MOOD BOARD

Mood boards help others to 'get inside our heads' in order to convey a thematic setting for a design or to explain a function in piece of work. Therefore, my group and I deiced to create our own mood board in order to communicate key themes and feelings during our opening sequence of our horror thriller, '666'.

The mood board has helped us to physically see the atmosphere we want to create during the opening of our horror thriller sequence, '666'. We decided to create this mood board, because

during the writing of the script and drawing of the story board, we found it hard to convey the feelings and mood we want the audience to feel during our opening sequence. Furthermore we found it difficult to communicate our storyline clearly to people, therefore the illustrations in the mood board, allows us to explain our idea clearly to people, especially the actress staring in our film, therefore our actress will have a better indication of the atmosphere we intend to set in the first few minutes of our film, making her job easier. 

The mood board includes key themes which my group and I wish to export during our horror film. For example the pictures of the young girls looking frightful, is something we hope to display in our horror thriller in order to highlight the terror element of our film. Furthermore the mysterious characters in black hoods represent the 'stranger' character in our opening sequence, who is the stalker and the killer. The appearance of the 'stranger' will mirror the appearance of the men in the hoods in order to give the character a mysterious aura, which is a stereotypical villain trait in horror films, therefore my group and I are conforming to typical ideologies of villains in horror films. 

Of course, any horror film has to include blood, therefore we are conforming to this stereotypical ideology by having a scene devoting to showing the blood loss from the vulnerable and innocent victim. Through blood we can display the terror of which the villain has carried out, so that the audience can mourn the vulnerable character. Furthermore, blood creates a spooky and almost scary atmosphere, therefore we are displaying this feel amongst the audience, therefore again qe are able to highlight the terror mood of our horror film. 

In conclusion, a mood board has enabled my group and I to be able to communicate how we will be highlighting the terror element of our horror film, '666'. 

THE FINAL GIRL VS THE FIRST GIRL

The final girl and the first girl are used in thriller films, especially horror films. The final girl is known as being 'the last character left alive to confront the killer', where as the first girl is the first character to confront the killer and normally ends up dead within the opening sequence of a film. 

THE FINAL GIRL: 

The Final Girl, Sidney, from the film
'Scream", which is a horror film similar to mine.

The Final Girl is as crucial part to the horror genre, some people argue the  Final Girl is as important to a horror film as the villain is. A final girl always has to be a tough character because they are strong enough to make it to the end and 'defeats' the villain. The Final Girl is normally a character who the audience can relate with and who have the audience's sympathy therefore the audience are rooting for her to survive. The audience are compelled by this character which is why the Final Girl have become a vital character in horror films. The term Final Girl was created by Carol J. Clover in her 1992 book Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the modern Horror Film. Clover highlights some typical traits with Final Girls have. For one, most of them are brunettes. This is because blonde girls are stereotypically seen as being naive and ignorant, so by using a brunette girl, you are going against common ideological views that woman are naive and therefore a brunette Final Girl can be represented as tenacious character.                

The Final Girl, Jill, from the film 'When A Stranger Calls'
which is a horror thriller film similar to mine. 

THE FIRST GIRL:
The First Girl is another crucial part to the horror genre. They are normally the first character the audience see on screen. The First Girls are normally killed within the first five minutes of the opening sequence of a horror film. Therefore, they are a classical character, so when the audience see The First Girl on screen, they can immediately identify the film as being part of the horror genre. The First Girls are mostly blonde. This is because blonde girls are stereotypically seen as being naive and ignorant, hence why they would be killed. Therefore horror films conform to this common ideological view by using  blonde as a First Girl, representing how she will have little to no chance of survival and will therefore be killed shortly. The First Girls are normally represented as being innocent and virginal in order to emphasis their vulnerability to the audience, highlighting there little chance of survival.

The First Girl, Casey, from the film 'Scream'

My group and I are creating an opening sequence to our horror thriller '666'. Therefore due to it being an opening, it is logical for us to include a First Girl instead of a Final Girl. We plan on our First Girl being similar to the character Casey from 'Scream'. We will use a blonde character because we want the audience to immediately identify our film as being in the horror genre, therefore we will play on stereotypical ideologies which society has on blonde girls, especially highlighting their nativity. For example, we will have our First Girl go and 'investigate' the strange noises on her own, instated of sensibly calling the police for assistance, which will then ultimately lead to her death. 

MOCK UP OF OUR FILM



After my group and I had finished devleoping our idea, we decided to create a mock up our opening sequence, so that we could visually see whether we had used a variety of shoots and therefore see if it is pleasing to the eye. Also, the mock up allowed us to accuraltley calculate how long each shot will be, so that we can keep in the time frame of 2-3 minutes. However, we were unable to create an accuate representaion of our opening sequence, due to our location (in our school) and having limited props to use, for example we didn't have access to a bath which is where our main character dies, therefore we improvised and used blue carpet in our school to represent the bath. Furthermore, our actress we are using, Jess, wasn't availale to film the mock up, therefore a member of our group (Hannah), stepped in and performed Jess's role of the victim who is a innocent girl home alone. Never the less, the mock up enabled my group and I to see which areas of our film needs to be improved on. For example, in the mock up qe used a non-diegetic heartbeat sound throughout the opening sequence. However, after watching the mock opening sequence back, my group and I agreed that the heartbeat should cut off once Jess (main character) has died, in order to inform the audience that she is dead. Furthermore, my group and I believe that we should have more cute when the victim is approaching her 'death', in order to increase the pace of the film and hence increase the tension. Finally, due to the situation at hand, we had to use an iPhone to film on, therefore not only were we limited to the amount of angles we could film at, we also subconsciously turned the camera around, switching from landscape to portrait. In order to avoid this, when filming our real thing we obviously won't be using an iPhone, we will be using a professional camera that our school will provide for us, which will allow us to film from a variety of angles and we will not be able to turn the camera round subconsciously, therefore the shot will stay in the same direction each time.

SCRIPT FOR 666

Script for 666

INT. HOUSE - NIGHT

The sequence begins with a view of curtains blowing out a window. It is dark outside and early evening and we see a pretty teenage girl sitting watching TV alone. We hear the sound of the television screen as the camera focuses on the girl. The girl’s mobile phone pings and the camera cuts to the screen.

*Will be home late, don’t lock the door xx*

She carries on flicking through channels and the house phone rings. The camera suddenly cuts to it and the girl stands up to go answer.

GIRL:

(On phone)

Hello? … Hi…. Is anyone there?

While speaking she walks to the fridge and takes out a bottle of water. She impatiently taps the counter as she awaits a response on the other end of the line. She rolls her eyes and sighs before hanging up and going to watch TV again. After hanging up there is a shot of upstairs we see the villain walk across the floor and hear the floorboards creek. The girl looks paranoid and uncomfortable as she looks around her house. The phone rings again and the camera quickly cuts back to it and then her portraying the fear on her face. She stands up to answer the phone again but this time looks paranoid before picking it up.

GIRL:

 (On phone)

Hello?  Is anyone there?

(Shouting) WHO ARE YOU? ANSWER ME!

(Through the phone a door slamming is heard)

The girl jumps and appears frightened and confused after hearing the door slam. She hangs up the phone. She appears on edge and cautious. She walks towards the staircase with caution, as she is ironically aware of her surroundings despite what is to come. She stops for a brief second at the bottom of the staircase and composes herself before slowly making her way upstairs. While she is walking up the stairs the camera will cut to the villain walking, presenting the binary opposition between them. As the girl reaches the top of the stairs she hears the sound of the water running in the bathroom. Her facial expression is worried and stressed as she turns towards it. The girl opens the bathroom door and a man dressed all in black grabs her. He stabs her, causing her to bleed. The camera then cuts to her in the bath. The villain has his hand over the girls face, pushing her under the water and drowning her. There is then a shot of her lying dead in the bath. The water is red in order to emphasise the amount of blood that has been lost in such a short amount of time. The killer then paints ‘666’ on the window in the girls blood.