Costume, Props Location

Costume

The killer will be dressed in a red, tight dress; this has a poly-semic reading as red can be a signifier of love which fits into the narrative but equally a signifier of blood and death which is

anchorage for the genre of the film. She will be wearing stiletto heels to portray a sexy image and help to draw in a male audience. However. she will be wearing less make up than the blonde character which helps to emphasize the binary oppositions between the two.

The other female character within the trailer will be por

trayed as a stereotypical blonde, this will be shown by being sexually available and effective costume such as obvious makeup and revealing clothes.

Both male characters will be dressed smart-casual in jeans and a shirt. We feel this fits in with the mise-en-scene of the locations as the one of them is in a popular, classy bar.

Both characters are trendy looking and would engage the interest from a female audience. Male audiences would also be able to relate to the characters as they are your stereotypical boy next door.

The 3 victims, will only play a minor part in  the trailer. However, all 3 girls will be attractive and made to seem sexually available which is the main motivation for the killings.

This will be shown by the first victim will be wearing a red dressing gown as she is drying her hair, this gives theallusion that she is naked underneath the dressing gown. The red dressing gown is an important part of the scene as the colour red represents death (which is shortly about to happen to her) and it also represents love (which can coincide with the relationship she is having with the male protagonist). The second victim will only be se

en in the shower which is a inter-textual reference to the Grudge as Sarah Michelle Gellar is attacked in the shower. There is a similarity between Sarah Michelle Gellar and the 2nd victim as they are both attractive blonde females which will appeal to our target audience as the majority of people that watch horrors are male.  As she is onl

y seen in the shower this makes her seem sexually available to the audience and interpretated as a motive for being killed. The final girl will be attacked whilst wearing a tight top and a mini skirt. Again, going along which the trend of appearing sexually available.

                              

           Props

We chose the props that we will be using in our film specifically to represent and signify different things.

 The first prop that will be used is a red hairdryer. We chose this object as the red signifies blood and death and also links into the killers red dress. We initially wanted to have the victim

in the bath and the hair dryer being dropped into the bath so the victim is electrocuted. However, after thinking of different ways in which we could do this safely we deemed it to dangerous and changed the idea.

We are now going to show  the first victim drying her hair with the hair dryer

 and then the killer appears behind her and hits her over the head with it.

The second prop we are going to use is a knife. We chose this as our genre research has told us that this is a

common weapon to use as it is represents a phallic object. This also ties into the narrative as the victims are being killed due to the protagonists jealousy over the relationships the girls have with the boy that she likes.

The final prop that we will use is a bottle of

 wine which will be smashed over the 3rd victims head by the protagonist. We decided to use this object as its  stereotypically a woman's drink, and in the opening of the trailer the protagonist and her blonde friend are drinking the wine which helps set up the narrative. To film this scene the lighting we used was a car's headlights. We had already planned to do this as the street we filmed it on had no street lights so the cars headlights is the only source of light.


All of the props will be used by the female protagonist as she believes that they are seeing they boy she likes.

Location

The first rooms which includes the girls getting ready, will have pink featured in it so to connote it is a females room. this will include things like pink bedding and decoration. Make up and hair straighteners will also be visible for anchorage.

The bar thats used will be a up-market classy bar which appeals to the target audience (15 -24).

The location of the house is in a rural area which connotes loneliness and vulnerability which is visible to the audience as the taxi is driving down the road. This will lead to the audience to assume that the girl is the vulnerable character however, this is not the case.

The house is a inter-textual to the house in Scream as it is a middle-class detached house with lots of large glass windows and painted white. This will also bring in a middle class audience as they can relate to the house. As the house is painted white, it connote the male characters innocence and purity as he is a virgin. The amount of glass used in the house anchors the vulnerability of the characters as they are more exposed to danger.

The male characters bedroom will be signified by a stereotypical male posters such as boys toys and movie posters, if the commutation test was applied here it would fit as the posters don't include female nudity which is stereotypical of a 18 year old boy. This is anchorage for him being a virgin and 'not interested' in woman. It also sets up for him turning the main girl character down. At first we considered to have the bedroom messier than the girls room however, we decided the bedroom will be neater than expected of an 18 year old, this connote he is less of a lads lad than initially thought by the audience from the scenes in the bar earlier.

• N.B.   However, after we filmed our trailer we decided it would be simpler and easier for the audience to understand if the main boy and girl went back to the girls house which was previously featured in the trailer.
• We decided to only have one male character in the trailer to avoid confusion of what the role of the other boy was.
• We removed the hair dryer killing as it didnt look realistic and replaced it with somebody being strangled.

Audience feedback

Throughout our production we will be asking for audience feedback. This is a vital part of our production as it enables us to receive constructive  criticism  or praise for aspects of the film that they have disliked or enjoyed. The audience that we will be asking is predominately the target audience for our film, mixed gender aged 17-18 years old.

6th November 2009

Whilst discussing film titles in class, we received a range of feedback on our title "A Date from Hell".

It was mainly positive as they liked how there is a direct link into the narrative of the trailer however, some class members thought it sounded like a chick flick rather than a killer.

For the narrative of them film they liked the idea how it is unclear who the killer is as typically in most films, it is a male killer.


 27th November 2009
Good variation of signifiers that something is going to happen.
Could use more shots emphasizing vulnerability.
Shots blend in together well.
Majority of shots are framed well and lighting is good.

14th December 2009
Cut down shot off clothes being thrown.
Needs something to link Sam with the 3 girls.

18th December 2009
Change transistions so they follow each other such as Be prepared, for a little bit of heaven, but a lot more Hell.
Flash 3 killings before Protagonists face at the end.

5th January 2010
Change the dialogue from "i can decide between 3 boys" to "Is this too slutty?.. who am I kidding I don't care!".
On a night out they see the group of boys and girls, not a pre-set date.
The guy in the bar asks Lucy to take a photo of them and the other girls adjust to add a central device of a photo taken, with each victim cut out of the photo with a extreme close up each time they are killed.
Unidentifed killer, can see Lucy in the first killing.
We received audience feedback throughout the editing process right until the final piece. We did this because we had to constantly make sure our potential audience understood and followed the story and could pick up on problems immediatly so we could reshoot if necessary.
If we hadn't have got audience feedback then changes such as cutting down shots and changing speed of shots wouldnt have been altered therefore our trailer wouldnt have been as successful.

 Sophie aged 17

 Emily aged 18

 Sophie aged 17

We used the style of podcasts to film some of our audience feedback to make it a visual experience. 

Hardware

Camcorder.

I will be using the camera Canon Wide screen MV920 to record my production.

The dimensions of the camera are:
115mm in length
92mm in height
49mm in width
0.38 kg in weight
LCD screen 2.7 inches

Key features:
Auto White Balance
Manual Brightness/Contrast Settings
Multiple features to change lighting to day/night settings
25x optical zoom
Built in microphone

-During our filming we altered the settings of the camera to night mode as we were filming in the dark and thought it would pick up the light better then if it was on auto settings.

Boom Mic.

Throughout our production we will also be using a boom mic. This will make things alot easier than last years coursework as we will be able to have shots with dialogue were the protagonists aren't in a close proximity of the camera but the boom mic will be able to pick up the audio. This will mean we will be able to have more of a variety of shots.

Tripod.

We will also be using a tripod during filming as they are very useful for keeping the camera steady. The tripod we will be using has expandable legs therefore we can change the height of the camera depending on what shot we are achieving. The tripod's are also able to tip the camera to the side creating a dutch angle. Overall, the tripods make filming alot easier by being able to get a steady shot of whatever we want.

Macs.

Once we have filmed our production we will upload to the Mac computers were we will edit our trailer on imovie06 and Final cut.

Digital Still cameras.

We used digital still camera during our production when the protagonist takes a photo of the group of boys and girls in the bar. We also used the cameras to take photos of the cast to put on our blogs to make it easier to compare our cast to real film productions. We found the cameras simple and easy to use as we have used them many times before.

Portable audio recorder.

We used the audio recorder to record our podcast as we only needed to have the audio and they were simple to upload onto our blogs.

If the audio from our production wasn't clear or loud enough we could use this to re-record our cast speaking their lines and then dub it over our trailer.

External hard drives/ Portable drive.

Having an external hard drive made it easier to share files between the group as one of you could save a file on the external hard drive and then link it up to another computer and open the file on that computer so you didnt have to disturb the original person if they were working on that computer. It also meant the files we were using were backed up.

Podcasts

A podcast will be updated weekly providing information on how far we have come in the production progress. It also highlights whether we have missed anything or our behind on any tasks.

6th November 09


13th November 09

27th November 09

7th December 09

24th February 2010