The Woods- full storyline

In 1994, A group of four friends decide to visit the site where a series of murders took place. The murderer was never found. The group of friends decide to camp there to scare themselves. Penny finds an old looking pendent, she looks up and sees a figure run towards a tree, but disappears.
The group set up the campfire. Penny begins to tell the story of what happened, the film flashes back to 1974. There is a voice over from Penny as she tells the story, the flash backs some of the previous group's (1974) deaths. Penny doesn't finish the story as a noise distracts her. Eddy offers to check it out "I'll be right back", he never comes back.
Shaun goes to collect firewood, on his way back he is tackled by the creature. Kimberly and Penny witness this and are terrified. The two attempt to run away from the campsite. They stop in between two trees in order to catch their breath. Close ups of the two trying to comfort each other. Kimberly begins to cough, she looks down at her stomach to find a tree branch through her. Kimberly collapses, Penny drops with her trying to stop the bleeding. She looks up, seeing the ghostly figures of Eddy and Shaun. Penny runs and trips up, dropping the necklace, the murderer and spirits close in on the final girl.
2014, yet another group of friends arrive at the woods. A member of the group spots the pendent and picks it up, restarting the cycle.

Research into teen horror sub-genre

Plot: The plot of a teen horror film typically includes a group of teenagers doing something wrong, e.g. drugs, trespassing in abandoned areas, staying out after curfew and as a result landing themselves in a deadly situation. The films always include all of the characters with all of the teens dying at some point until one is left.

Conventions:

·       Blood/Gore

·       Relationships

·       Weapons

·       Violence

·       Darkness

·       Chase scenes

·       Death

Iconography is often used in teen horrors, where a certain murder weapon, for example is used to identify the killer, this is demonstrated in A Nightmare on Elm Street where Freddy Krueger’s hand made of knives is his signature weapon.

Characters: The main characters in teen horrors are teenagers and usually a mix of males and females however many may have a group of all females but it is rare to see a group of all males in horror, this is because horror as a genre leans more towards targetting males by showing females as sexual objects. Also female characters are easy targets for male villains and so often play the part of the innocent victim. In spite of females mostly being portrayed as weak and vulnerable it is very common that the last character to survive is female, this appears in films such as Scream, Eyes of a Stranger and Halloween.
Stereotypes are played upon in teen horrors and particularly in American teen horrors we see the presence of the jock and his girlfriend, the nerd, the drug taker and the misfit, typically the character is killed off in a way that reflects their personality for example in Final Destination 3 two female characters who are portrayed as vain and ditsy are killed by being incinerated in sunbeds which reflects their vain personalities.

Location: The locations within the film tend to be everyday places where teens would be such as at home, school/college or a holiday camp, these places are turned from safe, normal locations into places of danger and allow the teen audience to imagine their safe hangout places in place of the ones in the film.
 

 

Research into the effect of music in films

The Effect of Music in Films

Music in films has the ability to expose characters feelings, actions and a films tensions. It creates a certain atmosphere and enables the film to get the audience to experience and establish the relevant mood. 

It also gives the audience the ability to connect emotionally to the characters and their situation and can reinforce the story/message. It can enhance the ambiance and the audience can relate to the sounds and get pulled into the story.

Music can also set the scene, for example the sound of bagpipes over a shot of misty green highlands may give the impression that the film is set in Scotland.

Music in horror films

The daily mail published an article online in 2010 which talks about scientists exploration into why certain music in horror films scare us.

The article begins by saying:

"From the screeching violins of Psycho to the crashing chords of Jaws, film-makers have long relied on disturbing soundtracks to heighten suspense and terror.Now, scientists think they know why the music used in scary movies is so good at making our flesh creep.They have shown that the harsh, discordant and unexpected sounds used in horror soundtracks imitate the screams of frightened animals."

The article goes on to tell you about Professor Daniel Blumstein who led the study at the University of California, Los Angeles where he studied the the soundtracks of 102 of the worlds most popular movies of different genres. The study also involved composer Peter Kaye at Kingston University, London. They looked into the music in films as well as special effects and screams. The analyst showed that horror films had the most noisy female screams and a higher than expected number of abrupt shifts up and down in pitch. The study concluded that the use of non-linear sounds was not random- but used to enhance the emotional impact of scenes. 

'Non-linearities are commonly produced when animals are under duress, such as the fear screams produced when animals are attacked by predators,' he said.
'In mammals, and possibly also in birds, when you push too much air through your larynx you produce these non-linear sounds and its a pretty unbluffable signal of fear,' he added.
'It may be that film makers intuitively realise that they can use these types of sounds.'

Another article named 'Secrets of the scary screen: why movies can frighten us' on www.wired .co.uk gives their opinion on sound in horror films. They say:

"In everyday life, music and sound are often used subliminally. Horror films use the fundamentals. They tend to mimic dangerous, natural sounds that have an influence on us through their ability to play on primal fears and signify danger.

For example, The Exorcist used recordings of angry bees and screaming people, then threw them together; people didn't know what it was but they reacted to it because such jarring sounds put us on edge."

       



Sound in Horror films.

Sound:

The use of sound in horror films is very important. This is because it can change how a scene (or entire film) is seen. Diegetic sounds tend to be exaggerated, this allows tension to build. Examples of these are loud snapping branches, footsteps and creaking. Non-Diegetic is equally important, as it can make the audience feel scared and can also make the audience jump. For example the shower scene in Psycho.

Music can change the feel of a scene completely. For example a scene could be extremely violent, however happy/fun music played over this would make scene funny. This is shown in clockwork orange ('The thieving magpie' by Gioachino Rossini) in the river scene and reservoir dogs ('Stuck in the middle with you' by Stealers Wheel) when a man is being tortured.

Silence is also important in horror films. This is because the use of silence provides a heavy tone to the films. We expect the jump scares and suspense when music is used, and do not expect it when there isn't any sound or music. This can catch us off guard, and build suspense and terror even more than music does. Silence is also used to convey emotions.

In the Cornucopia Bloodbath scene in 'The Hunger Games', (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anqrs5AdYB4) there is no diegetic sound used. The sound within the films world is not there, however we are presented with eerie sounding non-diegetic music. This is used so that we do not focus on the violence in this scene, or the amount of deaths shown. The music is used to show the panic in the character, Katniss, and the reactions of those participating or watching.
In our film, we are thinking of using this towards the end of the film, once the final character is alone and attempting to get away.

 

Is anyone there? film idea

Genre: Horror/Thriller

•  Setting the scene. Characters are setting up the Ouija board, candles and room.
• "Is anyone there?"
• Asking questions. Are you male? How old are you? Are you mad? How did you die? 
• Are you peaceful? Will anyone be harmed? (pointer goes straight up the board, lights go off so that we don't see where it goes)
• Lights come on Matt is missing.
• Was that you? Prove you're here. 
• Fire/TV comes on
• Doors open. "I thought you locked that"
• ch 2 Attempts to leave, is attacked by shadow figure.
• Dialogue.
• The last two are thrown back, one cracking their head and dying.
• Final character attempts to close the board but fails and is then killed.
• Ending. Ouija board goes towards 'Goodbye' closing the board. Cutting the connection to the 'spirit world'

The Woods - first idea

A group of freinds visit a site of a brutal murder of which the murderer was never caught. One person of the group claims to see the people that have died. Stupidly, the group of friends decide to camp out at this sight. The person that claims to see the victims tells the story of what happened. "We'll all die out here." The malevolent spirit of the murderer (only seen by one character) starts to pick of the characters one by one. Leaving the last character to try and escape, but will they?

Jeff the killer film Idea

A new boy (Jeff) is starting college, standing in front of the building he looks up, we can only see his back.
Two girls are stood outside the college when Jeff, accidentally bumps into them, dropping a few of his books, one of the girls bends down to pick them up at the same time as him, she looks at him but he jerks his head away quickly, but she glances his face and is visibly shocked.
A few days later she is with the same friend and they are discussing what she saw, when Jeff walks past them again, and the girl who saw him follows after. She stops him and turns him round, but his head is down. We can only see form the back but she is questioning him, getting more and more agitated with his silence.
That night she is looking at news paper articles and sees something, we see her mouth "Jeff" and it cuts a newspaper article about a teenage boy killing a girl and her parents. as the camera cuts back to her we see Jeff behind her, with entirely blacked out eye sockets, and cuts from the corner of his mouth upwards creating a creepy fake smile. The screen cuts to black and back to his face close up.

Voodoo doll - initial idea

Girl finds voodoo doll but thinks nothing of it and puts away in her bedside table but starts to be bullied at school. She starts to use the voodoo doll to get revenge on the bullies by saying their name then sticking a pin it which only hurts the victims however one day the bullying is so bad that she rushes home and takes her anger out on the doll and uses the main bullies name, by doing so she goes too far and accidentally kills the main bully using the voodoo doll.

Group 15 photo