Planning: Location Planning

Immy found a local warehouse to look at and consider as our location. I managed to get the keys and take some photographs of the place. Although the outside is not quite appropriate for what we were looking for, the interior is spacious, and looks very eerie when the lights are turned out. With a reflective, slightly damaged floor, the UV light will look very effective. There will also be less vehicles in the way by the time we come to film there, so we are considering using it as our final filming location as the Killer's warehouse.



We have asked Mr Henton to buy us a source of UV light. Preferably, we would like the bulb to fit into the lamp pictured below; this is a light containing coloured filters, owned by the school. If we can, we would like to use it to light our scene. It will illuminate the Schweppes to make it look like a chemical substance, and will create a futuristic look that will indicate the time period of our setting.

Our setting will be illuminated of low-key neon lighting. I have looked at both film screenshots and general photography with neon lighting to get a rough idea as to what we want our shots to look like.

Planning - Casting

Technically, our opening contains two characters. However, because the face of our victim will never be revealed, and he will already be dead (or at least, dying and almost completely immobile) within the first two minutes, we decided that it was only necessary to cast the killer.

The character is ambitious and mysterious; he is calculating, and lacks empathy for his victims. However, he is not completely emotionless. There is an element of sympathy to him, as he lost his parents at a young age. A defining character trait of his is his love for classical music - thus why Danse Macabre will be playing in our opening. 

Below is the footage of the auditions we held for the role of the killer. Because there will be no dialogue in our opening, it was purely a physical test; after only two auditions, though, we felt that we had found our perfect actor. Although Ashley did have spirit and enjoyed playing the role, we as the directors felt that he was too chipper, and his gait was too bouncy when he walked. Sam, however, seemed to get into the role immediately, and understood his character from a very brief description. His dancing was also awkward and goofy, exactly what we were looking for, but not to the point of being over the top, and taking away from the sinister nature of the scene. 

Planning: Storyboard

Here is the storyboard we have created for our two-minute opening, with pictures drawn by Immy. Although the shots may not look exactly like the images we have created in the final product, this is just a concept; the opening as we imagined it upon its creation. We will need to adapt this depending on the capabilities of our resources, and the limitations of our environment.



Immy also compiled these slides into a video in order to illustrate how we want our scene to carry out in relation to the music. It isn't perfect, and, again, we will have to adapt it based on the shots we film, how the editing process carries out, etc. I have also attached the original markers for the shot changes that we created in Premier Pro, with most shots lasting for a duration of two bars in the Danse Macabre score (there were adaptations made in the video due to time constraints and the editing limitations of static images, and the music does not last for the full duration of our two minute excerpt).

Planning: Treatment For Our Film Opening

Once again, our group turned to Google Docs to record a contribution of our respective ideas. Screenshots are posted below.

Wik's contributions are written in blue, Immy's are in yellow, and mine are in purple.

Now we can confidently continue with our treatment. Our plan for the opening two minutes entails the killer, whose face is never revealed, preparing for the first murder. It cross cuts between this, and the act being carried out through a series of mysterious close-ups and match-on-action that conceal the faces of both the killer and the victim.

In terms of audio, we are considering having the non-diegetic music of Camille Saint-Saëns' Danse Macabre (copyright free due to its 19th century origins!) playing over the action after the killer equips his headphones. Before this, however, we will have the film in relative silence, with the audience only hearing diegetic sounds, such as footsteps, heavy breathing, and sizzling chemicals.

For the titles, we are going to overlay them over the action on screen in order to prevent taking away time from the action itself. As for the name of the film, we wanted to integrate it into the environment, and so we are planning on creating a neon sign (if we can get our hands on one) that reads 'Toxic'; the killer will walk past the sign to keep the shot relevant to the narrative of the opening.

Planning: Target Audience and Potential Openings

After filming our 60 Second Pitch, I then wrote a synopsis for our film, as seen below;

Far into the future, in the year 2XXX, twelve influential families dominate the city in which they live. Each one is designated with its own crest, deriving from the Chinese Zodiac Calendar; their adolescent heirs, all close friends, carry their family legacies. However, things quickly take a turn for the worst. One of the friends is discovered as a decomposing corpse in a pool of mysterious glowing toxin, and the only clue to the killer’s identity comes in the form of a fortune cookie. After that, it becomes a race against time. Isolated from any outside help, the friends must put the pieces together and stop the murderer – both their own lives, and that of the next generation, is at stake. 

We then decided that feedback would be necessary in order to progress with our piece, and create a two-minute opening that audiences would enjoy. In order to collect the data we were looking for, we used SurveyMonkey to make a short survey, and sent it to a variety of students within our school. Below are the results we ended up with;

The majority of the participants in our survey were of the appropriate age demographic.

We had an equal weighting of gender participants taking part in our survey.

Most of the people we asked were horror fans - those who were not didn't dislike the genre!

Sci-fi and psychological horror were generally the favourite sub-genres. Luckily, these are the genres of our film!

Some very positive responses to our title idea! We are confident that this will remain as the title throughout production.

Useful feedback with some inspiring ideas.

Some suggestions that we will definitely consider!

Approximately 8.5 on a scale of 10. Not bad!