Initial planning - target audience research

When deciding on the basic information for our film opening, we chose a target audience of 15-25 year olds, both male and female. The dual gender target audience was chosen because of the combination of male and female actors in the film, which will appeal to both genders so we don't really have a secondary target audience. In order to find out what the target audience want in our film opening and the type of components that are good in a thriller/horror we are going to ask people within the target audience age range some question about this.

We designed a questionnaire and asked 4 people to fill them out so that we could use their answers to improve our film opening. 2 males and 2 females were asked, all within the target audience we set; doing this we felt that we would have an equal opinion from both genders about the characters in our film. From the results, we found that 3 out of 4 of the participants would prefer having a female protagonist and a male antagonist. This matches what we were planning so will be included in the film opening. We briefly explained our narrative to the people taking part in the questionnaire, and they all agreed that running the dual narratives side by side was a good idea and that it would create more tension; which conforms to our genre.

Initial planning - location permission

We are filming in a public area and it may be possible that there are people present when we are filming the film opening, therefore we have emailed the keepers of Farthinghoe nature reserve to ensure that we have permission to film and to make them aware of what we are doing. By informing the managers of the nature reserve, they will be aware that if we have to film a scream scene that nothing bad is happening; they may alert any residents surrounding the woodland of our plans to film there so that they too won't be alarmed if there is a scream or shouting,

We received an email back from the communications officer saying that we have the permission to film in Farthinghoe nature reserve. They have requested that we let them know the date and times of filming so that the Reserve Officer is aware if they happen to be in the area around the time of filming. 

Initial planning - classification

We are filming in the genre thriller/horror for our film opening, and so we need to have an appropriate classification in order to protect younger people as the stereotypical conventions are often inappropriate. Our film contains abduction and murder scenes so would not be suitable for an audience younger than 15, hence why we are applying a classification; the most suitable being a 15 rated.

The BBFC (British board of film classification) was set up in 1912 by the film industry as an independent body to bring a degree of uniformity to the classification of film nationally. The classifications are based on the BBFC’s published and regularly updated Guidelines, and are applied by a senior examiner along with a second examiner for disputes. The guidelines and policy are there to guide the examiners to making the right decision about the age, and they are based on particular elements that are present in a certain type of film. Classifications exist so that the public are protected from things that may not be suitable for individuals or groups of people, particularly concerning public taste. The elements that class a 15 film as that are:

Any of the following:

• strong violence
• frequent strong language (e.g. 'f***').
• portrayals of sexual activity
• strong verbal references to sex
• sexual nudity
• brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence
• discriminatory language or behaviour
• drug taking

A normal 15 rated film would contain strong violence and other violent actions; both of these are included in our film opening. We made the decision to not include any sexual references because it doesn't have any reference to our narrative and would also mean that we may have to increase our classification to 18, which wouldn't include our target audience.
The classification we have chosen means that we aren't putting young people in psychological danger, as the content included could be mentally harming for those under 15. Within a 15 classification there is an allowance for some strong language, however in our film opening we don't plan on having much dialogue as we are focusing more on the shots telling the main story, so we don't need to take this into consideration. Similarly drug taking is allowed in a 15 film, but this has no link to our narrative so won't be included in the film.

Initial planning - make up

As our film opening only contained two female characters, we didn't want them to be fully made up as this would detract from the true emotion that they were feeling, but instead quite minimal, neutral make up. We wanted to have the main female lead to be wearing slightly smudged make up to represent how she is upset with the situation that she is in. To do so, we decided to use masarca and eyeshadow when creating her make up look as we wanted it to emphasise that she is in a stressful situation that is causing her to be upset. The second female character isn't present through the whole film opening and there are any close ups of her, so make up isn't necessary

Initial planning - Props

For our film opening, we have chosen some props that we feel would benefit the film by providing realism which would make the film more believable. One of the props that we are going to use is a bunch of flowers; this will be tied to a tree trunk to symbolise a memorial which links into our narrative. The flowers will represent the death of Alice, and will be the place that the main protagonist visits during her time on the woods. With the flowers stereotypically connoting grief and loss, it is a suitable prop to add to our film as it relates to our narrative.
We will use the flowers and tie them to the tree to recreate a memorial scene.

We are also planning on using a photograph of both the victim and the protagonist together to represent the friendship that the two characters had. It will help the audience to establish the relationship between the characters without explicitly stating it. Having the photo will show that the person in the photograph is the memorial of the person that Martha is visiting, signifying how she is thinking of the memories they had together.

Other props that may be used is make up for the two female characters, and a possible face covering for the antagonist depending on how much we want to conceal his full identity.

We also plan on using a pair of black gloves as this will connote danger and that something bad may happen.

Initial planning - costumes

When we were researching our genres (thriller and horror) we found that the protagonists and/or victims wear normal clothes that represent reality, as well as signifying how unsuspecting they are that nothing is going to happen. For example jeans and a coat. We are going to follow this convention because it is stereotypical of teenage girls, which is the image we are trying to portray. For the victim, we have chosen these clothes for her to wear as they signify normality and are stereotypical of the character.

The protagonist will have a similar outfit.

For the antagonist, a black hoodies and trousers will be used because black connotes danger and death, therefore will conform to the genres we are using. The characters face won' be shown as this will create suspense and mystery in our film opening, which is stereotypical of the genre, and we want  to keep his identity hidden.

Initial planning - casting

For our opening scene, we needed to find three different actors/actresses to play in our film. Two of the three castings will be females aged between 16-18, as this is the age that we feel will be appropriate to play the characters. One will be the protagonist, while the other will play the murder and abduction victim; using females as they can be represented as vulnerable which will link in with our narrative.

A male will be used as our third character and will be the antagonist of the film opening; he will need to wear all black, with something dark covering his face so that his identity isn't revealed - this will help to keep a mysterious feel for the audience. Physically. he will need to be tall and strong in order to portray the character that we have in mind, and also to intimidate the audience so that it meets the audience pleasure.

We have chosen to use people who have experience with acting as we feel that this would help us to make the best film opening as possible, therefore two of the people we have chosen studied drama at school, one of them studying full time at college. The male in our film won't have a dramatic acting role, as he will only be used in POV shots and over-the-shoulder shots.

Miah Kirton 

Miah studied GCSE drama, getting an A*, so we thought that she would be perfect to play the victim of the crime.
Miah will be involved in some of the most dramatic scenes, so her acting skills will really help to make these realistic. Although she won't be the main character, her experience in drama will assist in creating a convincing opening. Her character will be called Alice.

Lauren Bricknell

Lauren will be playing the main character, the protagonist, who experiences the flashbacks and was present at the event of her best friends kidnap. She is currently studying drama at Stratford college, so has a lot of experience with this type of acting. 

Her experience will be used to help make some of the most challenging scenes, where the conventions of thriller ad horror really come into play. 

Lauren will be playing the character of Martha

Luke Macdonald 

We decided to cast Luke as the antagonist because he does not fully feature in the opening of our film. Small shots of his back, hands, and hooded head will be seen, but there is no physical acting required to do this.