Planning The Film

Paige, who will play Anna

         In the film opening our main female character will be present, 'Anna'. Another will be present who will be our ghostly creepy character (which will be the ghost of Anna). The audience will know who the main protagonist is through the use of close ups, we will do this to allow the audience to really connect with Anna, also as she will be the only main character in the scene. There is one binary opposition in terms of Proppian roles, this will be Anna vs her ghost self. This fits in well with the theme of the film as the idea  is that she is her own worst enemy, and at war against herself. The audience will know this by the narrative and dialogue between her and her dad. In terms of casting we have an idea for a main character, she is a young dark haired girl with a slight rebel side (left). We want her to wear average teenage attire when she is playing Anna. When she is playing her ghost self we want her to wear a white nightie with bare feet, messy hair and ghostly white make-up.  We will film at a friends house. It is an average sized family cottage based in Ombersley, it is exactly how we want it and suits our storyboard. We want the interior of the house to look as if the girl is unpacking and just moved in, we will need props such as boxes. We'd like to create a slightly creepy atmosphere with tense moments and plenty of enigmas. In terms of mise-en-scene we will create an awkward atmosphere and the feeling of a paranormal thing being present through the use of camera shots, angles and close ups. Almost all of the filming is going to be indoors so we have little need to worry about weather. We are going to use the local churchyard for some filming and have asked the church verger, he said this was fine as long as we didn't film any new graves, as this is disrespectful to families. For example, we can't show a grave that was put there this year but can film the ancient graves. We will film just before dusk so the lighting shouldn't be a problem. We will use enigma codes to ensure the audience want to keep watching, we will do this by using shots to give the idea that another person or spirit is present and plenty of unanswered questions. Action codes will be used and by the end of the sequence the audience should feel on edge, tense and interested to find out more, they will know who the main character is and the basic story line. We will use white writing on a black background for our titles with eerie fonts. Smooth transactions mixed with sudden flashes of scene to credit. The information on the titles will be; "Decorus Nex productions presents", "starring Paige Sturgeon", "Filmed, edited and produced by Hannah and Georgia" and any other necessaries entered at a later date. 

The house that we plan to use

Time Plan

Casting: We chose our actress quite quickly after are planning began. But we wanted to get a actress at least by Christmas so we could record over the holidays

Location: Find the location was quick because our actress lives near a creepy looking graveyard and strange and creepy looking houses and abandoned areas. We were able to find this location at least 2 weeks before the Christmas holidays began

Rehearsing: First rehearse took place on Wednesday  1st of December at 4'clock at the found location, Another on the 8th of December and the of December.

Film: Filming took place between 19th of December ( first part of filming ), none filmed over 24/25/26th of December, continued filming on 28th and 29th for a short period and finished filming Wednesday 5th of January.

Editing: Editing started 13th of January, editing took a long time due to technical problems, finished editing on the Friday 4th of January. During this the technology didn't allow us to use some of what we filmed so between the beginning of the editing and the deadline we re-filmed a lot of our work.

Script

Our script was brief but necessary to the narrative.




Anna: "Hello puss"


Anna: "Hello? Hello? Hello?"


*Scream*

Animatic

This is our animatic, it shows our film in drawn stages.

Research and Planning - Planning the film

After discussing the plan with my partner, Hannah, we have come up with this unique idea and film title.

The proposed house

Our film will be called "Purgatory",  we feel is a nice title for our film, suiting the genre and the story line, as it reflects our characters inner feelings.
As our film genre is horror/supernatural/haunting, we have decided that our main character is going to be a helpless female, named Anna, who lives alone in a small cottage near a churchyard. She's unpacking boxes when she hears a funny noise and finds herself alone in a room with something evil. We will be using a lot of close up shots to allow the audience to really connect with the female character. The start of the film will mostly be montages and spooky shots using lots of canted angles and colour change, along with speed changes and darkening. 

At the moment we have a potential female lead, Anya, that hopefully we could cast but we are still looking into it.

We have found a suitable location. We want the set to look fairly new. The character lives alone comfortably in her own space so the house is relatively messy yet organised.

The film starts when our female character has just returned to her house, the location is right next to a grave yard, the scene will start with a montage of establishing shots of the area and graveyard.  Anna will then enter, filmed from within the house, as if someone is watching, the lights will be dark, as if it is night, the credits will then appear, the words will fade to black and the shot will reappear when Anna turns the light on, using a close up of the hand and match on action. Anna will then enter the living room and unpack a box, this scene will include match on action shots as the opens the door and POV shots as she looks at things from the box, such as family photos. The idea is that Anna has just moved out from her family home. Anna then hears a noise upstairs, she looks, gets up and goes upstairs, she will slowly and cautiously walk into a dark empty room, adding tension to the atmosphere. She walks slowly towards the door, opens it, enters and a scream is heard. The scene will end here on a cliffhanger. We will use lots of close ups, match on action shots, establishing shots, canted angles and mid-shots, accompanied by many titles with additive dissolve transitions to give a creepy effect.