Inside film poster

Horror film Recces

This is one of the two locations for our horror film, Inside, for our main brief. Most of the filming will occur here in Alice's bedroom. First is a long shot of the bedroom,

Then we have an over the shoulder shot of what will be the mum reading her daughter a bedtime story...

 Thirdly we have a long shot of Alice looking out of her bedroom window, we are unsure at this point (as the audience) as to what she is looking at...

Then lastly we are presented with what she is looking at, and although it isnt in this shot, Alice's possessed self will be standing on the other side of the window looking back at her. We have yet to determine whether this will be a point of view shot of Alice looking at the reflection.  

Screen play

Screen play

EXT: Park. Daytime

Parents sitting in park watching daughter swing on swings with her DOLL

MUM:

C’mon it’s getting late, time to go home Alice

ALICE:

(Sigh)

 Coming mummy

Mum reading bed time story to Alice in her bedroom

Mum:

And they lived happily ever after

Mum closes BOOK

Alice:

 Another one, another one!

Mum:

No its time to get some beauty sleep, love you

Alice:

 Love you too, night mummy

Mum kisses Alice’s forehead and exists bedroom. Lights out

INT: Bedroom. Night-time

Alice pulls bed sheet overhead, turns TORCH on and begins to sing nursery rhyme to doll

Alice:

(Sings)

Ring-a-ring o' roses, A pocket full of posies, A-tishoo! A-tishoo! We all fall down.

Torch turns off (Alice scream)

Alice turns torch back on, doll appears right in her face with blacked out eyes. Camera follows her as she struggles to escape from her bed.

Alice stands in the middle of her room *Pause* she then stands and stares at her window, emotionless. Camera turns to reveal her haunted reflection in the window. While camera pans, nursery rhyme is played slowly in the background. Her reflection smiles as she lifts up a family picture revealing the parents face’s scribbled out with crayon.

Our narrative

This is how we have used Todorov's narrative structure

to assist us with our own narrative. It explains what part of the stroyline we plan to show within our opening.

Brainstorming for the main brief

My group for the main brief consists of Esme Roberts and myself. We previously worked together and felt that we could work harmoniously and produce a good quality piece of work by combining our skills and ideas. Here is our brainstormed initial ideas; we decided to come up with two in case one proved too difficult to film. Our favourite idea was with the doll and this is the one we plan to follow through with for our main brief.

The evolution of the horror genre

Up to the 1920’s

The House of the Devil was the first horror film after the advent of motion picture in the late 19^th century. This was followed by Phantom of the opera which was very successful.

 

1930's

Universal studios released numerous horror films following the success of Phantom of the opera including Dracula and Frankenstein. The first werewolf and zombie films were also created by the Americans with the creation of the special effects blockbuster; King Kong.

1940’s

Universal studios were struggling with creating more monster movies like Frankenstein and so they resorted to combining genres creating; comedy-horror. MGM, produced The Picture of Dorian Gray, which won an Academy Award for cinematography, and a remake of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, while Paramount released the highly regarded haunted house picture The Uninvited. India entered the horror genre with Mahal making it an international market.

1950’s

The cold war fed fears of invasion which led to the famous film The Blob. Scientific breakthroughs led to mad scientist plots resulting in The fly. Competition increased as numerous other international efforts to create a horror film came from Japan, Italy and France.

1960’s

Horror films now included more controversial levels of violence and sexuality. Horror luminary of the time Alfred Hitchcock produced Pyscho and The Birds.

1970’s

Social issues were tackled in films including sexism, consumerism, religion and war. Graphic sex and violence were included in the film Texas chainsaw massacre. Zombie films were still popular as proven by the success of Dawn of the Dead.  The shock factor pushed films like Jaws and The exorcist to blockbuster success.

1980’s

Friday 13^th and Nightmare on Elm street were the infamous films of the 80’s. Adaptions of Stephan King’s  books were made into films e.g The Shining.

1990’s-2000’s

Unrivalled critical acclaim for the horror genre with The silence of the Lambs which swept major academies. This success encouraged studios to fund large-scale horror themed projects like Blade. Remakes of popular American horror films were made for example Dawn of the Dead and also foreign films for example The Ring. Saw was referred to as ‘torture porn’ and went on to make multiple follow on films. There was international success within the genre.