We have planned our story and created a storyboard to accompany it. We want our first minute to be a chase scene, while the second minute is a story and progression of the said story. We tried to incorporate multiple shots and camera techniques to add diversity and create a more interesting look. These are shown in our storyboard below
Elaine
For our killer in the story, my partner chose to name her Elaine. She chose this name after going through some of her favorite horror films and wanting to name the character after another iconic character from the film 'The Love Witch'. The character from that movie is similar to this film because they are both man killers who, at first glance, seem completely normal. In our movie, Elaine is a normal high school girl who gets hungry for blood and goes on a frenzy over a boy who wronged her, while in The Love Witch, Elaine is an eccentric young widow who seduces men with her witchcraft but ends up killing them.
Elaine's character is meant to be misleading. She looks like the 'girl next door cheerleader type, but she is secretly on a hunt for vengence. My partner took a lot of her outfit and personal style inspiration from the original girl next door, Mary Jane Watson, from the Spider-Man films. This concept is similar to the Jennifer's Body movie in terms of a girl misleading the other characters in the movie, but instead, Elaine will be a lot more school-oriented. For example, she may be upset at the boy who wronged her because she feels cheated and almost like she wasted her time, and it just overwhelms her with anger causing her to hunt him down and kill him.
Today my partner and I went to search for some props we felt would fit the intro's theme and, more specifically, the killer. The first thing we thought we needed was a mask for the killer to wear like any good killer has. We settled on a clear mask like the one shown below.
The next prop we found was her weapon. We decided to make her use the knife show in the movie The Love Witch. This is because our character has a heavy influence from Elaine in The Love Witch; therefore, it is a nod to the movie. Our killer's personality has a lot that resembles Elaine, so we thought it only fitting to give her the correct weapon.
For our sound, we plan on using a mix of foley and music to create the tone and environment for the scene. However, for the first couple of seconds, it will be primarily foley sounds. Since it takes place in the middle of the forest, we will create sounds replicating running through the woods, wind, and more to curate the perfect soundscape. After we create the world that they are living in, some background music may play as the scene intensifies. This first-minute scene will use both diegetic and non-diegetic sound with a few stings to add to the emotion in the scene.
These are some audios we have fallen on.
This audio is royalty-free and is perfect for the chase scene with the quick pace it begins with and even the 80s synth in the background. I think that it not only fits into the theme of the movie but also establishes the setting, period, and story for the rest of the audience. I think this audio will probably be our best bet.
This audio I think we will be less likely to pick just because I think it's a little grungy for our scene and it also sounds a little bit more 90s. It also sounds a little more dystopian, almost like it would belong in something like The Walking Dead. But I like how calm it is, and I think it would definitely make the scene seem very unsettling for the audience if we were to include it.
For the chase scene, I don't think we will use non-diegetic sound just because we want it to be as quiet as possible for the more psychological part of the film. Almost like in a hospital, we want it to be uncomfortably quiet, so it seems almost sterile compared to the intense scene that was shown before. This will also enhance the silence even more.
The first element of mise-en-scene we are focusing on is costume design. The costumes can help add a lot of personality and meaning to the characters, especially since we only have 2 minutes to convey as much character development as possible. We want each character's costume to have meaning and explain their personality. The first character we focused on is the killer; we want her to have a killer vibe but still have meaning to her costume. This is why we decided to have her wear a red outfit that seems cheerleader-like because we want the killer to be popular, but the red can represent love and her crazy ex side. She is going to wear a mask, but we want to make it have some sort of broken heart or something on it which also adds to her character and her crazy broken heart/ex mentality. Since her name is going to be Elaine after the love witch, we want her to use a similar dagger to her as an ode to her character.
For our project, we want to shoot at a few different places so we can develop more stories in the little time we have. We have decided that our first minute is going to be the chase scene and we want this scene to be at a park/ In the woods. We want a place with a lot of trees so we can shoot some running scenes and hide scenes in the trees. We also want it to be a little darker so the lighting will help create that eerie mood. we can shoot all or most of the chase scene here and the killing can be on top of a hill to silhouette the characters.
next, we want to shoot in a public area either a school or mall so we can show the group of kids that witness these events and how they are coping with the burden of watching this killing. We might also decide to shoot at someone's house and show the kids that way but we are not 100% sure yet.
In our movie intro, we would like to integrate the genre theory. This theory basically is a way of categorizing things into groups based on shared characteristics. It can be used to analyze a variety of media, including literature, film, and writing. The main genre characteristics we want to use are from slasher horror movies. So things like jump scares, stings, and a lot of moments that leave the audience tense and on the edge of their seats to have that slasher feeling.
