Actors and Casting

Sydney Prescott - Scream

Alys

We cast Alys as the final girl as she has dark brown hair which is comparable to final girls from a lot of slasher films. She also has done a lot of drama which meant we could trust her to act well and work well when given direction.

Alys

Ben (middle)

Ben

We cast Ben as the outsider of the group as he was willing to play this part and when asked to found it easy to portray this character. 

Danny



jock (Dylan) from All the Boys love Mandy Lane



We cast Danny as the Jock of the group as he also has had some experience with acting and found it easy to switch into the role of a Jock. Being good friends with people in the group meant he was very willing to participate and like Ben and Alys listened to our direction well and understood what we wanted to achieve.

Danny

Me



scream queens



I played the part of the scream queen as I am blonde (fitting the scream queen stereotype) and the opening to our film was based around the scream queen being the victim it made it a lot quicker and more productive to shoot when i knew exactly what we wanted to achieve and what shot variety was needed. It also made it easier if anything needed to be reshot as we would just need me and not have to ask everybody else to give up free time and volunteer again.

Me

Sound EG2: Psycho

Poster

Psycho
(Alfred Hitchcock., 1960)

Budget: $807k
Box Office: $32m (US) $50m (worldwide)

The sound from the opening sequence and famous shower killing scene in Psycho. Here is a clip of the shower scene:




At the start of the opening sequence there is a mixture of strings and mysterious music over the titles and idents. This is continuous, but the intensity of it is varying. There is an audio-bridge from the titles to the opening shots, but the style and sound changes, clearly distinguishing this change.

In these opening shots the music doesn't give the impression that the film is a slasher, as it sounds quite orchestral. As the camera zooms the music changes to be more jolty and has quite a lot of rests in it. By doing this it creates tension and the audience are curious of what is being zoomed in at.

Before the shower scene the music is quite quiet, with delicate strings playing in the background. This builds tension as it is a considerable change from the previous sounds. When she steps into the shower there is no non-diegetic sound. However, the diegetic sound that can be heard sounds quite exaggerated, this will bring more attention to the silence of no music.

When the scream queen is being stabbed the non-diegetic sound starts again. Dramatic strings are used to create suspense and add intensity to the killing scene. There is also a constant layering of screams over the music and the strings are very sharp and disjointed. When the killer leaves the room the strings then become very low and less dramatic to reflect what has happened.and the lack of life now left in the room.

KH - BBFC film Ratings

BBFC classifications

 Examiners for the BBFC classify films for theatrical release using guidelines. The examiners look at the following issues:

• discrimination
• drugs
• horror
• sex
• nudity
• language
• imitable behaviour
• sexual violence
• violence
• theme
• context
• tone
• impact on audiences feelings
• format e.g. DVDs create a higher risk of underage viewing.

We have rated our film as a 15. This is because there is a strong theme 

of stalking and violence. The BBFC guidelines for a 15 classification allows the following to appear in films:

• strong violence
• frequent strong language
• portrayals of sexual activity
• strong verbal references to sex
• sexual nudity
• brief scenees of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence
• discriminatory language or behaviour
• drug taking

A 15 classification allows for strong violence, which is what appears in our opening when the scream queen is killed. We felt this rating was appropriate.

Sound EG: Bride of Chucky

DVD cover

Bride of Chucky
(Ronny Yu, 1998)

Budget: $25m
Box Office: $32m (US) £527k (UK)


The sound from the opening sequence in Bride of Chucky:
It starts with an audio bridge connecting the idents with the opening shots of the film. This sound is non-diegetic. This opening sound is typical of slasher films as has a lot of long drawn out notes and irregular faster beats. This is a common approach as the longer notes encourage the audience to hold their breath and the faster beats make the heart beat slightly irregular. These effects create more tension for the audience and make it more scary for them.

There is exaggerated diegetic sound of thunder, this is very precisely edited in and also adds to the anchorage of it being from the slasher genre. Bad weather and storms are often used in the slasher genre to reflect the bad that is to come later in the film.

As it gets into the main narrative of the film the music continues, but the 'tune' is different, showing this change. In this opening sequence intertextuality to Psycho and Jaws is used as they use some of the background sounds that were commonly used in those films. Sound is also shaped to fit zooms and are often exaggerated to ensure the audience pay attention to it. An example of this is the creaking locker door and the turning of the key. Throughout this sequence the sound is mostly continuous but the intensity varies.

When trying to build tension before the first victim the sound dies down a lot so that the tension of the scene can build naturally. This technique made the false scare here more effective and then the sound starts again when he is killed to intensify the situation.

Here is the music composition from the main titles:

Script - Second Shoot

Charley: Guys, We are nearly there.

Ashley: I can't be arsed.

Ryan: Whatever

Patrick: (rambling quietly about the surroundings)

Charley: Lets have a break here.

Ashley: Argh I can't be arsed going any further, I'm going to ring my Dad and get him to pick me up.

Ryan: Oh Shut up will ya.

Charley: It's only 5 oclock I think we should hang on until we get a bit further.

Everyone but Ashley stands up and walks on.

Ashley: (on phone) Hi Dad, I am really sick of being here, can you come pick me up? call me back when you get this.

- cuts back to friends -

Charley: Look, I can't believe it was a year ago today (looking at grave)

- cuts back to Ashley -

Charley: ASHLEY?

Ryan: Was that Ashley?!

Camp Ivy - Rough Cut 1

This is our first rough cut of our film Camp Ivy. By making this rough cut we have found it easier to establish which part of its don't work and what we could change to make it look more effective. Also from doing this we saw which parts of our production worked well and knew what we definitely want to keep in our final production.

From making this rough cut we saw that our narrative lacked anchorage, and a lot of what happens isn't clear, and may cause the audience some confusion. An example of this is when the chase scene starts. The final girl is in a wooded area but it isn't very clear as to why she starts running. We wanted it to come across that she noticed she was being stalked, but this didn't come across very strongly.

We also thought that due to the acting not being very strong we thought there was an unnecessary amount of speech, that makes the production come across more amateur. An example of this is when they are talking about their friend Mikey who died there the previous year. We intend to get shots of the friends putting flowers on a grave or somewhere at the camp to try and signify his death that way and this will hopefully improve our opening.

The inside of the buildings looked very derelict and looked quite effective. However, we probably didn't use the building to their full potential and should have used them for a flashback of how Mikey died or involved more of the chase involving the buildings, as they were one of the main reasons for us choosing this location.

Overall, doing this rough cut has helped us get an overall impression of how we want our production to eventually look and helped us decide what worked and what didn't. We plan to upload this initial rough cut to social networking sites.  By doing this we will get feedback from our target audience and see if they agree on the same areas that need to be improved and if they have any other problems or queries about it that we have not yet noticed.

Fake Blood

For our shoot Millie made fake blood for us to use in our killing scene to make it look more realistic. It was easy to make and looked quite effective on the shoot.

Here is the recipe we used to make it:

• cocoa powder (to make it darker in colour)
• corn flour
• red food colouring
• water

Its a really simple way of making fake blood and saved us some expense on the shoot as well, we also discovered that a little bit of it goes a long way and it looked really effective against the scream queens white top.