Macro elements of our film Lost In History By Poppy & Esmai Kennedy
The Sound
• In our film we have decided to make sure we go into great detail with sound as from looking at our survey monkey, most people believe sound is what makes a horror most scary, therefore we are really going to experiment with lots of sound to really scare the audience. We would like to include diegetic sound to break silence, so in our film when we have silent parts we would like to break that with this type of sound to get a reaction from the audience. As we are doing our Lost in History idea, the film will include the girl running away on many occasions, she will try hiding away from her killers and there will be parts where she’s in a hiding place, believing she’s safe then a loud crack of the door will break the silence and will also then show that someone is near and the girl most certainly isn’t safe. Non-diegetic sound will also be used so for example when the KKk scene approaches, it will include the KKK group at the top of the field to walk down the filed trying to target the girl, the girl will react to this by running away as she needs to find the object before they grab hold of her, as this part of the scene will include lots of tension and fear, jumpy fast music will be used to fit with how the girl is feeling.
Camera work • Camera work will obviously be very important in our film, therefore we will be using variety depending on the situation in each scene. We believe it would be important to include some high angles on the girl as it will show how powerless she is compared to her dominating killers who are constantly targeting her. We will then use some low angles on the dominating killers to show their power. Many close up shots will be used in our film mainly on the girl to show the true pain, fear and torture that she is feeling and experiencing. Also when she is getting tortured by her killers close up shots will be used here to really show the fear and to help scare the audience as it will allow them to see the pain close up. We will also be using extreme long shots, an example of this shot being used will be in our KKK scene where the leaders are at the top of the field and the girl is at the bottom, this shot will be used to show how far apart they are to begin with but the gradually the shots will change when they get closer and closer to her. We also want to include some tracking/panning shots as these types of shots are often used to show stalking which is happening to our character all the time, therefore we believe this shot type should be used at least once in each of our scenes to show our killers approaching our victim which is the girl. We will also like to use establishing shots as these shots like to focus on the location and as we are wanting to use very scary and disturbing locations we really want these places to be shown on camera to help create more fear to the audience.
Editing • In our film we plan on using a variety of editing to help build up our scenes. We like the idea of using minimal editing for our Witchcraft scene as this type of editing is often used when a violent scene is happening and we believe that our Witchcraft scene will be incredibly violent and think this editing will be good to use. This type of editing creates realism, so we really want to make it look realistic for the audience sake. We are then going to include flashbacks/reverse editing on our second scene, third scene and fourth scene, The second scene will include a short flashback of the first scene, the third scene will include a short flashback of the second scene and the fourth scene will have a short flashback of the third scene. We will then have some slow motion editing on parts where she will be running, this will be used to show slowly the fear on the girls face and to create more tension and also to really highlight the most important parts. We will be using time-lapse editing at the very end which will include a variety of our most important shots moving fast to help create great amounts of tension and to show how important everything that happened is. Transitions will also be used as we would like to include blackouts, mainly in our Asylum scene to help represent what’s going on in the girls mind, and also to help scare the audience as a blackout will appear for a short time then all of a sudden a jumpy piece of the film will be shown to get a reaction from the audience.
Lighting • To begin the Witch trial scene, we will be filming in some sort of court room, the lighting we wish to use here will be a dirty green to create a misty feel and a sense of tension to help build up the this part of the scene. In our holocaust scene we wish to use red lighting for the gas chamber part to help symbolize danger, fear and torture. • The lighting used in the first scene, The Salem Witch trials, will be natural lighting as the scene will be outside on a field we thought it would be a good idea to just use the natural day light. However we thought it was an interesting idea that we shot the first scene when it was beginning to get dark so that we could use a spotlight on the main character.
Casting • We are considering our cast carefully as we want our antagonists in each scene to come across intimidating, torturous and dangerous. We want them to have a sharp look to them so the audience can be fearful of them. Our main character which is our girl will constantly look vulnerable so the audience can connect with her and feel constant sorrow for her.
Makeup • In most horrors fake blood will be used when gruesome violence and death is used. We will be using fake blood in some of the deaths so show the torture and the pain that the girl is suffering. Also to show the colour red which is dangerous and evil. This blood will stand out powerfully as the girl will be clothed in a white gown. We then wish to make the nurses in our Asylum scene incredibly pale with makeup to allow them to stand out so the audience can see they are evil characters and not good.
Costume • With costume we are wanting to clothe our girl character in a long white gown to show purity and to allow things like blood to really stand out. We will then be having black clothing for the witchcraft people to show evil and then the kkk uniform for the leaders. For the Holocaust scene we will have our innocent characters in old fashion war like clothing with gas masks on their faces, this will show their innocence. For our Asylum scene we will be having straightjackets to show the psychological problems and the nurses will be dressed in nurse uniforms.
Location
• At the current time we aren’t going to really go into detail with our location, but we have ideas of what kinds of locations we would like. Location is very important in the horror genre as if they are scary and they create a horrible atmosphere than that clearly shows the location is the right choice. We would like to use a field in one of our scenes to create the abandoned feel to help create tension. Location needs to have the abandoned and old fashion feel to it in order to create tension and to help even more with fear and torture. We also like the idea of untouched places and places that are far from the ordinary as we believe that these type of places really fit in perfectly with the horror genre and believe the will benefit our film.
Links to actual films
• We have decided to link our film to the Saw films as in saw the people that get captured are apart of a game and are forced to do certain things if they want to survive and that’s what we wish to do in our film, where our girl is forced to find objects in each time period if she wishes to survive. In saw they are forced to do torturous things, here are some images of examples of the things they are forced to do in these films if they want any chance of survival. These images are from the first saw 2004 by James Wan. As you can see these images shows things that the characters have to do if they want to win and survive, in our film the girl will be doing similar things, but instead she will have to find the object and die with it if she wishes to carry on living.