OLD TREATMENT.

Working Title - WAXED


Distributor - Boardshore


Production - Cliffanger


Group Members - Melodie Abraham, Sophie Dixon and Emily Moore.

Brief - Our task is to create the opening 2 minutesof a new feature film including an original soundtrack, producer and distributor and the company idents. 


Synopsis - The basic idea is that a beautician runs her own salon in the center of Ilkley. She is apsychopath in the fact that she has become bitter towards the media of how humans should be perfect and have the perfect body skin etc. When she sees that the two customers have not made any effort with their image, like she has, they become a prime target. She kills off one with an axe and the audience is left wondering through narrative enigma what happens to the other customer. 


Target Audience - Our target audience ranges from15 to 25. We have applied a 15 certificate because we did not want to narrow down the audience to 18 viewers and not allow a wide age range. Our film is also for both female and male viewers as it contains a lead female role which will attract female viewers but also has action, violence and sex appeal for the male viewers.


Genre - We have chosen to apply the ‘slasher’genre to our film as it attracts a large audience. We have noticed that there is an audience for our film as films like Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. This film has been a main focus for ours as it has influenced the mise-en-scene and gore effects in our film. 

Mise-en-scene - Our location is in the center of Ilkey in a small semi-detached salon calledAngels Retreat. There is also an alley running by the side of the salon which provides aneeriness to the setting. Our killer is wearing ablack beautician uniform with a plunging neckline and her face will be heavily made up. The two customers will be wearingmodest/day to day clothing. There will be various props that will be used such astweesers, nail files, wax, candles and an axewhich will be used by the killer. One of the previous A2’s coursework influenced our decision to use candles because it is key contributor for the lighting in our film and it also gives a sinister effect.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Sfkrew_8BM



Cast and Crew  - 


Killer: Katie Mallows


We wanted to break the stereotype of the killer always being a male and therefore we were looking for a female with brown short hair and of average height. We want the killer to be heavily made up and originally the killer will be in her early 30’s.










Customer 1: Colette Howarth


To break the stereotype of the victim normally being a blonde and busty character we wanted the scream queen to take up a more modest and reserved role. We feel that having Colette as the actress will support our decision.









Customer 2: George Clayton


We chose to have a male victim for our film because we feel that it would contribute to the fact of breaking the tradition of always having female victims. George has the main features we were looking for e.g brown hair, brown eyes and average height. 

Deconstruction: Sweeny Todd (Tim Burton) (2007) Emily Moore

• - Starts in an animated form showing blood, London town and a barber shop.  Introduce the main ideas of the film.
• - It starts to rain (stereotype of London) the rain then turns to blood to introduce the horror themes of the film. 
• - The cartoon then takes us to a barber shop where blood splashes against the window. We then see the barber chair which is the main focus of the film.
• - Victorian style pictures drawn in blood - Introduces the era of the film/blood is a common theme
• - Blood from pictures drip onto the barber chair down onto the clogs. Audience is taken on a journey down to the sewers. Conveys that this is where most of the action will take place. 

• - No characters in the first 2 minutes of the film. Audience focuses on the main themes of the film and therefore are not distracted by the introduction of the characters 
• - Graphics in the opening scene are cartoon like. This makes the opening scene more comical for the audience and therefore it is polysemic.
• - The titles appear in the middle of the screen in white text. The white text signifies that it is a serious/dramatic film. 
• - The main title of the movie appears half way through the opening scene when it  falls with the blood down the sewers. This sets the tone for the movie and also shows that it is a horror. 
• 
  
• - Sinister organs are played throughout the opening scene.
• The music creates a tense and dramatic mood and also creates suspense.
• 
  
• - As the title appears the music becomes more dramatic and builds up to emphasise the title of the film

Deconstruction: Halloween (John Carpenter) (1978) ALL

Budget: $320,000 
Genre: Horror.
Box Office: $60,000,000


- The reflecting candle flame from the pumpkin is used to signify hell.
- The music is fast paced and is a combination of slow string notes.
- Illinois comes up on the screen with a black background in a white Sans Seriff font which signifies good and evil. This also shows that it is set in middle America.
- 'Halloween Night 1963' - Provides anchorage
- Long shot/point of view shot of the house (camera is shaking)
- Establishing shot of a detached house - middle class, suburban neighborhood/safe
- Horror signified by : Pumpkin
- Night time - Shadows, moonlight, blue tint applied, cold, unpleasant
- Sound - Owl/Gothic horror 

Podcast 3- Casting

Deconstruction: Axe (Frederica R Friedel) (1997)

Budget: Non given.
SD-

1. Close up tracking shot of a tree then moves down to a secluded house on a hillside.
2. Establishing shot of a detached house.
3. White and red tittle seuence and white text on black background showing names.
4. Tracking shot of ceiling.
5. Men in suits signifies that they are upper class maybe business men with cigars.
6. Business meeting dressed corporatly.
7. Holding someone hostage while they wait for the other victims to join them so they can beat them up and kill them maybe they are loan sharks?
8. Quality of colour signifies the time period with low technologies and anchorsthat the film is not a new release.
9. Lift close up big relevance later on in the film maybe.
10. Drums non digetic sound in the background to buld up the audiences tension as they wait for the victims to arrive.
11. Violence signified by outfits and guns anchoring they are gangsters.
12. Point of view shot from the victims are all over the place as they are being beaten up.

Deconstruction: 7eventy 5ive (Brian Hooks & Dean Taylor) (2007)

Budget: $3,000,000

Genre: Horror.

SD-
- White on black seriousness.
- Children at a sleepover make prank calls.
- Mise-en-scene pajamas, sleeping bags, beds etc.
- The dad comes in and replaces the phone back on the hook.
- Party going on downstairs of the childrens parents alacahol involved.
- Phone rings again but there is too much music downstairs for anyone to hear so one of the children wakes up and answers it (Digetic sound)
- Man jumps through the door of the house with an axe and starts killing off the adults mainly- axe scraping along the floor is digetic sound because it wouldnt be that exaggerated.
- Rampaged serial killer kills off all the parents
- Long shot from above (high angled shot) shows the room and blood everywhere.
- Exposition: 'Ten years later appears on screen'

Deconstruction: A Nightmare on Elm Street (Robert Shaye)

Budget: $1.8million

Genre: Horror

Box Office: $10.8million

SD-
1. Establishing shot in a macanics? Wait for anchorage.
2. Making some sort of blade for a knife - signifies violence to come.
3. A number of short take closeups one after the other a common characteristic of horror films aims especially those that are aimed at teens to keep them interested because they get bored easily.
4. Extreme long shot after close-up of potential victim- scream queen with blonde short hair.
5. Victim running down a corridoor by herself being followed?
6. Dark corridoor with a blue tint signifies horror.
7. Victim dressed in a nightgown/pajamas signifying it could be a dream or she could of escaped from somewhere.
8. False scare of a sheep following her instead of a killer- used to scare the audience so they dont anticipate the real scare and find it more scary.
9. Abandoned factory/warehouse anchored by mise-en-scene such as mental/iron equipment and smoke rising from machinery.
10. White text on black background signifies seriousness.
11. Orange tint signifies heat in the boiler room
12. No speech, signifying another dimension or under some sort of medication.
13. Non digetic and digetic sound eg when she screams at the end of the dream before waking up.

Deconstruction: Peeping Tom (Michael Powell) (1960)

Budget: £135,000.
Genre: Horror.
Box Office: $83,000.
SD-
- Establishing shot: Extreme close up of the eye.
- Woman on high street suspected prostitute: dresses in red (signifies danger,sex blood etc.) with fishnet tights and heels
- Prostitute also signified by vocabulary choices
- Prostitute killed off for being bad (sexually active quite young paid for moneypunished for being sexually active).
- Slight blue tint signifies horror.
- White text signifies seriousness.
- Screen shots give home video anchorge when the killer films his victims deaths with black horizonal and vertical lines across screens.
- Man enters a newsagents with naked/topless woman on magazines on the door signifies the film will later include nudity and sexual scenes.
- Beginning based around a brothel where he films his first victim, brothel signified by scruffy house with alot of beds and clothes scattered on the floor.
- Possible scream queen signified by long blonde hair, glamour model signified by the clothes she wears eg. red corset suspenders and high heels.
- Clothing at party signifies occasion maybe birthday due to the amount of guest. Later anchored by birthday cake and age saying 21.
- Accent signifies upper/middle class.
- Red light signifies blood/danger/sex etc.
- Main character had a troubled child hood and was maybe abused by his father anchored by hime filming him being disturbed in his sleep and putting a lizard on him to scare him (could be suffering from mental problems).

Deconstruction: 5ive Girls (Warren. P. Sonoda) (2006) ALL

Budget: $3,000,000.

Box Office: Not available.

Architype Films.

Five wayward teenage girls are sent to a reformatory and discover they possess unique powers to battle the ancient demon, Legion, which holds thrall over the sinister institution.One girl in particular we get a unique impression of her relationship with her teacher.

1. Establishing shot- Extreme long shot of the Religious school setting.
   - Bright light signifies a pure/virginal impression of the girls and god in the school presence.
2. Music and sound - Eary, slow the organ is being played (Digetic sound)
3. Mise-en-scene: Cruisifix on the wall, girl in quite contivertial uniform which apparently draws in the devil because she's doing something wrong with the teacher signified by him putting his hand on her shoulder.
4. Start equilibrium- School girl in a religious school.
5. Fence around the school in a tracking shot signifies discipline.
6. Ellipsis - time passing from outside to inside
7. Student in the classroom alone signifies isolation and vulnerablity.
8. Girl in the class rooms costume: short skirt, knee high socks, blonde hair all signifies she is sexually active and anchors the sexual link between her and her teacher.
9. Shot variations provides anchorage that it is aimed at teens because they tend to get bored more easily.
10. Non digetic sound and very short takes when the devil arrives to signify change and panic.
11. The roar from the girl signifies the devil has got into her similarly to the way it does in the horror film The Excorsist released in 1973.

Deconstruction: Mad House (George P. Cosmatos) (1983) ME

Budget: $4,000,000.

Box Office: $1,080,470.
SD-

Mad House is about A man who recently completed rebuilding a townhouse becomes obsessed with a rat infestation destroying his home to simple kill this rat and it soon becoming a contest between the man and rat as to who survives.

1. Lots of narrative enigma at the beginning because there is no speech

2. Lots of cut shots to keep the audience interested and inquisitive.

3. Blue tint to signify horror.

4. Horror on the wallwriting drips like blood down the wall saying 'There's no place like home.'

5. Big building start is polysemic looking like a physchiatric unit with white corridoors giving anchorage from the tittle.

6. White corridoor woman carrying a dead baby or a doll giving anchorage that the setting is a menatl institute.

Deconstruction: April Fools Day (Fred Walton) (1986) ALL

Budget: $5,000,000.

Box Office: $12,500,000.

Remade in 2008.

A group of college students staying on a remote island in a mansion are slowly killed off by killing taking place on April fools Day starring Deborah Foreman and others.

1. Set in the present day, filmed on a home-video camers signified by black and white lines on the screen due to the tape being worn out.

2. Set on a peer signified by mise-en-scene such as boats, dock, life jackets etc 

   - setting also signifies the characters are middle/upper class that have money.

3. Exposition, uggested they are all sexually active.

4. The scream queen is signified by hair colour and sixze of chest but also the way she speaks and what she says suggesting she is not hugely educated.

5. Transition to a basement, obsessionw ith a jack in the box anchored by numerous close-ups.

6. Broken dummy foreshadows what is to come later on.

Deconstruction: Toolbox Murders (Dennis Donnelley) (1978) ALL

Budget: Low Budget film ($185,000)

Box office: Non as it was banned in cinemas until 2000.

Toolbox murders is a horror film about a maniac killer in a ski mask in an apartment block killing off the residents with nly the instruments in the tool box he carries and was banned in the UK until 2000 after being released in 1978. There is a scene in the bath which links it to American Psycho.

1. Horror film signified by non digetic sound, music genre is clearly denoted.

2. San Cerif font in red signifies Blood and horror.

3. Flash backs are signified by an orange tinit on screen.

4. Time period is signified by the clothing the actors/actresses wear amd that they are upper/middle class.

5. Weapon (drill) also signifies horror.

6. Unfitting music in the apartment block does not provide anchorage and instead signifies oppositional reading.

Deconstruction: Saw (James Wan) (2004) ALL

Budget: $1.2 milllion.

Genre: Horror.

Box Office UK: £6.6million.

               US: $55 million.

Saw is a film about two victims waking up in amurder lair of a serial killer named 'Jigsaw' where he orders them to take part in a 'game to survive'.

1. Narrative enigma used, we dont see the killers face at any point.

2. Digetic sound is used in a darkened room

3. Anchorage of the time period from the clothing and tape recorder.

4. Anchorage of the setting given by the accent of the actors/actresses (American)

5. Binary Opposition, two oppsite characters one being a doctor and the other quite scruffy middle class looking guy (scruffy clothes, jeans).

6. There is no killer which is unusual for a horror but expected in Saw films as they have to work together and survive or kill themselves.

7. 15-24 (and upwards) Audience like our film opening coursework task, which is shown in Saws box office .

Deconstruction: Slashers (Maurice Devereaux) (2001) ME & GEORGE GAMBLE.

Low Budget film - $165,000 estimated.

No sequal.
BY SD AND GEORGE GAMBLE : http://geogam111.blogspot.com/

Slahers is about a japanese game show wherer the contestant compete to survive, and at the end the final girl/man is giver a sum of $12,000,000.

1. Time period is signified by the clothing, hairstyles, the show itself & the attitudes of the contestants (e.g. males view of the female competitors).
2. The location is signified by the language spoken by the host of the show and the fact that it is set in a studio.
3. Social class is signified by contestants' accents and clothing worn, for example Megan is an upple/middle class citizen signified by the clothing she wears (not in any way revealing) and her attitudes towards the show and she is only competing to prove the point she disagrees with the morals of the show wheras other citizens are willing and happy to compete signifing they are working class and need the money.
4. We know from the previous series clips shown straightaway the film is going to involve nudity and violence when a former contestants top is pulled up and she is stabbed in the stomache.
5. Costumes and make-up shown used by the killers shows us that the killings are going to be brutal and that the people involved are not right in the head.

Deconstruction:Bride of Chucky (Ronnie Yu) (1998) ALL

Budget: $25,000,000

Genre: Horror

Released in 1998 Bride of Chuckie is a story about dolls, Chucky 'hooks up' with another doll, the murderous couple target two high school graduates.

1. Blue tint used to show its a horror and shows it was filmed in a high budgert Hollywood studio with this technology.
2. White text on Black backgroun again signifies horror/seriousness.
3. America 'the great' flag shown flying which is ironic because they say america is a great nation although they conduct murders and violence.
4. Flashing signifies lightning/ somebody has been there previously.
5. Uses a range of shot types such as panning, extreme close up, establishing, extreme long shot , deutcsh angle shot etc.
6. Mask and chainsaw are shown on screen - intertextual from Friday the 13th.
7. Point of view shot used to shot the vulnerablility of the victim.

Deconstruction: Hell Night (Tome DeSimone) (1981) ALL

Budget: $25,000,000

Genre: Horror

Released in 1981 although there has been a sequal since this date such as Happy Hell Night released in 1992.

College students killed off one by one by the surviving members of a family massacre years earlier for trespassing on their living grounds in the old mansion.

1. Scream denotation signifies horror although it starts off almost as a chick flick as it is based at an abandoned mansion.

2. Hair styles and close signify the time period.

3. The digetic sound coming from the stereo on screen also signifies the time period as its more of your typical rock music sang by a woman.

4. Lots of woman dressed in revealing outfits we get the idea of who the scream queen is from the opening few minutes of the film when we get inside the house.

5. Red thick text on screen almost blood-like.

Call Sheets for 'Waxed'

Call sheet 1st draft 1st sheet 'waxed'

Call sheet 3rd sheet waxed

Podcast 2

This is our second pod cast where we discuss the location and are potential cast and who we have in mind for what

Podcast 1

This is our first pod cast explaining the idea and why we decided to choose mels idea over mine and Emily's.

Filming Arrangments

We are filming on tuesdays the 25th of January. We are filming in the salon 'Angels Retreat'. We have made this decission because our origional cast were not able to get to the previous set location- the home salon on silsden moor also the location of the salon is in Ilkley so we can access it more easily and there is a wider range of equipment.

Although we originally said we were going to film in a secluded location on Silsden moor we have decided to change to a salon in ilkley so our cast can access it easily to film and we can take any further shots if we forget on Tuesday (tomorrow).

We think becasue its quite a small salon with street lamps outside it would be a better choice, also there are more than just one room with beauty equipment in. As the salon is call angels retreat it is ironic because we'll obviously be filming violent and murdering scenes.

Storyboard for 'waxed' 1st draft

This is our first draft of our storyboard for our working title 'waxed'
Storyboard for 'waxed' 1st draft



Storyboard for 'waxed'

Pre-lim Improvements.

We could have made some improvements to our pre-lim tasks if we had more time to plan. The improvements we would of made are as follows;

1. Better story line- we would of planned a better idea to shoot our pre-lim. With more time we could of done casting even though in this case it wouldn't of mattered that much. It only would of been a better representation to have an older actor playing the teacher.

2. Better use of props-  We could of used better props when do the filming. we could of used a school uniform as anchorage that Sophie was the student and smart clothing for the teacher. This would of made our preferred reading better to understand for the audience.

3. We should of used a tripod which would of stopped the film becoming 'shaky'. As we were holding the camera during all the filming some or the shots were fuzzy.


4. We would of made a better script- the one we used doesnt use much dialogue and the speech in the pre-lim.

Location of our Coursework task.

During the holidays we went to see out two possible locations for filming our coursework film opening. There were pros and cons for both locations and we are discussing our options and will decide which within the next two days. One of these locations was a salon in Ilkley and the other in Burley so it would probably be easier to access the one in Ilkley but Mel is not here today but we cant decide without her.