Planning post

 Here is one last post that I will be making to prep for my film opening. We're approaching the end of the 5th week with 3 more to go and were starting to get this entire thing down by now. 

The last planning thing I would want to describe to you guys that's going to be in the film is the location I am going to film this in. 

We are going to film this at my house during the nighttime so we can display the dark, eerie atmosphere of the film. We're going to film mainly in my upstairs hallway as there are 4 rooms up here and we can get shots into the rooms and hallway.

I'm going to show pictures of where we will be filming our scenes and give a description of them.

Stairs on where monster will walk up

Hallway of the main scene of the film. This is where most of the action is going to happen with things like the mother and father getting eaten here

The escape window that the parents made to escape zombies

Closet on where the child will be hiding in. There are little holes in the door and that's where the child will peer through

Production post #1

So recently, we have started up our production to our film opening. Since there is a lot to get done during this film opening, we have not finished it yet but will be done very soon. We got as much shots done as we could due to lack of props and time limit but we still got a good amount done.

We did the filming at my house during night time so we could make our backround all set up with the dark atmosphere of the night and my house having no lighting besides a flashlight

I'm going to show some of the photos from last night that we took while filming.

This is the hallway that we are going to film with the main scene. The lighting is going to vary depending on the shot

Storyboard we are going to be using

Cameraman(Hannah) and the father(Luis)

Filming of the scene of monster walking up the stairs

Script for film opening

 Hey guys, after some time, me and my group have finally came up with our script for the film opening. It's a lot but here it is.

Fade in:

1. INT THE ROOM-NIGHT

Fathers POV: Fathers hand, smeared in blood while holding a bloodied knife in the same state. Visibly trembling, shaking by the fear in him. His wife is with him, showing the both still alive. They're slowly walking through the door of the room they'd climbed into, heavily breathing and panting.

CONSTANT SOUNDS OF ZOMBIES AND PEOPLE MAKING NOISE IN THE BACKROUND(outside)

SIRENS AND GUNSHOTS IN THE BACKROUND SIGNALING TO THE PEOPLE IN THE VICINITY FIGHTING THE ZOMBIES

THE HALLWAY

Fathers POV: The father and mother have appreared outside the door, in the hallway, seeing a room they intend to go at the very end of the hallway. The dad is looking forward towards this door until a dark, silhouette of a dark leg is slowly creeping through the hallway's corner. The parents look around not knowing what to do.

CONSTANT SOUNDS OF ZOMBIES AND PEOPLE MAKING NOISE IN THE BACKROUND(outside)

SIRENS AND GUNSHOTS IN THE BACKROUND SIGNALING TO THE PEOPLE IN THE VICINITY FIGHTING THE ZOMBIES

THE SOUNDS SLOWLY MUFFLE AS THE INTENSITY OF THE SITUATION HIGHTENS

THE DARK ROOM

The parents rush into a room on the right side of the hallway, attempting to hide from "whatever" is lurking through the shadows. The couple successfully hides as the being walks by the room not noticing the couple hiding in the darkness of the room.

ALL SOUNDS ARE MUFFLED. JUST THE BREATHING OF THE COUPLE REMAIN.

INTERCUT CONVERSATION BETWEEN THE TWO

FATHER(JASON GRAY)

(Towards his wife while looking out the door)

Okay, I think we're in the clear

MOTHER(HEATER GRAY)

(Staring happily towards her husband, sighing of relief) Ok!

2. INT. THE DARK ROOMS TERROR-NIGHT

FATHERS POV: The father watches as hands crawl out of the shadows of the dark room and surround the face of his wife, yanking her down. The shots change between different inserts of the mans face in terror, his eyes shaking, and angles of him trying to pull his wife out.

THE SOUND OF MUNCHING AND SCREAMING FILL THE ROOM

THE MOTHERS AGONY

MOTHER

(The wife screaming in agony holding her arm up while the father attempts to rescue her) AHHHHH!!!!

BACK TO THE HALLWAY

VARIETY OF CLOSE UPS< MID SHOTS AND LONG SHOTS

The father runs out of the room, knowing he can't save his wife. A fast tempo array of shots show the process of him running into the wall of the room, running out and slamming the door on his way out to then landing on the wall of the hallway are shown.

THE SOUNDS OF THUDDING ONTO WALLS, SLAMMING THE DOOR, AND THEN SOUNDS OF PANTING FROM CATCHING BREATHS.

THE CLICKING ROOM

FATHERS POV: The father looks up upon remembering about the entity that had passed him in his wife when they had inside the other room. The sounds of the mother were loud enough to get his attention. Now that the entity knows he'es there, the father without a seconds thought makes a run for it, trying his hardest to make it to the room at the very end of the hallway.

THE SOUNDS OF CLICKING ENVELOPE THE ROOM WITH THE SOUND OF FINGERS TAPPING ON THE SIDES OF THE DOOR BOARDS.

THE SOUND OF QUICK PACED FOOT STEPS FILL THE ROOM WITH TWO SEPERATE BEINGS

THE ROOM AT THE END

FATHERS POV WITH MID SHOTS: The father will be running towards this room, seeing it get closer and closer, but then the camera will fall down signifying the father has fallen and before he's able to completely fall, a shot showing half his body(as a mid shot) as he completely manages to fall, with his hand reaching so close to the room

SOUNDS OF FOOT STEPS, FOLLOWED WITH THE SCREAMS OF ENTITY, ENDING WITH A CLICKING OF THE SHOE AS IT MISPLACES.

THE FATHERS FEAR

FATHER

(Father screaming in fear of him dying) NOO! AHHHHHH!!

THE CLOSET DOOR

MASTER SHOT/LONG SHOTS:

 Finald shot of the opening. The father is getting eaten in the background, in agonizing pain. The shot begins with the knife he'd previously been holding, now on the floor. A slow building puddle of bloods envelops the blood, as blood is also being splattered around it and on it. After a bit of being deeply focused on this, the camera moves up, pointing towards a closet slightly creaked open. The camera starts to move towards the camera, zooming into the crack showing the terrified face of somebody watching(the son) with blood splatter across their face.

SOUNDS OF THE FATHER SCREAMING, IN PAIN, WHILE SOUNDS OF THE ZOMBIE MUNCHING ON FLESH ALSO ENVELOPES THE ROOM.

THE PREVIOUS SOUNDS OF SIRENS, GUNSHOTS, AND SCREAMING OUTSIDE BEINGS TO REAPPEAR.

BACKROUND MUSIC INTRODUCD TO THE OPENING AS A LOW PITCH, MORE INTIMIDATING AUDIO IS PLAYED TO ENFORCE THE SUSPENSE OF THE SCENE.

 

FADE OUT.

Before I wrap up this blog, I want to say that there is 2 scenes instead of 1 because we wanted the scene heading #1 to be when the story began suspenseful with the intensity of hiding from the entity then turn neutral due to belief that they were safe, and have scene heading 2 be the intense change in ton to where the story becomes completely horrific, showcasing the terror just experience by the characters

      

Audio Usage in Our film

Hey guys, today for this blog, I am going to talk about how we are going to utilize audio in our film. For some of the sounds, we plan to make foley sounds which is basically sounds created by you to enhance an audio that you plan to add or make for it which will make this easier in the editing process.

Audio's we are going to utilize:

So some audio's that we are going to use in our film is the sounds of a siren. The sound of the siren is going to describe the breaking in of the zombies and how the family is getting alerted by there presence.

Another form of audio that we plan to use is just screaming. Screaming is an easy way to describe what is going on in the scene and we plan to use it when the zombies are approaching the parents after they have broken in and going in to kill them. 

Foley Sounds: 

We are planning to make lots of foley sounds for our film opening as most of it will need to have foley in it or else it will look weird and out of place when you go to watch the film. One foley sound that we plan to use is the people in the film running and moving towards the room. A basic sound that's easy to make and makes the film feel more intense

Another couple sounds we want to use is a glass window breaking and the sound of sirens going off. We are going to use these sounds when the zombies break in during the first 30 seconds of the film. Were going to show the credits and the title of our film first and then cut to hearing a glass break and sirens go off, signaling that we are cutting right to the story to describe what are film is going to be like.

Finally, the last sounds we want to make are the blood being splatters after killing the parents, the slasher and eating noises of the parents killing and the knife being dropped.  The sound of the blood splattering is something that's going to be a useful follow up when the zombies are going to be eating the parents after the slashing sounds. We feel like this is going to work and we are excited to try these out when we start filming.

One last audio is the back round audio that's just a little addition but also noticeable and a good back round audio to balance out the film opening. This is the audio we plan to use.

https://youtu.be/zclD93VnpEw?si=0aK0BfsMqx5Tqrh2

Mise-en-scene element #2

 As you have read my previous post, this will be a follow-up from yesterday and I will explain our second mise-en-scene element that's going to be in our film. The second element in our film will be the we are going to use is the props that's going to be in our film.

Props- 

 Props are also a crucial element when making a film as the props are meant to show that the items have meaning during the scene and throughout the film. Some props that we want to utilize during our film is the use of fake blood. Luis had a good idea to actually buy fake blood instead of using ketchup because he knew that using ketchup as blood just looks terrible. The fake blood in the film is going to show the blood of the parents after the zombies kill them. We are going to show stains of blood and I will show an example picture:

Another prop that we plan to use is the knife. If you could not tell by now after all my blog posts and the blog post right now, we plan to use a knife to show how the zombies kill the parents. Using a knife or a dagger is a very iconic weapon used in horror films and is something I feel like would be important to add on how people will die not just in our opening, but if this was going to be an actual film.

 

A good inspiration for a knife is the knife used in the movie Halloween which is Michael Myers' iconic knife.

Mise-en-scene element#1

To make a horror film, you need to have mise-en-scene elements to make it feel like a real horror film. Today for this post, I will talk about an element I find pretty important into making a horror film and tomorrow I'll talk about another but for today, I will be talking about the lighting and setting to make a good horror film.

Lighting-

Now in order to make a good horror film, lighting in a crucial role in making it. When you are going to record, your going to want to have low-key lighting as low-key lighting can be used to imply that your in a dangerous area and to show mystery and terror into the characters to show how they are feeling. Low-key lighting is going to be especially useful when we are going to film because we are going to conceal the zombies when they attack the parents and using low-key lighting is going to do just that for us and help us still create the sense of the characters being killed.

Here is a good example on how low-key lighting is going to help up create our film.

Setting- 

Were going to make our film inside of my house and we are planning it to be at night as it will be dark out to create that eerie like atmosphere. Setting is also important as this goes with lighting as the supporting cast to create horror.

Character Development

 So as I talked a little about some of the characters that are going to be in the film in some of my previous posts, here is a more well-written analysis on all of the characters and their background and how they are going to develop as a character.

Now for our opening, were only going to have 4 people that's going to be acting in the film opening and 5 or 6 characters involved in the opening and the characters are going to be the mom, dad, son, and the zombies.

Characters traits:

Mom:

Name- Heather Gray

Age- 36

DOB- April 29, 1988

How she is going to be developed: She's not going to have any part in the film besides the film opening since she is going to get killed and contribute to the sons character development

Dad: 

Name- Jason Gray

Age- 41

DOB- June 9, 1983

How he is going to be developed: Same reason as the mother, he is going to die in the film opening and contribute to the sons character development

Son: 

Name- Owen Gray

Age- 10

DOB- October 31, 2014

How he is going to be developed: Owen is going to be developed by him witnessing his parents get raided and killed by zombies and this is how Owen is going to develop his traits. Owen is going to develop traits in the film opening that would be trauma, fear, and vengefulness, wanting to get back at the zombies for killing his parents.

Zombies: 

Name- Unknown

Age- Unknown

DOB- Unknown

How he is going to be developed: They are going to kill Owens parents created them as the bad guys throughout the movie. They are going to have traits like violence and braindead.

Project Idea

 So after nearly three weeks into the project, we have finally came up with an idea. We've been trying to come up with a lot of ideas all throughout the horror genres trying to see if we can get any inspiration from movies like Halloween and Scream but we found a good idea.

What our idea is going to be about:

Our idea for our project is a dystopian world where where there's zombies roaming the world and there's regular people surviving among them and the people are alive turning on themselves making that the biggest threat, not the zombies.

Our film opening to this idea and what are project is going to be is that it's 20 years into a zombie apocalypse and society is corrupted and in anarchy and the characters that are presented in the opening are a 5 year old kid, his parents and zombies and a gang of robbers. The film starts with a siren going of to signal that there are invaders coming into there establishment and the parents are trying to hide from the invaders. As we are not professionals and students in high school with the 4 of us, we can't get actual makeup and zombies so we are going to compromise with showing the zombies as shadowy like figures. Were also going to add growling sounds to enforce that the zombies are there. The zombies would enter the house going to lash out at the parents as they are running to their kids room because they had this entire situation planned out if this would ever happen and they have a window and an escape route out through the kids window specifically. The zombie runs in and takes the life of one of the parents that's probably the mother and the other partner runs to the sons room and right as they are about to make it, they get gripped by the feet and dragged away into the darkness. We are going to add sound effects to signal that they are getting mauled and we are going to get fake blood, not ketchup, at the entrance of the sons room. After this happens, we see a shot of the sons eye in a little hole in the closet door and this would end the opening. This ending is going to introduce the protagonist as we see his parents getting killed at a very young age and this is supposed to create trauma and fear for him.

I'll also show you guys a picture of what our opening would look like.(Like I said, we are high school students, not professionals so it's not going to look like this)

Storyboard

Before me and my group starts filming our project, we need a storyboard. A storyboard is basically a sketch of what your shots for the film are going to look like. Storyboards are a really good way to plan out your shots for shooting videos. Without using a storyboard, it's going to be pretty hard to film any sort of film you wish to create. I utilized a storyboard for all of my past projects that I have done this year so far so I will definitely need one here. 

So here is a drawing of what me and my group came up with for the storyboard with Luis drawing out the sketch for what our film should look like. Stay tuned and you guys will see the video soon!

Media theory

 Now, I will be talking about a media theory that I would want to integrate into our project. We have a list of theory's from the paper that Ms. Stoklosa gave us 

Here is a photo of the paper she gave us

With these media theory's, I would want to use the character theory as I think it will not only describe our film really well, but it's also something I would want to talk about since I feel pretty confident in this theory.

My group and I will use character theory which is basically that characters can be classified into specific roles being 

Hero-protagonist

Villain-antagonist

Dispatcher-Character who sends the protagonist on their journey

Helper-Character who aids protagonist

Donor-character who provides the key item to help the protagonist succeed

Princess- The motivation for protagonist

False hero- the guy who seems on the protagonists side and then acts as a villain to stop the protagonist from succeeding

 What we plan to do with this theory in our film is that when the main character gets hit with trauma in the film opening that you guys will see in our later blog postings, he is going to adapt into one of these characters most likely being the hero to end the zombies terror.

Group meeting reflection

 Monday in class, Ms. Stoklosa wanted to switch it up on us today and she made us get into random groups of 5 and 6 to talk about all of our different projects. Some of the ideas my group members had or already have were great.

So my group members consisted of me(Nick) Gabriel, Adil, Santina, Beatrice and Ana. Our meeting started off pretty slow since we were all talking to each other for the first time but Gabriel and Beatrice opened up to there work and we started to discuss our ideas. 

Like many of us, Gabriel wanted to make his opening with the thriller genre and he has not finalized his idea yet like most of us(and me) but his idea was a guy relaxing at his house after a long day of work and then getting a random call from someone he does not know screaming "YOU HAVE TO GET UP BEFORE...!" and the man gets up.  I thought this idea was good but unoriginal. I think he should try to make an idea similar to this but add a little more details into his idea.

Beatrice said her idea next and I think her idea was pretty solid. A girl getting cursed by a witch and her getting trauma from it causing depression and making her feel unsafe. I think this can definitely work but we suggested she should add how the witch developed the curse.

I told my idea next and since I am writing this on Wednesday, our story has changed since Monday so expect in future blogposts the story to be different. I told them there would be 2 survivors in a forest running from a monster on a dark, foggy night and they eventually escape and are in the middle of the park, they start walking with the map they got and they hear a sound, don't think much of it and keep walking. A zombie creeps up and ends with the zombie on top of them, about to eat them. My group members thought the idea was solid but Gabriel said I should have less running in the opening.

Adil came up next and I thought he had a good idea from his film opening being inspired by godzilla. He stated he wants his setting to be in a jurrasic world type area and how science would take over humanity. I personally like te idea a lot and I want to see where he goes with it.

Ana and Santina were last and Santina wanted to have a story about a girl whos social life is pretty isolated and she comes home with nobody there. Something that's confusing about her ideas was her talking about a car ride home and her mom taking her for ice cream in the opening and we suggested to make you opening make more sense.

Ana was last and she had an idea where a girl first turned 21 and was at the beach having a drink and suddenly she passes out, her friend posts a picture online and her parents find out and the opening ends there. I think this can work but some suggestions to her opening was to describe more about the party and what happens there.

Overall, I think all of the ideas we have for our opening are good and can work well with the suggestions that we all had to all of our ideas and it was good looking at some other film openings before I started mine.

Here's a picture someone took of us when we were talking about our projects