The Fright Before Christmas

By Beth, Faith and Travis

Production DairyIn my group with Faith, and Travis, we was told to do a film opening with the film genre of Christmas. However we done Christmas with a slight twist of horror. Day 1 - 10/10/16 On this day we wrote out our story boards and planned the whole plot of the film opening. We

had to plan the characters, shots, and script once we had decided the plot of the film. Day 2 - 11/10/16 On this Tuesday we finished off our scripts, and story boards, and planned where we was going

to film. Day 3 - 12/10/16 We filmed a few clips of our beginning scene in the drama studio but we re filmed most of

them because we found a better location later on that was more accurate. Day 4 - 13/10/16 On this day we tried to go back into the dram studio but thee was a lesson on so we had to

find anther location. We had a bit of trouble but then managed to film the rest of the opening scene in Primmer Assembly Hall. This turned out to be a good location because it was dark and we got everything filmed ready to edit it.

Day 5 - 14/10/16 On this day all we did was edit. We got all the music and back ground noises and added them into the film opening.

Day 6 - 17/10/16 On this day we checked that everything was in the right place and made sure all the editing was at the best standard it could be.

Plot

The plot for our film opening was that there would be a little girl and it would be Christmas eve. The little girl would have a dream in a dream this would give the horror effect. It starts off with the little girl and her mother decorating the tree and then the mother would put the little girl to bed. Once she is asleep there would be noises and sounds that wake her up but this is only a dream. Then she will get touched on the hand and see her self walking towards her this again is all a dream. Then the screen will go black and suddenly she will wake up screaming.

Story boards

Script Charlotte: Mummy its Christmas tomorrow, what am I getting? Mother: You'll have to wait and see tomorrow morning, come on lets get this

done, and go to bed. Charlotte: Okay Mother: Bed early, now charlotte Charlotte: Ok mummy Mother: Otherwise you wont get no presents Charlotte: Okay, night Mother: Night

Cast, Location, Props, Shots and Music  Cast: > Mother of Charlotte – Faith

> Charlotte – Beth > Evil Santa – Ben                  

 Locations: In our film prelim task it is supposed to be set in a house and not outside at all. To get this homely look we used behind the stage at school, because it was dark, spacious and many props were already there. However at the beginning, the first scene was filmed in a lighter location with lights to give a sense of it being homely, and not being negative. We also filmed the stairs scene on the school stairs so that it was more realistic.

Props: To make it more homely we had to bring in a few props from home, like blankets, pillows and a lamp. We used all these to set up the little Childs bedroom. The lamp helped with the lighting a lot as well. Where we filmed our prelim there was many props already there, like small tables that fitted together and looked like a bed, there was a small table.

Shots: We have included some shots, like a high view angle when the little girl is in bed and the noises start happening, and we used many close up shots of the actors faces, especially towards the ending. We could of included many other shots like a 180 degree shot, at the begging when the young girl and the mother was talking together. Not including some of these shots were a lesson to us because now we know to concentrate on the shots and to do it next time.

Music: The music we have included is the song 'its beginning to look a lot like Christmas' right at the beginning of our film but it is so quiet so the audience can hear us talking. Also we have included carol of the bells sound, it is freaky and gives off a negative vibe, which fits our genre of the horror side.

Evaluation

In our group there is faith, Travis, and Faith. We shared different roles of the prelim. Like Beth was the main character of acting, and Travis was the cameraman and editor. Faith was the blogger that kept the evaluation updated, and done some camera filming, and played a very small role in the film. We planned the sequence by our story boards and we used them a lot.

There is not a lot of talking in our film opening, as you can tell by the script, and there is too much screaming, but this also allows the audience to see that its a horror and to almost scare them. In our group we had a lot of strengths, like we worked together to get the overall idea of the film ideas, we all played vital parts and come up with ideas together and developed them. We also had weaknesses like we didn't concentrate on the camera shots ,we was concentrating on getting the scenes done instead. We also didn't think about how to make it clearer to the audience what was going on by using a range of things like props and clothing. For example in the end scene we only put a Christmas hat on the evil Santa and the actor was in school uniform which makes if unrealistic, and didn't really make the points come across as clear as t could have been.