Music Choices for 'The Dark'

Once completing editing and doing the final touches to our movie, we needed to decide which shots we want to have music over. Other than shots with dialogue in (babysitter arriving at house) We then created two tracks. One to use when the babysitter arrives at the house/ walking around the neighbourhood at the beginning, and one to use during the inside scenes to attempt to make it more scary. I then created both tracks amd layered them together to put onto my film on iMovie Maker, however we both realised that the soundtrack wasnt eerie enough. To overcome this, I cut the two tracks up separately and combined parts from both to make two new, more appropriate tracks to fit our story and it's genre. As well as adding highpitched noises behind to create an even greater spooky effect.

The Dark - Finished Opening Sequence

Cast

Caledonia Quigley
Actor: Babysitter
Director

Max Hill
Actor: Stranger
Director

Phillipa Hill
Actor: Mother

Target Audience

The Target Audience for our film will be young adult males. We made a questionnaire to get a better idea of this audience and when surveyed; males preferred Horror, Thriller and Action genres of films, where as most females preferred Romantic and Realistic films. To add to the fact our film is based towards a male audience is that we are using a female character as our protagonist. This, although fits in with our stereotypes of a babysitter, also could have sex appeal for a male audience.

Treatment: Filming Coursework - The Dark

For our coursework we had to film a 2 minute opening sequence of a movie. With my partner Max, we chose to make a horror/ thriller film called 'The Dark' which is loosely based on the short American novel that begins with a house being broken into whilst a girl is babysitting.

Our first scenes show her going to the house to babysit but it set in and eerie manner. After she has checked the baby and is then watching TV, these loud noises start to occur, she ignores them at first but then as they become louder she begins to panic. After ensuring her safety by locking a few of the doors, she climbs the stairs again to check the baby. However this time the baby is missing.

We have decided to make a brief plan as to what would happen later on in our film if we were to continue and produce the whole thing. After she does not see the baby where it was before she starts to panic but chooses to ignore it. Later when checking the third time the baby is replaced and all is fine. However strange unexplainable things happen throughout this girl’s life, similar to this, which end in twisted ending that will explain all.

Location and Risk Assessment

Bedroom

Living Room

Living Room

Living Room and other Interiors

Hazards:

·         Electrical hazards

·         Tripping hazards

Who might be harmed and how?:

·         Either of the actors – could trip and fall on cable. 

·         Director/camera man - could trip and fall on cable

Evaluate the risks:

·         Move electrical hazard to a higher surface or out of the room completely

·         Hide as much cable as possible or tape it to the floor so there is no possibility of tripping

Staircase

Staircase

Hazards:

·         Tripping or falling hazard

Who might be harmed and how?:

·         Actors – could trip and fall down

Front Door

Hall

House

Driveway leading to house

Road

Path lit by Street lamps

Hazards:

·         Uneven path

·         Moving Traffic

·    When shooting at night time - not being able to see completely 

·         Icy/slippy conditions as we shot in winter

Who might be harmed and how?:

·         The actors – may trip and fall

·         Director/camera man – may trip and fall also

Evaluate the risks and decide on precaution:

·         Closely watch footing when moving around on path

·         Keep a close eye on traffic and cars, change location if this becomes a big problem

·         Stay closer to street lamps for lighting, or bring your own floodlights

·         If there are icy or slippy conditions, change date of filming until these conditions disappear.

Road lit by Streetlamp

Our chosen location was a normal house on an average street in a quiet, unsuspecting town. We chose to film at Max's house as the film begins with the girl arriving at the house to babysit. We wanted to create an homely atmosphere as possible to make the story realistic and believable so the interior of the home wasn't changed much.

Production Logo

We designed a logo for our film company; C&H Productions. As we are producing a Horror/Thriller film we decided to cover it in blood splatters to highlight our chosen genre. The C stands for Caledonia, and the H for my partner's last name, Hill. These letters worked best from our initials, as the plus sign is able to slot into the C and become the cross bar of the H.