Final Major Project - STALKED (A Short Horror Film)

My final major project is a short film called Stalked. Stalked is about a girl who is home alone when a series of mysterious things happen to her. I decided on doing a horror film because I wanted to do something a little different to anything I had ever done before, I think I was successful in this because I had never thought of doing a horror film. A thing I didn't realise was how much goes into a horror film. A big aspect of my film was the music, I think music is always important because it is essentially the difference between a horror and a thriller; this is because I believe the music can give it a 'scarier' atmosphere and almost makes the audience feel for the characters. To me the music was important because I didn't use any spoken dialogue therefore the sound within the house was very important.

Filming 

I filmed my FMP on the 27th & 28th of April. I filmed it at Yelverton Cottage which is my friends house. The reason why I used his house is because we knew that it would be empty therefore we wouldn't be disturbing anyone. The other reason for filming in his house is that it is pretty big therefore it gives the atmosphere of a 'haunted house' this was incredibly important to me because the setting of the house would help in order make it 'scarier'. I decided I wanted to use three parts of the house, the living room, hallway and upstairs. The majority of the shots were in the living room this is because all of the major events happen in that room. 

I started by filming all of the shots that were in the living room. I decided to film in the order on my shot list, I found having a shot list so helpful because it meant that I was able to keep on track of everything that I was supposed to be doing. I also found that by having a shot list I had planned it thoroughly therefore I couldn't miss out any of the important shots, although this still gave me the leeway to add any extra shots if I needed to. 

The actors in my film were Olivia Searle who played Megan, the girl who was being stalked and Matthew Jury who played the stalker whose shadow appears. I filmed everything during the day, the reason why I filmed during the day was because everything was shot inside the house therefore with the correct lighting I could make it look like it had been filmed at night. I used the Dedo kit in order to make it look like the evening; which is better for a horror film. I did a lot of my shots using a tracker, I think the shots with the tracker went really well because they were very smooth this is due to the room being pretty big and the fact that I had to keep going from one side of the room to the other. I think the hardest shots to do in the living room were the shots of the email, this is because they were over the shoulder shots which meant that I had to hold the camera incredibly steady in order to get the best shots. 

I shot a lot of very similar footage coming from different perspectives because this way it doesn't get boring with just having one shot. I think my favourite shot from the living rooms scenes, is the scene where the door slams for the second time and Olivia drops the phone and turns around in surprise because the door slams at the same time. This shot works so well because she didn't actually know the door was going to slam therefore it was a genieue reaction. 

The lighting in the hallway was a lot more difficult to get correctly because it was a lot brighter therefore the reflection wasn't quite as good although I still think that it looked good. I changed a bit of this shot because Matt had a glass door that he could pull open which would look better than him just standing still because the shadow would then be moving. For the shots of running up the stairs I decided to take it from two different angles. The reason for this is because I wanted one from the bottom where she is running away from the stalker but alongside this I also wanted a low one from the top of the stairs where the shadows hand is still behind her as she is running up the stairs. The only problem with the low one was that there wasn't a lot of room therefore making sure that Olivia didn't stand on the lights and camera was pretty hard. 

Finally the last two shots were done upstairs, the slamming off two different doors. The last shot is important because it gives the audience the choice to decide what happens as the stalker is getting into the room, they can decide whether he gets in the room or not.

BTS shots from filming.

Sounds 

I used multiple sound effects, I did the sound effects after I had all of the filming done. The most important sound effects was the door slamming's, this is because there was mutliple doors being slammed therefore I recorded a lot of different door slams. I decided in doing different door slams because after my test shoots I learnt that all the different door needed to make different noises because these can get incredibly boring and repetitive another factor is that the door were all made from different material therefore all the door slams aren't going to sound the same. 

The only pieces of dialogue I used was the voice of the phone where Charlie Theron says 'The Truth Will Come Out' & 'You Can No Longer Hide.' This is the voice of the stalker talking to Megan because he wants her to feel afraid. This dialogue although it isn't much is very important because it tells the audience that he is serious and that she is in danger. The sound that took the longest to record was probably the hardest because it took a few times to record in order to get the sounds in line with the film. 

The other sounds that I used was email alerts and rings tones, I also recorded all of these although I could have gotten them from the internet I wanted to have them instead.

Sounds being edited. 

Editing 

I decided to edit it over the course of a few days, this is because I had over 100 clips to edit and go through. I think the editing of this was probably my favourite thing to do. Once I had all of the clips the editing was relatively easy. The hardest part of the edit was matching the door slamming to the video clips because I needed to make sure that they were in time. I didn't have an ambience sound therefore I found one online called 'Haunted House' this sound was perfect for my video because it had exactly the sounds I was looking for. I edited the ambience sound quite a bit though because it had a lot of unnessariy children screaming which didn't happen in my film. 

With the dialogue of Charlie's voice I edited it quite considerably and adding some echo's to it because he didn't sound quite as scarier as I wanted it to. I edited his voice on Adobe Audition, this was my first time using Audition and it was quite hard to use to start with but I think I managed to get the hand of it in the end. 

I colour corrected the entire film because I wanted it to look darker than it actually was therefore I turned up the brightness and turned down the contrast in order to give it the look I was after.

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I'm really happy with the way my Final Major Project came out, I think the clips and audio had come out the way I was hoping it to. I think if there was anything that I would change with it, it would probably have more clips so that I could make it longer as it is just under 3 minutes although I don't think that this is something essential. 

Overall I had a lot of fun filming and editing Stalked and I thoroughly enjoyed making it. 

Here is STALKED - enjoy. 

               Final Major Project - Stalked (A Short Horror Film) from Naomi Doddridge on Vimeo.

Pre-Production

For my pre-production it was essential that I had got all all of the documents, these documents included; risk assessment, overhead floor plan, storyboards, shot lists, person release forms and location release forms. In my Proposal you will also see that there is a schedule of what I planned to do every week from March. Alongside that I also did a questionaire the reason for doing that was so that I could see who was intrested in horror films and what they would except to see in a horror film. I think that by doing a questionaire this helped me out quite considerably because it meant that I could do something that I felt a lot of people would be interested in. 

I feel as though my pre production was very successful because it helped give me a good understanding of what I needed to do in my filming but also gave me ideas of what I wanted to do. This was because I had changed from my original idea, this happened in my pre production after I had done the survey because I realised a lot of horror were done in houses and therefore changed mine so it was also in the house. 

My Killer Press Kit was based on my original idea, although I still think that the poster and trailer works well with my new idea because it isn't that much difference due to the only thing that really changed with was the location. 

Risk Assessment 

A risk assessment is incredibly important to not just the director but everyone working on the film shoot. The team needs to know that everything they are doing is completely safe. The most important aspects on my risk assessments is inside the house and that while inside the house there is no unnecessary wires and leads that people can trip over. 

Overhead Floor Plan 

I did a overhead floor plan for each of the areas in the house that I will be using for filming. I suspect that the majority of the filming with be done in the living room this is because that is where most of my shots take place. I decided on a small room like a living room because it is a horror film and the idea that in the living room she is very enclosed and that it is harder for her to get out. I think that the hallway and upstairs will both be used as well because she will be running up the stairs to get away from the intruder. 

Storyboards

I wrote up this storyboard after I had finished filming and before I had recorded my sound effects, the reason for this was so that I could work out what shots I had and if I had any missing, luckily I had all of the shots that I needed. These two storyboards were just trying to work out what sound effects I would be using and how I would go about using them. 

Shot List 

Location Release Forms

Person Release Forms 

Stalker Review

Stalker is an American police procedural drama television series about victims of stalking and the detectives of the LAPD's Threat Assessment Unit who investigate the crimes. The series premiered on October 1st 2014 and airs on CBS.

The show starts when Detective Jack Larsen played by Dylan McDermott transfers to the TAU from New York City's homicide division. He is a confidence, strong personality, with a questionable behaviour that has landed him in trouble in the past. Alongside him there is his boss Lt. Beth Davis who is played by Maggie Q. She is a strong, focused and experienced in the field, driven by a traumatic personal tragedy in which she was a victim within a stalking case. The other two members of the TAU team are Detective Ben Caldwell who is played by Victor Rasuk who is young but eager detective then there is a deceptively smart Detective in Janice Lawrence who is played by Mariana Klaveno. The other main cast member is Amanda Taylor played by Elisabeth Röhm who is the mother of Jack's son. She left New York and moved to Los Angeles in order to start a new life at the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office. She currently serves as the TAU's Deputy D.A.

While the TAU cast remain the same each episode the rest of the cast changes with a new case happening every week. Each week there is a different plot with a different cast, stalker and stalking incident however the background of the main cast stays the same every week.

In the first episode 'Pilot' there is two stalking cases; the first one is about a man who has a liking for setting people on fire, with setting his ex girlfriend on fire in a car in one of the first scenes. The other stalking case is when a college student is charged with assaulting one of his fellow students. It turns out that he was actually just defending himself from one of his old roommates, a guy named Perry - who turns out to be a reoccurring character. After Beth deals with his case he follows her home.

In the second episode 'Whatever Happened to Baby James?' a woman kidnaps Thomas who is believed to be the same age as her son that went missing, she believes that Thomas is her son and holds him hostage. Perry confronts Beth after she punches him in the face after the last episode. The third episode 'Manhunt' is about a man who plays on various women phobia's therefore putting there fears into their own houses. While up to now I think that the stalkers are pretty normal however this one was a little weirder because it is obvious that this stalker had to know a lot about the victims in order to find out their phobias.

In the first few episodes the only continuing storyline is Perry stalking Beth, as he finds out where she lives and comes into her house when she is out. Alongside this he also has hundreads of photos of Beth stuck to his wall in his college bedroom. The problem with him though is that Beth keeps rejecting his intentions, therefore he starts to take it one step further and does some research into her. He finds out that she moved away after an ex boyfriend started a fire that killed all of her family. In a desperate attempt to get close to her, he goes and finds her ex boyfriend Ray. Ray and Perry travel back to Los Angeles in order to get closer to Beth. Ray eventually kills Perry after annoying him too much and because he also wants Beth however Ray believes that only he can have Beth. After killing Perry, Ray goes to Beth's house and kidnaps her, so that she is his. Ray takes Beth to a house in the countryside and holds her hostage, he tells her that all he wants is for her to come back to him; she agrees however he doesn't believe her and keeps her hostage. The rest of the TAU finally find her and rescue her as the house ironically sets on fire.

Stills from Stalker. 

I think that each of the storylines are very important because they move away the focus from Perry's obsession with Beth which after each episode is slowly building up. From my perspective I started watching it because I wanted to find out about other stalking stories in order for my film to be the best it could be. I think that this programme is very important in showing just how many people get stalked and how easily it is. I think that this programme shows that it is not just woman that get stalked but also men. The show highlights that there are also many reasons why people do stalk; usually it is because they have a jealous streak or because they aren't mentally well and therefore it is all in their head.

While I think it was good that they had different storylines each week, I think a lot of people would have preferred if they kept to one stalking account and didn't have so many episodes in the series. I think that this was a big problem, altogether there was 20 episodes and each of them an hour long. There were a couple of hiatus which isn't good for a programme because once people are getting into a programme they want it to be on regularly but with the hiatus they then forget when it is.

At the start of the series it started pulling in over 9 million viewers however once it moved from Wednesday's to Monday's the viewing figures went down relatively fast. CBS cancelled Stalker at the end of the first series. Due to the fact that is quite a creepy thriller and having to put on TV at 9pm, this is the wrong time I think to target the adult audience that they were most probably after they should have aired it at 10pm because this is the time that a lot of people sit down and watch television.

Overall I actually really enjoyed this series because I found it interesting however I acknowledge the fact that this program isn't for everyone and that some person won't find it quite as interesting as I did because it isn't to their taste.

Manhunter Review

Manhunter is a 1986 Crime Thriller based on Thomas Harris' novel Red Dragon. Written and directed by Michael Mann. The film stars William Peterson who plays Will Graham who is a FBI profiler responsible for the capture of serial killer Hannibal Lecter played by Brian Cox and who is later assigned to capture serial killer Francis Dolarhyde (Tooth Fairy) played by Tom Noonan.

Plot

When a case comes up where they are having to investigate a killer known as 'Tooth Fairy' (Tom Noonan) FBI profiler Will Graham decides to come out of retirement to help out on the case however in the mean time he has to confront someone from his past and meet with a jailed killer who almost had Graham as one of his victims.

Will Graham is a former FBI profiler who retired after a breakdown when being attacked by Dr Hannibal Lecter a cannibalistic serial killer. Will's former FBI superior Jack Crawford comes and searches for him at his Florida home asking for help on a case Graham agrees to help seek out this serial killer. Graham goes to visit Lecktor is in his cell and asks him for insights, Lecter agrees to look into his case files.

Graham travels to the first crime scene in Birmingham when Jack Crawford contacts him telling him of Freddy Lounds involved a journalist that had bitter history with Graham. Lecter warden finds a note in his personal effects and it reads that 'Tooth Fairy' has an admiration for Lecter and an interest in Graham. Part of the note is missing and is analysied to see what Lecter has removed It is found to be an instruction to communicate through the personals section of the National Tattler, the newspaper run by Freddie Lounds.

They plan to fake an advertisment to replace Lecter however soon realising that Dolarhyde will know it is fake without the proper book code. Graham interviews Lounds during which he gives 'Tooth Fairy' a fake profile in order to stir things up. Lounds is then kidnapped by 'Tooth Fairy' and when he wakes up in the killers home he is set on fire in a wheelchair and killed his body is then rolled into the parking garage of the newspaper as a warning. 

They crack Lecktor code message to 'Tooth Fairy' it is the home address of Graham with the intruction to kill the family, the message ends 'Save yourself, kill them all.' Graham rushes back to his family home to find that they are all safe but terrified. At his job Francis Dolarhyde approaches a blind co-worker and offers her a lift home, they go to his house where Reba is oblivious to her surroundings of videos of his next victims. Dolarhyde is confused by this new found relationship though it helps to suppress his bloodlust. After some research Graham realises that 'Tooth Fairy' has an overwhelming desire for acceptance and therefore factors it into the murders. Dolarhyde is watching and sees that another co-worker takes Reba home, he mistakes them kissing and therefore gets jealous murdering the man and abducting Reba telling her that Francis is gone, forever. 

Graham realises that someone must have seen these home movies and there set out to find where, they figure that it is in a lab in St. Louis when Dolarhyde works. Graham works out which employees have seen the movies and then gets his home address. At his home Dolarhyde tries to kill Reba with a piece of broken glass. Graham lunges through a window when seeing this Dolarhyde injures Crawford and kills two police officers. Dolarhyde returns to the kitchen with the intention to shoot Graham however he misses due to his injuries and is killed himself as Graham returns the fire. Reba, Graham and Crawford are attented by paramedics before Graham returns home and retires permantely. 

Stills from the film. 

Visual Techniques 

A big focus on the film is the work that they do on the forensic team run by the FBI to help track down the killer. This highlights the effect that this cases have on Graham. This then highlights the similarities between him and his enemies. 

Thoughout the film the use of colour used is heavily stylized this is because it conveys a sense of duality. The scenes that are shared between Will Graham and his wife Molly there is a light blue while there was an unsettling green used for scenes between himself and killer Francis Dolarhyde. It has been observed that the colour blue is associated with Molly, sex and their family home while green is used for searching and discovering, the colour of his shirt at the start of the investigating and the green tone of the interior shots of the Atlanta police station. It is known that this helps identify the character of Will Graham with the 'goodness' of the natural world and that the Dolarhyde is in the city with all of the sickness and bad things happens. Originally the meanings behind the colouring were critisced however as the years have gone on people have grown to accept it.

Blue vs Green - Visual Techniques

The film is able to draw close attention to the relationships of Graham and Dolarhyde. This is because in the film Michael Mann has chosen to emphasise the novel's symbiotic relationships of Graham/Lecter and Dolarhyde by using this visual techniques of the blues and the green alongside screen acting where being subtle plays a key role.

Something that Michael Mann does very well is the soundtracks in his films, in this film in particular the soundtrack dominates the entire film. The reason behind this is so that the audience knows when to react and when to distance themselves from the film. 

I think that the way the sound and visual techniques are used within this film are really important because it is a lot different to anything I have ever seen before. I like the way Michael Mann does this in all of his films but especially in this one because although it wasn't received as well as people hoped it would when it first came out, over the years people have come to like it more because they believe that it is very unique within it's ways.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091474/synopsis?ref_=ttpl_pl_syn

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhunter_(film)

Test Shoots (FMP)

As I had an idea set out I thought that it would be a good idea to get some test shoots. The idea for this was to have a couple of ideas going into my final major. The style of the shoots was a good way to see if that was what I wanted for my final major. The concept I carried out was what I wanted in my final project. The location in my final major will be different because I have decided that it will be better to film at Matt's house than mine because it is much more spacious. 

The final project will be a lot more detailed although have some similar concepts such as the door opening/shutting, the phone ringing and running up the stairs. This ideas will have alot more detail to them as well. In my test shoots I didn't record any sound however I took it straight from the internet just so I could get an idea of what the type of sounds I would need. In my final major I will be producing the vast majority of the sound because I think it is important because it is a horror film. 

When it came to the editing, I played around with the source to see how real I could make it sound. I made sure that the ambient sound wasn't too overpowering and was just in the background. I also made sure that the sound effects were a bit louder and a lot more powerful because they were the most important parts. Alongside this I also but the opacity up and turned the brightness down, this was so that it look a little more scary because it was shot in daylight and a lot of horror films are shot at night. 

This is my test shot video.