Plot Summary

My group and I have been doing our research and planning and have finally come up with the plot summary of our film;


Emma and her boyfriend Ben decide to have an early night in, until they are woken by a mysterious phone call and appearance at the front door, from Emma's sister Bel. All may seem like a normal night to Emma and Ben at the start of the night, but they are shortly mistaken, as they start to recieve more than one mysterious phone call and numerous door bell rings..this night could possibly become the night of HELL!


The plot will be changed or added to to at a later date!

Brief Plot

For my research and planning my group and I have come up with our plot step by step which will then be followed on in a different post of a full summary of the plot.

- The plot line at the moment of my main film is that the film will start off when its late at night and Emma and Ben are in bed asleep


- Emma and Ben wake up from hearing the phone ringing, Emma gets up and goes downstairs to answer the phone..no one is there
- Whilst Emma is downstairs picking up the phone the door bell rings, Emma is confused whether or not to open the door as she doesn't know who it may be so calls Ben downstairs to open the door
- The camera cuts to showing where the killer is (alley way near the house) on the phone trying to ring Emma
- Ambrose opens the door only to find that it is Bel, Emma's sister. Emma is relieved but confused as to why her sister is at the door as she thought Bel was staying at a friends
- Ben, Emma and Bel go into the living room to chat
- A Few seconds later Bel and Ben decide to go into the kitchen leaving Emma by herself
- The camera jumps to the killer walking towards the house
- The phone rings again, Emma picks up and hears breathing
- The camera cuts to the killer outside the house
- The door bell rings
- Ben and Bel don't hear the door bell ringing as they are in the kitchen with loud music on
- Emma walks out of the living room to open the front door, only to find that nobody is outside
- The camera cuts to showing the killer outside the front door
- Emma walks back into the living room (sits on sofar) and hears tapping on the front door, something flys through the letter box
- Emma gets up and looks at what has just been posted through the letter box
and looks at it confusingly
- Ben walks out of the kitchen to find Emma looking scared, Emma shows Ambrose what has been posted and thinks someone is playing a nasty trick on her and tells her to look through the letter box
- As Emma looks through the letter box, the killer pops up through the letter box and appears with ''Hello Emma''....


The camera will always jump cut to the different actions that is going on between the killer getting closer and to the characters inside the house.

Characters

For my planning my group and I have come up with characters and the names of the characters;

George Bayman - KILLER
Emma Pennington - Main girl
Bel Pennington - Emma's sister
Ambrose Fullalove - Ben (Emma's boyfriend)

Comedy and Sc-fi Cliches

Today in lesson we were looking at joe Queenan's guide to comedy and Sci-Fi cliches, finding out what is included in a stereotypical comedy cliche. Our task was to go through and highlight the key factors of what happens and what you would expect to happen in a comedy cliche.


The main key factors that i highlighted from Joe Queenan's comedy cliches; 

• The contemporary comedy is generally about a young man who is a jerk, a loser or a shmuck. The contemporary comedy deals with the loser who must part company with his loser friends in order to become a man. 
• Little boys in comedies tend to be mop-topped weenies who pout a lot and want their dads to take them to see the yankees the way he promised to, but didn't. 
• Comedies must have a gimmick. A person who wakes up in the morning and some seismic shift has occured in his life. 
• Lots of stuff about bodily functions. Lots of physical comedy. 
• Comedies often involve idiots who work in tandem, the one guy is a slob or a bozo or a pig and the other guy would like to be less of a slob/bozo/pig. 
• Typical comedy films; The 40 Year Old Virgin, The Hangover!

The main key factors that I highlighted in Joe Queenan's guide to Sc-Fi cliches; 

• There is always something out there in the classic science fiction film. When the alien death ship makes its first appearance it will be hundreds of times larger than the vessel sent to defeat it. 
• Women play an important role in sci-fi movies. Feisty, resourceful, indomitable women have pivotal roles in all the Star Wars films, the Aliens franchise and the Terminator movies.
• Callow youths play a major role in sc-fi films, they will question authority and they will lock horns with their superiors.

Settings - Images

• Tonight one of my group members (Katie Coombs) will be taking images of the settings of where our film is going to be taking place and we will then be uploading them onto our blogs. 
• Katie will be taking pictures at night when its dark outside to show the pictures to be more realistic. 
• The pictures will be taken of the alley way where we will see the killer walking towards the house, a picture of the street which will lead tension to the audience to show the killer getting nearer to the house, a picture outside the house to show where the film will be taking place and lastly the living room where the main two girl characters will be placed.

Planning - Representations

• The type of representation of characters that my group and I have decided to use are stereotypical girls, for example the girls from Sorority Row are very similar character wise as the characters that will be used in my own film. 
• The way that the girls are dressed; slutty, not much clothing, short tops and skirts, heels, boots, represent in a simialr way how the character Bel in my own film will be portrayed and look. 

• The girls played in Sorority Row are a similar age to the characters Emma and Bel that will be played in my own film.
•  They are portrayed in a similar way, personalities being; confident,out going, vulnrable. 
• I will be using similar camera shots and settings to represent my film as horror. 
• My group and I have decided to use George Bayman as the 'killer' as we think he will be the best person to act as the killer! 
• I will be using two girls playing the lead roles who will be in the house acting as the vulnrable, scared teenagers! One of the leading girl roles will be played by myself and the other leading role will be a student.

Different film genres

For the past 3 lessons at the start of each lesson we have studied Joe Queenan's guide to different film genres such as; romance, horror, action, and crime and have had to highlight the main features in the articles. The next lesson we will be looking at sci-fi. I am finding it helpful to study each genre as it gives you an idea of the stereotypical features of that particular genre. As my group and I have chosen to do our film on horror we have been looking at typical cliches included in a horror film.

• Horror movies are divided into serveral very different categories and these being: slasher, zombie, vampirwe, mainstream horror, asian horror and revolting Eli Roth Films. Horror is the one genre in which the absence of cliches would ruin everything. 
• Small children are oftern evil in horror movies. It is very rare to hear a baritone or heldentenor on the soundtrack of a horror movie. 
• Horror films work best in rural settings, because rusticsare scary in and of themselves, and because there are lots of frightening farm tools on hand and also because there are no neighbours to beg for help when the flaying and amateur surgery get into full swing.
• Horror movies almost always contain a scene in which a woman washes her face in a sink, and when she straightens up and looks in the mirror, a girl missing half her face is staring directly back at her. If she decides to take a bath, the tub will soon fill up with hair, blood or a woman with purple skin and one eye missing. 
• Horror movies also contain lots of scenes in which the living dead or the living undead zip past an open door or window, but nobody sees them. It is always a bad idea to go to sleep in horror films, or accept a ride from strangers, or respond to a personal ad. It is an even worse idea to get in an elevator, a popular hideout of the promiscuously dead. 

From what is said from Joe Queenan's guide to horror cliches,it has given me a better understanding of the typical cliches you will find in a horror film. I think that Sarah, Kate and I, could use many of the conventions stated to make our film a clear and effective horror film.