Some Changes

So, after some discussion and looking at our storyboard, we came to the consensus that we have too much going on in two minutes of film. Therefore, we are modifying stuff a little bit.

We are keeping the same overall idea that we had, but we are cutting out the entire plot line including the best friend being killed. So, our intro is just going to consist of the original murder, and the events included in that.We have also decided that we need to make sure we have elements of an actual title sequence, so we plan to have cuts in between shots with credits.

The best example I could find is the "Psycho" title sequence. I have talked about it before, but this time to kind of reference how they set everything up. So, how am I relating this to our project? Between each credit, there is the little line transition. For our project, instead of the line transition we would have footage that we shot. The time between would also be longer in our intro, due to the fact we are having actual footage to separate the credits, not just fancy transitions.

Making these changes also helps us make sure that we will stay within our time frame, and not have too much action that would force us to make it longer than it should.  I think we were kind of overthinking and therefore overdoing stuff beforehand— we had more of a short-film mentality as opposed to an introduction to a two hour movie mentality.

It Begins

So after a lot of coordinating, we have arranged to start shooting today. It was kind of hard to work around all of our schedules, because we are all busy.

Nat's availability: 
Monday, Wednesday and Friday after 5.

My availability:
Monday and Wednesday after 5, Tuesdays as long as I do not work.

Anne Marie's availability:
varies depending on her work schedule.

Therefore, after 5:00 today, we are going to try to get this show on the road. The pros to this is that with shooting today, we still have plenty available time to reshoot anything we need either Wednesday or next week. We also have a whole lot of class time to work through all of our footage and begin editing, that way we don't have to worry about further coordinating outside of school and stress ourselves out over availability. 

Another aspect of availability is the availability of technology in order for us to begin shooting. The basic and easiest technology to use would be our iPhone cameras, with the best camera being on an iPhone 7. This camera has better raw image support than other iPhone cameras, and the image signal processor (ISP) makes images an videos better quality than past iPhones, with improved white balance and focus.

Resolution: 1334 x 750 

Megapixels: 12

However, Nat's mom has a camera that is more on the fancy side. The only thing with this is that the availability won't be the same as with our phone camera, and it may or may not be harder to download the footage and edit it. The camera is a Canon PowerShot SX530 HS 16MP CMOS Sensor Camera. In normal terms: it's fancy. It has a lot more settings, and the quality is a lot better than the iPhone camera.

Resolution: 4608 x 3456

Megapixels: 16

Source Links: 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/09/08/apple-iphone-7-and-7-plus-camera-explained-how-good-are-the-phot/

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/canon-powershot-sx530-16-0-megapixel-hs-digital-camera-black/2761156.p?skuId=2761156&cmp=RMX&extStoreId=1405&ref=212&loc=DWA&ksid=95f7feca-4c8f-464b-b038-6ab17e1ff1f8&ksprof_id=3&ksaffcode=pg269395&ksdevice=c&lsft=ref:212,loc:2&gclid=CjwKCAiA_c7UBRAjEiwApCZi8aR2Gw6xGdnxLdtUSiaWYwk8PjcXtFrOEqoun5NeTeRWmXk_J2V5thoCw6MQAvD_BwE

Storyboard

The very beginning, establishing where I am at and what I am doing. 

Hand-drawn because it couldn't be made online. But, consists of the actual murder, and a hopefully realistic screaming close-up.

Nat coming into the scene, looking for her missing roommate.

Nat finding the body, and basically freaking out.

After finding the body, then her getting murdered herself.

Sources:

storyboardthat.com

Our Mock Film-Pitch

We are pitching to Blumhouse production company, with the name of our film being "Rub-A-Dub". The film is going to be about a serial killer that has an obsession with killing people in their bathrooms. Our movie is overall going to follow this estranged murderer as it kills its' victims and the police frantically try to catch the killer before they strike again. The opening sequence will cover the killer's first victim and basically set up the main plot for the film as a whole. This production company will be a good fit for our film because a lot of its most popular releases are horror movies. It also has some movies that have somewhat similar plot lines, so we are able to predict our success based on that.

Example Movies:

1. "Insidious"
2. "Scream" Series 
3. "The Purge"
4. "Unfriended"
5. "Get Out"

**Our movie mimics the "Scream"series to a certain extent, which in total grossed about $332 million. It is in the same horror category, and has potential to be just as successful.**

We will have secure resources with Blumhouse, because it is a very large production company with plenty of financing and equipment to help us produce our movie. 

Example Budgets:

1. "Get Out": $4.5 million
2. "It Follows": $2 million
3. "Texas Chainsaw Massacre": $300,000

Our predicted budget: $200,000

When talking about distribution, we were planning originally on going through film festivals for distribution. But, Blumhouse has signed a 10 year contract with Universal Pictures, who they now use as their distribution company. Due to this new contract, if Universal chooses to distribute our film, we will not have to go through the film festival circuit. '

Our project is an original movie that will prey on the audience's fear of death, especially the feelings of someone finding you vulnerable, in the bathroom. This movie will guarantee the attraction of our target audience and will be worth an investment. 

Mise-en-Scene

Nat's Bathroom

I briefly discussed costuming already, but here is a refresher. The character who gets killed (me) will be wearing something along the lines of a strapless bathing suit. We need to convey the illusion that the character is actually taking a shower, in order to make the sequence more realistic. The killer will be in the stereotypical black clothing, with the face covered to keep the identity of the killer unknown for the sake of the movie plot. I think blood falls in the costuming category, due to the fact that I will be wearing blood for a good portion of the introduction. We will probably make some fake blood at home, due to limited monetary resources. We’re also going to need to make some that doesn’t stain, so that we don’t make as big of a mess. But, with the opening taking place literally in the bathtub, it will at least be easy to clean no matter what. The main thing will be making sure that no skin gets stained-- I do not want to be red for days.

Lighting is going to be a very important part of our film. Filming in the early morning, late evening, or at night is going to be pretty crucial, because it will add to the hype of the events. I think we are planning on meeting up sometime in the evening, so that shouldn't be a problem.

Props are also important. Everything in the bathroom is basically considered props, because they are making the setting realistic. We don't want a bare, extremely clean bathroom because in reality, there probably aren't any teenage bathrooms that are spotless. Although I discussed blood in relation to costuming, it also can be considered a prop, just because it's adding an effect. In addition, whatever murder weapon that is utilized will be ultimately the most important prop. It is basically the center of the introduction, because the movie in its entirety revolves around the aspect if the murder weapon. 

Source Links:

https://nofilmschool.com/2016/10/8-spooky-lighting-techniques-you-can-use-your-horror-film

Some of the Finer Details

So after some deliberation, we have decided to ditch the supernatural idea and stick with a serial killer. We are leaning more towards the killer murdering the 1st character, then hiding/coming back and killing the roommate. This movie is in the same horror category as the “Scream” movies, but more enticing. We also decided that we will be filming in Nat’s bathroom. It’s a bit on the smaller side, but the shower is easily accessible which means that it will be easier to film the footage we need. Her house is also fairly secluded, which will be helpful if we end up incorporating any establishing shots. I was nominated as the character who “dies”— aka the character who starts the serial string of murders. The costuming for this is basically going to consist of shorts and a strapless bathing suit top, utilizing shots from the shoulders up (medium close up and close up shots). This is to give off the illusion that I am actually showering, when I’m really just standing in a shower in clothing, getting soaked. I think we are also going to try to shoot at night or in the morning, that way we don’t have the bright sun from the middle of the day impeding on our spooky effects.

Post-Group Meeting, and Post-Murder

OKAY SO, stepping away from all of the research, we (the group) met up to actually go kind of into depth for the synopsis of our film. We have all done our own individual research, so using that we were able to discuss what we think we should overall do. We decided that our sequence is going to follow the aftermath of a murder, and possibly the actual murder itself. The murder will be knife/stabbing murder, and the rest of the movie will deal with the characters investigating the murder. The thing we are still figuring out is whose bathroom we are going to use in order to stage the intro. We want one that doesn’t have many windows, and that is still big enough that we can all fit in there to film what we want. So, we have all agreed to take pictures of our bathrooms so that we can choose the one that we collectively think will be the best. One aspect we are still debating/deciding is if our murderer will be human, or some supernatural, demonic thing. The supernatural “thing” would probably be harder to stage and/or convey through the short period of time, but it would add to the orinigality and the creative part of our film. The murderer being human would be easier, but it may be too popular to actually entice people’s attention, unless we pulled it off really well and marketed it amazingly.

The quickest summary possible is that there is going to be a girl who is killed in the bathroom, and the roommate later comes in trying to find the roommate (who is dead). We are figuring out if we are going to have the roommate open the curtain then have the camera pan down to the body in the tub, or if the camera will show nothing and the dead person comes alive and basically stabs the roommate. There are still lots of theoreticals to work with, but we have the basic idea of what is going to occur.

ExHiBiTiOn

The main form of exhibition that we would most likely utilize is theatrical exhibition via film festivals. Theatrical exhibition is showy, and would be more practical for our purpose. If we were to utilize non-theatrical exhibition, we would probably get less attention with the movie just premiering on TV or something. This would be following more of the path as "Get Out" (see earlier post) by premiering at a film festival in order to catch people's attention.



One of the best film festivals I found in relation to our movie is the NYC Horror Film Festival. This is an independent film festival based strictly on horror genre films. It is "America’s largest and most recognized genre film festival focusing solely on Horror and Science Fiction". The benefit of this is that it specializes in our genre. It also is not extremely expensive to enter the festival to be exhibited, which means we won't have to scrounge up money in order to display it, especially after all of the money that would go into production.

This is a good option mainly because of the allocation of resources. If we weren't able to get things like film sponsors, then the money needed for production would more than likely come out of our pockets, resulting in limited funding. Therefore, this is an easy but efficient way to exhibit our film. And, we know from "Get Out" that this is a fairly successful route to take for exhibition.

Source Links:

https://nychorrorfest.com/

Production Companies: The Better Choice

When researching possible independent film production companies, the very first one that came up was Miramax. They have been producing films since 1993, and they are actually "known for distributing independent and foreign films".

Films Distributed Include:

1. "Pulp Fiction" (1994)
2. "Gangs of New York" (2002)
3. "Reservoir Dogs" (1992)

However, it would have to be taken into consideration that despite films distributed by Miramax are fairly successful, having 81 Oscar wins, the fact that Miramax is founded by the Weinstein brothers isn't the best attribute. With the sexual harassment allegations surrounding Harvey Weinstein, one of the founders, the entire reputation of the company is questionable at this moment. People may not be as drawn to a movie produced by this company, due to the fact that there are allegations like that, which have been made very public. Therefore, this probably would not be the company we would choose.

This supports that Lionsgate has been more successful with its films, compared to Miramax.

Another independent film production company that came up was Lionsgate. Lionsgate has been in production since 1997, and are one of the most popular independent film producers.

Films Distributed Include: 

1. "The Hunger Games" Series (2012-2015)
2. "American Psycho"(2000)
3. "Dirty Dancing" (1987)
4. "Saw" (2004)

Lionsgate "continues to grow into a vertically integrated global content platform of increasing diversity, reach and scale." This helps support the fact that Lionsgate would be an adequate choice for a production company. They have 30 Academy Award wins, and 29 Emmy wins from their releases, which supports their success. By theoretically choosing this company, our potential viewers would engage better with the movie due to the company's reputation, especially compared to Miramax. 

Source Links:

http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Miramax_Films

https://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2017/10/13/here-are-all-of-harvey-weinsteins-oscar-wins/#64e8c5fbd946

http://investors.lionsgate.com/

Stand Out, Be Independent

We plan to utilize a smaller, independent production company. This allows us to be more creative with what we choose to do, and also means we won't need to acquire as much funding. Relating to that, we are able to benefit by "choos[ing] quality actors/actresses that are willing to work for less money". This is important because many actors or actresses start out in independent films, and then work their way up into bigger Hollywood movies- meaning, they would presumably be more inclined to do more quality work, since their career potentially is being built off of these movies. Our film therefore has the potential to be high quality, but just with a lower budget, averaging at about $750,000 according to Sundance Infographic.


“Texas Chainsaw Massacre” is one of the more popular independent horror films. Made in 1974, it only had a $300,000 budget, according to IMDb. They used actual locations as opposed to sets, which probably helped with saving money in the long run. This film embodies creativity- you have to be creative to manage to make a movie based on a bunch of cannibals. And, in order to pick the locations and such of the movie there needs to be some creativity so that the settings compliment the theme of the movie.

“It Follows” is a more modern independent film, released in 2015. Although it had a much larger budget than “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” of $2,000,000 it still has a relatively low budget compared to more major-motion picture movies. However, it was shown at the Cannes Film Festival before it was majorly debuted. Our film would most likely follow this same format, but with more of the budget of something like "Texas Chainsaw Massacre". But, it would have more of the modern characteristics of "It Follows"-- however, "It Follows" has "no displays of current technology or cultural references that could make it feel dated". This is an important characteristic because it was "shaped" by its "attention to detail".

Source Links:

http://www.independentfilme.com/benefits-of-indie-films/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072271/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3235888/
https://www.wired.com/2015/03/it-follows-unholy-trinity/

rePRESENTation: Casting in the Present Day

With most movie genres, women and men have unequal representation. A study from the University of Southern California found that of the 5,839 characters in the 129 top-grossing films released between 2006 and 2011, fewer than 30 percent were girls or women. This study was done by Stacy Smith, who is reliable in her knowledge and findings, due to her job actually being to research depictions of gender and race in film and TV. But, here is the REAL interesting information: the horror genre is the only exception to this trend of unequal representation.




Why is it like this? Well, when horror movies first began, they mainly focused on victimizing women- which would mean that they would obviously have to cast more female characters. Even though the main plot of horror movies has moved away from that and more towards films more focused on things like social issues, and generalized fears of the population. What this means for our film is that if we made the entire film, we would be able to have pretty much equal representation between the genders, due to there not being many gender stereotypes in the genre itself.

Racial representation is a whole other ball field. In the early 1900s, there weren't many African Americans in film. The main movies that African Americans starred in were "black horror films", which were horror movies that feature African American characters and/or infuse African American culture, which were developed by African Americans. However, in the1970s the variety of opportunities open to African American actors, directors, writers, and producers continued to expand from when African Americans were basically exploited in films. Although there are still controversial images, there is much greater representation.

One of the most popular horror movies that has both equal gender and racial representation is "Get Out". This movie is about a couple's weekend getaway, where the boyfriend meets the girlfriend's parents and they encounter some... um... paranormal activity. This movie not only has equal gender representation, but it also has an African American as one of the main cast members. This movie shows how the movie industry has changed in representation over the past hundred years or so, but also addresses stereotypes within the movie. Considering the time period our movie would be coming out in, we would most likely utilize these types of aspect in our movie.

Source Links:

https://qz.com/1016753/horror-is-the-only-film-genre-where-women-appear-and-speak-as-often-as-men/

http://exhibits.library.duke.edu/exhibits/show/africanamericansinfilm

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/550106/pdf