Pitch/ Brief

Outline

Similar to The Blair Witch Project, my film will start off with the production logos followed by a message telling the audience when the recordings were taken and when they were found. This is to add verisimilitude to make the film seem more real. My film has a big difference to The Blair Witch Project. My opening starts with the end of the film and finished with a  "three weeks earlier..." message. This is not only so we can jump into some action to grab the audiences attention, but also to make the audience want to watch on to find out what happened leading up to the sequence. I will firstly start by packing a bag like I'm going for a journey. I will then follow up by talking about the 'Grove Devil' I will then make a journey into the woods to uncover the truth. Once I enter the woods, I walk down the path leading into the woods in search of the Grove Devil. I then continue my journey but have strange visuals in my head as I go deeper into the woods. I then come across this doll with an arrow pointing deeper into the woods. There is then a loud cannon sound that frightens the character causing him to run off deeper into the woods as he tries to run away from the danger. The opening then ends with the Grove Devil's hand grab my shoulder.

The reason I chose to end the opening this point is because I wanted to end on a cliff hanger so the audience would want to carry on to find out what happens at the throughout the film. There is very little props used within my opening. The opening is mostly the camera focusing on me while I give some insight about the Grove Devil before focusing on my journey into the woods.

This film is slightly different to The Blair Witch Project, rather than start from chronological order and show the planning then the adventure. I showed the end of the film first and as the film progresses, it would show the events leading up to the woods. This is so there would be more action at the beginning so it would attract the audiences opinions.

Marketing- Inspiration

My inspiration for my opening was The Blair Witch Project. This was because this film was handheld which made the horror film more believable. When watching a horror film, I believe it is very important for the film to seem believable. This helps the audience to emphasise more with the characters. The Blair Witch Project was rumoured to be true by some fans as they believed some of the footage was real. This inspired me to create my own handheld movie because I wanted to create something that felt more realistic then chiche horror films. Chiche horror films consist of cheap jump scares and unrealistic storylines. I took this into consideration when planning my film. The only difference is at the end of my opening, I decided to add a jump scare because from my questionnaire, I found that jump scares are one of the most enjoyable pats of a 15+ horror film. From my research I also found out that The Blair Witch Project had a 15 age rating. This also helped influence me over the age rating because at first I was unsure. Carrying out my questionnaire also helped me find what the best age rating to use would be.

One of the pictures that gave me inspiration was the missing poster. The missing poster was used to market the film and was released before the film. This poster is what led some fans to believe that The Blair Witch Project happened. This poster includes pictures of the actors alongside age and other detail regarding the character. It also included a message to say to call the sheriff is you have any information about what happened. This poster is what gave me inspiration to create a handheld film because I liked the idea of a film that was realistic and was from the point of view of the characters. as I feel it creates a better storyline that focuses more on the storyline rather than anything else.

Music

Music

When I was looking for a backing track, I made sure that the backing track I used was copyright free. This is because copyrighted music is not allowed as you don't have permission from the producer. I started my search on YouTube for backing tracks. After changing my idea for my opening, I decided to use music  rather than a looped sound effect because I couldn't find a suitable looped sound effect I was happy with. I started searching on YouTube for royalty free music but I couldn't find any suitable backing tracks.

Prelim

My Prelim

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrVWUpvm4Qo

 

My storyboard at first did not portray what was going to happen. After filming some shots, I decided that I had too many shots so I decided I needed to cut some shots out. I also had to re-film some of the shots because some of the shots were too bright. Due to me taking out some shots, I had to change the order of some of the shots so I had a couple attempts of writing the storyboard.

The shot reverse shot was right at the end of the preliminary. This composed of a short discussion with my brother. I filmed us having the conversation from both of our perspectives and alternated the shots of us talking. I made sure when filming I did not break the 180 degree rule. This is because if you break the 180 degree rule, then people can get confused as they wont know which direction the character is walking. To make sure I stuck to the criteria and also to make it not confusing, I made sure the camera was always within the 180 degrees. For the match on action, I looked up some examples on YouTube of match on action shots. I then decided that I was going to do a match on action shot when I was walking through the door. It took me a couple of attempts to film to get it right but it ended up being successful.

I liked how I followed all three of the compulsory acts and a range of camera shots to make my preliminary more interesting. One thing I didn't like about my preliminary was the audio. The audio quality was quite poor and the speech was quite quiet. If I was to re-do my preliminary, I would only change the audio as the audio quality wasn't great and made the preliminary seem slightly less professional. I have learned to always re-do a shot if you are unhappy with it because you are better of re-filming the shot if you are unhappy with it rather than leave it. I also learned to film a lot of shots because it s better to have too many than too little, as you can always cut out the shots you don't want.

Location

Location


When i first started planning my opening, I wanted to film in Hockley Woods. However I found that there was a lot of roots and little holes in the ground around. This was gonna be a problem because when it gets dark, its going to be hard to notice. I could have cause injury to myself. Also as the woods isn't near any roads, there will be no light around and the trees will block out most of the remaining light. As a result I decided to change location to something more suitable to run in.


I then came to the decision of using Grove Woods as there was easier access and less leaves and roots which means it was safer to run through. The woods is also more spacious which means there is more room to film

Hockley woods has too many people walking through the woods which means people could be intercepting the shots and could make it more of a struggle to film. Therefore Grove will be a more suitable location to film at.

Production Company

My first production company is know as 'Clockwork Studios'. For this production company, I found a royalty free time lapse of a clock. The reason for this is because I tried to record my time lapse but I couldn't get it to work at the right speed I wanted. My other production company was known as 'Candle light productions;. For this production company I filmed a burning candle and filmed it up close. Both of these ideas were both thought of by myself however I did need to use a royalty free clock time lapse.

The name of the film is called: 'The Grove Devil'

I chose a devil because devils are associated with horror and are typically quite scary as devils are associated with evil. The reason for calling it the Grove Devil is because I filmed the opening in Grove Woods. Therefore I found it fitting to name the devil after its location. This will also make people aware that the devil is associated with the woods.

Demographics and Psychographics