R & P Post 10: Reflections so far/looking ahead

I have produced a Prezi presentation (please access above) detailing my thoughts on how the project has gone so far. Overall, I think it has run smoothly and we have produced some good ideas, making steady progress. There are, of course, some things to work on, though we have pinpointed these and now look forward to how the next stage of the project will pan out, as well as seeing whether our ideas are realistic in the test shoot.

R & P Post 9: Our script

Grace's dialogue is limited to create suspense, and the
script doesn't include stage directions. For these reasons
 it is likely it will need to be worked on.

Our opening sequence's script is of a brief exchange between the stalker Grace and her brother who insists she has to go to school. As the sequence almost solely details Grace and her morning routine to introduce her character and create suspense, there was little interaction with other characters and so little dialogue. Admittedly it is a very short, basic script and only covers dialogue, not stage directions - in which case the script may develop and improve as we go along.

R & P Post 8: Our opening sequence idea, to include sound and titles

Overview: 

Our opening sequence will focus on the morning routine of Grace, a stalker with a dangerous obsession of stalking another girl, Ella, as a result of her jealousy to be as popular and loved. As the sequence progresses, the audience will be introduced to this through props such as a meticulously planned mood board, identical makeup and a rucksack with equipment needed to stalk her target. The sequence ends with her disobeying her brother and refusing to go to school, presumably in order to track her victim, before cutting to the film title.

Sound:

Our soundtrack - 'Live via Satellite'

We ensured that we included various sound effects for bridges & match-on action in order to keep continuity, including Grace's alarm clock and the knock on the door by her brother. For our soundtrack, which comes in as she gets up, we decided on a track called Live Via Satellite (Richard Lacy and Sarah McDonald), as its "disorientating tape loops & synth patterns" helps to create an uneasy, almost eerie atmosphere. It also helped that the song length and relatively slow tempo enabled us to include and edit the song for our sequence.

Titles & Idents:
We decided to use embedded titles like those in Cyberbully, as opposed to cutaways, as this keeps the flow and pace of the action constant, and ensures the audience remains in the room throughout to create a sense of claustrophobia. 

The titles we plan to use:

-(Film 4 Ident)

-(Bugle Films Ident)

-Film4 Productions presents

-A Bugle Films Production

-Celine George

-Ella Thompson

-Josh Oranu-Noah

-Prudence Carter-Phillips

-Gabriel Meytanis

(as well as roles: directed by..., etc)

-'Follow' titling

R & P Post 7: Our film's title and plot outline

Title: Follow

We aimed to create a play on words
of the two concepts of our film

As a group, we wanted to come up with a title which played on both the idea of using social media and obsessive stalking. Having conducted research into initial ideas, we considered 'Obsessed' and 'The Following', however both were existing films and TV shows. As such, we eventually settled on the name 'Follow', as it is a pun of both literally following somebody and 'following' on a social media platform such as Twitter or Instagram. This could also potentially allow us to play with titling to add a 'social media effect' to the film.

Plot Outline: The plot follows antagonist Grace, a mixed-race 18 year-old college student who the audience is briefly led to believe leads a normal life. However, she slowly and more obsessively begins to stalk fellow student Ella as a result of her jealousy for Ella's popularity and relationship, often going to extreme lengths, including wearing coloured contact lenses and the same outfits, however especially to track her via social media. As this compulsion grows stronger and more dangerous, Grace tries to literally take over Ella's life, eventually attempting to murder her to fulfil her desire. However Ella fights back and remains alive, whilst Grace flees town to presumably find another victim. This narrative structure follows Todorov's theory of equilibrium, as Ella attempts to return to her normal life (equilibrium) with peace of mind after having been relentlessly stalked.

Single White Female

Our main reference points were One Hour Photo and Single White Female. In both, the stalker is motivated by extreme jealousy and attempts to be involved with, or part of someone's life. We took particular inspiration from Single White Female, as the stalker, Hedy Carlson, stalks another female character and goes to the lengths of killing her boyfriend and mimicking her victim's appearance.

R & P Post 6: Our chosen genre and how we plan to connote this

Our group decided, after discussion, that our film would be of the psychological thriller genre and involve some aspect of horror, and so set about attempting to connote this in our opening sequence.

We firstly gathered a huge collection of similar films of the thriller and horror genres in order to inform our decisions on how to connote our own film's genre, ensuring that there was constant reference back to films such as One Hour Photo and Single White Female. Both these films informed our decisions on the mise-en-scene and character behaviour in our opening sequence, such as the idea of a moodboard from One Hour Photo, immediately connoting not only the psychological thriller genre through its creepiness and out-of-place positioning in a seemingly normal teenage room, but also foreshadowing the extreme lengths that the stalker will go to, in order to track her target: an idea also seen in Single White Female, as the stalker Hedy imitates everything from the victim's habits to her appearance. Another interesting concept from this film was the perspective of the stalker, as opposed to the victim, which allows the audience into the mind of the antagonist and is another convention of psychological thrillers.

Sy Parrish's moodboard was an idea which we wanted to
replicate, and clearly connotes the stalking element of our film

We aimed to create an instant sense of unease in our opening, and also explored how sound could also help suggest this. For instance, we limited any dialogue between the antagonist and anyone else (in our sequence, her brother) to a couple of lines to amplify her isolation, and thus her motive for wanting to 'become' her victim. Our soundtrack was also chosen to increase a sense of unease and its "disorientating tape loops and synths" help create a dark mood reminiscent in other psychological thrillers and horrors. Both the lack of interaction and uncomfortable soundtrack are also seen in The Machinist, ranked as one of IMDb's 100best psychological horror films. 

The Machinist, which uses similar tools to build suspense.

R & P Post 5: How we plan to attract/address our target audience

We plan on appealing to our main target audiences in a number of ways. This ranges from props and mise-en-scene to the film's content and certification. Our core target audiences are 15-24 year old men & women and fans of the thriller/psychological thriller genres. One way of attracting the 15-24 year old audience is through the film's 15 certification, as this will make the lower end of our target audience clear, whilst also including enough violence and mature content to justify the rating, so as not to alienate the audience. The main characters themselves will be aged around 18, connoted through the film's dialogue and their social media profiles. This will, therefore, also appeal to the target audience of 15-24 year olds due to the characters' relative relatability age-wise and with their daily routines.

Moreover, this extensive use of social media and technology within the film will also draw on the idea of relating to 15-24 year olds, as this section of the audience tend to be the most familiar and the most active users of social media. As a result, we drew inspiration from Unfriended and Cyberbully, which also heavily use social media and technology, to inspire our own shots which include social media and our content, as both these films also have 15 ratings.

Unfriended is a film which also uses social media,
and has a similar certification to our own film.

We aimed to draw on social media as a
 main tool to attract our target
 audience of 15-24 year-olds.

We want to include a variation of
shot types for effect - from closer, more
claustrophobic shots to longer shots
with voyeuristic connotations.

The main method of targeting the audience of thriller fans will be through our variation of framing for effect. For instance, we will use a majority of tightly-framed CU and XCU shots in the first half of our opening sequence not simply for practicality's sake in the relatively confined setting of a bedroom, but primarily to immediately position the audience within the room and evoke a feeling of claustrophobia and entrapment. We will then combine this with longer XLS shots when the antagonist moves across the room to create a CCTV-esque, perhaps almost voyeuristic feeling. As well as this, we will refrain from revealing the identity of the stalker until mid-way through the sequence, to keep it mysterious and heighten the audience's interest. This is similar to TV series Dexter, in which the opening credits don't reveal the main character's face until towards the end. Furthermore, we aim to quickly create a sense of unease through our opening sequence's visual look through its grading and mise-en-scene by lowering its hue and brightness and including unusual objects such as latex gloves and coloured contact lenses to clearly indicate this. We were inspired to adjust our grading in this way after watching other student films, particularly 'Excemption', in which the grading is used to increase tension and to add a mysterious side to the film. This could also potentially interest our secondary audience of horror film fans, as both are also often used in films of this genre - an example being The Woman In Black.

The Woman in Black provided inspiration
for both grading and mise-en-scene.

R & P Post 4: Representation of social groups in our opening sequence

For our main representation we chose to represent the social group of female college students. In our film, we aimed to create an antagonist - Grace - who, despite initially appearing as a normal, everyday teenage girl, possesses traits that indicate a different side to her character as an obsessed figure driven by jealousy.

For instance, in our opening sequence the first few shots show her turning off her alarm clock and breathing audibly. Whilst this could be seen as due to the shock of the alarm, it acts as a precursor to various shots of her reaching for her phone to check her victim's social media status, suggesting her obsession and first instinct to track the activity of the girl she is stalking. We also wanted to contrast normal props and mise-en-scene of a bedroom such as makeup and books with far more blatant indicators, such as coloured contact lenses, a mood board with a map and the constant references to the stalked girl's social media profiles, to further imply the stalker's obsession. In terms of clearly connoting her age within the opening sequence, we planned on using clothes with a modern style typically associated with young people, as well as dialogue of her brother telling her she is "going to be late for school". 

We wanted to demonstrate the multiple aspects of Grace's character

Whilst we also wanted to challenge the archetypal damsel-in-distress figure which often seems to be the most prominent position for women in the majority of thrillers, we also had to be careful in balancing our representation of women through the victim and stalker. An example of this is that although Ella, the target, seems powerless and reflective of stereotypical female characters of inferiority at first, later in the film she eventually has the strength of character to fight back and force her stalker to quit, as is the case in many stalker films. Despite the representations of Grace being largely negative, it could be implied that she has a strong, determined character through her meticulous planning of her activity, her decision whether or not she goes to school and her emphatic response to any disturbance - in the case of our opening sequence, her abruptly closing the door. The inclusion of both of these characters implies that young women clearly have varying characteristics and personalities.

Hedy Carlson (Single White Female)

The main inspirations for the antagonist were Sy Parrish from One Hour Photo and, in particular, Hedy Carlson from Single White Female as their desire to 'be' someone else - either part of a family or a person themselves was similar to our initial ideas. In the case of Single White Female, (which in itself has now become an Urban Dictionary term to mean copying to the extreme extent of stalking), Hedy's extreme behaviour, such as matching her victim's appearance was also reflective of the type of character we were aiming to create ourselves.

Sy Parrish (One Hour Photo)

R & P Post 3: Our production and distribution institutions

Production company:

The logo of our production company

The production company we came up with is called Bugle Films. It is an independent production company based in London specialising in low-budget independent films with elements of the action, thriller and horror genres. We wanted to convey a sense of projection through our company name and branding - with the bugle used to herald messages and commands. 

Distribution company:

We decided that Film4 were
best suited to distribute our film

For our distribution company, we decided on Film4 Productions. They are a company also based in London and are well experienced with distributing British independent films such as ours, especially those with gritty themes. Furthermore, we took inspiration from their distribution of other British films such as The Woman In Black and Eye In The Sky, which share similar themes to our own film. Another major benefit of choosing Film4 is that they often provide much-needed investment for low-budget independent films with the aim of generating profits from this investment, as opposed to altering the style of the film to a mass-produced, Hollywood-style movie rather than
a focus on the story itself.

R & P Post 2: Our target audience

Primary Audience

Our primary audience is made up of:

-fans of the thriller/psychological thriller genres

-men & women between 15 and 24 years old. 

We decided to target both males and females by including characters of both gender, in the film, and though the only visible character in the opening sequence is the female antagonist, we ensured other characters would be introduced through photographs (as a prop) and sound bridges. Despite having predominantly female characters in the film through the stalker and victim, which could potentially alienate the male audience, the thriller genre is often considered an archetypal genre enjoyed by men. 

A representation of our target audience

Because our film is based around the themes of cyber-stalking & social media and involves characters who are young adults, we decided to target this age group, who typically tend to have more involvement with social media. As a result this enables the core target audience to relate to the characters and plot much more. We therefore took inspiration from films with similar themes, target audiences and certifications, including Cyberbully, Stalked at 17 and Unfriended, and used this to influence our own decisions on which sections of the audience to target and how to do so, such as also having a 15 certificate and including enough violence and extremity to sustain the audience's interest.

We took inspiration from these films in particular

Secondary & Tertiary Audiences

Our alternative audiences are made up of:

-fans of the horror genre

-fans of British indie films

We decided that a possible secondary audience could be made up of horror fans. The films that we referenced, like One Hour Photo, also often included elements of horror films such as violence and voyeurism and so we thought our film should also contain similar. With One Hour Photo in particular, we drew inspiration from its use of jealousy in influencing the actions of the antagonist. The victim's continuous struggle to ignore or evade the villain throughout the story also parallels the storylines of numerous horror films.

One Hour Photo influenced our decisions on storyline

Additionally, the accents, culture and settings within the film connote its British nationality, whilst its lack of star billing & large studios and targeting of a relatively exclusive audience in British young people indicates it as an independent film. This could potentially create a tertiary audience as they could either be fans/regular viewers of British indies in general and/or could be drawn to the film as they relate to the ideas and references included.

R & P Post 1: How we intend to work as a group

Our group

We intend to work and cooperate as a group in a number of ways. For instance, in our first session we planned regular meetings twice a week during free periods and after school, in order to discuss ideas and further our project. We also agreed on certain rules which we would all follow in these meetings and during the project, such as arriving on time, discussing ideas as a whole group and keeping in contact if anything went wrong. Additionally, we set up a Facebook Messenger group to help with communication and the sharing of ideas and important information.

We set up a Messenger group to share ideas