Dexter: Morning Routine

We found that the morning routine in Dexter was a clever way to hint to as who the killer was in our film. The subtle hints as to a murderers way of killing is through the everyday life activities of preparing for a day at work. Examples of these are through using flossing material to look as if it could be used in a murderous activity such as strangling, squeezing red fruits to make a smoothie which looks like bloody parts of the body, or cutting in to bacon to look as if cutting in to flesh. We decided as a group that doing something along these lines would be a creative idea, so we decided to experiment with ideas similar to these ourselves. We came up with ideas such as using a close up filing nails to seem as if it is sawing a body part, using red nail varnish to look as if it is blood etc.

American Psycho - Intro to Patrick Bateman

We found that the technique used in the movie "American Psycho" of showing a contrast between the everyday routine of a normal man with the hidden life of him being a psychopath murderer, is an effective way of showing how a killer is not necessarily based upon one appearing as a typical unpresentable killer like in many movies. As we are using a woman in our movie, showing Hope's routine of getting ready would be a good idea as it would allow us to show how indifferent she is to an ordinary teenage girl.

Why We Picked Horror For A Genre

As a group we came to the decision that Horror was the best genre for us after brainstorming ideas and watching various movie clips to check out different styles. We knew our main aim was to create a clear obvious opening sequence which linked to the genre chosen, this led us to believe that the genre had many conventions we found to be of interest to us. It would allow us to experiment with sound, graphics, styles and use abstract ideas in order to create an experimental piece. To add to that the genre also interests me personally, so found that making an opening sequence of this kind would be enjoyable.  

Fonts

We decided researching and making a personal font for the credits in our opening sequence was a good idea in order to create a sense of our genre of horror. This is seen as an important stage when editing our film. We want the genre to be clear from simply looking at the writing and creating a sense of individuality.

Character Creation

Hope (Main Character)
Hope is an ironic name for the girls character within our film. She has been through a lot due to the incident involving her being raped. The name also resembles innocence, which also resembles her style of clothing which is pure. This contrasts with the idea of Hope planning the death of her friends.

Velna
Hope's former best friend. Hope aims to isolate Velna after being rejected by her after being raped. Velna is an intelligent character.

Charlie (Target 3) Sport Orientated. Ends paralyzed.

Aleksander. 

Velna's boyfriend. He is a very strong minded character.

Emma.

The innocence of the group of friends. She is a plain and simple character with no ambitions in life.

Our name choice was vital for the project in order to characterise our actors. We tried to find meaning behind names in order to build upon aspirations and personalities of characters and to convey a message.

In order to avoid cliches I decided that researching what cliches to avoid would be a good idea. So as a group we researched 'horror movie cliches' on the internet and found a very helpful website which told us which things to avoid. This helped us in order to distance our ideas to ones previously made.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning Opening Sequence

Se7en (Opening Credits)

We found that the example of the opening of the movie Se7en was a very good example of the effect we wish to create in our media project. It was successful in creating the mood of a horror movie and the effect of the video led the viewer to feel curious about the outcome of the movie. The music being quite jumpy also leads the viewer to feel uncomfortable, along with the jumpcuts which create a tense environment. The mixture of the graphic effects and different close ups of objects is also an idea my group would like to try out. We thought this may be helpful in order to hide the identity of the killer within our film.

T arget Audience.

The film may appeal to those aged between 15 to 29 years of age, both male and female. The reason for this assumption is that the storyline is based upon a teenage group who deal with issues which relate to teenage life such as popularity within school, relationships and friendship. It could also interest those who study film in further education or as a hobby, as it deals with many issues relating to adolescence. Furthermore those who enjoy the thrill of a slasher movie may be interested in the movie, but due to the teenage appeal of being able to relate with characters it is likely that older audiences may not be impressed by the violence, bad language and sexual references. On the other hand it is possible that the movie may appeal to a slightly older age group, as they may feel a sense of nostalgia due to experiencing the 1980’s slasher movies such as: Halloween, Scream etc. It is also clear that this film is inappropriate for young children and the elderly generation of people due to the themes it presents. 
The film may have difficulties reaching box office standards due to it being an independent movie, meaning the film has been made on a very low budget and no well known actors or settings have been used. Furthermore, British movies are generally less successful than American movies. These reasons lead to the conclusion that the movie will not bring in audiences as well as other movies.


The film Se7en has a similar theme to the film HOPE, so we believe our target audience should follow a similar pattern. This backs up our idea about who the film may appeal to. We can see on average that the movie Se7en appealed mainly to those aged between 15-29  and also on average adults up to the age of 45 also found the movie satisfying.




VotesAverage
Males 213,945 8.7
Females 33,271 8.5
Aged under 18 2,940 9.0
Males under 18 2,423 9.0
Females under 18 492 8.5
Aged 18-29 149,733 8.8
Males Aged 18-29 129,087 8.9
Females Aged 18-29 19,984 8.6
Aged 30-44 81,365 8.6
Males Aged 30-44 70,262 8.6
Females Aged 30-44 10,343 8.3
Aged 45+ 12,933 8.0
Males Aged 45+ 10,658 8.0
Females Aged 45+ 2,117 7.6
IMDb staff 46 8.5
Top 1000 voters 863 8.0
US users 72,139 8.6
Non-US users 148,752 8.7
IMDb users 300,140 8.7

Our ideas