Recce Report

Forest

We liked this location as it is very run down and isolated. The dead plants help to reinforce the loneliness in this location. We made sure that all of the shots we used in this location were faced away from the fence to the park, as we wanted to make the forest area seem as isolated as possible.

I would have liked to use the forest area at night but when we filmed in the dark the footage was too dark, we had to use video editing instead to achieve this effect

 Hallway

We used this part of the hallway for two scenes – the empty hall shot and the used sweet wrapper shot. The empty hall shot was edited to look like it was at night and the sweet wrapper was at day time. We used this area as the trailer we filmed is set in and around a college. The hallway at night was to emphasise the loneliness in a place that is meant to keep you safe, and the sweet wrapper was to show that the final girl had disappeared.

Stairwell

This area was very good to use as it was both in college and isolated. We only used this area for one quick shot of the villain from behind. This area seems very lonely when the bottom of the stairwell isn’t lit. in the shot we took, the villain is walking from the top of the stairwell and the bottom half isn’t lit, so he walks into darkness and isn’t visible to the audience. This helps to reinforce that the villain is sneaky and can hide in most places, making the audience feel uneasy.

Courtyard

We used this courtyard as it has a variation of scenery in one place. The trees were used as another shot in the forest for when we needed to shoot one more shot but didn’t have time or an ability to get down to the forest area. The benches near the building were used also as a shot just outside the college, and we used the wall as a suspense-building shot, with the villain walking beside it slowly dragging a knife along the bricks.

Media hallway

We like this hallway as it seems very cramped from the angle I took this picture at. The walls seem very close together with a low ceiling.  This helps to make the audience feel uneasy and also as though there is no escape from the villain

Lockers

We used the lockers for a shot with both the victim and the villain, and the final killer shot. We used these lockers as they are in a confined space without much lighting. Also, we had a lot of shots from outside of the college, using these lockers helped to make sure the audience knew this was set in a college with college students.

Full film idea

My film, Obsession, is a psychological slasher horror film. The basic storyline of the film is that there is a college student who stalks female students about the college, and thinks that he loves them, each time that he asks one of them to go on a date with him/tells them that he loves them they think it’s either a joke and they turn him down, and he takes his revenge by killing them.

The narrative structure of this film (following Todorov’s theory) is, at the beginning everything is calm, the villain hasn’t attacked anyone, and all the girls are unaware of him. A disruption occurs when the girls cannot find their friend as she has disappeared. The disruption has been noticed when the villain is found out. The disruption is attempted to be repaired when the final girl and one friend try to calm down the villain (however, her friend is killed by the villain in this process). In the final scene, she is saved by her boyfriend who kills the villain; which leads to the new equilibrium at the end.

This film also follows Barthes’ Binary opposition theory, the villain doesn’t have any good aspects and the hero and final girl don’t have any evil aspects. The good in this film is the final girl and her boyfriend, this is because they are average college students who don’t break any rules etc. The evil in this film is the villain, Brad, as he hurts people who reject him.

The film also follows Propps character types theory:

The villain - Brad, he struggles against the hero and harms those who reject him.

The donor - The final girl’s friend. She helps the final girl to realise who the villain is.

The princess - This is the final girl, as the hero kills the villain to keep her alive and stay with her.

Her father - this character isn’t shown within the film, although the final girl’s friend can be applied to this role

The dispatcher - this is the girl who dies at the beginning, as she starts the realisation between the final girl and the other friend

The false hero - this is the final girl as she tries to defeat the villain but isn’t able to do so

The hero - the final girl’s boyfriend, as he saves the final girl and defeats the villain

Shot list

Date – 20/12/12

Shot no.	Shot type	Description	Time (seconds)	Sound
1	Still image	Production company (100pede)	2	Beginning of soundtrack (Bent and Broken)
2	Still image	Production company (tribute)	2
3	Pan long shot	Front of college (right – left)	2
4	Dutch angle – full shot	Forest area	>1
5	Pan long shot	Front of college (right – left)	2
6	Dutch angle – full shot	Forest area – villain walking away from camera	>1
7	Pan long shot	Front of college (right – left)	2
8	Still image	Text about stalker facts	3
9	Long shot	Two girls leaving college – followed by villain	4
10	Still image	Text about stalker facts	3
11	Mid shot	Girl closing locker – walks away and see villain is behind her	2	Door creaking sound
12	Still image	Text about stalker facts	3
13	Long shot	Two girls sitting at a table	2
14	Mid shot	Girl walking away from camera	1
15	Close up	Feet walking	1
16	Still image	“Could you be the next victim?”	3
17	Close up	Knife dripping with blood	>1	Heartbeat sound (gradually getting louder & overlapping soundtrack)
18	Mid shot	Forest area – fake foot placed in foreground of setting	>1
19	Close up	Foot on ground in forest	>1
20	Close up	Blood dripping into a puddle	1
21	Dutch angle – full shot	Villain walking away from camera	>1
22	Mid shot	Villain dragging knife along wall	2
23	Mid shot	Body on floor
24	Close up	Foot nudging body on floor	>1
25	Extreme close up	Villain looking at camera	1	Soundtrack fades out
26	Close up	Feet walking away (opposite direction from shot 15) blood on shoes	1
27	Full shot	Girl running down corridor & looking behind her	1
28	Full shot	Villain walking down same corridor	1
29	High angle - mid shot	Villain walking down stairs	1
30	Close up	Sweet wrapper on floor	>1
31	Close up	Phone lighting up with text message “Where are you”	>1
32	Dutch angle – full shot	Forest at night – figure walking through it	1
33	Extreme close up	Girl trying not to cry	1
34	Close up	Knife in girls hand (nail varnish on fingers to reinforce this)
35	Low angle – mid shot	Villain standing outside at night	1
36	High angle – mid shot	Girl standing outside at night	1
37	Pan establishing shot	Forest at night	1	Heartbeat fades out
38	Black screen	___	1	Sound of body hitting floor
39	Still shot	Title screen – look like type writer – “OBSESSION. This summer”	3
40	Close up	Killer shot – locker door slammer	1	Locker door

Not all the shots listed above were used - we didn't like some of the camera work/weather at the time of shooting so instead we took some different shots to see if these worked better, however, most shots listed were used.

Props and Costume list

The props we used followed the codes and conventions of a horror trailer. He never used a shot showing violence but instead used ‘before/after’ shots so that the violence took place in the audience’s head.

Props:

-          Fake knife

-          Fake blood

-          Snickers wrapper

-          iPhone

-          Fake foot

The costumes we used were all casual day time clothes. The only item of clothing worth mentioning is the white shirt covered in fake blood as this was used for the magazine cover I made. The shirt is the only clothing that we used that suggests violence. All other clothes used tended to be darker colours to reinforce who the villain is within the trailer.

Costumes:

-          Hooded sweatshirt

-          White button-up shirt with fake blood handprints across the chest

-          Coats (to reinforce that this was filmed during the winter)

-    Dark jeans and shirts