Today is the Day

Today is the day that I was going to film but as with everyday in South Florida the weather is unpredictable, we got all of our equipment and actors out on a back road near US-27 to begin filming when the rain started to come down hard, and it didn't stop raining the entire day.I am going to have to postpone my filming and I will add my completed storyboard in my next blog posting.

My Cast

I casted two of my friends to act as the killer and at least one of the victims.

Vicente Faret:

Vicente will most likely be playing the murderer in the story, although we won't ever actually see his face, I feel that his presence as someone who is six foot tall can be made to seem intimidating to the audience.
















Wade Iben:

Wade and his goofy personality (as you can tell by the photo) I believe will be perfect to play one of the victims (I haven't decided if there will be more yet) his ability to contort his facial expressions I believe will help the audience relate to him as a victim.

Finalization of my idea...

So, after many hours of deliberation with myself over what my plot should be, our class had our first group meetings. Going in I still didn't have the best grasp over what I wanted to do with my opening but I was planning on using the input that my peers provided me with to help build it. So once my turn rolled around, ideas just came spewing out, and eventually I found my plot. It is going to be about a serial killer who disguises himself as the victims. I would like the intro to not show the killer, much like "Jaws" never actually shows the entire shark just parts of it's body.

"Jaws" (1975)

I'm going on a trip to California next week so my plan is to film this weekend then edit the next.

Even More Inspiration

In my last posting I discussed how I wanted to incorporate a car chase then quickly realized how unrealistic that was, however in the days since a new bad car experience occurred in my life. While driving down some back road by himself at night my friends car broke down, and the car wouldn't even start when we tried to jump it. So him, another friend of mine, and I were all out there until about 4 in the morning trying to start his car until eventually we had to be picked up by his aunt who lived about an hour away. But, this terrible experience gave me the perfect idea for my film opening, while a kids car brakes down one night he is attacked or some sort of thing like this. One scene I am taking inspiration from is a scene from the first episode of Stranger Things in which Will is kidnapped. 

Stranger Things: (Start from 5:06)

I haven't quite worked out the logistics of it but a picture is beginning to form in my head of what I want to see out of it. According to psychologytoday.com, fear of death, the dark, creepy crawly things, scary places, disfigurement, dismemberment, suspense, spooky music, lightning and thunder, and fear of the unusual are what makes horror movies scary and I am confident that I can incorporate many of these things into my two minutes. 


Citations:
 Riggio, R. E., Ph.D. (n.d.). The Top Ten Things That Make Horror Movies Scary. Retrieved March 17, 2017, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cutting-edge-leadership/201410/the-top-ten-things-make-horror-movies-scary

Inspiration

I finally have an idea of how I want my opening to start, and I found inspiration in quite an unusual way. Me and my friends were on I-595 blasting the radio, and then a thought popped into my head that no one would want a driver to be thinking at that moment, I thought to myself: "Woah, if I were to crash right now the world would continue turning and the radio coming out of my speakers would continue to play." Then another thought popped into my head: "That would make a really cool movie opening." So after I got home that night I began to look up some movies that had integrated a crash sequence, whether it was intentional or not. The best one's that I found were from movies like Fast and Furious, and The Matrix Reloaded.

The Fast and Furious:

The Matrix Reloaded:

After watching these videos I believe that it would just be super unrealistic to do anything related to a car crash. So then I thought about something a little more realistic like a car breaking down, but this means I have to come up with a whole new idea. 

Why Do Horror Films Make So Much Money?

Another reason that I have elected to make a horror film is because they bring in SO MUCH MONEY. For example, The Blair Witch Project was able to garner an audience without using trailers before the movie was released, the producers of this film made up a website that described the disappearance of three college kids while working on a project for their film class on the Blair Witch. This curiosity and multiple fake news reports gathered the world’s attention. 

When it was announced that the “found footage” of the missing students would be shown in theaters, millions of people went to watch. This marketing strategy allowed the film to gross nearly 250,000,000 dollars on only a 60,000 dollar budget. This film also created a spin-off called Blair Witch which garnered another 40,000,000 dollars.

Another example to show just how much money a horror movie can garner is The Sixth Sense  M. Night Shyamalan's third film (and his highest grossing). This film gained A TON of attention when the plot twist to end all plot twists was revealed to be in this film. 

The film garnered almost 300,000,000 dollars during it's theatrical release and people are still talking about that plot twist today.  The horror film genre is definitely a relevant genre that will be able to gather people's attention. 


Citations: 
The Blair Witch Project (1999). (n.d.). Retrieved March 17, 2017, from http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=blairwitchproject.htm

The Blair Witch Project. (n.d.). Retrieved March 17, 2017, from http://www.blairwitch.com/project/main.html

M. Night Shyamalan. (n.d.). Retrieved March 17, 2017, from http://www.boxofficemojo.com/people/chart/?view=Director&id=shyamalan.htm

Writers Block

With the idea of "the stalker" still fresh in my mind, I decided that it would be a good idea to sit down and start a rough draft of my film opening. Thirty minutes into writing I looked down at my paper and found four words written down "WHAT DO I WRITE?????". Lost in a horrible case of writer's block, I laid down in my bed and closed my eyes and began to envision what I thought I wanted my opening to look like, and to my amazement I actually had ideas start to fill my head (albeit most of them were not very good ideas). I took inspiration from a film opening that we watched in class called "Scream". It utilizes long takes, voice over, and nearly no sound to create a sense of fright and terror without actually ever showing what appears to be the antagonist. I plan to use techniques such as these to help create a sense of fear in my audience.

A Funny Story

With my choice to make a horror film a unique opportunity arose for me to bring a former character of mine to the screen. I have been acting since about the age of six, in movies, commercials, TV shows etc. This allowed me to build up a resume and even have an account on the Internet Movie Database of as its more commonly know: IMDB (its linked if you wanna check it out for yourselves). One of my credits for a movie that I did called "The Test", had quite an unfortunate name. I was credited as the young rapist (it has since been changed to young boy), and for someone on the outside looking in that title might look very peculiar. That's exactly what my friends thought of it when they decided to look me up on google and found the shocking title. I was teased about it for a while but eventually I accepted the fact that it was on the internet and it would be there forever so I may as well get used to it. However, after I conducted my research (which you can find in the previous post) and came to the conclusion that I wanted to make a horror film opening, an opportunity brought itself upon me that I couldn't refuse: I was going to make this film opening an ode to the character that brought me so much torment in past years, the young rapist. Of course the opening will not be about a child sexual predator rather, it will focus on the mannerisms that one might have. One idea that I have been throwing around the past few days among my peers was to incorporate the character through a thriller that could revolve around a stalker. Many of them seem to agree that this would allow me to set a tone of suspense and horror in my film opening.

Beginnings

Hello, my name is Daniel and I'm not the most competent person but I'm gonna give it a shot. Starting this project I have absolutely no clue what I'd like to make. However I do know what I would  like my target audience to be. As a teenager I would like to make a film that appeals to my peers. Upon further research I discovered an over under poll that showed that +47% of millenials attended movies under the horror genre. So, I guess I'm making a horror film.

Citation: Buder, E. (2016, June 22). This Infographic Reveals the Truth About Millennial Moviegoing. Retrieved March 13, 2017, from http://nofilmschool.com/2016/06/movie-theater-millennial-statistics-movio