Invoked- Plan

Role Allocation and Casting

Schedule

Invoked- Concept Art for Protagonist

Age: 20
Gender: Male
Occupation: University Student
Characteristics: Intelligent, fashionable and cocky.
19/02/2013

Invoked- Concept Art for Antagonist

Age: 50
Gender: Male
Occupation: Aztec Shaman
Characteristic: Towering, broad and powerful. Manic.
19/02/2013

Invoked- Movie Storyboard

Invoked- Plot

The title of my movie will be 'Invoked'

The opening of my movie will start with a pre-title sequence, a sign showing the name of the forest as an establishing shot and then cut to a man running through a forest, he is covered in dirt and has ripped up clothes, you can tell he has been through a lot. Heavy breathing will be heard as the camera quickly cuts among the trees, the man will seem obviously panicked and trying to escape from a calm walking figure. All shots of the figure will obscure their face and not give you a full picture of what they look like. A shot of their glowing clenches hand will be shown as you hear the figure giggling to themselves; all the while tense, quick music will be playing. The man trips at some point, but quickly scurries back up. As he hides behind a tree and calms down, we see a shot of him looking round the tree, we have lost sight of the pursuer, and neither the protagonist or the audience know where the antagonist is. The man slouches against a tree, thinking he is safe, only for a hand to reach through the tree and his chest (implied by sound effects and camera angles). As the light fades from his eyes, the screen will fade to black, with the sound of an echoing chuckle from the antagonist in the background.

Then the title sequence will begin, spooky music will play as the names of the director, cameraman, writer, producer etc. appear on the screen in distorted writing. The background images will be those of creepy woodland and symbols carved into wood, giving clues as to what the movie will be about.

I plan for the rest of my movie to be about a group of teens that go to the same forest for a secluded camping holiday, so that they can party as loud as they want, at some point, an establishing shot will be the same shot as the establishing shot of the pre-title sequence, so that we know it is the same forest. They will be having a good camp until one of the group goes missing, and the others go to search for them only to find an abandoned building with strange symbols and concoctions around. The group then realise that they are slowly being picked off one by one, hunted, and that their car is nowhere to be found.

The symbols will be Aztec symbols for different animals, the antagonist will turn out to be an Aztec shaman, who can invoke the spirits of animals to grant him superhuman strength, and other abilities.

The History of Horror

Before we can discuss horror, we must first ask 'What exactly is horror?' The word is defined as an intense feeling of fear, shock, or disgust, but can classic horror films like 'Jaws' be categorised under that? In my opinion, no, to me horror is not related to us as the audience, but more to how the characters feel in the scene. Were we truly terrified when we saw a shark approaching the characters? Probably not, but I'm willing to bet the characters were pretty scared. We put ourselves in the character's shoes and get a thrill from it, yet still we continue to watch, that is the beauty of horror.

Horror is not the most popular of genres, only 5.6% of films that were released last year where horror, the top performing movie being Paranormal Activity 2 (according to http://statisticalyearbook11.ry.com/?id=82792), this may be as horror is generally aimed at an older audience, with most horrors being rated as 18s, which cuts out a large amount of people from being able to see and pay for the films, causing their profits to be reduced.

Horror has an array of monsters at its disposal to get the adrenaline flowing within an audience; whether it be a vampires, zombies or werewolves, making you frightened to go outside, or the common man, driven insane, making the dark corners of your house ever creepier. Horror works by running your imagination wild, by making the sound of a twig snapping a murderous killer, rather than something far more innocent. These monsters can achieve fear through jump scares (when the scene builds up to something jumping out at the characters, subsequently making the audience jump) or by staying in your mind even after the movie has finished, haunting your thoughts, making you unable to sleep.

The French author and film theoriest Christian Metz wrote the book 'Language and Cinema' (1974), it states that in any genre here are four phases, they are called the 'Model of Genre Development', they consist of;

The Experimental Stage: Horror was first inspired by the First World War, German Expressionalism was born and shadows were manipulated, examples of this are 'Noferatu' (named Noferatu due to Bram Stocker's family owning the copyright and stopping the name Dracula being used) and 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari'. The experimental stage is when a genre is being explored and the themes are being experimented with.

 The Classic Stage: Movies then have their narrative conventions established, they are defined, this is usually the most successful period. Movies such as Dracula and Frankenstein belong in this stage.

When television began to make an appearence in the 1950's, the film industry took a hit, but Hammer Studios fought back with their reimagining of classic movies, such as when they used big horror movie stars Peter Cushion and Christopher Lee to make a new Hollywood version of Dracula.

The Parody Stage: When films are released that follow the same conventions as a genre, but put them forward in a comical way, the genre is in the parody stage. It helps when the genre is losing steam and they are given a fresh new approach, bringing in a hole new audience. 'Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein', 'Carry On Screaming' and the 'Scary Movie' series are examples of parody.

The Deconstruction Stage: The final stage in the model, this is when the genre begins to be deconstructed, and amalgamated with other genres to create sub-genres, examples being Se7en (Gory Horror), The Sixth Sense (Paranormal Horror), The Blair Witch Project (Documentary Horror) and Scream (Teen Horror). These films pay homage to the classic movies that came before them.

Task 4- Ideas for a Film

Thriller

A) After the death of the inventor of the Etch A Sketch, a crazed fan starts killing people, leaving nothing but a clue on an Etch A Sketch.

B) A religious nut kills people in the style of the 10 Atheist Commandments;

1. Resilience

2. Empathy

3. Patience

4. Sacrifice

5. Politeness

6. Humour

7. Self-Awareness

8. Forgiveness

9. Hope

10. Confidence

Rom-Com

A) The President is looking for love, but thinks people in his own country will only want him for his money and power. He goes to another country and meets an out of touch peace core worker who he falls in love with.

Horror

A) A group of teens on a camping holiday go into a secluded wood, unaware that the wood is home to wildlife that have been mutated by nuclear run-off. The now volatile animals begin to pick the teens off one by one.

B) A few friends are lost in a forest searching for help after crashing their car, put then discover the forest has a sinister secret as they are hunted by a masked man.

Report on Questionnaire

In order to find our target audience, I was tasked with formulating a questionnaire. This will help to see what exactly people want and like from my genre (horror) and how I could achieve the most positive response.

My first question was ‘What gender do you prefer the protagonist to be?’ I asked this question so that I could see which gender is would be preferred for the main character in my horror movie. The general response to the question was that the protagonist should be male, so I shall consider this more heavily while planning my film.

My second question was 'What gender do you prefer the antagonist to be?' I asked this question so that I could see which gender is would be preferred for the villain of the movie. Again, the general response for this question was towards the antagonist being male, so I shall consider this more heavily while planning my film.

My third question asked 'Do you prefer a single protagonist or a group?' I asked this so that I could see whether the audience preferred there to be a group of protagonists, which in a horror, would generally be killed off one by one, or just a single person, possibly looking for the killer themselves or someone that just got caught up in the story. The results came back being slightly more weighted towards there being a single protagonist, so I shall consider this more while planning.

My fourth question asked 'Which Sub-Genre do you prefer?' I asked this so that I could discover what type of horror my audience would enjoy most. Most people responded with Psychological, so that is the sub-genre I shall consider more during the planning stage.

My fifth question posed the question 'What personality do you prefer the protagonist to have?' I asked this question so that, when planning a script for my movie, I could see which personality would be preferred for my protagonist. The feedback came back with the options 'Cocky' and 'Dark and Brooding' being joint top, this gives me the choice. At this point I would personally prefer 'Cocky', but if 'Dark and Brooding' suits the character more, there is no reason they cannot be.

My sixth question was 'What personality do you prefer the antagonist to  have?" Like with the protagonist, I asked this to discover the favored personality type of characters so that I can adapt the planning accordingly, except this time, it's about the antagonist. Feedback tells that people generally prefer their antagonists to be maniacal, so I shall take this into consideration during the planning stage.

The seventh question in my questionnaire asked 'How do you prefer the movie to start?' I asked this to discover whether people prefer to dive straight into the action with the first kill, or whether they prefer an introduction to the protagonist first. It came back that people would prefer to see the first kill, leaving the introduction to the protagonist for after, possibly after the starting titles.

Question eight asked 'Is the quality of special effects important to you?' This was mainly to find out how much time should be dedicated to the special effects when I am in the process of creating my movie, this could include things such as props. General feedback to this question is that special effects are important, which means time should be spent to make the effects as realistic as possible.

My ninth question asked 'When do you prefer a films title sequence to be?' I asked this to discover whether people prefer a title sequence to come before the movie starts, after a pre-title sequence or not at all. I found out from this question that it is preferred when a title sequence is after a pre-title sequence, this means that I shall think more about this when planning my movie.

My tenth and final question asked 'What type of weapon do you prefer an antagonist to use?' I asked this so that I could decide which prop weapon my antagonist will use more easily. I allowed people to pick two, as I anticipated an inability to decide certainly between so many categories. Results came back showing that sharp weapons were preferred. The only 'Other' feedback I received asked for 'Gadgets', which I shall also take into consideration.