Practical Investigation: Survey Results

Survey Results:

~ We managed to achieve our target of 70 responses on our survey which gives us a good perspective of what the public would expect from a slasher film opening. When planning our film opening, we already had a good idea in mind of what the theme would be and we hoped that the public response would agree with what we hoped to do.

1) What gender do you think our villain should be?

~ Around 65% of the responses thought our villain should be male, this is good for us and with the particular idea we have in mind, it means our character will be more effective. Predominantly in slasher films, the villain is male however when you look at the more general horror films, the difference between male and female is more equal as you can have creepy child villains for example.

2) What age do you think our villain should be?

~ For these question, we weren't definitely sure what age range we wanted for our villain so it was interesting to see that the majority thought he should be 16 - 30. In a way, it could be hard to get an older male friend or relative to get involved unless you hired an actor and so in this case it should be easier to find someone to act in our opening who is around the same age as us. Although for one of our ideas, we would need a specific body type which again would make finding someone who is ideal very hard, although if we alter our idea slightly, it can broaden the range of people who would be able to do it.

3) Do you think that the idea of the villain having a diary or journal to record their murders would be effective?

~ 93% of the public thought the idea of our villain using a diary could be effective if portrayed in the right way and as our main original idea heavily featured a diary, it was good to see that the public agreed. We have already started work on our diary and by featuring it in our opening, it will give an insight into the villain's personality and into his personal life. With this idea though, it's more of a side feature so if it turns out that it doesn't turn out as effective as we hope, then we can easily cut out the scenes of a diary and it shouldn't alter the storyline too much.

4) Do you like the idea of the villain keeping a souvenir from each of their murders as a trophy, such as a part of the body?

~ Similarly to the previous one, this idea was also an extra feature as it isn't necessary to the storyline. With this and the diary idea, we were trying to look at the villain's den from a mise en scene angle as we need props and things to put into the area to make it more realistic. An idea that one of us had was to put the fetus's from the pregnant teenage girls he has killed into jars, if we decided to go along with the teenage pregnancy idea. It was interesting to see that 95% thought this could be effectice if we played it correctly.

 5) How would you rather the villain be shown?

~ This question was asked to find out how we should portray our villain as a lot of films only reveal the villain at the end whereas some focus on the villain all the way through. We weren't sure if we wanted our villain to be the focus of the plot but then decided that it would be better if the film consisted of him murdering multiple girls, rather than from the angle of one of the girls, which would eventually end in only her murder. As we thought, only 4% thought that they should remain anonymous, and the majority of the rest prefered the idea that only parts of their body are shown at a time. I liked this idea as well as we can use a lot of close up and extreme close up camera angles during the opening, to emphasise certain features of his body, for example, his lips if we decide to have him whistling.

6) What obsession do you think our villain should have?

~ This response wasn't actually what we wanted, as our main idea involved him having an obsession with teenage pregnancy and murdering all underage girls who got pregnant. As over half liked the idea of revenge, we going to listen to them, but incorporate our own ideas into it, keeping the idea of killing the pregnant teenagers but making his motive for doing it that he wants to get revenge on them. We could also take it a step further and say that his mother gave birth to him while she was a teenager and how he has never forgiven her for that. As Prostitution was the next popular idea, we could also bring that in and maybe have some of the girls that he kills working as prostitutes and thats how they become pregnant, however we want our opening to remain relatively simple so if we could explain that without taking up too much time, then that could be effective.

7) Do you think we should include a death scene in our opening?

~ I was slightly disappointed with this, as I was hoping they would choose to make it more gory so we could make full use of Annie's special effects expertise but if the public thinks it would be better to make it more suggestive, then we could tone it down a little bit. As we have changed our idea slightly, we might not be including a violent death scene as such, and maybe having more torture involved rather than a quick and bloody death.

8) If we did include a death scene, where do you think it should take place?

~ This response was quite mixed, so I think it could be effective and successful whichever one we choose, this means we can choose which one will be easier for us to film in. However since asking this question, we have changed our idea and might not be having a death scene at all. Although we are taking this question into consideration when choosing the location for a possible chase scene between the villain and the victim, this would be at the beginning of the opening. At the moment, we are thinking of having the victim running through the woods, with different camera angles including a Point of View angle from the villain.

9) During the film opening, what sound would you prefer to hear?

~ We weren't sure what sound we wanted to have during the opening, although we knew that a lot of dialogue can make it seem less professional if we use friends or family compared to actual actors. As the results were tied between just human sounds and a combination, I think it would be better to go with mostly human sounds but include other noises at the same time. For example, we had the idea of our villain whistling a certain tune or song which could be an innocent song that's almost relevant to what he's doing but in a weird twisted meaning. If we go with the idea of a chase scene through a wooded area, then an example of this would be 'Teddy Bears Picnic' as it is simple nursery rhyme but paired with the footage on the screen, can turn creepy almost instantly.

10) Out of the following, which would you say are the best slasher/horror films? (Choose two)

~ I wasn't surprised by this as I assumed that Saw and Texas Chainsaw Massacre would be the most well-known and therefore the most successful, showing that we should include aspects of those films compared to the others. In Texas Chainsaw Massacre, obviously the victim's weapon is quite important and also the fact that he wears the skin of the people he has killed. I feel like our idea of cutting into the girls with maybe a certain type of knife and the idea of souvenirs is quite similar to this and hopefully should be as effective. In Saw, Jigsaw never does any murdering himself, he creates ingenious traps which the majority of people fail and therefore die, I'm not sure how we could include features of Saw into our opening, but maybe the fact that our villain only kills certain types of people who have done wrong (in his eyes) could be effective.

Practical Investigation: Survey

Survey:

~ My practical investigation was to create a survey that we could use to find out the public opinion on our ideas for our film opening. I used the website Survey Monkey and we had a target of 70 responses.

This is our survey.

We based a lot of our questions on the villain in the hope of building a strong yet realistic character which would appeal to the public. First of all we asked about their age and gender, so we could get a general idea of what the public would consider the 'ideal' villain for a slasher film.

Question 1 and 2

Secondly we wanted public opinion on two of our main features about the villain, whether they would find the villain keeping a diary and a souvenir from each murder effective or not, or if it would depend on how we filmed it for example.

Question 3 and 4

Then we wanted to know how they thought they should be shown, if they wanted them to remain anonymous or to know who it was and if so, how should we portray them, such as what camera angles/shots should be used.

Question 5 and 6

Next we wanted to know about including a death scene, as they are one of the main aspects of a slasher film but could be extremely difficult to show successfully. We asked whether we should include it (as a lot of films don't really have an actual death scene in the first two minutes) but if we did, whether it would be better to have it as gory as possible, representative of our slasher genre or more suggestive which could look more professional.

Question 7 and 8

We were also interested to hear what sounds people thought we should have in the opening, if they wanted more diegetic sounds (what was happening in the scene) or non diegetic sounds such as music or a voice over.
Finally we wanted to see what horror/slasher films people thought were successful, so we could take aspects from the more popular films and see what to avoid from the less popular ones.

Question 9 and 10

All of the responses to these questions will be important in helping us decide key aspects of our film opening and whether or not they would be effective.

Deconstruction of Camera Angles & Editing of Natural Born Killers Diner Scene

Deconstruction of Camera Angles & Editing

Camera Angles:

·       Uses a two shot to establish the two main characters that have walked into the diner.

·       Next, there are close ups of the woman dancing to show the audience of her sleazy nature.

·       Midshot looking over the waitress’s arm to the two men – this shows the audience that they are making their way over to begin drinking.

·      

Long shot of woman dancing to highlight how, at first, she is alone but then it is used to show the drunken man joining her and they seem to be having fun.

·       A close up of one of the men moves into a two shot of another man wearing sunglasses sitting there, this then moves into a long shot showing the two men sitting and the drunken man dancing with the woman behind them. This long shot establishes the scene and who is there in the diner so the audience understands better.

·       Close up of the man wearing sunglasses which flicks to images of him with his face bloodied. The close up is used to show the audience his expression as he recalls this event.

·       Close ups of drunken man’s face and two shots of them dancing to show us that they are having fun.

Practical Investigation: Locations

Locations:

~ For my practical investigation, I had to look at locations nearby which could be suitable for us to film our coursework. As we are doing the slasher genre, I liked the idea of wooded areas, especially if we filmed with low natural lighting as it contributes to the scary atmosphere.

Danson Park:

~ Firstly, I went to Danson Park as it is very close to my house and the school, which means it would be easily accessible however it is quite popular and can be busy. I went in the late evening as this is most likely when we would be filming if we chose to include outdoor scenes.

~ This is a video I took, whilst walking through the park, towards the end I remembered the toilets (which I'm pretty sure are not in use anymore) and headed in that direction. At some points the lighting isn't good, due to the low quality camera on my phone and the use of only natural lighting, but apart from that, I think it gives a good idea of what filming in that area would be like.

~ I then also decided to take a video from my point of view - looking down at my shoes whilst I was walking through the leaves. I used the flash on my phone because otherwise it was getting quite dark and it wasn't clear what was happening. I like this camera angle and even if we only use it for a couple of seconds, when the victim is running away for example, I think it can be effective as long as it fits in with the rest of the footage.

~ Below are a selection of the photos I took at Danson Park, again I was using my phone so some of them may be low quality or the lighting may be slightly weird but it gives us a good impression of how our coursework would look if we decided to film there.

Pathway through trees

Clearing in the trees

Trees

Clearing

Back of toilets

Path through trees

Toilets

Path next to Danson House

More trees

Far-away shot of toilets

Danson House

Shot of park

Shot of road outside park, taken from inside the fence

Walkway above lake

Path into wooded area

Hall Place:

~ I also visited Hall Place, which is less than twenty minutes walk from the school. 

Side shot of river

Warning sign in trees

River and barrier

Head on shot of river, from bridge

Side view of the Sports Pavilion

Football pitch

Trees through metal fence

river through metal fence

area behind metal fence

pathway between two bushes, next to river

river

'Grandma's house':

~ When thinking of indoor locations, I knew my grandmother had a garage and also a small shed and I thought it was fit the slasher/genre well as there is only one door and one window on one side of the room. 

~ This is a video I took from inside the garage, explaining how we could use it in our coursework. 

~ This next video shows the entrance to the garage and also describes the shed and garden.

~ I also asked my grandmother to open and close the garage door as I liked the creepy rattling sound it made and the way my phone adjusted to the change in lighting looked quite good.