Film Regulations and Certifications

My film will most likely be rated a 15 on the BBFC rating system due to drug use with the pills and scenes of violence and terror. Most Horror films are rated 18 but as mine will be on a low budget so will not have such extreme scenes of violence and gore, or any scenes of sexuality due to the limits of my short cast.

I have to also consider where a short film in general would be played. Often short films have a very niche audience, being played at short film festivals all around the world. Despite this the general public will usually watch a short film on the popular video website YouTube, which could be shared onto popular social networking sites Facebook and Twitter. Occasionally, short films can be shown on Channel 4 and other similarly diverse and indie channels. I would like my short film to be a teaser short for a much larger film starring the villain from the short.

Extra Advertisement for my Film: Facebook Page

I have been considering how films like mine can be advertised on the market. The most obvious ways of advertising a short film is to have advertisements in Film magazines and Posters (Both of which I will be creating for my Ancillary tasks) Or trailers on TV and at the Cinema. But as we now live in a more multimedia age there are more useful places to put advertisements when attracting a younger audience. Often, with bigger budget films, the film maker will pay the video playing website YouTube, so there film will appear as a recommended video on similar pages and have the trailer appear as advertisements on videos. The trailer and video can be shared on popular social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, where it can trend and appear on more peoples feeds on Facebook and #discovery trending videos on Twitter. This increases the chances of it being seen by the larger audience. As I do not have the budget to pay for advertising or trending, I instead decided to make a Facebook page for my film, which can be done for free and can be shared amongst mutual friends. As Facebook is the most popular social networking site it is more likely to be seen by more people and thus the film will have a larger spread. I will include the Facebook address on my film poster

The page can be seen here- http://www.facebook.com/whenwillitend2013

Edited Poster: Ancillary

I have taken any comments and advice from when I put my initial poster on Facebook and have tried to incorporate them into this edited poster. I edited on using Photoshop fog to give more mystery to the image and to make the background look less clean. I have also made the text blend into the background more.

Youtube Advertisements

I have experimented with what my video would look like advertised onYoutube, so I quickly created a quick advert, with link to the video:

Characters in my Film

I have two characters in my film at the moment. Because of the small cast it will be easier to set up rehearsal and filming schedules. Most of the time there is only one character in the scene, the at the moment unnamed protagonist, with the villain making occasional appearances throughout, particularly at the climax. Here I hope to write a short character profile for my characters, so I will have a better understanding of how they should look and act within the context of a Horror film, and do they conform to the genre.

Protagonist: My unnamed protagonist for my film should be an Everyman style character. He must appear just ordinary, with an ordinary office job and living in an ordinary house. This helps the audience relate more to his character, and then it makes it hit back home more when he the horror unfolds.
Despite his appearance as an Everyman character, he is exasperated with the constant annoyances and tediousness of his work and life, which will be shown in a frantic montage of images and sounds in his office. It will be shown that he has to take pills for something, which could be the MacGuffin plot devise or the  mystery that is left unresolved in the film; the audience never discover what pills the character has to take so perhaps all the horror is really his own hallucination? or it could be something as tame and simple as Paracetamol.
The character must hold the films narrative with his genuine feelings of terror at the situation, which is as much a mystery to him as it is to his audience. He must convey feelings of exasperation and annoyance at first, then confusion, then genuine fear and finally intense terror. He will wear a shirt and tie, just regular office clothes, which will contrast with the villains costume.

Villain: The villain must be the image to the film, the iconic character that could perhaps appear in the sequels and become the image of the series. Because of the villains need to be iconic on a competitive market, so I have given it an easily recognizable mask which shrouds its personality, identity and sex. The true nature of the villain is shrouded in mystery; we are never sure on his motive for torturing the protagonist and whether or not it is even real. the fact the protagonist runs out of pills shortly before the haunting from the villain. The psychological torture the villain administers is particularly dark and pessimistic, juxtaposing happy music with its sadistic murders. I want my villain to be named Jokerface, linking it to similar named characters Ghostface and Leatherface, and also because of the Jester style on the mask.

Initial Film Poster: Ancillary Task

Here is my first rough idea of a poster for my short Horror film, initially called When Will It End. I have tried to stick to a monochrome colour scheme with added red which connotes blood, violence and murder, and have included a sneaky look at my villain. The typography is stereotypical to the genre, looking like splattered blood. There is only one section with light so it adds mystery to the image, and remains faithful to the genre having a setting at night. The mask still has colour on it adding to the iconography of the character and so the eye is drawn to it. Conventional features of film posters that I have included is the film title (the largest piece of text on the page), a tagline relating to the major themes of the film ("Be careful what you wish for"), production info that is small and unreadable and bold text explaining when it will be released. I also included a Facebook widget that will help advertise the film multimedially and to spread it to Facebook users, the majority of whom will be the intended teenage audience. I have included both my original drawing and a roughly photo-shopped image. I put the photo on the popular social networking site Facebook, and I have included some of the most helpful comments from this, which I hope to incorporate on my finished poster.

I also have created a second film poster, as most films have two posters on release. This is far more simplistic than my first poster, showing a distorted image of the text with nothing but the title on the poster. Whilst this is effective, I have decided to use my first poster, as whilst the second is more minimalistic and interesting, the first design contains all the necessary information needed for an effective poster

Review of Work 2: Film Plot Idea

I have tried to develop my initial plan of wanting to create a Horror Film blended with a Psychological Thriller. I have decided to name my film When Will It End? It starts off with the protagonist, a stressed, over worked office worker alone at a desk. there is a focus on every irritable noise; the ticking clock, the fan, him tapping a pen, buzzing of lights, fan in computer etc. The images and noises become for frantic and volatile as there is a focus on his eyes, showing a gateway into his mind and his current feelings of manic despair. He goes back to his work, and types on his computer "When Will It End?" which the camera will focus on, setting the scene for the film. All of this first scene happens in a small, minimilistic office, with the purpose of portraying the unnamed protagonist as an Everyman character; this could be any man in any office, which brings the horror back home as the audience relates themselves to the character.

After the typing on the computer, there is a medium shot of the man, he carries on typing for a few seconds then suddenly a gloved hand will appear on his shoulder, he'll then turn around and there will be a long shot from the opposite side of the room, and the owner of the hand will disappear. He will jump up and shout who's there but no one will appear. This will make the audience question what the nature of the horror will be. Is it all set in his head or is it something more? It will then cut to the inside of an industrial bathroom. It will focus on the door, and then track the protagonist to the sink. he fills a plastic cup with water and reaches to his pocket for a bottle of pills. An insert shot of the bottle will appear now, revealing that the pills are empty. A close up of the protagonists distressed face and the empty bottle appears in front but not in focus. What the pills are for is not explained, hinting at perhaps the protagonists need for medication due to his growing insanity.

The next scene is the protagonist walking home. It tracks along side him all the way, as he walks down the dark streets, past various shops and houses. He walks down several alleys, and this walking lasts around twenty seconds. In one of the alleys the villain will stand, looking at the camera and not move  No focus will be put on this, and he will carry on walking normally. He will stop after a few seconds, as him and the audience realize they saw something, and will step backwards to look for it, but now it will be gone. there will be a low angle shot from the floor as he looks around confused, he then looks directly to the camera, and extends his hand down. This will have been a P.O.V shot from the mask. the next shot will be an over the shoulder shot of the mask in his hands. Then a long shot as he throws it down and runs away from the alley.

An establishing shot of the house (The scene of the penultimate action) appears here, as the protagonist runs into the scene towards the house. there is a medium shot here of him opening the door to his house and rushing in, and then it focuses on the villain, half hidden in the shadows. He sits down in the living room and pours himself a glass of whiskey  muttering "its not real, you're just tired, its not real, its not, its not". He turns to turn the TV on and sits down, with a focus on the back of his head, and the action on the TV. It is the scene from Friday the 13th, where Kevin Bacon's character gets stabbed in the throat by the mysterious killer. he turns the TV off, sobbing, still focusing on the back of his head. Suddenly all the lights go out, and Mary Hopkins cover of Those Were The Days would play at an intense volume. The happy song will contrast with the horrible and terrifying situation. He screams, and stumbles towards the window, tracking him as he walks. it focuses on the garden, as he sees the villain walking slowly from behind a tree towards the house. He then starts screaming, scrambling around to find the torch. there is then a voice over  saying "You wanted it to end, so here is your end". The protagonist starts screaming "No" over and over again, trying to turn the torch on. as it flickers from his P.O.V, the villain appears on camera with a knife, runs towards the camera, and then a cut to black, with screaming over the titles.

Tagline for my Film

I am still considering what Tagline would be best to use on my film. For every popular film a punchy and original tagline is needed, both to advertise the film but also showing the meaning that is wanted to be portrayed through the film. I will list some of the more popular horror films and some of the taglines from these;

Nightmare on Elm Street- Sleep Kills
A simplistic and punchy tagline, linking to the theme of sleeping and nightmares, and containing stereotypical horror language like "Kills"

The Shining- The Horror is driving him crazy
Again matches the craziness shown in the film, and Jacks mental disintegration. The use of the word horror explicitly links it to the genre

Scream- Someone has taken their love of scary movies one step too far. Solving this mystery is going to be murder.
Links to the main theme of the film, a scary movie inspired murderer. The use of a pun ending sentence makes it seem like a Scooby Doo cartoon, links it to the stereotypes of the genre and also shows the murder that will appear in the film

Friday the 13th- They were warned... They are doomed... And on Friday the 13th, nothing will save them.
The idea of Friday the 13th being unlucky, referring to them as doomed and nothing will save them shows they will most likely die, and thus there will be more expectation of gore and death

The Exorcist- Nobody expected it, nobody believed it, and nobody could stop it. The one hope, the only hope: THE EXORCIST
Religious ideas of needing hope, and no one believing it, and repeating the film title for effect

Halloween- The Night HE Came Home!
The emphasis on HE creates mystery as to what he is. Home is usually a positive image, but in the context of a horror film this is turned into a terrifying prospect

Saw- How much blood would you shed to stay alive?
The rhetorical question puts the audience in the place of the people put into the games by Jigsaw, and the word blood is often associated with the Horror genre and aesthetic.

From all of these existing taglines it is apparent that my tagline must link to the major theme of my film, which will be insanity and wishing to get away from the stress and hardships of work, only to be stalked by a benevolent and mysterious villain. Here are some possible Taglines;

Be Careful what you wish for...
Beware Jesterface
Your slack may doom you...
Look behind you, who knows who'll be stalking you
This Year, Look Left and Look Right, Look Behind and Everywhere for Jesterface

Typography of Poster

For my poster I needed to select a suitable typography for the Horror Genre. I considered various fonts, but as with all Horror films, there is a certain stereotypical and conventional font type, usually showing a gory, blood soaked lettering that reflect the horror that will appear in the film. I could find no such lettering on the standard Word document fonts, so I decided to look to the website, particularly the website 1001 Free Fonts, which had a whole section on Horror Fonts. Here are a few that I found:

I have decided to go with the "You Murderer" Font as it better matches the Thriller aspects of my film, whilst also conforming to the gory Horror typography.

My Villain- Decision

I have decided that my villain should wear a masquerade mask, as its archaic and old fashioned and colourful style contrasts with the sinister and dark character. It is also an original yet marketable style, in the vain of iconic Horror villains like Freddy Krueger and Jason Vorhees. It could easily be distinguished compared to similar villains from other horror films.

My Villain

I have been considering what look I want my villain in my Horror film to have, taking into account the classic style of popular villains like Freddy Krueger and Leatherface. I decided that my villain should wear a mask, as this will reduce the need for makeup and can be often more sinister than an elaborate look, as any psycho could wear a mask and murder someone, but it is much harder to imagine an alien or mutant attacking you. Masks are often used in Horrors as they cover up the identity and personality of the wearer, taking away the humanity and identity from the wearer and also adds mystery as to who the mask wearer is (Especially in films like Scream).

I have decided (and included on my survey) several choices I have on what mask my villain should wear. I have considered a mirror mask, a sack mask, a masquerade mask, a trestle mask, a clown mask and a zombie mask. I have tried to findout which of the three would be most popular. Out of all these, the most popular were the Pumpkin, Sack and the most popular was The Masquerade mask. I took a few initial photos of what I would like my villain to look like, including the costume and weapon along with the mask.