Second Pitch

Today we presented our idea for 'Vacancy on VioletHill' to Miss Mcluckie.We presented her the plot synopsis and told her that the basic idea was to make an abridged scene from the feature length film, where the concept would be taken from one part in the plot synopsis where there's a blackout in the house and the Father goes to find his son in the darkness before being confronted with a demon faced version of his son. She was positive about the idea and thought that it was a lot more achievable than our initial plan.

She also made the point that its important to identify the codes and conventions of horror films and the way that teaser trailer portray the feature length film. As a result we will be analysing many different trailers and scenes from horror films in order to create a trailer that approaches professional quality.

Screen Test: Demon Face Effect

Since our meeting when we were discussing intial ideas I have been thinking about out how we can achieve a 'demon face' effect. Tutorials on the internet have been very helpful and I have produced an early screen test of a demon face on After Effects:

Initial Ideas for Horror Teaser Trailer

Today we discussed what kind of horror film we would like to makes a teaser trailer for. We discussed how most horror films will follow a set of conventions, regardless of what kind of artistic flair may be imposed; horror films still manage to fall into a certain category that defines its angle and approach of suspense, fear and dilemma.

The three subgenres that horror movies will tend to fall into are:

1. Horror-of-the-personality: Threats in this story are normally stemming from human beings

2. Horror-of-Armageddon: A menace which usually comes from nature going mad threatens human’s existence

3. Horror-of-the-Demonic: Horror stems from the idea that evil otherworldly entities exist

Upon these conventions we then started to generate some ideas on a mind map that we could stem something from.

After mind mapping we choose a couple ideas which we could flesh-out as a group. We came up with 3 premises:

1. A man has recently been released from a hospital with head injuries. When returning to his given address he walks through the front door and his house starts to reveal itself as a labyrinth of bizarre and dark events. When he walks through a door the setting completely changes. He always watches people being hunted by a crazed masked killer from a removed perspective like a fly on the wall. Eventually he realises that the killer was himself before he suffered from amnesia.

2. A boy and a father move into a new house in the country and begin to hallucinate occasionally seeing each other as demonic figures. Strange occurrences take place in the house; bizarre reflections in mirrors, sinister shadows creeping across the walls etc. Both the father and son find themselves being haunted by each other. The father tries to discover if his house is haunted and why, but he eventually starts to suspect his son of being possessed by an evil entity.

3. A farmer begins to suspect that the scarecrows on his farm are moving independently of their own whilst he is asleep. All his possessions start to go missing and turn up in strange places. His anxiety is heightened when the animals on his farm get slaughtered over night. Locals then tell him that they’ve seen men walking around outside his house at night suspiciously. His objective is to uncover the mystery.

We then considered from here what would be the best plot idea to develop by realising the possible flaws in all of them. We eventually determined that:

• Our first idea was probably our favourite but we realised that it may not be realistically simply to create, pitch or convey a real sense of threat and suspense with by just using a teaser trailer. We were eager to see if you could match the special effects with the software available, but considered that it may be more trouble and time than it would be worth.
• Our third idea would be too difficult to produce in terms of location and props as well as getting actors to play the necessary characters and use of farm animals. It may also be difficult to convey the plot and angle of the film with just a teaser trailer. Essentially, the idea wasn’t practical in far too many areas.

Initial pitch feedback

Today we pitched our initial idea for the film trailer for ‘Mile a Minute’, being the plot we developed after a couple of meetings, to our teacher Mrs.Mcluckie. The received the following feedback:

• Considering risk assessment, it wouldn’t be safe to carry imitation guns and other weapons around, especially in public areas where it could alert other people to believing there’s real danger. Unfortunately it will be necessary for us to film scenes in public with imitation guns which would in fact breach the law.
• We also initially considered using music in the trailer that would help the feel and genre of the trailer, which would have to be copyrighted music. Mrs.Mcluckie pointed out that we can not used any copyrighted music when making a film trailer, which meant that creating a professional looking trailer of this genre would be even more difficult.

We also realised that although it wouldn’t be impossible to create a teaser trailer for this film it may have been difficult to exhibit our capabilities and make use of different filming and editing techniques. The film trailer would have most likely had to have only involved one scene in a sense similar to most teaser trailers of this sort of type of genre. We agreed that it might be a better idea to produce a teaser trailer for a horror as they conventionally use instrumental and orchestrated music which we could most likely produce using software such as Garageband. Filming a horror trailer would also involve less risks in public because most of the action will take place indoor and on private property.

Initial Idea for Teaser Trailer

Our first ideas for our film trailer revolved around the concept of a thriller of some sort. We generated some ideas involving a:

Murder

Chase

Hostage Situation

Terrorist Attack

Robbery

Our ideas expanded on the concept of a chase involving two characters caught up in a situation that propels them forward in the plot through their need to keep running whether it be towards or away from the other character. We initially thought this was in our best interests as it was a topic that we could enjoy and collaborate well on. We're all very familiar with popular crime thrillers and dramas such as Collateral, The Departed, Pulp Fiction and even Catch Me If You Can.

Eventually we came up with the concept of a young teenage character who was hired by a gangster to hack a private witness protection program site for witness details. The teenager would have kept these details on a disk and the disk would have become the centre-point and catalyst of the narrative. After some discussions we came up with this plot basis:

We then mind-mapped some ideas for character names such as the name for the protagonist in which we came up with:

• Myles
• Jason
• John
• Chris

And names for the Antagonist:

• Vincent
• Alfie
• Frankie
• Jason
• Eddie
• Marcus
• Desmond
• Jack

The titles of the film that we then mind-mapped were:

• The Slip
• Blind Alley
• Runners High
• Mile a Minute
• Loose Fortune
• Dead Venture
• Live Wire

Plot Basis:

Young hacker Myles Harvard finds an Internet forum request to hack a database online for a phenomenal fee. Myles hacks the data from the database after being told to not look at the data he stole. Myles looks at the data anyway. After retrieving the data he is told to meet the Antagonist in town so that he can make the exchange for money. Myles waits for him on a street corner when a car shows up and the Antagonist invites him in. In the car the Antagonist is ready to give him the money when Myles is tricked into revealing that he read the data. The Antagonist is about to shoot Myles when the car crashes by chance. Myles jumps out of the car taking both the disk of information and the money while the Antagonist is disoriented. Myles returns to his house to find that the police are inside investigating his room after his IP address is tracked from the hacking job. Myles now has no one to turn to knowing he’s a convict and chooses to run with the money he took from the Antagonist.

After some constructive criticism from peers and self evaluation we decided on the name Myles Harvard for the protagonist, Alfie for the antagonist and that the title of the movie would be Mile a Minute.

We hope to pitch our idea in the near future to our tutor and gain feedback to whether this idea is plausible and achievable.