Intial Ideas

Narrative: we had lots of ideas in the beginning of different narratives surrounding the horror/ thriller genre. But in the end we choose a chase scene, There are three characters, aged about 17/18 who are being chased by an unknown psycho. we thought it would be easier if we choose the characters to be the same age as ourselves as we could relate to them, making it more realistic and we could use our friends as the actors. This is also stereotypical for the horror genre as the teenager mostly gets killed first; such as in Scream. To make to it more of the thriller genre we used the cliffhanger at the end of the sequence to make the audience want to watch on, find out what happened to the missing friends and find out who the killer is.

The mise-en-scene also relates to the narrative and the genre:
The costumes: The victims costumes, as they are teenagers are very casual. Stereotypically hoodies, jeans, trainers etc. An idea could be to smear mud over the clothes to make them look as if they have been running from the killer for a long time, without the audience actually watching. The killer is wearing all black to make him look threatening, he is wearing a mask so you cannot see his face adding to the mystery.

The Props: The victims don't really have any props making them more venerable. The killer is carrying a weapon, a knife which adds to his personality and makes it more personal he has to get close to the victim to kill them unlike a gun which you have to shoot the victim from a far away. He also has a mask so you cant see his face as explained in the costume section.

The setting: Is very streotpical of a horror/thriller. Its in a cold, dark forest. as it is winter at the time we are filming the trees dont have any leaves on them makeing them look bare and scary. The surroundings are threatening as the victims clearly dont know how to get out and being surrounded by trees gives them the feeling of entrapment. The ground is covered with leaves and other things in the forest whihc make them make alot noise when they are trying to escape.

lighting and sound: The lighting is going to be very dark, amibent as it is set in the evening/night this adds to the feel of the extract. There isn't very much sound, only the sound of heavey breathing as the vitims are running away this also adds to the suspence as the killer getting closer. We might have music when the main character is left on there own but we havent decided on the choice yet. There will some dialogue, the vioceover of the killer saying worrying things to scare the auidence as well as show the obvious distress the characters are under. Also the audience will hear "sounds or the forest" various things like wind through the tress and rustling leaves, we may add the running footsteps for effect.

The Preliminary Task

Our preliminary task consisted of, deciding an idea and then designing a storyboard of the different camera angles and the different characters we used. Gina and Charlotte produced the storyboard and Rachael organised characters, props and set design. The storyboard took quite a long time to finish due to the choices of camera angles and different times in the task. The story was quite a simple idea, a police interview where a character gets interrogated.

The setting was a simple white washed room in our school corridor. we used a table and three chairs to make the situation more realistic. We originally decided to use a tape recorder but due to technical difficulties and time problems, we re shot without it to make the task easier and quicker. The hat was the focus as it was the main reason that the character was being being questioned.

The conversation between characters consisted of a few minutes and would have typically featured in a crime drama. certain words we included were "confess, evidence, detective," but we also decided to add humour by naming the detective "Noodles." The characterisation of the suspect being interrogated was nervous and confessed easily, we used this outcome so we didn't have to spend long filming it. The other character that we included was the solicitor, this also made the situation more realistic.

The camera angles and editing that we used were in the brief that we recieved from our teacher before starting the task. These shots and editing were:

Establishing shot,

Close up,

Match on action,

Reaction,

Long shot

and the 180 degree rule.

To veiw the final product follow this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hDKq-34TNQ