fox in 1915, and Twentieth Century Pictures, founded in 1933 by Darryl F. Zanuck, Joseph Schenck, Raymond Griffith and William Goetz. one of there most famous horror films is The Hills have Eyes.


Lionsgate

Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation is a Canadian-American entertainment company. The company was formed in Vancouver, British Columbia, but is headquartered in Santa Monica, California. As of 2007, it is the most commercially successful independent film and television distribution company in North America and is very successful for distributing the SAW franchise.

Hammer Productions
Hammer Film Productions is a film production company based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1934, the company is best known for a series of Gothic "Hammer Horror" films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. Hammer also produced science fiction, thrillers, Film Noir and comedies and in later years, television series. During its most successful years, Hammer dominated the horror film market, enjoying worldwide distribution and considerable financial success. This success was due, in part, to distribution partnerships with major United States studios, such as Warner Bros. one of its most famous film is the 1959 film The Mummy.

Universal Pictures

Universal Pictures is one of the six major movie studios.Founded in 1912 by Carl Laemmle it is one of the oldest American movie studios still in continuous production. One of it most familiar horror films is drag me to hell.





music and sound

Attempting to find the right music and sound for this, has seemed to be one of the most difficult processes but finally we've actually found the right sound that fits perfectly.

We thought the music we used was vital in helping us to build up the tension especially in the middle section, we felt something was missing and it wasn't a well planned silence, but now we have a collected a mixture of sounds, songs and beats and coordinated them so that they all are completely syncronsied so that it works.
We've also used a scream which was adapted from a clip from the film Home Alone film which at first i wasn't too sure was going to work however adding it into the clip slowing it down and reducing the volume really did seem to make it more realistic and fitted well with the story.

Editing

So once we had finished all of our filming after day 3, we were ready to upload and start editing. We have also decided that we would change the name from Cane Hill to Lodge Hill as we have some shots of the sign Lodge Hill from outside the cemetery. We spent hours editing all the shots together, making sure that all the shots had continuity. We felt that the match cuts were clean and smooth, although we had trouble with creating tension and building up the story during the middle part of the film. The beginning and end were strong and fluid, but we still needed to build suspense during the middle section.
We also decided to add an effect to our film, as although the cloudy sky was effective, the darkness was not obvious enough in the last few scenes and we felt that lighting is a very important part of mise en scene in horror films, and so we wanted to exaggerate the shadows and darkness.

Music

At first, we decided to use an eerie sound score for our film opening, so that diegetic sound could still be featured, whilst still creating an atmosphere of suspense. However, in editing, we found that diegetic sound decreased the tension and suspense of the scene and so when we re-shot the film, we kept this in mind.

Stephen explored the use of atonal music, whilst Summer found a pop-style song: 'Turn Around, Look At Me' by The Vogues, which we thought was interesting as although it was melodic and seemingly cheerful, the lyrics gave it a sinister tone. We all agreed that this was an original idea, but when we placed the music with the first section of our film, we felt it just made it seem comical, rather then setting a disturbing tone. Because of this, we wanted to try to slow down the track in order to distort it but this did not work.

After some research, I found a song with an instrumental introduction: 'Demolition Lovers' by My Chemical Romance, which we added to our montage scene and felt that it worked with the visuals in adding mystery and an eerie mood. However, we still had trouble in trying to find music to use with the rest of the opening.

Summer then, after some researching on youtube, found a subtle yet effective pieces of instrumental that coinided with our film, called 'Lullaby', by Midnight Syndicate.

Filming: day 2

The second day of filming was much more successful as we got to use the camera much more and produced more effective shots. We explored the use of many different types of shots, including establishing, two shot, match cut, pans, tilts, zooms and track. The track was arguably the most difficult shot as we did not have a dolly, so this took a lot of time and practice, and on watching back, we realised we needed to re-shoot it. We filmed most shots, but again, had trouble with the middle section, where Stephen is meant to jump out, as we could not get the right effect across to the audience. The scene did not build up enough suspense and so we decided that we needed to revise that section of the storyboard, incorporating the cemetery location, and planned to go back to film that part another day. We also did not film the last section as the camera was running out of battery and we knew that we would need a lot of battery life and time in order to achieve the last few shots as it is the climax of our opening and so needs the most preparation.

Filming: day 3

On day 3 of filming, we re-filmed the majority of our shots in order to enhance continuity throughout the opening. The weather was perfectly overcast, although this meant that we couldn't use any shots from the previous shoot as it was much brighter and more sunny. On the other hand, we spent the whole day re-shooting, and we finally perfected Stephen's 'jump out' shot, after many more tries. The track shot was also complete, and so we moved on to the last few pieces. I had to wear just a white dress, and was covered with the fake blood. We tried a few different angles for this shot, and then completed the low, canted angle of Zara and Stephen running away, which we all agreed was perfect after just one try.

Filming: day 1

Now that we had found our perfect location, we began to film. The weather was cold and we did not have the tripod but we attempted to follow the storyboard, filming Zara and Stephen's two shots and establishing shots of the landscape. Also, we attempted the 360 we hoped to achieve, numerous times, but on watching it back, we felt that the pace of it was not suitable for the film and just slowed down the narrative. In filming on this day, we all learnt that it was very time-consuming to get the right shot and that sometimes, the shots in the storyboard needed to be changed in order to get the most suitable shots. We felt that this filming session was mostly just to adjust ourselves to the surroundings, and test out a few shots, and so we decided that we would need another, longer day of more in-depth filming.

Location: Plumstead Cemetery

After visiting the location in Woolwich a second time, we decided that again we needed to change as it was too difficult to get in to. On out way to the Woolwich location we passed a cemetery and we agreed that a cemetery would be a suitable location and would work with our storyline. Therefore on our way back we went to the cemetery which is located on Lodge Hill and began to film. The weather was overcast which created an effective atmosphere.

Location:Woolwich

We finally decided to film at an abandoned primary school in Woolwich. We took a few photos because we were unable to film that day. However, we will return to film at the weekend as we really liked the way the building had broken windows and burnt walls, which helped add a sinister atmosphere which will be perfect for or horror film. Although, we have decided to keep the name 'Cane Hill' as it is original.
However when we arrived there we realised that there was no way in it so we decided to go to another location.

Location: The Coronet

Next, we decided to carry on researching abandoned buildings in the hope of finding one that would be suitable to film our horror opening at.
We found a few potential locations including abandoned mills and hospitals but our favourite was The Coronet Cinema in Eltham. The cinema opened in the 1930s as an Odeon, but was closed in 2000.
We thought this would be a good location as although it is not a mental asylum which was our original idea, it is an uncanny setting that is now derelict and decayed and so adds to the fear factor.
I visited the Coronet after finding a friend who had looked around it previously, but it was surrounded by boards. We later found that the site had gained planning permission for an auditorium, restaurant and apartments, so we decided to carry on our search for a location.


Here is a picture of it from the outside and inside the cinema:

Location: Cane Hill

Cane Hill was our first idea for a location and it also helped us with the idea of our horror film. Cane Hill was a psychiatric hospital in Coulsdon in the London Borough of Croydon.  It Was completed in 1882 and at its peak it held a maximum of 2000 patients.


We decided that it was the perfect filming location because of its crumbling walls and decaying structure. It gave us the main idea for our film in that we decided to set it in an asylum because of the scary nature of asylums. We have thus decided to call our horror film Cane Hill as we think it is a good name however we are no longer able to film there because as of 13th November 2010 a fire took place destroying most of the building.

Costumes

For our costumes, we decided to wear light, mostly denim casual clothes so that the audience can relate to the characters, to make it seem realistic, and to contrast with the darkness of the plotline and mise en scene. In particular, we focused on the victims costume and decided on a white dress as it represents purity, vulnerability and innocence, and also highlights the red of blood.

Test shots

These are the test shots for our horror film, we practiced the shots during our media lesson. We followed the shots from the storyboard. This will help us when we come to actually film the real thing.

Props: newspaper montage

For the opening section of our film we decided to incorporate newspaper articles to foreshadow the deaths that signify the end of the opening, and introduce the villian to the rest of the film. This would also give us a chance to create opening credits which are common conventions of film openings.

I began by cutting out newspaper articles and sticking them to a piece of cardboard. I then cut out relevant words and phrases such as 'death' and 'missing', and then I used the photos' Summer took of us, imitating mortuary photos. I then edited these to increase the contrast so there were more shadows, and then printed them out and added them to the montage. I then filmed a pan of the montage and uploaded it.

Photos

we decided to take some photos to uses for our opening. we needed photos showing us as dead patients s we experimented with a combination of lights, torches, and powder to create a pale effect.

Here are the photos we took: