Character Profile

Jade - 19 years old

        - UCL student

        - Party Girl
        - Always out with friends

        - Really girly
        - Likes to look good
        - In a relationship
        - Has a close friend

       
       

Genre

Improved Proposal

After receiving the feedback from our teacher, we decided to take out the cut-away shots of the killer walking to the house and concentrate mainly on the events that take place in the house and the characters reaction.

The opening scene starts inside the hallway of a house, with the camera facing the door. We hear footsteps approaching the door and a key turning in the lock. A young lady (around the age of 19) opens the door and walks into her house, hanging her keys up on the wall. As she begins to take her shoes and coats off and places her mobile which no longer has charge on the front table, she presses her answering machine to see if there has been any voice-mail messages.

The voice from the machine says "You have 4 new messages". She presses play and then heads towards the kitchen to get a drink from the fridge. Simultaneously, the first message is being played "Message received today at 3:03pm" - "Hi Darling, I'm just calling to remind you that I've booked a reservation at Il Forno, you remember that lovely little Italian Restaurant we saw ..." She cuts the message short.

"Message received today at 5:49pm" - "Jade, where are you ? I need to talk to you !" Jade looks at the answering machine with a confused expression. She plays the next message.

"Message received today at 5:55pm" - "(Mandy can be heard crying) Oh God Jade, they know. (more crying) they know it's us ! I don't know what to do now ...(more crying)". Jade drops her bottle, which shatters on the floor, and runs to the answering machine to play the message again, while it's only halfway through.

It repeats and then carries on; 'He said he knows and........wait. i heard something... someones here. (in a whispered voice) ... *silence*.

In this silence Jade hurries to her mobile, only to find its battery die while in her hands. All the while, the message continues and we hear the phone drop and then a sudden outburst of screaming which is then muffled by the killer's hand. We hear the killer pick up the phone and he says something similar to "Your next". The phone cuts. And the answering machine says "End of final message."

As the answer machine says this, the camera focuses on Jade's shocked expression. She places her hands over her mouth, and her eyes start to water. She glances at the clock and her breathing becomes heavy as she realise the killer must be on his way to find her.

Teacher Feedback

Here are the comments that our teacher gave us

• Too much happening, we need to slow the pace of the sequence down to allow the audience to see Jayde's reaction to the messages
  
• We need to take longer to establish the scene, location and character
• We don't need to show the killer, don't need to cross-cut.
• Our plan to use streetlamps for lighting during the outside shots would cause too many issues
• We need to make definate decisions on who our actors will be
• There wasn't a strong enough sense of an opposite - victim vs killer
  

Proposal

The opening scene starts with a young lady, walking home at night. She opens her door and walks into her house, hanging her keys on the wall. As she begins to take her shoes and coats off and places her mobile which no longer has charge on the front table. She presses her answering machine to see if there has been any voice-mail messages left. The voice from the machine says "You have 6 new messages". She presses play and then starts heading towards the kitchen to grab a drink from the fridge. Simultaneously, the first message is being played.  "Message received today at 3.03pm - "Hi darling, I'm just calling to remind you that I've booked a reservation at Il Forno which is a lovely little Italian Restaurant..." She cuts the message.
"Message received today at 5.46pm - "Hey, It's Mandy. I can't seem to reach you on your mobile. But yeah, call me back when you get this". Jade takes another sip from her bottle, and plays the next message.
"Message received today at 5.49pm - "Jade, where are you? I need to talk to you!" Jade looks at the answering machine with a confused expression. She plays the next message.
"Message received today at 5.55pm  - "( Mandy can be heard crying) Oh god Jade, they know.(more crying) they know it's us!!! i don't know what to do now....(more crying)"
"Message received today at 5.57pm - "I never told you this, but he called me, Jade, he said he knew who we were.........I hear someone.......I think he's here (in a whispered voice)......*silence*" Then a sudden outburst of screaming which is then muffled by the killer's hand. The phone cuts."
Jade continues to look at the answering machine in shock. She steps back. She places her hands over her mouth, and her eyes start to water.

Whilst this narrative is happening, we have cross-cuts of the killer walking towards Jade's house with extreme close ups of his feet as we don't want to reveal to much of this identity. As the messages reveal more information, the killer gets closer to the house, and we see his hand opening the gate and door.

Right at the end, with Jade's reaction to the messages, we see the killer slowly creeping in the background.

Influences

The Strangers - In the opening scene, we wish to have a similar scene to where the killer slowly appears behind the victim.

TV Dramas - Through-out the film, there would be subtle clues as to who the real killer may be. The audience usually tries to figure who the killer is in TV Dramas such as CSI, NCIS, Without a Trace. We decided to incorporate this idea in our narrative, to have our audience's interest constantly drawn into the film and making them interact with the characters.



SAW - In these films, the Jigsaw killer "puts the victims in situations where they must go through physical and/or psychological torture to survive and escape with better appreciation of life." We thought we could have a similar theme in our film, where the killer would "play" with the victim and ultimately teaching them a lesson about how doing the good thing isn't always the right thing to do.

Testing voice clips

I used the mic on my webcam to record my voice saying a message that we could potentially use in our opening sequence.

Target Audience

Primary Audience

- Male/Female, 15-24

- Frequent horror/thriller viewers

- Like the element of thrill and suspense.

- Constantly trying to link clues given in the film, and trying to find out the identification of the killer is, before the killer is eventually revealed to the audience.

- Fans of psychological killers, who play with their victims first and teach them a lesson.

- The female protagonist will appeal to the female side of our target audience, making the viewers emphasise with her.
- It would appeal to the male audience because it has conventional features of a horror/thriller film + features a  young female adult.
- Interesting narrative with a twist that can only be revealed once the audience has seen the film. Makes them curious.

Secondary Audience

People who go to the cinema often to watch the latest films.

Target Audience Profile

Name: Julia Ruff

Age: 18

Currently studying at a sixth form college having chosen English, Geography and Psychology as her A-Level subjects.

LIKES:

• Going out on a Friday/Saturday night with her friends
• Watching TV dramas such as 90210, Hollyoaks, Waterloo Road, CSI
• Loves technology. Owns a Blackberry where she is constantly on Facebook  + Imdb checking out the latest films and their given reviews.  
• Has an unlimited cinema pass to Cineworld cinemas, and spends her Sunday nights watching a new film every week with her best mate, Sarah, whether it’s a blockbuster hit, or a low-budget production.

DISLIKES:

• Downloading/streaming films on her computer – prefers the whole cinema-experience.
• Being home alone at night
• Staying indoors on the weekend
• Taking public transport.

Barthes' Narrative Theory

The opening sequence will correspond to the codes in Barthes' narrative theory. The action code will be the events taking place such as the girl coming home, the man walking down the street and in through the back on the garden and the answering machine playing the messages.

The enigma code will play a large factor in attracting the audience and engaging them in the opening; they'll ask questions about why the girl is leaving messages, who the man is, what has happened that the girl leaving the message becomes so terrified etc. This causes suspense and more tension, and make the viewer want to watch more to see what happens in the film. Those wanting to find out what happens to the girl watch more, those wanting to find out who the suspicious man is view on and those wanting to find out about her past also watch on.

The semantic code would be the actions in the opening sequence being explained from the two perspectives; from the girl's point of view and from the man's point of view. This cross-cutting will be effective and will then eventually link into one when they both are at the same place, and will focus more with the girl throughout the film.

Synopsis

How hidden is anonymous ? What happens when doing the morally right thing puts your own life in danger?

One year ago, Jade and Mandy witnessed a brutal murder and anonymously reported what they had seen to the police. The evidence they provided resulted in the capture of and conviction of the killer.

After a night out, Jade returns home to find five messages on her answering machine from Mandy, who is frantic as she insists the killer knows it was them who made the anonymous call and is coming for revenge. In the last message, Jade listens in shock to Mandy's screams as she is killed. Little does she know, that the killer is already on his way to her home.

Mandy's killer plays a psychological game with Jade that eventually confines her to her home. Yet as the movie goes on, secrets are discovered and the real killer isn't who it seems to be as we realise that nothing stays anonymous forever.

Practicalities




Actors: Our actors are all within the group so this is practical as we know that everyone will be reliable and we won’t have to worry about anyone not turning up or in a hurry to go anywhere as we are all dedicated to the project.



Location: We are using one of our houses as the location so this doesn’t involve us getting any special permission for filming.



Lighting: Most of our filming is going to take place indoors so we shouldn’t have too much problem with not being able to get the correct lighting conditions. The shots of the man will be taken outside, but the street lighting outside will be used in a way to get the right  lighting, along with the portable lights with yellow filters to represent the street lighting. Weather will be an issue with these shots.

Location photos

Here are some shots i took of our chosen location

Sound effects

I looked and have found a good sound that could be used as an example or maybe even in our real opening as the scream that the main girl hears on the answering machine:

http://www.partnersinrhyme.com/soundfx/scary_halloween_sounds/hal_scream_wav.shtml

Inspiration from Strangers

This is a clip from the trailer of the 2008 film 'Strangers'.
The female character is standing in the middle of the room and we see the killer silently walk into view from behind the wall. The woman is still unaware that he is there and continues to stand in  the middle of the room. We are going to use a similar shot in our opening sequence when the girl is standing in the hallway and is unaware that the killer is behind her.

The Sixth Call

This is a sequence thats also homemade, that we got from just typing 'answering machine horror' into Youtube. The idea seems very similar to ours with the answering machine used as a vital part of it, and its done quite well apart from the ending.

Meeting #2 - 25/01/2010

Another idea was of a girl, in a hurry, maybe a busy student or young business woman with her belongings overflowing. She runs out of the house, in a hurry, after having called her friends about a party at her house because she's home alone and has a free house. As she's hurrying out, she bumps into a man right outside the house, a pervert who eyes her up and down, and then sneakily takes her keys while he's helping her gather the things she drops. The shot ends with him looking at the house, rotating from him standing, to the view of the house from his point of view.


Answering machine – wedding day, slow pan through the empty house as messages play. We see hands wearing white gloves. Sweeping up broken glass. Putting flowers back in a vase. Making the bed. Audience will think it’s the bride cleaning up the house, instead of being at the wedding. Messages on machine get more frantic. The last message is the husband calling. Camera shows the answering machine, hand in white glove turns it off and then we see her hand with the engagement ring. Audience realises the bride has been killed. “JILTED”.

The glove on the hand of the dead bride that falls out, will have to look something like this.

Meeting #1 - 21/01/10

Group initial ideas

Possible locations

1. House
2. Park
3. Down a street at night time
4. Alleyways

"Scary" Situations 

• Being at home, alone. 
• Walking down a dark street.
• Placing objects somewhere, and moments later realising they've moved.
• Dark rooms.
• Hearing noises/someone in the house whilst you're home alone.
• Someone suddenly appearing behind you (e.g stalker)

Ideas for an opening sequence

1 - Two mates talking on to each other on webcam. Person A turns around in their room, thinking they've heard something. Writes "brb" to Person B and quickly goes downstairs to see what's making the noise. Returns to the computer, seeing that Person B has disappeared. (Whilst discussing, we weren't sure of what would happen when Person A returned, but something along the lines of one person disappearing and maybe having "Connection Lost" appearing on the screen to hint that something may have happened to them)

2 - Parents being out for the evening, leaving a their two teenage daughters at home. The older daughter tells her sister that she's going out for a while, and should be back in a while. The younger sister starts to walk upstairs with her ipod in her hands, as her sister starts to get ready to go out and leave. Older sisters leaves in a rush, and as she's going out, shouts out "Close the door, bye". With the younger sister listening to loud music, is unable to hear her say this, and continues to walk upstairs into her room. The door is left a bit open. Moments later, the ipod battery runs out, and the younger sister starts to get ready to go to sleep. She hears noises, footsteps on the floor. Panicking, she hides under a bed and calls her sister for help. The phone rings, and the footsteps get louder. Long pauses of silence and sounds of deep breathing from the young girl. Dark shots, nearly black, we hear the girl say in a whispered voice to her sister "Someone's here..."