Progress

I am in the process of typing up my script for the opening of my film with the rest of the group. We are unsure of the name of the film and the main character, but have placeholders that we may use. Our current name for the film is Slick Icing (icing meaning cocaine) and Charlie is the current name of the main character. The premise of the film is a gang of drug dealers work for Hao Zheng, a Chinese drug boss. Charlie has been under performing with his amount of drugs that he delivers to the boss (as revealed by his monologues), but thinks that he has got the best quality and amount of drugs by far this time. After confidently placing his stash on the table before Zheng, another dealer places his next to Charlie's. It is much bigger than Charlie's, and the other dealers place theirs down, which are also much bigger than his. Zheng tells Charlie he is going to have to fire him, and all the other dealers begin to laugh at him, the laughter gradually getting louder until Charlie can't take it anymore. He stands up and shoots Hao Zheng in the chest several times and leaves.

UPDATE: We have decided to call the film Chasing the Dragon for the multiple meanings it would have.  According to Wikipedia, Chasing the Dragon "refers to inhaling the vapor from heated morphine, heroin, oxycodone or opium that has been placed on a piece of foil." The title is also a reference to Hao Zheng, who is implied to be the leader of a Chinese criminal organisation, or triad. The leader of a triad is called a "Dragon Head". My group and I were thinking Charlie would not have actually killed him but, at the risk of sounding cliché, instead imagined the whole scenario due to his excessive use of drugs. It is simply revealed that Charlie detests Hao Zheng from the opening scene, and is paranoid about being let go.

New Idea (Crime Film)

I've decided to do a different genre of film than horror. I changed my mind because I feel horror is cliché and is an overdone genre post 2007 (roughly), especially the found footage type (Apollo 18, Paranormal Activity, The Last Exorcism etc.) which is what I was planning on doing. I also felt my idea revolved mostly around the location, for example I decided to do a horror film because of the location and began to write my script around the location. Whilst this could be seen as a good thing, I felt it was uninspired and dull. I would also be working alone on this project, doing all the script, angles and editing by myself and felt the work load would become overwhelming. 

Other genres I have considered are action and crime because these genres interest me and I feel like there is a lot of freedom. I went against action because it is very difficult to do considering school equipment and action tends to rely heavily on explosions and violence, I didn't want to cheapen my film by constantly having badly edited in effects. I also wanted my film to be dialogue dependent and psychological, which I felt was easier to achieve through a crime film. 

I share this idea of doing a crime film with the new member of my group, and we are in agreement in the direction we want to take our project. We are doing a film opening, and have begun to draw some inspiration from films such as American Psycho, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Inglorious Basterds. The premise of the film intro is a paranoid schizophrenic man goes to a gang meeting to deliver his drugs, under performs as per usual and is let go by his boss.

Storyboard Plan for "Redoubt"

I have begun planning my storyboard for Redoubt. It is a written law in the film industry to display your production company name at the start of the trailer, and I plan on following this rule to make my trailer look more professional  This will be the first frame showed in my trailer. The next frame will be the text shown below, giving some information about the location and the story behind the footage that is watched in the trailer.

The text implies that something bad is going to happen to the protagonists  who the audience are to assume are the students mentioned. This is very reminiscent of the style of the start of the trailer for The Blair Witch Project. A lot of the more recent horror films follow the found footage convention, such as the Paranormal Activity franchise, Grave Encounters, and The Bay.

Naming of my film

I have decided to call my film Redoubt. The reason behind this is that the location was a redoubt. By definition a redoubt is; "A temporary or supplementary fortification, typically square or polygonal and without flanking defenses." This has led me to question my original choice of antagonist  which was going to be a female (either a witch or a possessed girl). On the Essex Ghost Hunter website they have reported a commanding officer shouting, and I am not sure whether to change my original antagonist to the commanding officer.

Horror Film Trailer (Idea and Location)

I am planning on doing a horror film in the style of The Blair Witch Project. On the Blair Witch trailer it says "An entire movie filmed with a hand-cam." This is called "Cinéma vérité" and it is a "style of documentary film making, combining naturalistic techniques with stylized cinematic devices of editing and camerawork." - Wikipedia. This is an increasingly popular style of filming in the genre of horror, as it implies that something bad has happened to the "crew" that were filming the events and the footage was found later on. This is normally displayed at the start of the film - in the trailer for Blair Witch Project the first thing you see is "In October of 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland while shooting a documentary." This foreshadows to the fact that something bad is going to happen in the film ending in the explanation behind the possible demise or disappearance of the filmmakers. 



The entrance to the bunker.

The location for the filming will be North Weald Redoubt, an abandoned fort/bunker that was used for the storage of weapons and ammunition in WW2. It is rumored to be haunted, and would make a good location for a horror film. According to the Essex Ghost Hunters' website "There are numerous reports of footsteps, commanding officers shouting." They state that "Orbs are also a common around the site." To the left is the entrance of the bunker.



One of the rooms inside of the bunker.

The building is covered in graffiti. Some of the graffiti as displayed to the right depicts symbols of the devil. This benefits my filming as it back ups the idea of the area being haunted. The antagonist of my film will be a female, either a witch or a possessed girl. We will be in a large group and will go down into the bunker, confident that the area isn't haunted and find the girl down there. The trailer will mostly be a build up to finding the girl down there. The group will be unable to escape or leave and they will be killed off one by one. I am going to make efficient use of text in my trailer, to build suspense.