Obstacles

We had an issue in our filming process because we had planned to film this weekend, on March 1st-2nd. I had found someone who had a drone for our opening shot of the car. But me and Sebastian met up this Wednesday and tried the drone, and the camera quality was not what we were expecting. The camera had an orange shade in the daytime and would be completely dark at night. We were not able to film on Wednesday due to this, so we postponed to next week, instead filming next week

So now we have to either film another scene to compensate or find another drone. Which caused us to have to begin filming Wednesday of this upcoming week 3/5. And possibly on the weekend of 3/8-9

We wanted to create a scene similar to this car, except while its driving, with the title appearing from the bottom of the car, using Adobe After Effects, while the drone is stopped, the title being "Erebus," in red, like blood, to show the genre of the movie clearly, which is psychological thriller/horror. This scene would appear near the end of the opening scene after the main character Leo gets in the car to call his therapist as he runs away from the demon Erebus. The car would speed off, and we would see the title under it as the car drove away.

We will try to find another drone to help us create this because we really like this idea.

We also had another incident where we didn't agree on a particular story. We had all agreed to do horror, and we thought that a slasher was perfect; however, our story was very iffy, and we didn't totally agree on it. We thought the story was lazy and didn't develop much thought. So we scrapped the idea and went with Adam's idea of doing a story where we take something that usually feels safe and comfortable and make it into something that makes you feel uncomfortable and in imminent danger. I decided that it would be while eating food. We all agreed that we should film at a restaurant, but after calling many restaurants to ask, none of them agreed to close so that we could film the empty restaurant. So we had to make it into a family dinner. 

Thank you for reading this. Hopefully we will be able to film on Wednesday, so we can get this over with. Our next blog will be about.

Scene Development

The first scene would be of Leo eating dinner at the table with his mom, his dad, and his sister. The table is set with plates and silverware and food and drinks. Then it cuts to his family being gone off the table in an instant, a door opens, and a man with his face covered in a black suit (Erebus), the demon, is standing behind the door. 

The demon then gets closer and closer, and we see Leo getting more scared, until he even starts to shake. The demon is now standing where the dad was before. Then, back at the dining table, the dad appears, sitting where he was before but with the demon behind him holding a knife to his neck. Leo yells "STOP," and in the blink of an eye, the family is back where they were sitting, flabbergasted at Leo and why he just yelled. He runs out of the house, embarrassed and scared for his life.

In the next scene, he gets in the car and slams the door. As he drives away, we see through the rearview mirror the demon sitting in the backseat. His hands shaking as he grabs his phone to dial a number, and he picks it up, and he says, "It's back." That scene is of him calling his therapist because the demon is haunting him once again.

This is where that scene would take place, so you can see through the demons pov in the backseat through the rearview mirror.

Thank you for reading. My next blog will be about obstacles we faced in this project. I hope you enjoyed!

Film Location

For filming locations, we thought of multiple: my house, Sebas’ house, and Mia's house. Since the last project (music project) we filmed at Mias, we said we should meet there again. However, we were also going to film in the car, and we chose Sebas’ car since he will be the actor for the main character, and my car is a manual, and he doesn’t know how to drive a manual.

Mias house has a dining table that is fitting for the scene. And it is dark lighting for the main first shot. The porch and driveway will also be used for Leo running away.

For the car scene, we will most likely film it from the inside of Sebas' car on Weston Road or another main road. We will probably film the part where he uses his phone stopped on the side of the road and uses sounds of the car still moving to make it look like he is still going. As for the outside of the car, we will film from the side of the road or with a drone.

If we have time to show the therapist's office at the end, the office would be in Mia's dad's office in her house because he works from home and his office looks like an actual office in a building. 

That's it for this blog; the next one will be about our scene development. Thank you again for taking your time to read my blog!

Audio Elements

For audio, we were thinking for the family dinner table; the audience will hear the family talking, the places and silverware, and gulps of food and drinks. These n oises will be diegetic and will be coming directly from the actors voices and foley sounds.

There is an ominous musical buildup until it goes silent and the family dissapears, leaving the kid alone. Then the killer appears, and we were thinking of adding a sting of a knife sharpening before we see the man about to kill the father, adding a lot of anxiety and buildup to the moment when he drops the knife and we hear the main character yell.

Then the killer leaves and the family appears, confused on why the kid yelled. The kid then runs out of the house, and you can hear the door slam. We are going to use Foley for the footsteps as well as the door closing. We want to make them sound loud and fast to add how frantic the character is moving. And maybe make him topple over some furniture to make it seem more realistic. We could implement the foley noise by using a shoe hitting the ground or using heavy shoes to make it louder than it should be.

We got that from this video: Foley Footsteps with Susan Fitz-Simon

After he runs out, he goes to the car and slams the door. He also starts the car, and he steps on the gas, so we can add that with Foley or use a database on the internet. We also hear the phone ringing when he calls the therapist and the conversation he has with her. This will all be diegetic noise, and we will most likely add a low, scary song in the back to keep the audience on their feet throughout the film opening.

That is it for today. Thank you for reading. Next blog will be about our filming location. We will most likely film the first part of it on Wednesday, the 5th. So be ready!

Mise En Scene: Set

 The set for our film openings will begin with the main character and his family sitting at their dinner table, with the son sitting at the end of the table, and the rest of the family sitting at other parts of the table, with no particular order. We will film this inside of a house (obviously) and then we will move to the outside as the story progresses.

The set then changes when he goes outside, and we will probably just use the front yard of the house we shot the first scene at. We can see he lives at a nice house, and we see the porch, and we see him slam the door. 

He then runs to his car (we will probably use Sebas’ car), and he will call the therapist, and have a conversation with her on the way to see her. Talking about the demon that is haunting him. He would be calling her at the time he is on the way there to show his desperation and sense of urgency because he truly feels that he is in danger after the demon looked like it was going to kill his father.

That’s it for today, i hope you enjoyed reading once again, and next blog will be about the audio elements that we are planning to use in our opening.

Mise En Scene: Costuming

 

For costuming, we have decided to do like a regular teenage look for the boy, just with more plain colors, to show how he is empty inside, but still a regular kid. Especially since he is only having dinner with his family, and they will also wear casual clothes. Something like this picture will be what he wears.

The most important and influential part of our costuming will be the villain/demon, and he will be wearing all black, and a black suit, with his face being covered either by light, or a mask because his name represents the god of darkness, and because black represents mystery/evil/grief in film color theory. To fulfill this, he will also not show his face, with either a mask, or backlight that wont let the viewer see his face, like in Psycho (1960)

If we have enough time in the film opening, we could also introduce the therapist. She will be wearing light clothes, and in a clean room. She will be very put together, since we want to create a realistic portrayal of a therapist.

Thank you guys for reading again, next time I will delve deeper into mise en scene, most likely about setting, and how we will do all the shots of the story.

Main Characters!

Main Characters & Character Development 

 The name we chose for our main character was Leo, we chose Leo because it means Lion, which is a symbol of strength and courage, this is shown through Leos character development throughout the main story. This name stuck with us because he is battling against a demon. It is also a short but still memorable name.

As for the Villain, the man in the suit without a face, we named him Erebus. We found this name and we thought it was perfect. Erebus is the name of the Greek mythological god of darkness. This name fits our character like a glove. Erebus is a dark, haunting demon, that stays hidden in the shadows throughout most of the full story. Sort of like the Smile demon in that creepy, never knowing when he will show up, kinda way.

We want leo to have character development throughout the story, we emphasized that Leo starts off as a normal boy, but he seems empty inside. He is a boy with no feelings and weird things happening to him, he is not very close to his family, and is a low maintenance person. But by the end of the story, we want Leo to show weakness and empathy, but also stand up to adversity. 

We created this mood board to show his personality and his problems.

We also made the therapist another main character, as she is the one that helps Leo throughout the main story. She plays an important role, but we decided to keep her unnamed in the intro. She is a person that Leo goes to at the end of the intro for help on what is happening to him throughout the story. The therapist tries to help him, but she realizes that she cannot help with something that is paranormal, instead she helps leo keep a mental state where he is strong enough to beat the demon haunting him in the story. She is good at her Job, and her and Leo have a great connection which makes her attempt to help him succeed in the end.

The villain is creepy, and his intention is to terrorize others because he himself is miserably stuck in a paranormal state. He always appears lurking, and he always likes to scare people before he hurts them or ruins their life. He doesn’t kill, but he makes people end their own lives from the misery. He doesn’t give up, and is very powerful, making people see anything he wants them to see, like the Smile demon. He can also see peoples thoughts, and visions, giving him even more power.

That’s it for today, Next blog will be about the mise en scene elements that we wish to implement into our film opening. Thank you again for reading!